Lauri

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Family matters ...

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Alright, so I wont re-bore you with the same topics I already talked about earlier this week. Suffice to say, Forest Tails gets continued as I'm able to produce pages :3

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Concerning work on these pages, my choice of music was the soundtrack for "Ori and the will of the wisps". For anyone who hasn't heard, read of or seen the Ori series of games, go check them out. They're (so far) two beautiful and sweet jump and run games by Moon Studios, both wo...

Bouncing Around

Just a little update to let you all know I'm still around and doing Forest Tails stuff aswell.

As we all know by now, Eurofurence is cancelled for good this year, which is both good and bad for me.

On one hand, I have more time available to produce artwork for show and sales, as well as having the budget originally allocated to Eurofurence attendance and travel available for other things that are beneficial to me and mine.

On the other hand, I don't get to see any of my out-...

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So yeah, I was just really out of it yesterday when I uploaded this to the FA page XD

As I said, the page fought me most of the way and as much as I figure most people wont mind or bother to look for it, the thing that bugs me most is Marvin's face in the first panel. I'm sure it's plainly visible that there's "something" wrong with it, but no matter how much I messed around with it, I just couldn't make it look ... right.

Whatever, I figure I'll go back to fixing it at some point...

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Figure a wildlife version of lonely hearts might calm his nerves a bit?

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Another attempt of mine to include some wild life facts and keep them in the context of the story ... or keeping the story in context with the wild life facts? Whichever way around it is, we're finally getting to see a little something behind the otherwise fuzzy, toothy exterior of our resident murder noodle.

The one thing I'm a little lax about with the animal behaviour is their activity cycle, as mos...

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Mustelids.

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Apologies to everyone for the long-ass wait. I realize it's been almost half a year since the last upload.

For reasons more personal than I care to go into I've been in a bit of an art slump over the last months, which I'm slowly peeling myself out of, but it's a slow and difficult process.

I can't promise weekly regular updates to Forest Tails yet, but there will at least be updates :b

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"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plan...

What's been happening?

I figured since you all come from outside sources where you follow the comic, you'd be up to date on things happening, but just to be sure, I thought I'd share this here too :3

I mentioned in the last uploads I'd been asked to illustrate for a kids book, which has now finally gone into print, freeing me up to talk about it a little bit.

Now, most of you know this is not the first time I've been published. I've been attached to most of the HSD releases up until now and likely will ...

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._. ;;

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Alright, so as announced last week, I had some minor complications gettign ready for this week's upload and thus we are a couple' hours late. But it IS still thursday, so ...

I'm a little too pushed right now to write anything comprehensive. As a direct result of that, I will also not be uploading the patreon version of the page until having had some sleep for the day. I'm sure you understand.

At least I didn't leave you guys sitting on last week's cliffhanger...

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Wake Up. Yawn. Stretch all appendages. Get Breakfast. Watch a squirrel in a life or death chase with their most dangerous predator ... yeah, sounds like a normal morning.

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So in case it wasn't obvious, I've fully embraced using prefabs and brushes in Forest Tails now. I would never have managed to do all those maple leaves by hand @~@ as much as I may whine though, I am mostly satisfied with the look of this page. The values come together well enough on most panels and even those...

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Well, she's gone and done it now ...

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So for all those who still care, I am once again dissatisfied with the look of the page due to the values being all over the place, but that's me learning and improving as I go along.

S'not all bad though. I am very happy with how the structure of the tree trunk turned out. Came together fairly easy too, so I think I may be getting the hang of doing things in a "fast" way that still allows for satisfactory levels of detail. One thing th...

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... maybe don't piss off the one predator who can actually get to you <.<

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This 'more realistic faces' -business is becoming a rather bothersome hit or miss afair at this point, if I'm honest :< this page I'm really happy with mostly, especially with how Marvin turned out, but it's consistency I'm missing and that's sort of what drawing sequnetial art is all about >.O

Something else you'll notice is, I'm trying out my idea for the speech bubble stand-ins. I'm no...

The Fox's Den

So in lieu of a regular upload this week (as I've already reached the limit of 4 pages a month), Gatherer Patreoneers get a little more insight into Tobur's little hole in the ground.

It really speaks for itself, but this is something I had wanted to do for a while to help, both myself and you readers, orient a little easier when we're navigating in and around Tobur's den.

I'll likely be doing more of these, as more locations become relevant and I've also considered including this...

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Welcome back, Marvin!

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Some of you will point out that Nigel is not listed in Myra's mates. That's because the litter isn't in yet ;3

So, we're back to the regular upload schedule on thursdays, but this page uses up the last of my accrued backlog. No pressure on me or whatever 9w9 Truth be told, I should be far enough along on the current page to finish it up today for next week, but I'm likely going to be focusing on Forest Tails pages a little harder anyway, just to get t...

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Darn kids ...

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Nag, nag, nag ... nag.

As promissed last week, this week's upload ahead of time, as I will be at Eurofurence on thursday, and hence unable to upload.

Not a whole lot to say about this page, aside from the fact that I'm starting to get a hang of those value control issues. This one took me forever to do though, which was sort of discouraging and I think it's what caused the recent decline in productivity. I'm hoping to remedy that after EF, but I have ye...

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Bunny streeeeetch

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And gossip spreads like wildfire.

I hardly got any progress done on Forest Tails this week, thanks largely to my unbearable control issues and the fact that I've fallen into another one of my obsessive fan art moods, this time for BlackTeagan's Oren's Forge. While it's bothersome, I've come to accept that I can't really do much, besides forcefully vomit my ideas onto digital canvas until I've drained them all from my skull - so yeah, both you people and T...

