No East is Far Enough

Twitter didn't delete my tweets from last night!

Ellis Island expands in a red pan.
Communist rain falls on Gothic racists.
In a tuba is just a tiny man.
The Fool city is filled with bicyclists.

Still I have a massive headache, so this seems like a good time to post Part 2 of The Venia's Travels Costume Post Extravaganza! You know, it seems like people used the word "extravaganza" ironically all the time for a while, and it's fallen into disuse. I would like to reignite faux extravaganza mania, so here we go, hold on to your sombreros . . .



Based on some formal eastern European dresses, I was really happy with this outfit Venia wore for one chapter and that was barely visible because she was wearing a big fur cloak the whole time.




Everyone was in their short lived winter garb in Chapter 39, beginning the real Niverikiin look for me, which is a mix of Byzantine and 19th century eastern European hodgepodge.






I decided the more formal the clothing, the more antiquated it would look, which was why Venia went from 19th century to ancient Rome to Byzantine Empire in the space of three chapters.




I dropped the weird little apron thing when I added the red and green palla.



Then came the big headache of Chapter 43, where I had to design new clothes for everyone along with the fifty million other things I had to come up with for that chapter. Venia's look in the chapter is kind of an odd throwback to her less mature outfits of the early chapters, which was an unconscious decision I thought turned out to be rather appropriate.




I think of Wircelia's look as "Kikuchiyo by way of gypsy."



A lot of times, my creative process involves trying to reach one thing using the rules of another--the Niverikiin words are usually attempts to create a Russian sound using Japanese rules, and as I said, the look of a lot of the comic is based on my impression of 1930s and 19th century medieval. I go through self imposed filters and then I tweak.

Kakeshya's new silver plate mail is pretty standard late medieval full plate;



You may have noticed I haven't been giving the women breast plates with "boob socks," or sculpted breast shapes. Obviously this isn't because I'm not a pervert. It's also not because I think such designs are illegitimate, it's just I see the Everi Paladins as being too practical--a cuirass with a big cavity in the middle isn't as good at deflecting blows. But considering some Roman breastplates were moulded to look like a muscular chest and abdomen, I'm not one of those people who thinks armour for women shaped to look like a second, R-rated skin is purely fantastical. It's just not the kind of thing Everi Paladins would do. See? I don't always go for salacious.

Finally, here's Venia's current outfit;



I changed the shoes because I noticed some of the strappy, Byzantine shoes I was looking at were reminiscent of ballet slippers and I figured this would be a good time for a The Red Shoes reference. And the hat, well, I decided it was just high time Venia had a cool hat.

Anyway, remember, there's a new Venia's Travels to-day.