Hmm– everybody seems to be staring off into space here but the dog. I will absolutely fix this in the finishes, probably by redoing the steam creature’s eyes so she seems to be either conversing with the man or lecturing him. Stray lines are marked with diagonal hatching and will be deleted. No matter how careful you are, every project has enough of them that you have to wonder what happens to your brain when you pick up a pen.
This page makes it clear, if you haven’t noticed it already, that I am having way too much fun inking these rocks. We are lucky this story is a fantasy, because I do not think anyone would want to live somewhere with that kind of geology. Also, I am getting hungry enough that the picnic basket looks pretty good, in spite of the somewhat wonky inking. (I winged it with the picnic basket, and it sort of shows.)
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Some of those rocks have a distinctly eggish look to me…
Now that you mention it … yeah, they could be eggs. Is that interesting, that some of them could be eggs? Maybe the eggs of some kind of giant creature, laid by the hot spring to keep warm. Or should I go back and give them sharper edges for that rocky look?
Well, everyone knows that watering holes, even steamy ones, are where the predators hang out. We ALL need to take a drink now and then. Perhaps it’s just as well that there was an alert dog onsite.
I didn’t think anyone liked to drink out of hot springs except humans. Of course that might not be true in imaginary places.
Seems to me that years ago I read an article about either small apes or monkeys in the Far East that lived, and bathed, in a hot spring somewhere high up in the mountains where it’s usually cold and snowy. I distinctly recall a white monkey (ape?) fully submerged to its chin in a steamy hot spring.
Not that it has anything to do with your story, but the art brought that image to the front of the junkbox I use for a mind.
EUREKA!
Google is my friend!
Search thread white, ape, hot, and springs, popped up several articles. Here’s a linkyh
http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/play/bathing-apes-jigokudanis-monkeyfriendly-onsen-680871
I’m sure Wolfie will be chiming in with more on this– I think he’s seen these monkeys in person. Apparently they also smoke– take the cigs right out of people’s mouths. And the Buddhist monks and nuns have to chase them out of the shrines with brooms.
I know there’s at least one NOVA documentary about them– they’re macaques, and usually called “The Snow Monkeys of Japan”. While I certainly believe they like a hot soak (and a smoke) as much as the next person, I’m still not sure that means they drink the water.