AlwaysRats

Juuret - PDF

What it says on the tin! This is the Bonus comic Mika and I drew together for the Kickstarter campaign. Click on the download link at the bottom to get to it. ♥

The story takes place on the day when Jack leaves for Tistow, in a border town called Kirkald. This is also the canal town that's mentioned briefly by Morrie in Chapter 1.

You'll meet Jack, his grandmother and little sister Ida, along with Jack's childhood friend Veeti and his mother Sire. Veeti and Sire are cameos from Mika's ...

New Cast sketches

I've not done updated cast images in aaaages. Here's some coloured ones!

Originally I wanted to stick these on the side of each Cast profile, but I simply haven't had the time to update the page.

I was going to stick 'ch 1-2' in the title but I realised not all of these lot actually appear in Ch 2. ..Can't tell you which ones though.

We're missing a huge amount of characters from this, but there's only so many I can fit on one sheet without blowing up the width. The heig...

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 358 WIP

  Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 358 of Year In Hereafter! 

  - Mika  

Ch2 - 6 - inks

Ah Mrs. Goodwill. You're a pain in the backside.

Note to self

• Tapestry for page 4

Ch2 - 5 - inks

Couple of things still need amending, but I'll do that for the coloured version. Starting to feel a wee bit more comfortable inking in general! ♥

Ch2 - 4 - colours

I really like the dialogue on this page. It's mostly interaction between Anna and Alfie. ..Mostly Alfie talking but still.

Let's see how long that suit stays white.

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 357 WIP

  Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 357 of Year In Hereafter!    

- Mika  

Chapter 2 - Diaries & Letters

Right, this is something we've been contemplating from the beginning with Mark (my co-writer) but haven't talked about until it felt more relevant. Jotting my thoughts down on this.

There's a lot of little texts and bits and pieces that we've written as fillers, ones worth mentioning are Morrie's diary and Jack's letters home. You'll see snippets of the more relevant bits of these texts during the story, especially Jack's letter (we intend to finish each chapter with Jack writing home or Morri...

Soot and drum - steps

I had saved more steps of this but they got lost in the end, eugh. But here's 4 at least!

Jack and his new roommates.

Ch 2 - 3 - Colours

This was fun! 

I keep forgetting about Jack's freckles. He's not got just the few odd speckles afterall, but he's completely covered in them. Need some kind of memory trick for them.

Ch 2 - 3 - Inks

Bit more context to the pencils now that the wisps are there. ..Except in the first panel since that's painted in during the colouring step.

Note to self:

• Mrs. Goodwill's tapestry

Ch 2 - 4 - inks

Alfieeee~ Love drawing them both.

I'm really looking forward to sharing the text version of this eventually. ♥

Ch 2 - 2 - Colours

MORNING SUNSHINE. Shout at the pigeons guv.

And our morning lady. Despite the fact I went and coloured one of these Annas AGES ago, she fits in without any amendments.

Notes to self

• Slightly muddy 3rd panel. Not sure how to fix that yet. Now a huge issue.

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 355 WIP

  Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 355 of Year In Hereafter!    

- Mika  

Ch 2 - 1 - Colours

Whei, one done! Quite enjoyed this. Day light scenes still feel a little strange but this is really fun. ♥

Ch 2 - Page 2 - Inks and WIP colors

It's gonna be interesting to see how this'll turn out. Not done daylight scenes in.. Ages.

Uh note to self

• Feathers panel 2.

Ch 2 - Page 1 - Inks and WIP colors

Some colour! And the inks have been finished.

Still a bit to do but we're getting there!

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 354 WIP

  Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 354 of Year In Hereafter! 

- Mika  

Info about our next Physical Rewards!

Hello!

We're currently planning for the next Patron Physical rewards, and we're looking to send new stuff out closer at the end of 2018. We'll also be sending the new Traditional Art Rewards along the same package.

Anyone in the $30 tier, please do let us know if you have any specific hopes for your art piece! We do your original characters too if you so wish. :3
For those who are curious, the Traditional Art Rewards are ink/watercolour A5 drawings.

 
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Juoksa's book: Serpent Stone

Happy folklore Thursday everyone!

Wanted to share a snippet from Juoksa's little book of folklores.

Adder stones or hag stones, are related to druidic folklore here in the UK. They have similar uses and myths behind them as what the shaman and witches in Tistow use them for.

Veeti has one that he keeps on his person, hidden under clothes.

Tytti and Leannan we'll introduce in another snippet. I'll write more about the Ravens at a later date as well, who they are and what they ...

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 352 WIP

 Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 352 of Year In Hereafter!  

- Mika 

Sketches of misfortune

Yup. Braid will see misfortune.

We'll get to it :3

-Mika

YIH CHP 8 PAGE: 351 WIP

Sketches, inks and raw colours for page 351 of Year In Hereafter!

- Mika

Rooftops - step by step

Here they are! Unfortunately I don't have the colour steps left anymore as it looks like I merged the serpent's and Jack's layers at some point in the process. Sorry about that, it would've been interesting to show.

1) Really basic sketch to get the idea down. I've got a ref sheet for this guy but unfortunately I can't share it with you at the moment. Bit too spoilery.

2) Get the details in! Chatted with Mika and Mark about the details and what to add on him to make the idea a bit cleare...

YIH Volume 1 Book cover

I tried to have a throwback to Chapter 2. I'm still keen of the colour setting in that one and I tried to draw Mikael and Veeti the way I used to, their design has seen a lot of development.
Alas. Back in the day when Mikael's hair was full of stuff to keep it straight.

- Mika

Wallpaper - May - Rooftops

This one got quite a bit of attention over the weekend. Here's a wallpaper version of it for y'all!

There's two versions of it for you to download, if you need a different dimension just let me know and I can look at doing it. There's a good chance we'll make this illustration a Patron reward later this year. In fact I can say for sure it will be a print.

Can't tell you who this fella is but he's definitely a character in the story. You'll get to meet him later!

Ch2 - 6 pencils

Page 6. Mrs. Goodwill is back and just as charming as before.

Going to start adding greyscale values to the pencil stages.

Note to self:

• Mrs Goodwill's glasses.

Year In Hereafter Chapter 8 Previews

All righty, here are some shots from the next chapter now that the artwork is done! 30 pages, and we'll be updating this one 3 times per week simultaneously when the book funding campaign is running.

This one starts running at the start of September after a month long chapter break!

We'll look at what Jaakko and Veeti are up to. :3 Now, time to start working on Chapter 9...

- Mika

Ch 1 - 32-34 inks

Technically not a WIP anymore as most of you will have seen these finished in the PDF. But I thought I'd share them! Last 3 pages of Chapter 1.

The last 2 were originally not in the script, the whole scene was meant to be just the one page. But I ended up stretching it because we had the room in the book and it made more sense to make it a spread. Helps with the pacing as well.

The Rat makes a brief appearance. ..Along with.. ..Jack's new roommates.

Rat boy - Jack

I’ve mentioned before that a big theme in Tistow is going to be ‘identity’. I’ve not felt the need to write any of this down to explain before as I’d like people to find out for themselves as the story progresses.

But there’s one thing I’d like to jot my thoughts down about and in this post it’s Jack. He experiences the world very differently to the rest of the cast and I want to do my best to get across what that feels like for an autistic person.

There’s a lot of stig...