Hey, my Squids!
Dropping by to show off some more work in progress for page 29 of Chapter 3! Even though I’ll be splitting the chapter in half soonish, I’ll still call the pages by their old names until the switch over!
We only have two panels left on this page, which are just Leira and Sudesh reacting to the pages that Leira copied at work. Fun fact about this page: originally, I was going to have a panel where Leira was shoving books from the Archives into her bag and bringing them home. I opted for the copier and copied pages angle so I could have her tape them into her journal later on. There’s also a line in Chapter 4 that eludes the function of crystal batteries and technology in this world, so keep your eye peeled for that when it happens.
One thing you’ll notice is that Leira and Sudesh have markedly different styles of dress and that’s intentional. Sudesh was always the more modest one of the group, though Ina would sometimes dress pretty modestly for a rocker chick. As Sudesh has gotten older, she’s embraced a lot of her Opern heritage, with bright full skirts that flow out when you dance and twirl, as well as bright head scarves and shirts. Opern culture and traditions run the gamut, so they are not a monolithic people. I’ve taken inspiration from Algerian, Kenyan, Somalian, and Ethiopian dress in a lot of the way Opern fashion evolves. You’ll see more of that as the series moves forward, especially when we explore some of the other countries that exist in the world.
Anyway, enjoy!