Well of Souls Forums

Given the new updates I decided to go back and read through the archives. But there is one spot when my memory tells me something is missing.

In the medbay when Alex is being mind probed by the three Teidar. I could have sworn he yells something like "NOOOOOOOOO". But when I look at it now the last panel just shows him making an "AAARGH" face with no dialog or text present.

Is my mind playing tricks on me or has it always been that way?

Your mind is ok.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/19 ... er028.jpg/

I remember, Arioch talked something about changing of old pages.

In addition to the new page 95, in Monday's update pages 18-28 were converted to the new larger format (pages 1-16 are still in the old smaller format). While I was doing that, I removed the "noooo" from page 28. I never particularly liked it, and it was nonsensical; Alex shouldn't be able to cry out when he can't breathe.

In the interest of full disclosure, a few other changes I made were:

* Non-verbal vocalizations ("uh," "ah") were changed to lower case.
* Some cases where a Loroi used a contraction ("aren't," "haven't") were changed to the full words ("are not," "have not").
* A typo in Stillstorm's dialogue on page 73 was fixed ("keep the handle on THE blade").
* Dialogue was added to the first panel of page 74 in which Alex asks Beryl why the Loroi captains are talking instead of using telepathy.
* Debris was added to the white-out explosion panel on page 84 to help give the impression that the explosion was a catastrophic one.

Interesting. I never would have noticed either change, I had to refresh the page to get them to appear.

Tamren wrote:Interesting. I never would have noticed either change, I had to refresh the page to get them to appear.

No refreshing for years?



scnr.
But speaking of refurbishment - "Moon Town" is up again. JIC anyone is interested.

Arioch wrote:In the interest of full disclosure, a few other changes I made were:

* Dialogue was added to the first panel of page 74 in which Alex asks Beryl why the Loroi captains are talking instead of using telepathy.
* Debris was added to the white-out explosion panel on page 84 to help give the impression that the explosion was a catastrophic one.

Those 2 are kind of important change, ether visual or story wise.

Trantor wrote:No refreshing for years?

My cache was apparently that old >_>

Arioch wrote:In addition to the new page 95, in Monday's update pages 18-28 were converted to the new larger format (pages 1-16 are still in the old smaller format). While I was doing that, I removed the "noooo" from page 28. I never particularly liked it, and it was nonsensical; Alex shouldn't be able to cry out when he can't breathe.

In the interest of full disclosure, a few other changes I made were:

* Non-verbal vocalizations ("uh," "ah") were changed to lower case.
* Some cases where a Loroi used a contraction ("aren't," "haven't") were changed to the full words ("are not," "have not").
* A typo in Stillstorm's dialogue on page 73 was fixed ("keep the handle on THE blade").
* Dialogue was added to the first panel of page 74 in which Alex asks Beryl why the Loroi captains are talking instead of using telepathy.
* Debris was added to the white-out explosion panel on page 84 to help give the impression that the explosion was a catastrophic one.

I think you made a mistake with the page 74 change, I think at the end it should read "voice data" not "voice and data", the "and" makes no sense in there. Unless you meant it as the Lori saying things incorrectly, but surely that's a translation from trade, not the Lori using an actual English word?

Sanguinius wrote:I think you made a mistake with the page 74 change, I think at the end it should read "voice data" not "voice and data", the "and" makes no sense in there. Unless you meant it as the Lori saying things incorrectly, but surely that's a translation from trade, not the Lori using an actual English word?

While all information can be considered "data", voice (people talking to people, transmitted as analog radio or digitally as unstructured binary information) and data (computers talking to computers, transmitted digitally as text or data structures) are two distinctly different types of content. Perhaps you can think of a better terminology than "voice and data," but that was what came to mind.

Arioch wrote:

Sanguinius wrote:I think you made a mistake with the page 74 change, I think at the end it should read "voice data" not "voice and data", the "and" makes no sense in there. Unless you meant it as the Lori saying things incorrectly, but surely that's a translation from trade, not the Lori using an actual English word?

