#raau notes: art

[hybbart]

You mentioned you're having to make yourself stick to one update a day - does this mean you have a bunch of updates lined up? How far ahead of time do you make/prepare them?

right now I have 3 in my drafts. I don't normally make things ahead of time I don't have that sort of patience, and this is a very casual project where i just draw when i'm inspired. On rare occasion I make a page from an idea that doesnt feel like it fits at the exact moment and set it aside. But the current backup is entirely because I got super inspired and drew like 3 in one day and 2 the next day. Hence... Not really posting anything else...

[hybbart]

By the way, Here's the first ever fully scrapped page of raau. It was the first thing I drew for this idea, and was going to be between the last two days, but it felt a bit redundant, and I wasn't happy with things that would require a complete redraw anyways.

I'm not really much of a perfectionist, as the rest of raau is a testament to, so it's rare for me to be unhappy enough with a picture to not use it. I still think it's nice overall, I'm happy with the colours for the most part. I also really like how Jimmy came out even if it wasn't what I wanted. Fixing it would have involved redrawing him and Tango entirely, and I couldn't bring myself to do that.

[hybbart]

Do you have any close ups of Tangos arm prothesis? 👀 Love all your designs so much

I presume you mean the one he has in raau. It's based off his steampunk skin. The design isn't, like, super jotted down to the fine details but these are their general designs. His second one is made of much more reflective material so its colours change with the environment more. It's definitely the most fantastical piece of medical equipment in the au, but I wanted to have some fun with it.

The first one couldn't really be worn without an undershirt, and though the second one really shouldn't be it's not as bad if he has to go without. They also had less say int he materials they got to work with for the second.

[hybbart]

Me, naive and foolish: huh, I’ve not checked on the ranchers apocalypse Au in a bit, let me just see what’s— OH MY GOD NOOOOOOOOO 😭

(Openly weeping at the moment but the art for Tango being cornered was absolutely DOPE! The blurry softness of the most recent post’s picture is an absolutely WONDERFUL juxtaposition to the sharp, frantic shapes and nature of the cornered one!)

Theres been a lot of people who havent been around for a bit on these last few pages, for some reason

Both are a bit more abstract than these usually are, similar to Jimmy's back when Tango was kidnapped. I guess it's like, it's entirely their view of things, and the world is very small and unreal. I hesitated to stray too far though, i think I could have done a better job, especially the last one, but I was too excited to get them done that I didn't think too hard about what I was doing. There's effects I need to get better at

[hybbart]

I Decided to make paper dolls for raau, because I love designing outfits.

Tango’s wardrobe is smaller than Jimmy’s as he needs insulated clothing. Because of that, a lot of his outfits are just different combos of the same few (thankfully durable) pieces.

Once they start trading with the downtowners he gets a few more options. They have access to specialty shops that are relatively untouched and overlooked, whether that’s already made clothing or raw fabrics for Jimmy and Lizzie to work with.

[hybbart]

The other half!

Jimmy has a lot more clothing variety. Sewing is kinda a basic necessity skill for hybrids but he learned a lot from Lizzie on how to sew and knit, so he can also make and fix clothes with the right resources.

[hybbart]

Heya! I was wondering how medication and medical devices work in the ranchers au. Most devices need replacing quite often and after five years, many medications would be out of date and useless or even dangerous.

I definitely get if it's just a case of, they don't go off, since medicine is confusing but I was curious since it could lead to plot.

I should say that I specifically don't get into this stuff much just because I don't know much about it and I would rather keep things vague than accidentally impart incorrect information. As well as the fact that it is ultimately a biopunk setting with differences to our world. That said, have more rambles than I expected.

Right you are, there's in fact not a lot of medication left. People hoard anything they find but most is long expired. The hospital is lucky to have two doctors and Scar who know a bit more about medicine than the average person, but a lot of whats kept is just praying it still works.

Cleo thanks to being a gorgon is also in the drug development business, though she specialized in developing antivenom, but she not only knows but can help develop certain medicines. She and Scott have made quite a thing of their inn and I kinda wanna touch on it in the future.

