Snow by Night

Almanac Reference: Rapscallion

Vivienne and Marguerite go for the jugular in Page 6 of Losing by Winning. I think the muskets are less dangerous than these two. To see Sunny’s sketch of the page, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comic.

You know how bad things come in threes. Well, the third thing happened this past weekend while we were at Nekocon. My grandmother passed away on Saturday. She lived to be 93. That’s a long time when I sit and think about it. She was born when Woodrow Wilson was president. She saw her husband sail across the sea to fight in World War II. She ran the family business — a floral shop where the telephone number was 714. Three numbers. That’s it. There were less than a 1,000 phones in the entire town. The years passed and the world changed and in time she was logging onto Skype so she could talk to her great grandchildren.

I need to attend her funeral and say my last goodbyes to her this week. My apologies, but there will not be a page update on Wednesday. I have a piece of art given to us by Rachel at Tangent Artists. It is quite amusing. I’ll ask Diane to upload it on Wednesday. Also, I will try to get a photo album con report up for Nekocon on our Facebook page before I leave.

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The marksmanship competition is in full swing in Losing by Winning Page 5. So much crystal shot into little, tiny pieces. To see Sunny’s sketch for this page, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics.

By some miracle, the power stayed on over the past couple days. We in Washington, D.C. were fortunate to be spared the full brunt of the Sandy. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those not so fortunate, especially our colorist who lives up that way. She’s without power and it might be up to a week before she gets it back. Drawing is on the back burner for her at the moment, which is completely understandable. This means that next week’s updates might be a bit late.

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Almanac Reference: Muskets

Page 4 of Losing by Winning is up and the marksmanship competition begins. It’s good to be fabulously wealthy and be able to use crystal glasses as your targets. Sunny did another incredible job bringing this page to life. To see Sunny’s sketch for the page, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics.

Just a heads up, most of the Snow by Night team is located in Virginia and you probably have heard about this horrible storm rolling through the region. It’s not too bad yet. It’s drizzling outside. I have the window open because I love the sound of rain – from the rhythmic pat-pat-pat on the  leaves to the tapping of the drops on window panes. But the nastiness is supposed to rumble through tomorrow. I don’t expect too much carnage, but I expect that we will lose power, because Virginia has lots of trees and we always lose power in bad storm. Hopefully, it will be back up before the update on Wednesday. If not, we’ll get it up when we can.

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Almanac Reference: Pistols

The Comtesse’s idea for entertainment is about to be co-opted by Vivienne and Marguerite in Page 3 of Losing by Winning. This should be an entertaining, but not the way you think, Comtesse.

Sunny based those pistols off of a pair of flintlock pistols crafted by Samuel Brunn that are part of the MET’s collection. The design is a little bit later than our period, but they’re so beautiful I wanted to use them anyway. To see Sunny’s sketch for this page, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics.

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Almanac Reference: Aradie, Giavere’s Gaze, Light Cavalry

Vivienne encounters an old rival in Page 2 of Losing by Winning and the sparks immediately start to fly. I love the juxtaposition of the soft pastels and snarky dialogue. To see Sunny’s sketches for the page, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comic.

On a different note, Brittany and I met Amber Dionne at Intervention a few weeks ago, where she was collecting money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through their Light the Night Walk. She raised more than $400 at Intervention and is well over $600 total. It’s a good cause. If you would like to contribute, please visit her donation site.

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Almanac References: 1684, Blossom, Jacqueline de Tilly, Jean-Henri de Carailles, Saronne, Sherbourg, Vivienne de Carailles

Vivienne makes her triumphant return in Page 1 of Losing by Winning. She’s been away for far too long so I’ve asked S.Y. Lee to bring her to life in this vignette. And boy, did Lee deliver. The garden party is a feast of pastels, bows, and ruffles, and also attitude, sniping, and rivalries. Lee has a very different style and process from Brittany. If you want to see a great example, see  the sketch Lee did for this page by voting for Snow by Night on Top Web Comic.

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Almanac Reference: Belle

Mathilde saves the boy’s bacon in Chapter 5 Page 13. Or does she….Dun, dun, DUUUUN! Laurent is up to something, I know it! I don’t like his shifty eyes….

Hi. It’s Naty. I’m sick and a wee bit delirious. You may have heard I have Mono. Some of you are cringing in sympathy, and some of you are scratching your heads wondering what the big deal is.
Mono is a virus, which means I can’t do anything but rest and drink fluids during it’s unfortunately long run time of 4-6 weeks. Its most notorious and lingering symptoms after the fever, aches, chills, and nausea…..ugh nausea….are fatigue and loss of appetite. The week we went off the air I was so nauseated I couldn’t sleep. Anti-nausea pills are MAGIC. Not that I want to eat anything, but I could if I wanted to now. But I’m just too tired to eat. I’m too tired to do anything. I am so incredibly tired, you guys, I went to the store for toiletry essentials and it felt like I hiked up a mountain to get there. The few items in my hand basket felt like lead weights and I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to be able to leave the store with them without assistance. Everyday things are a struggle, including coloring Snow by Night. Now that my fever is gone and I have magic pills to ward of the nausea, I’m trying to color again, but I feel like a turtle. So I ask on behalf of the team for everyone to please be patient with us while I recover from Mono. I will do my best to meet our usual update schedule, but If I can’t do it, I just can’t do it.

As an aside, I totally win for worst Con Crud this year because the incubation time for Mono is long and because all my troubles started exactly on Oct 1st means I picked it up at Dragon Con. Luuulz.

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Diane here, popping in to add a few notes. First off, I’m so excited for the build up that’s happening on this page… You can tell we’re headed somewhere with Laurent (and that he wasn’t just a joke!). To see where exactly the boys are headed, check out our sneak peek at Top Web Comics.

Because of Naty’s sickness, I’d like to extend an offer to our readers asking for more fanart! We’re always happy to see it, and in the event that we can’t post a page, we really like having something to show you, regardless.

I also want to pose a question to you. If we can’t get a colored page done in time, would you prefer to see filler art (like sketches, or some of the bonus art we include in the chapter books), almanac entries, or simply the inked version of the pages, with the colored pages to be added as Naty completes them? Let us know in the comments!

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Almanac References: Capon, Go fart in the Clover, Manse, Rook

Laurent makes his appearance at the Harp & Trumpet in Chapter 5 Page 12. What, you thought we were done with him? Oh no. Not by a long shot.

Our vote incentive today is a panel from Brittany’s pencils for page 13 where she makes some commentary in the panel borders. To see, please vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics.

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