While all information can be considered "data", voice (people talking to people, transmitted as analog radio or digitally as unstructured binary information) and data (computers talking to computers, transmitted digitally as text or data structures) are two distinctly different types of content. Perhaps you can think of a better terminology than "voice and data," but that was what came to mind.

I see what you're saying, I suppose I just thought in the context of what Jardin said, relating to Still-Storm's verbal order as opposed to use of the sanzai ability. It didn't occur to me that Beryl would give a wider answer relating to all forms of communication between ships.

sanguinius,

you find the same today with modern jets that have voice coms for talking between crews ( or pilot in fighters), while have a electronic communication with other aircraft and ground stations (or even satelites). The duel system even dates back to the 1960's in various forms.

besides no one can hear to scream in space

nomad: unless they are tuned in to the right radio frequency.

true discord, I concede the point.

Arioch wrote:While all information can be considered "data", voice (people talking to people, transmitted as analog radio or digitally as unstructured binary information) and data (computers talking to computers, transmitted digitally as text or data structures) are two distinctly different types of content. Perhaps you can think of a better terminology than "voice and data," but that was what came to mind.

how about adding computer or electronic before the data?

I've been debating whether or not I should post this for a while, for a bunch of different reasons. "What if I'm just seeing things and everything's fine?" "What if I'm right, and it demoralizes Arioch?" "What if I'm right and Arioch rolls with it, but he spends time fixing these unimportant past details instead of making a new page?" "What if it doesn't actually cost Arioch much of anything in delay time at first, but it makes Arioch more meticulous about new pages and causes massive delays in the future?"

Since you are willing to adjust old pages to correct minor issues and talk about them openly, I guess this won't go over too badly.

There are some inconsistencies regarding Beryl's armor that might deserve some attention, if you feel it can be spared. (Please don't take time away from new pages on my account). I'm posting some images to help demonstrate a few of the issues I see; if the images in question don't work, please tell me.

The lowest plate on Bery'ls abdominal armor before page 34 was consistently shaped like a gentle curve. Bow-shaped. Beryl's lowest abdominal plate as of page 34 and for all remaining pages was more angular. It's entirely possible that Beryl changed suits while Jardin was unconscious, but I find it unlikely that she would have two different styles of armor.


Beryl's armor when viewed from the side is also inconsistent, but in this case it is what could be called consistently inconsistent; there is no individual page where it changes from one style to another.

Human (and thus Loroi) abdomens are curved forms. If a given plate appears to cover an entire surface from a frontal view, it should cover that surface at least until the curve recedes; that is, Beryl's lowest front plate ought to continue until about halfway through a side-on view, since, curved or angular, a front view of her lowest abdominal plate always extends all the way across her body, from side to side.

However, sometimes during sideviews her lowest abdominal plate runs all the way from front to back, sometimes it runs halfway, and sometimes it is barely hinted at, and sometimes it is entirely absent. The lowest abdominal plate is not the only problematic bit. Sometimes the plate above the lowest joins up with the thoracic piece by curving up into it, sometimes it remains separate and terminates on its own, and sometimes it looks like it was always completely fused with the upper thoracic plate.

There is also the armpit issue; sometimes her upper thoracic plate curves up under the armpit and though midplate curves up with it it remains separate so the arm-hole meets with empty space between plates, sometimes the midplate and thoracic plate fuse beneath the armpit eliminating the empty space beneath the arm-hole, and sometimes even when the thoracic and midplate are not fused the thoracic plate is solid all around and there is no empty space beneath the arm hole.



There are inconsistencies relating to the back view of Beryl's armor as well, most of which relate to which side view if any said rear view corresponds with.



The purple plate on Beryl's bicep also changes around a bit. For example, on page 37 it is completely absent when views from similar angles on other pages show it.

I don't know if any of the other Loroi have similar armor inconsistencies. Beryl is the only one whose armor designs I've looked at particularly closely.

