AlwaysRats

Thank you!

We've reached our very first goal! Quick late night sketch just to thank you all for your support! We'll think of something to thank you all properly once we're both done with holidaying.

But for now, here are Elli's oldest and by far her dearest characters (apart from Woodcarver) from the world of Tistow. It makes us incredibly happy to be able to share their stories with you all and that you've taken an interest our works.

 We'll do our very best to make the coming year a brillian...

Concept art - Stuorra Sarvva

Loosely based on the mythology of the great deer ridden by the mightiest of  stállu, Riibmagállis. In Tistow, Sarvva is the Elk primal, like the Rat you've met. And much like the Rat, he grants Fjoldi shaman the ability to turn into deer if the right criteria are met.

Or if you're very naughty and bother the nature rather than help the residents of the wild, he'll turn you into one without your consent.

Happy Holidays!

♥ I hope you're all having a great one!

Here's our special, small holiday comic just for you Patrons. :3 Little boys exchanging presents.

It's an understatement to say Veeti loves books. Jáhko's family isn't particularly wealthy so any toys he has consist mostly of pine cone animals and stuff he might've collected from the woods. He's very fond of Veeti's fancy toys though.

We've almost reached our first Patreon goal, yay! How awesome is that!

Thank you everyone so much fo...

Panel progress

Well here's something. Just to show an example on how Karo and I work.

The top two are from Karo's initial paneling sketches of which Elli draws over and dramatizes if it's needed.  The very last two panels are the final inks (minus any edits that might still pop up at a later stage) by Elli and the only thing left to do now is for Karo to add colour.

We were wondering if small panel examples like this would be something you'd all like to see more? We'd like to keep the full page WI...

Snowflakes - step by step

I love drawing these two prancing about as deer. Step by step of one of the holiday sketches!

Some structure

Some (small) definition added to the boys' facial structure. This was discussed when we started doing the comic but Elli felt like we didn't act up on it enough.

Jáhko's sharp, the sorta character you wouldn't necessarily trust when you first meet them. The tip of his nose sticks up wheras Veeti's shouldn't. Veeti in general should be slightly rounder and more sympathetic.

Main chunk of their character comes from their poses and expressions, but for this little study we picked a frown a...

Years ago

This is part of the promised replacement for our page update this month!

Jáhko and Veeti when they met! They're about, 5 and 7 in these.

Veeti at the time was a quite chubby child and spent most of his time reading and practicing cross stitching with his mother. Jáhko was more or less the exact opposite, skinny little kid who loved to run off on an adventure and get into trouble.

Neither of them were good at making friends. But as this is somethng we're going to go into much more...

Shapeshifters - Fawns

Sketches by Elli and colours for the bottom three by Karo. ♥

Staying with the shapeshifing theme as it's a very important part of the story, some sketches of the boys as fawns. We'd love to turn these into stickers in the future.

Pine that lives

Something for Small Trolls!

Inspired by those crooked pinetrees that are absolutely covered in snow and look like they have droopy heads on 'em. So we thought, why not make a potential monster mythology out of it.

Nuorravuohta

Veeti's sketch by Karo and Jáhko's by Elli! ♥

Adolescent lads! You will eventually get to see them grow up. But it'll be quite a while before we get there.

There's a huge deal of difference in the boys' mannerism in general. Veeti's much more fine and well spoken. Jáhko's well known for his bad temper and frankly bad manners. Makes it all the more fun for us to plan, draw and work their reactions out in different situations that they get put in.

Panel teasers

Couple of panel teasers from the next Act!

The next 6 pages are not likely to pop up on your notification list until well after Christmas, potentially at the beginning of January as things currently stand. 

We've been very busy getting Patron rewards sorted out and getting all pending commissions and sketch requests done before Christmas. There's also been some unfortunate mishaps with things like a condemned boiler (Elli's house is currently without hot water and heating) and night...

Sketch requests - 3

 -Excited Veeti talking history or sharing a book with an elder troll - Flik

Sketch requests - 2

 -Lazy snoozing Larkspur - Flik.

And an extra one for fun!

Sketch requests - 1

For Mikey!  - a fairy playing with/pulling on Jáhkos braid.

Small Trolls Sketch suggestions time!

These are a bit overdue now, so this is your chance to claim your rewards!

Those who have completed pledges for the Fish Supper and Blacksmith's Buffet tiers since the beginning of our journey on Patreon, all get THREE suggestions in total!

Anyone who's completed pledges for the Soup Kitchen tier, we'd like to offer you all a chance to chuck one suggestion into the mix as well.

The suggestions can be of anything, as long as they're...

Larkspur - concept art

One of the kiddy trolls you'll get to meet soon! Larkspur is Jáhko's friend and they share a lot of characteristics both in design and in mannerism.

We wanted him to look quite a bit more feral than Jáhko though. 

The top sketches are drawn by Elli and the bottom 'waking up' ones are done by Karo. ♥

Archive #3: 01/12/2016

Comicpages & Downloads:  

• Tistow: Small Trolls - Pages 1-6 Betaread
• Tistow: Small Trolls - Pages 7-12 Betaread
• Tistow: Small Trolls - 2016-12-01 10:35:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Monthly News Letter #3 01/12/2016

It's December now everyone! Yeess! And hello to the new supporters~ It's so nice to see you.

So, what went down on November? First of all, it was another month that didn't go easy on us. This monthly news letter will continue the themes of slight misfortune, like the previous installments.

This time, we evaded all the technical difficulties. Our computers have stayed intact, of course there have been some trouble with internet connections, but that's something we could live wi...

Juoksa & Jáhko

Concept art of little Jáhko and his older brother Juoksa.

Jáhko's family are rather split around the country due to work. While his mother has made a rather unusual choice (for a Fjoldi) to work in a city, his brother and father spend most of the year hunting and moving around with their herd of goats. While Jáhko's still young, his grandparents have agreed to look after him.

The kid gets to see his brother very rarely but whenever he does, Juoksa shares stories from his travels and b...

Winter holidays

Happy holidays everyone!

The website is getting a new skin come the 1st of December. We continue to follow the old layout but the theme and background image will change.

You can also download a slightly larger version of the image from this node. If possible we'll try to provide you all with different sizes for wallpaper purposes later. ♥

Giant's hound - inks

Lineart of one of the mini prints we've been planning to do. ♥ You've seen some of the concept art of this beastie and you'll know him/her a Stállu's hound. Plenty of things in store for this fella!

- Elli -

Year In Hereafter Monstep Concept #2

Here's another major villain concept from Year In Hereafter who is also way later down the road. :3

Might say this too: She's a lady.

As usual, the full resolution download is in the attachments if you want to take a closer look at this speedpainty detail.

Oh my goodness and great camera quality!

So! Here are the first official prints we're done for Small Trolls made possible by you guys and they turned out real nice! There's quite a few of them, and these will be so called "limited edition" and will stay an unique batch.  There's my pen for some reference to their size~ 

And my coaster peeking up. I am a terrible drink spiller and constant hogging of coffee would be a problem without those. I've sacrificed a great many in order to keep my tables and everything tidy. There's ...