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You know that one person who can always see right through you ...

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I'm pretty sure Tobur is well aware of just how closely he's digging to the truth.

I've noticed it's begun to take me longer to finish pages again. I'm not sure whether I've up'ed the detail level to a degree where I may have to start cutting back again, if I'm failing somewhere in the process, or if I'm just miscalculating the time, but I feel like these pages came together a lot faster and easier than the ...

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Fine. You know what F.I.N.E. stands for ... ?

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For all those wondering, as much as I don't think nudity as such is a thing with animals, I figured the epiphenomena of bodily functions might be still be considered somewhat embarassing, so Tobur's pushing those comfort zones just a little more still, because, let's be honest, Nele was being somewhat rude ;3

I am really happy with how Tobur's turned out in general on this page and I wish I could keep up this level of quality t...

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You step into my comfort zone, I step into yours ;3

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Another page where I'm really happy with how the anatomy has turned out, both of Tobur's teeth and just their bodies in general.

I don't know whether it's visible at all (though I do know I'm not approaching it yet), I am trying to get closer to the actual natural look of the animals. I know the path to getting there involves making more studies and I've been really, really bad about that, but maybe I can rectify that in ...

Get off my lawn ...

Just another WIP I wanted to show off, because I like how it's coming out and because I promissed I would upload additional material more frequently ;3

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Awakward conversation in 3, ... 2, ... 1, ...

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I seem to distinctly remember Nele saying something about curiosity and cats last time she woke up in this den ...

Tobur was bound to wake up eventually, though with this particular action it really is no surprise. Those of you who are pet owners will know the distinct feeling of a paw rearranging your face until you get up to provide the daily sustenance or let them out for morning business.

Again, a fun page to do and t...

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Yup. Still breathing. Still has a heartbeat.

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Nele seems to be having her own form of a reality check, as well as seizing the opportunity to take a closer look at the old fox, now that she has the chance.

I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but I did do my best to arrange Tobur's inner workings as close to where they're realistically supposed to be, based on reference I pulled together (just like with Nele's muscles).

What we're seeing (in case I failed to make it obviou...

... and the rest of the day to yourself.

Something from my current progress on future pages. It doesn't spoil in any way, so I decided it was safe to upload as something to show off, because I am very happy with how this turned out =w=

Of course, perhaps the absence of Nele in this frame is telling, but then we're not going to be finding out about that until the page is uploaded, are we 9w9

Hope you all enjoy.

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Strange Bedfellows

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Now, after all that mental tension, we're going to have a little bit of time to calm down for the next couple' pages. At least things wont be as tense as they were for a while.

It's almost spooky to see how much the style evolves through these pages, mostly because I can't really tell where the seams are where I switch from one iteration of a look to the next. I'm guessing you will have noticed before though when I started using a new set of brushes for ...

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... keep your food closer.

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I did the math at one point. Assuming a diet of mice (which wouldn't happen, with foxes being omnivorous and needing some other kinds of intake too), even leaving out his first year of abstinence, Tobur would have had in excess of 10.000 individuals to feed a fox his size and weight "healthily". That's quite a lot of skeletons in the closet ... or, you know ...

I'd like to think this underlines without a doubt that Nele's been having a rather res...

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Keep your friends close ...

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As announced last week, have this week's upload a day early :3

As I mentioned before, some of you already called Nele having her subconscious turn against her. In that spirit, a mind turning on itself would not be complete without having literally every last little point of doubt show up and put down your attempts at rationalizing the actions you're in conflict with X3

I am rather satisfied with how these pages have turned out, both in exe...

Forest Tails Page 145 in HD

One of the issues I have with this patreon (aside from still having to figure out how the W8-BEN works) is that I never know what to write here, besides just copy/pasting what I wrote on the other sites and I kinda feel that's very token, given that you folks actually pay for these uploads.

Granted, I never said I would give these uploads any special kind of treatment, but then I think you understand what I mean with the above statements. Is there anything you guys can think of that I c...

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As I mentioned on the regular upload sites, I'm fairly happy with how this page turned out.

I also managed to churn it out in the timeframe I've allocated towards getting Forest Tails pages done, which is aiming at two completed pages a week (at least for a while) so I can get some proper backlog going.

While I realize that's a LOT of work to be doing in such a short amount of time (once I open up the last tier with the private stream reward, you'll see what I mean), I'm aiming at...

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Gamma-Ray charged Nele is about to charge her bun smash ...

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Lots of experimentation going on on this page again.

Since plenty of you asked wether there'll be a printed version eventually, it may be a comfort for you to know that I'm honestly worried these pages are going to drown in black ink and that I'll have to brighten them up considerably when I do eventually hand them over for manufacture ;3

Since my work process has become a lot faster, I now have more time to...

Forest Tails Page 143 work process

I figured, since I'm not doing streams yet, I could do a little work process thingy.

I had started it when I had originally begun work on the page, but had to take a break from work for some things, and when I returned I completely forgot to take screenshots of the different stages. In the end, I went back in and re-did some of the steps to make this showcase come together.

As I state in the descriptive text underneath, I'll be doing a daytime version some time, which I'll hopeful...

Night Vision

And, because I have time to upload things today before getting to work, a little work in progress update for you folks to oggle at ;3

New prefabs and experimentation at work.

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Patreon tells me I can write anything here and my patrons will love it ... feels kinda patronizing and that's not even a pun X3

Anyway, since you all follow Forest Tails outside of patreon, you all know this page is already up since thursday night and why it was so late. I just didn't come around to sharing the HD version with you folk up until now for real-life interference reasons :3

This week's page should be online on time again, here and everywhere else.