So now that this story beat has been revealed, I can discuss a bit of the writing process.
In a case of an ending writing the beginning, the venting of the cargo bay helped me figure out what the actual job would be that Roka took on back in Chapter 1. Originally, I had no idea what the job would be but figured it would just be the transport of some random goods. But when I came up with the space venting idea as the resolution to this sequence, I realized that the contents of the cargo bay would be sucked out into space along with the Tedeskians. That was problematic in that I didn’t want Roka to lose a lot of valuable cargo and botch the job. They’ve had it so rough already! I thought it would be better if the cargo was stuff they could stand to lose. So that’s how I settled on the job being to transport scrap, something essentially worthless, so they could lose it but not be affected too badly by the loss.
What’s nice is, once I settled on the scrap cargo, that gave me some fun scenes to write earlier in the story, with Ril complaining about hauling garbage and Roka being interrupted by the scrap dealer while hanging out with his pilot friends, causing him a bit of embarrassment.
One person’s scrap is another person’s treasure. 😉
I wonder if this was the whole Tedeskian crew. One of them did mention someone not going to like that Ril was still on the Brimia.
Good point, there may still be someone on their ship.
Good memory! Yes, there is the Tedeskian captain, Lennig Niska (whose name I had to change a while back due to some feedback on the unfortunate font issues with the previous “Nisga” spelling!). Ril will be dealing with him shortly…
I think that this page would benefit from some ol’ good depth of field. The second frame especially, looks too bidimensional to me. Could be done with some blur on nearest and farest objects, or with fading colors, even both systems.
Hmm, good point. I tend to avoid blur effects since they seems a bit too filter-y and don’t really match the cartoony style for me. But I do like to use color holds (lines that aren’t solid black) and lightened colors to push things back at times. I do think panel 2 could benefit from that, so I might make that change for the printed version.
Not all fun and games… grim. Can they suck the cargo back inside somehow? Or not worth the effort?
You cannot outsuck a vacuum.
I suppose some sort of electromagnet would be able to attract a large part of the scrap (the scrap that does contain ferromagnetic metals, at least). But since it’s a shipment of scrap that was supposed to be dumped somewhere, it’s probably not worth much. But maybe it’ll be worth it to avoid the fine for space-littering?
The scrap will also be dealt with shortly! Gotta avoid those littering fines.
Yeah, I love a good balance and especially like when a scene can turn quickly. I like that Ril’s side story was basically a bit of a fun lark until it wasn’t.