AlwaysRats

A-wassailing

If you're familiar with the Welsh wassailing custom of Mari Lwyd, or the Slavic Devac, this might look familiar. The Yule Goat is also a Scandinavian folklore figure and we're borrowing this mythology for Tistow as well.

In Tistow, people celebrate yule and its many guardians and keepers. Young men go out wassailing and performing pranks on midwinter evening, with one of them dressed up as a rowdy, gift demanding white goat.

Mother Effra

The spirit of the river and her beast (appears in Tistow's royal crest), the hippocampus. At least according to the dockside folk. Posher folk up the river might disagree as to what she and her companion look like.

Statues of her appear all along the stretch of the river but this is one of the concept sketches for the one Jack'll be 'introduced to'.

Fjoldi map

Forgot I had this! This is from some time last March.

We were contemplating on the type of terrain, rivers and old volcanoes that the land would have and how they would've shaped it.

Something we'd like to include on the inside cover of the 1st chapter (and the title page) in the background, would be a map of the area.

There are 4 countries in our story that we'll introduce you to later. Fjoldi, Tael, Tistow and Numuur.

Fjoldi is not an independent country, but great chunk of...

Kickstarter rewards for Patrons

Heya!

The Kickstarter surveys have started going out now and there's still one more reward tier I'm going to send off this weekend. We're sticking to our promise to provide any Patron who's pledged over $7 in their life time (even if you're not an active Patron) a free print, sticker sheet or the bookmarks with their book order.

Message us with your pledge number and tell us what you'd like to get and we'll include it in your parcel. ♥

Cheers!

Elli

Trouble

Jack included this time for height comparison.

I'm still rather unwell but I'm trying to do a little bit more every day.

Will & John

Both fellas will make a brief appearance in Chapter 2 so I'm trying to get their features down before that.

William Hook, the pubkeeper's son. He's a little younger than Jack but will be showing him the ropes.

John Loksley, son of the infamous gang leader. Vily little bugger, old enough to work with the stevedores but could still easily pass as an urchin because of his short stature.

Will and John belong to the original gang of meddling kids called the 'Runners'. They've long outgr...

Good morning, miss Goodwill

Trying out a wee bit different type of colouring for Chapter 2! This is a cutout from actual panel. Anna will show up on page 2 for the first time. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing yet, hrah! But it'll get there. Something new and exciting. ♥

We've been sorting out a schedule for the next bit of the story and while I don't want to promise too much, I'd love to have it out by April. We've got the Kickstarter send outs that need sorting out first however, so we'll be focusing on that before a...

Mr & Mrs Hook

The couple who run The Anchor pub, where the Bowline gang spend most of their spare time, known as Mr. & Mrs. Hook. Or Bill & Mrs. Bill depending on who you ask..

Bill is one of Loksley's gaffers and like a sturdy barn door, everyone and everything needs to go through him before bothering the gang leader.

The Anchor is Mrs. Hook's domain and the first proper introduction Jack will get to the gang, is through helping her.

2nd Chapter is the first time you'll meet them both, ...

Hammerstrong and Grey

Little scribbles from me to go with Mika's pages on Veeti's future in Tistow!

We've been planning this out since Small Trolls started running and it will still be another year at least before we get to the point in the timeline where he'll show up.

Veeti and Jack are pen pals throughout the story, so that's something to look forward to before then. ♥

-Elli-

Lastname Grey #2

Here's a little synopsis of what these are all about, which was repeated in the last post. But since it's for $3 patrons, while this is $1, I'll include the same drivel here:

I wanted to push a little reset on creativity and draw other stuff for fun and practice, so I took a spin to visit Veeti's adulthood after Small Trolls, as he temporarily moves to Tistow in behalf of the family business, Harmonsuo clothing&tailoring. Of course to not embarass the gentlemen and ladies of the...

Dockside dodgers

Realised I haven't got many up to date cast sketches. Here's a height comparison!

From left to right: Tag, Legs, Morrie, Anna and Jack.

Tag and Legs you've already met. There's another two 'named' urchins who you'll meet in the 2nd chapter. They do all sorts of odd jobs for the gang. Scavenging, toshing, lifting (pilfering) and they're a huge fount of information in general. ..For a fee.

Morrie has made a brief appearance in the 1st chapter so far but we'll get more into her charac...

News Letter #9 01/12/2017

Tistow Kickstarter happened and was amazing, Christmas is around the corner and it's a joyful time!

Our situation about "busy" has not changed much since last summer. This is evident from Small Trolls taking a break, while Tistow and Year In Hereafter were picked up for a more active role instead.

In fact, so active, that Tistow Chapter #1 just ran a KS campaign, and it was thoroughl...

Archive #6 1/12/2017

 New to our Patreon? Is the amount of content overwhelming?

 Don't worry, here's everything published on the page so far so you can search back easier!

If there are broken links, please let us know. :3

Comicpages & Downloads:  

• Tistow: Small Trolls pages 01 - 24 Beta read<...
  2017-12-01 14:53:16 +0000 UTC View Post

Lastname Grey

Been a while since I've made any posts here! I've been concentrating on the new chapter of Year In Hereafter, and since the current one is still running, I've decided not to give any previews of it yet. So far, YIH Chapter 7 has 48 pages, 24 finished. In other words 50% of the artwork is done, thus the next Chapter Break shouldn't be all that long.

I wanted to push a little reset on creativity and draw other stuff for fun and practice, so I took a spin to visit Veeti's adulthood aft...

Queen of Rats

Couple of folklorey bits related to our sewer dwelling critters. You might've seen the graphics around before!

