Author notes

Page 5: issue 3 - A Pillow of Winds

shastab24

on March 8, 2012

My first potentially not safe for work page.  Itty bitty boobies can get some people in a fit.  Of course, I wanted to acknowledge here more of the situation with Julie: she's a male to female transsexual and is still quite early on hormones (hence the small boobs).  She binds her chest for job interviews because she's legally still male, and living in Redding.  The funniest thing with coloring this page?  I actually decided to research the tendancy in which nipples are colored for people of color, since Julie is rather dark (too dark, actually–I may lighten her skin for the next issue so people don't assume that she's supposed to be black instead of brown).  That meant looking at pictures of naked women, which was such a hard task.  I mean, it's not like I actually own a few magazines specifically devoted to that purpose…
Actually, said magazines have a tendancy to just show white women, which was frustrating.
 
Artistically, I realize I slowly was dropping the background out.  First the bookshelves behind her went away and then later the entire bed (how could I have missed not drawing that?).  But oh well.  People can still understand what's going on.
 
And like myself, Julie doesn't have a dresser.  Her clothes are instead on bookshelves.  Though, that last picture has much more spacious shelves than I do.  If I were at home when drawing it, that would not have been the case.  That last panel shows her looking at her costume.  Next to it on one side are other clothes (socks and what would likely be shirts) and on the other side is my explanation for her being rather more busty in costume: breast forms.  She still wears them because her natural boobs aren't very big yet (many trans women do this).
 
Tomorrow: Suiting up