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Chapter Start: Flames | Page 01

Full size and Color-quality (16-bit) version on Weasyl!

Flames | Retrospective

No Text Version Here!
Rejected Shots Here!



This was never meant to be the end but, for the time being, it will have to be.

Though it is, and was meant to be, the end of the "chapter transition" / "epilogue" sequence as planned.

Where I go from here will be covered in a later journal. See above for a Retrospective on Flames.

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On the screen in the final panel, the central and front-right members are representative of very long-standing Lapsa background setting ideas. Since they're only really intended as a sort of cameo of the ideas, I'll detail them out a bit here. Both harken back to creations of mine in Spore, in the 2000s/early 2010s.

On the front right, we have a member of the council whose look is derived from a Spore Lapsa civ, the Perinātai. Many of their concepts have diffused into either a culture or an intrastellar colony of the same name. In the far past, as was in the original concept, the had a sort of Victorian Era aesthetic taken to extremes. Originally on a planet that suffered a disastrous runaway freeze which forced them largely underground. In the modern concept, their cultural is descended from an alpine environment, while the underground aspect is common to many of the colonies, particularly on moons around gas giants within the stellar system. Every member of society was dressed head to paws, complete with even a metallic mask (for the average citizen as the land was very rich in many different metals) or fine cloth masks for the richest. Their current ruler was expected to be completely naked in contrast, owing to ancient traditions from a time when they were seen as incarnations of perfection. These concepts are somewhat toned down or remixed in the modern lore, and so our fellow here is brazenly bare-headed and gloveless.

In the center we have the visiting ambassador of the Lapsa Daba interstellar colony. One of only two successful colonies outside the home stellar system, albeit the Lapsa Daba have managed to colonize a second planet with in the extra-stellar system, with plans for a third. They took a path of bioengineering that proved wildly successful on the long journey. The ambassador, descended from the one of original leadership council members, returned with a few families as per the colonial plan to certify firm contact, provide the wealth of survey and other data accumulated, and to negotiate trade for the colony. While he and the Lapsa Daba have established a special rapport with Dr. Gravitas, he and the Lapsa Daba are not planned to feature much in the primary story. Design-wise, he (rather poorly, unfortunately) represents one of the Lapsa species I designed in Spore and the two additional colonies references reflect two further such species I original designated as descended from his kind. In this modern concept, they do see themselves as a separate species as this point but fledgling so and not really recognized as such by many. They do have an artificial chromosome, a concept which I based on the real world red fox's B Chromosomes (individuals may have 0 to 8 such B chromosomes, which is fascinating in its own right.) However, they interbreed with the Lapsa with little to no issue, despite appearances. Their different appearance owes to an artificial symbiotic organism operating something like a bio suit membrane over much of their body and hosting other artificial organisms.


Anyways! As for the page itself, I felt I was running out of steam somewhat with it and it really shouldn't have taken as long as it did. Were this a few years ago, or even a few months, I might have managed to add shots of Dr. Gravitas rearranging into the lines facing the screen as seen in the last panel. The lighting of shots with the screens proved to be a problem again. In particular, objects occluding the screens (which are actually area lights) tended to have a bright white edge appear around them. I suspect the ray count of the area lights causes that or at least exacerbates it, but didn't find a way to deal with it. The use of purely emissive light for the screens was simply not powerful enough and I found the mesh UVs on the screen didn't fit the texture properly. So, I ended up fiddling around with a lot of post-processing on those shots and settling for painstakingly hand editing the white boundary out. Still not entirely satisfied with that much.