There are actually several examples of most different varieties of armor for side and rear views of the young lady in question, so I can't exhaustively document times when the lower and mid abdominal plates are off-model, because the inconsistencies are common enough that I can't tell what would constitute being on-model in the first place.

This isn't something I noticed until I specifically started looking for it (looking hard at Beryl's armor from a number of angles in a number of poses because I wanted to try drawing some fanart once), but once I started seeing it, I couldn't un-see it.

I don't intend any of this to sound insulting or anything like that. If anything you should take it as a compliment that Outsider's art and the Loroi armor designs look gorgeous enough to be given any scrutiny in the first place. It's really rare for me to look this hard at anything, I'm not the sort of person who notices things like Uruk-Hai wearing modern shoes in Peter Jackson's LotR movies.

…I guess from now on every single time a strip comes late everyone can blame me.

…also, as long as I'm putting my foot in my mouth, the "NOOOooooo" feels to me like something that might be better to replace with a narration box. Without the dialogue bubble, the narration boxes are continuous both before and afterwards, but the large silent panel looks somehow imbalanced to me. I don't know how to explain this, but it feels sorta like dead air, with significant narration taking place before and after while the panel itself introduces no new actions or visuals (since we already saw Alex being physically touched by the Loroi and straining against it, and even saw him reacting to physical pain and grimacing back on page 27). The "no" helped that panel emphasize Alex's physical and emotional state to me, whereas now it feels much less emphatic, and kinda redundant. Since the images and narration in the previous panels both emphasized the mental experience of that mind probe, a narration box describing the physical sensation of being telekinetically asphyxiated might work there, since that panel depicts Alex's physical condition while the panels which described the sense of being telepathically probed visually represented his mind's eye view. I dunno, maybe something like "no matter how I struggled I could do nothing to stop the sense of intrusion in my mind, nor could I draw a single gasp of air. My breath burned in my lungs and tears welled in my eyes, but with an all-too-familiar sensation I numbed to both the fires in my brain and lungs, and everything faded away." But, y'know, less verbose, and better written.

Just an opinion.

That because Nano armor tend to adapt to the user movement and are constantly morphing

I doubt nano armor would be standard issue even if the Loroi possess power armor which I doubt. The armor was said to be a Bio-plas armored suit in the GURPS section under the insider which would be in keeping with what the fluff says about Loroi combat doctrine. Bio-Plas armor is relatively inexpensive and allows for easy movement.

... now that you mention it. Cannot unsee.

I guess this is what happens when pages are drawn months apart.

The problem with Beryl's uniform was that her design was changed in the middle of drawing pages 20-21, and the new design model drawing was pretty rough. So I was often making things up as I went in the panels, and did things differently on different pages, especially in the problematic area under the armpit. The "tab" joining the white hip panel and the purple crotch panel sometimes points in different directions. And there are just some plain errors where I forgot to include the biceps panel or the lower abdomenal panel. Beryl's hairstyle also evolved quite a bit over the course of the first 50 pages, again owing to the poor model drawing.

In the gap between pages 50 and 51, I did update the official model for Beryl, and since then (with a few minor errors), her design has been more consistent.



The way the middle abdomenal panel is supposed to work is that it's separate from the upper one in the front under the breast, but then fuses with the upper panel right under the armpit.

Unfortunately, fixing these errors is not something that can be done in a few minutes (like changing text), and there's a danger in going back to re-draw old panels, because the farther back one goes, the older and more horrific the artwork is, and the temptation to re-draw things because they suck and not just because they're "wrong" grows... and that's a slippery slope. I do want to improve the last of the older pages to the new format eventually, but I want to do it in a way that doesn't compromise the production of new pages, and I don't want to get caught in the neverending cycle that some webcomics do of constantly redrawing older pages. I think some of the more egregious errors such as on pages 37, 40, and 46 should eventually be fixed, but I can't say it's a top priority.

Is Beryl's Uniform small armor pieces over a black body glove, or a single unit?