Shubble, Katherine, Gem, Impulse, and Pearl know home remidies for a lot of things and have specifically been growing and creating them. These aren't going to replace complex modern drugs for specific conditions obviously, but they work and its easy to pass it around with the help of the radio station.

Overall, on bad days, Tango generally has to grin and bear it with homemade pain killers at most. It's rough and it contributed to the second wave of population decline after the first wave of zombie deaths. It's Scar's goal to specifically help survivors with this sort of thing, though.

As for medical equipment, it's a bit grim but since there's such a small population now and the hospitals were the first to go there was a lot of spare equipment from storage and patients left behind. In part because of Scar's own medical needs and in part for their desire to help others, Scar and Cub, and later Grian, collected what they could from abandoned hospitals and care homes.

It's obviously not going to cover everything, materials break down and as far as replacing them or things that need customization there isn't a factory just down the road that makes it all in house.

This is where I take the most artistic liberties, but Tango, with Doc and Zed, is the one to maintain Jimmy and Scar's equipment as well as his arm. Whether that's patching the existing, altering replacement, or crafting new parts. He knew a good bit from his job and hobbies but he's spent the past 5 years learning specifically how to diy for Jimmy and himself. It's not perfect but it's the best they have.

This is still a bit of a soft biopunk setting at the end of the day with mutliple species and genetic modification, I imagine it might be a little bit easier to get hold of certain things than it would be in real life. I also think they live in a very different economy, and its probably easier to find sturdier and custom made items due to the variety of their society making mass production more difficult. This leaves the problem of certain species not responding to certain medicines though and needing more specialized treatment.

The degredation of materials is something I do try to take into account, which is the reason gas power is nearly nonexistent, but it's hard to take everything into account and sometimes I would rather not, simply because it allows more stories to be told if something is available but difficult to get rather than impossible. I'm not great with drawing or knowing technology so it's easier to just say something is jerryrigged than it is to actively illustrate how they did it. If it seems it might be possible I allow it.

The important thing to me is to consider the types of people who would think about these things first and if anyone might be that person. You know, someone with asthma is going to think of medication and figure out how to get it, a truck driver might know where to go for storages of specific supplies instead of raiding malls, and a historical reenactor might think of how to get and create sustainable materials. Everyone leads a life that puts certain things at the forefront of their mind that other people probably wouldn't think of at all. Especially going from a modern specialist society collapsing into a society that requires generalized knowledge. And the saved knowledge of these things didn't turn to dust the second the apocalypse hit.

Life's not as rough as it might be in other apocalypse media, just because I guess I generally don't really care for the unrralistically cynical outlook a lot of american apocalypse stories are made in for drama's sake. This is a story about people caring about and helping one another, and developing a new life for themselves. If they don't have access to something, people work together to make due with what they have.

[hybbart]

Theory: Hels doesn't have his wings. He's probably also the one removing the wings of the Avaians he's captured. I don't think he's the one drawing them into the city, though, so it's possible there's a source, maybe at the center of the city or beyond it, drawing Avains in. Hels captured them before they can get to that source and tries different tactics to prevent the source from getting them. One of these tactics involve removing the Avian parts, in an attempt to make them human, or maybe useless to the source.

Obviously is hasn't worked on anyone except Hels. They've all died, whether the bodies in the pit are infected or just rotting corpses.

Interesting, but I think you're applying a level of altruism that is ironically the exact opposite reason I decided to use non-player characters

[hybbart]

wanted to ask if tango has any other outfits since it seems like he only wears 1. petition to get this man more clothes

He has other clothes! It's just that he needs to wear specially insulated clothing most of the year, so finding him new clothes is difficult for the ranchers, and most of his alternate outfits are for specific purposes like PJs, gardening, or snowstorms.

Tango doesn't switch costumes up as much as Jimmy does. He has like 3 or 5 of those coveralls that were probably from his job pre-apocalypse because they're tough, insulated, and easy to pack and clean.

It probably bothers Jimmy so much since he went out of his way to make a whole capsule wardrobe for himself once they could, while Tango stuck with the same thing until Jimmy forced him and the downtowners gave them access to specialty fabrics.

