Corvin has terrible eyesight, so he relies on his hearing. Rose has been living in Glitnir's Hall long enough for him to realize he can't hear her walk (she's very sneaky!), but when he's tired or distracted he forgets and defaults to thinking he should be able to hear people approach.
Trolls are obligate meat-eating monsters who frequently target human travellers. Anyone who spends any amount of time travelling generally has a story or two about someone going "missing" or a convoy being attacked by a hungry troll.
Hello again. :) I was gonna wait on putting the page up but I’m excited it’s done.
Simon’s hair was dyed black, but some of the dye came out, so now it’s a mixture. Next time he washes it, the rest of the dye will come out and he’ll be a redhead again.
Also, we can finally meet Rose now. She’ll be included in the conversation starting on the next page. I’m not 100% with her character design (I was trying to do a thing with face shapes when I designed her, but not certain if I like the results).
I am trying something different with the speech balloons. I find the old ones I was using had a lot of dead space at the ends, but if I cut it off it was very obvious. So now I’ll just draw the balloons. They look unusual, but if I can start drawing them a bit more symmetrical, I think they’ll work much better than the old ones. Adds a bit of variety to the panels too, maybe. Hm.
Laaaast comment from me: it’s been a while since my last page, so a reminder: Corvin wanted to meet a Daneenri (winged person) his entire life, but they normally don’t come to Glitnir’s Hall and no living giant has ever seen one in real life. Corvin wanted to go find one, because they’ve been his obsession for a long time, but the Queen would not release him from his duties as Regent. That means he’s been stuck at Glitnir’s Hall for most of his adult life, hoping a Daneenri would walk through the doors.
We are page 12 of this comic, and Simon still is unaware that Corvin has bad eyesight. When Corvin lifted Simon up, it’s because he wanted to see a close-up of Simon taking flight from his hands, not because he was planning on dropping him. Now everyone is screaming at him, and as hinted back on page 2, poor Corvin has a noise sensitivity issue. D’oh.
Simon really, really doesn’t understand Corvin’s preoccupation with his physical appearance. (at this point he doesn’t really understand Corvin’s fascination with Daneenri either)
Corvin is mostly blind, and he has a bracelet (given to him by the previous Queen of the Mountain Giants) which has magical properties. There’s three globes inside the bracelet that can be released, which Corvin can move independently and use to “see”. They each only last about 6 hours, and then they have to recharge for 18 hours. Corvin is so excited to finally meet a Daneenri that he’’s using all three globes at once. Throughout the pages, you can see the globes are constantly moving around, getting close to whatever Corvin is looking at at that particular moment. So in the 3rd and 4th panels, for instance, they come really close to look at Simon’s hair, and then back out to just look at Simon in his entirety.
Day 5: Flower! Corvin is painting a flower and his menace little friend Dandelion is painting alongside him. Corvin has a lot of fun watching Dandelion paint.
The July Giant/Tiny prompt list was created by @gianttol!
Corvin and Princess Titania, two Mountain Giant children. They’re between 9-11 years old here. This showcases their individual personalities: Titania is mature, proper, regal. Corvin is a wrecking ball. Both are about to attend a royal ceremony. Corvin is convinced his Daneenri would also like to attend.
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Some worldbuilding: One of the integral motivations Corvin had through childhood was receiving his next Daneenri doll from the royal toymaker. Although he initially floundered in many areas of study and tutorship, the promise of a Daneenri helped him persevere. His mother made certain he was apprenticed to an adjudicator so he would have a viable career despite his slowly deteriorating eyesight. The promise of travelling and eventually encountering (and perhaps holding) a real Daneenri helped motivate Corvin during many difficult times.
For reasons I will eventually go over, most Daneenri are heavily prosecuted. In order to hide, most of them have a surgery (often while very young) to remove their wings so they can disguise themselves among the general population. Simon hides his under multiple layers of clothing. I think I maybe should have made him a little bulkier with his winter clothing though. Hmm.
