#957 An elf in wolf's clothing

Amelius on Aug. 21, 2012

Oh, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this. I was so anxious to get to this reveal that I even drew some of the art a year or more in advance! At least 90% of the pencils on page 952 :http://www.drunkduck.com/Charby_the_Vampirate/5403961/ and panels 4 and 5 of this one:http://www.drunkduck.com/Charby_the_Vampirate/5402462/ were drawn almost 2 years ago. There was even scrapped art for how the fight starts and how it turned out. In one draft, the Welfs attack them with bats and breaks LaBelle's back as she shields Bojo. I also had some different mock-ups of what LaBelle looked like as an elf, but I was unhappy with how the design looked. But Elf-LaBelle was nothing new to me, the first ever drawing I did of the Welf family was proceeded by the same group as they would look without their wolf half. (Unfortunately, it may have been lost when I moved out, but maybe it's still somewhere in the heaps of old papers I keep! It was tattered and became detached from the last pages of a sketchbook that saw a lot of travel and had the covers ripped from it.) If I don't die of embarrassment from the badness, maybe I'll scan and post some of the early draft stuff somewhere.

It's a vicious cycle, because the next thing I'm excited about always feels so far off. I do a ridiculous amount of planning ahead for this comic, so I'm just squirming to get to what I think is the good stuff! Why yes, I could just cut to the stuff I'm personally looking forward to, but then we'd have a choppy, horribly paced mess! But I'm trying very hard for the lead up to not be a boring lull between plot points. But you'd be surprised how many pages and ideas get dropped and chopped for time and pacing. Every idea needs to be examined so as not to cause problems for the story.

I realize this isn't a huge reveal in terms of the story, but it's big for me personally. It's a part of the CTV universe I've wanted to share for a long time, but none of the characters knew it so I couldn't just blurt it out.

As ever, speculations and theories are welcome, even if the answers will be forthcoming when we get back to these characters again. ;D

*Edit!* I noticed I forgot to shade LaBelle's scars and also realized when not on my work monitor, she looked a lot paler than I'd wanted! (well, some of that could be blood loss and bright sunlight, but still too pale!) So yes, adjustments were made!