The Queen of Rats is a folklore creature in Tistow similar to the famous Rat Queen of the London sewers, that toshers (men who made a  living hunting treasures in the sewers in the 19th century) believed to  bring luck.

She watched and followed the toshers quietly, unseen and was said to take the form of a beautiful woman if she wanted to confront one of the toshers (....

Estuary hounds - concepts

The river Effra is Tistow's life blood and it's a concept I'm looking forward to sharing and expanding on as we get further into the story. This means its more obscure residents, which only Jack and children can see, are fittingly marsh and water related creatures that have adapted to a more urban life (like the nixies).

The city cannot function without its waterways for trade and continues to worship river spirits for luck and prosperity.

I've not actually yet completely decided what to...

Kickstarter reward reminder!

Find the campaign here! 

We managed to reach all our stretch goals! How amazing is that. ♥ And with the extra funding we've been able to add the bonus comic to the physical reward as well. The little ratty graphics above are also going to be included as stickers in some of the reward tiers.

There's only a couple of days left on the campaign now. If you've been umming a...

Effra nixies

Or rávga as Jack calls them. Some of you might remember these water nymphs from the old comic and they will be making an appearance in the reboot as well.

The Effra nixies, like their forest and marshy cousins, lure people into the treacherous waters they call home. They love human trinkets (especially items worn by higher society ladies) and can be talked into service by offering them lace, feathers and alcohol.

Spring & Autumn

If I had to pick seasons for our protagonist, it'd be these two. I don't get the chance to do much concept art of Jack and his shamanistic side, but the importance of nature is a huge part of his character. Especially in a city with so little of it.

I've attached a 16:9 versions of these images to this post that you can use as wallpapers if you fancy! :3

Kickstarter is live! ..And already funded!

You can find the campaign here! We're already funded so that's freaking amazing news! The goal was small but it only took 2 hours in total to get to the first goal. Thank you so much everyone! 

Stretch goals next!

As previously promised, any Patron who's donated at least $7 in their lifetime who pledges to any of the physical reward tiers, will get an extra print in their parcel! It can ...

Kickstarter info & step by step

We're coming up to November now so I've got some more news for y'all!

We'll be running the KS for the whole month and I'd like to offer something extra for our Patrons. 

If you'd like to help us reach our goal, anyone who's donated at least a $7 in their lifetime will get a free print of their choice (even if you've received some before). This can be any of the KS rewards or any of the Patreon rewards we've previously had available. All you need to do is sign up for the physical boo...

YIH Chapter 7, pages 1-4

Ta-dah! Some early reading for you lot!

This part is technically happening simultaneously with that's going on at the website right now, so I figured it'd be fun to share this! The rest of the chapter focuses on Mikael, Sakari and Ieva, so all of that will be left secret. : 3 I'll let you see some progress pictures once I get far enough with it~

Also, for those who have seen the Sweet Shop chapter: This is few days before any of that happens. x3

Pages 11-12 - Preview

Another leg of this journey. ..And it doesn't look good for Jack.

Really looking forward to this Act. A lot happens in a short amount of pages and you'll get a much better idea of Jack's character.

Pages 09-10 - Preview

These have got some colour bases already but there's still some way to go before I can call them finished hahah.

Jack's got a little bit of exploring to do around the docks!

Post-edit post-edit post-edit...

Hulloo, I've been swallowed in this for the past month

I wanted to share something just for a laugh. I've been editing the first 214 pages of the story in a very excruciating manner, but in all necessary ways.

- I've been recomposing all the panels and bordering them up. In most of the colour settings it's been hard to differentiate panels from each other and they've gotten lost. I like borderless panels, but I think I should learn more about using contrast in a correct way before relyi...

Small Trolls Short#1

Hullo 'ullo! Been a while.

Here's a little teaser for a Small Trolls short comic we're intending to print into the back of the first ST book. This little bit will reside a few years later than the first chapter, which is the year 1841.

For a fun change, this short will be inked by Karo, and coloured by Elli, so we're really looking forward to how this will look finished!

Current progress & Kickstarter plans

Got some good news!

I've managed to reach the deadline I set for myself page count wise. Here's a couple of WIP of pages from Act 2 (numbers 10 and 12 respectively). 

This means that I can run the Kickstarter as planned throughout November. The goal is fairly small (around £600 in total) and includes printing plus any fees and postage. I've got a lot of helpful tips from people who've ran KS before but the idea is still a bit daunting. Despite that, I feel it's still worth giving i...

Deleted scenes

..Yeah we already have some. I'm not happy about having to remove some of them but you might find me using bits and pieces from them in the new panels and future pages. Especially those crowds and individual background characters. I'm not about to just chuck them in the bin.

Why've they been removed? This is a last minute decision by me and my editor. We felt that these scenes didn't quite properly portray what we were going for so they've been replaced.

What's gonna happen with the revi...

August + September rewards

Related to this post from last month!

To those eligible and who want to pick their reward to avoid duplicates, respond in this post or send us a message privately. ♥

The bookmarks are FINALLY here. They were meant to arrive at the beginning of the month but we had some problems with the printer service we use. But they turned out brilliantly in the end. ♥ If you'd like one of them as your ...

Page 5 (WIP)

Looks a bit different to the original batch, dun it? I mentioned in a comment further down that the 6 pages that were made available to read, have had slight alterations done to them. And this is one of them as you can see.

We had another look through the firs 6 pages with my editor and decided to add a small sequence and change the pacing a tad to make it flow better. Pages 1-2 remain the same, but 3-6 have been amended. We've not scrapped anything, but we have replaced some panels we felt di...