If you look through the pages you'll find he's worn all his alternate outfits i made for him, though, except for the space jacket (it's a fall/spring jacket but I keep forgetting it) but I do agree, he needs more clothes like I have Jimmy. I gave him a white tshirt for the swimming page but I'm trying to think of more.

[hybbart]

How do you do backgrounds for the raau dude???? They’re so goddamn cool and I’m literally amazed everytime I see them

unless it’s a “a good magician never reveals their secrets” thing then that’s cool too LMAO I just love your art

I'm not a magician and the honest answer is I don't know. I mostly start withthe characters and what theyre doing and use the bg to fill in the story.

I like drawing little thingamajigs even though I'm terrible at thinking of them but when I do I kinda just scribble and erase until I get something vaguely like what I want. And of course references. The three books on the wall in the last page are actually all field guides and encyclopedias I own and I have several reference photos I saved for all the things the ranchers have with them at this time. I actually had to go through a lot of the guides to get enough tips for people to have scribbled on the board and papers. And I used my sewing box and old first aid kit someone had as references. The toolbox is more and amalgamation of various tools boxes I've seen.

The actual room and outdoors is just make up from memories of things like an old carport, my mums offices, an old apartment's balcony, my grandma's basement, and the vets office. Places I've seen in shows and just generic ideas of buildings also.

And the lighting is inspired by anime, recently I've meant to screenshot and study the latest dr stone opening cause it has a bunch of shots of very different lighting that I'd like to figure out how to make.

Since its a rough setting the rough style I think adds to it so I only really clean things up to the extent that you get the idea of what it probably is. I also only use SAI and I don't really know hwot to use perspective or ruler tools so I just sorta wing it... raau supposed to be a low stress personal project to mess around with backgrounds and lighting and interactions so I don't worry too much about that stuff.

[hybbart]

Spent an entire evening ravenously consuming the Rancher Apocalypse AU, loved it. Sorry if you answered this somewhere else, but what’s your process for introducing new characters? Is there anything that affects the decision? (Totally not asking because I want to know if a certain Skizzleman exists in this universe and is doing okay)

My process is "oh that character could be doing this in this scene" or "oh the ranchers could run into someone for this, who fits that?"

Sometimes this happens weeks or months in advance as a vague idea for a future page (Oli and Joe) sometimes it happen while I'm halfway through drawing the page (Shubble).

How much I actually have a design for/enjoy drawing that character definitely affects it, so despite being neighbours for 5 years Scar and Sausage didn't appear much, and Skizz and Ren I keep putting off.

There's only one character I've killed off before he appears, and who that is can be found in Oli and Joe's gas station day. It's entirely because I did not want to have to draw that character ever, but that doesn't mean he's irrelevant to the story or won't appear in some form...

I did a poll a while back to determine how interested people were in certain characters appearing in the series that I've kept in the back of my mind and used as inspiration for plots. I think some people took it as a "who should appear next" poll, though.

Now that the ranchers are back on the road, they'll probably meet a lot more new people.

[hybbart]

Congrats on the 100th page!

I can't even with Jimmy's sweater in that one. Your art of Jimmy gives me the same emotions that pictures of bedraggled kittens do; I wish to cup gently in my hands and squeak repeatedly. Man really is just a wet cat, huh XD

Also, I'm curious what Tango is carrying?

He is!!!

Tango is carrying his and Jimmy's coats! Tango usually takes up doing these sorts of things so that Jimmy can sit down and catch his breath sooner, even though Jimmy usually gets a bit exasperated when he notices him doing it.

Tango's is a white space suit inspired coat (it's more of a spring/fall coat for him), and Jimmy's is a codfather knitted shawl. It's something Lizzie made for him that's similar to her own. (it's what he wears when he's gone full grandmacore.) I designed them a long time ago but haven't had a chance to put them in them!

[hybbart]

How do you usually determine the number of days that passed between the RAAU posts?

Is it just random numbers of whatever days could be reasonable, is there actual math behind it or do you have any system you use? Like the jump from 900ish to 1100ish seems quite big! (Though I might just be misremembering numbers lmao)

It's because I've been skipping a lot more time this year!

For reference the first bit of raau which was about 3 months was 9 days, the first year was 35 days, the second year was 25 days, and this third year, once I've posted the last page, will be 9 days.

The way I determine the day is that good days are a multiple of 9, and bad days are a multiple of 7. I take into account what's going on and what's likely to have happened between and what season the page is in and all that sort of thing, obviously, but for the most part it's what I'm feeling.

This year (and probably next year or two) are going fast because there's just not much of interest happening at the moment. For the most part the ranchers are living their everyday lives on the ranch doing things I've already shown them doing, and I don't want to draw a bunch of days of them just doing the same thing! I have ideas for things that could happen but they're all things I don't think would happen for a while. So, bigger gaps between days. I don't wanna force myself to draw pages that I'm not inspired to draw, either.

That said I haven't made a gap THAT big. Every gap is less than 90 days (3 months). Even if things are going pretty boring I figure they should be checked in on at least once a season.

[hybbart]

I remember you saying that the sculk on grian was dormant for now.

Are we going to see grian possibly turn? or is it just a thing he wakes up with hoping it doesn’t get worse daily?

I have been thinking about this for weeks and I finally got the courage to ask.

Okay so, fun fact, one of the plots I actually scrapped had a lot to do with Grian's sculk becoming... not dormant. And I will not say too much else, but it was going to be the thing that caused a schism between the ranchers and Scar and be the exit point for... a good 3 or 4 characters from the story. I scrapped it for being a bit Too Much for the story and the format, though. It was very dark.

That said, yes, Grian and Scar (possibly even more than Grian himself) wake up every day hoping it hasn't started spreading again. With it so close to his brain already it would not take long at all for it to turn him into a warden. For Grian, if it spreads it's pretty much over.

They have a checklist of things Grian is not allowed to do and everyone is to stop him from doing if he tries, such as not taking his daily sunning flight or going into the basement alone. Most are based on Scar's experiences with Cub leading up to his consumption.

It's both easier and harder with so many people at the hospital, cause Grian always has someone around at the hospital, but he goes on a lot more supply flights. It's not in his brain so he has none of the temptations, but if he got them he has no one with him to stop him.

(Side note, it hasn't come up but the bag Grian takes to collect food is a giant insulated delivery bag, and he announces his arrival by shouting "pizza's here" every single time he gets home.)

Revy also cannot be brought around Grian since he has been trained to react to the presence of sculk for safety. Grian doesn't casually visit the ranch on his flights and the ranchers leave Revy behind when going to the hospital because of this.

Basically it's something everybody is trained to watch out for.

[hybbart]

GRAH. Newest day was so beautifully drawn and I just reread the written portion!! So bittersweet, I like the emphasis on what the ranchers may do to move forward ^_^

I really appreciate that the ranch was torn down and burnt by the ranchers out of necessity, instead of by raiders or an accidental house fire, what have you. That's a really cool seamless way to integrate that part of the source material into this story. Especially with all the previous days that hinted at the fact the skulk would get beyond controlling. I genuinely didn't see it coming but now that it's happened it makes perfect sense. So so cool to see the payoff of all those little moments earlier.

Sorry for such a long ask I just think it's so awesome!! Very well done ^_^

Thank you so much!!!

I think I mentioned this before but my original plan way back in the day was to have Scar burn it down after Grian was put down for turning into a warden and it drove him a bit mad, so he went after the ranchers for keeping Revy and spotting some on their property. But that seemed far too dark for raau. Bad things happen, but it struck me as a bit Too Much all at once and too dramatic.

But raau doesn't have much planning, so I try to build naturally on what's happened already, and I knew the sculk would be a big problem in their current location. At least compared to other problems.

I'm looking forward to what the ranchers get to do next! but first and foremost they need to get through winter! I'm sure some have already notice but the time passing is gonna slow down again to where it was in the first 2 years again.

[hybbart]

Do you keep a calendar on when things happen in raau? Or are the days just roughly approximated?

I use a date calculator and usually punch in around september 20th just to get a rough idea of what month each page is in, but there is no exact date, no. I do have a notepad doc or significant events that have happened separated by year though. Basically the ranchers first found each other at the tail end of mid-fall abouts, just before it starts snowing most places (but theyre in a coastal rainforest so it doesnt usually snow for them unless its winter-winter or theyre up in the mountains.)