(N)AbbyCapers (WiP-Patrons): Tanya-Nabbed~! (Patreon)

Edit: 

• #1: So, initially, this wasn't planned to be next week's strip! After reading some comments however, I decided to fast-track this instead, so there would be cohesion with the previous two strips, rather than forcing you guys to revisit it. Of course, I'm only human, with a day-job, so this was as far as I could get after work and still get a good night's sleep. Will hopefully have it finished by Wednesday!
• #2 "Saunter did not have it done by Wednesday..." Yeeeaaaaahhhh... but its here now! and with a process gif, too!

Synopsis/Description: 

BoundPretties's Tanya should have stopped while she was ahead, because when peeps get grabby with Abby, Nabby gets ....nabby! 

Process Gif/Alt. versions:

The Rant: 

So, initially, this was NOT supposed to be the next AbbyCaper ($7 and $10 tiers, check the dropbox to see what I mean). I hadn't really planned on a "part 3," either. 

Part of this is to avoid the "my characters cannot fail" bias that comes with depicting your own characters. I think this is subconsciously one of the reasons I don't use Gale too much anymore. I also never figured out how to have her be her own person, while also contriving a reason for her to obsess over Abby in particular, either. With Nabby being an ambiguously sentient creature, its easier to write her obsession with Abby as a programming directive, with any side-nabs as side/optional/obstacle-quests to the end goal of nabbing Abby. Having her be a willy-nilly slime monster puts her in the same conundrum as Gale; "Why obsess over Abby, when there are more traditionally appealing damsels out there who are also WILLING (and thus, less trouble)?" So I was a little worried about Nabby breaking her deal with Tanya, not out of any sense of honor, but opening the can of worms that Abby isn't as central to Nabby as I want her to be (because of the inevitable and/or implicit "Okay but why not Nabby with my character instead/in addition to Abby?").

 However, reading some of the comment reactions on Discord, I figured it would be a good challenge as well!

However, the other issue is/was composition.  In order to make this work, I needed:

•  an establishing panel of Nabby and Tanya playing with their captives
• imply that Tanya wanted some chocolate halfling to go with her vanilla elf
• Show her attempt to sneak a taste of Abby
• Have Nabby cotton on and retaliate
• Show the process of Tanya's punishment
• an end frame establishing the new Status quo.

It was important to show Tanya instigating, so that Nabby would have a reason to "retaliate," and thus not break the status quo of Nabby's obsession with Abby, as well as build on the idea that Nabby's other conquests were just beneficial steps to a larger goal, as seen here:

Sidebar: Now that a few mini-arcs ("Furrybound: Backstage Bondage," "Crossover: FurryNabbed," and now "Doppleganger Discord") are starting to coalesce, would you guys like to see these strips compiled into stories? Either as PDFs, story posts, or folders? Asking because stories are the thing I love most in art, and I've started compiling them for myself, so I'm wondering if that's something you'd like me to do for you guys?

Back on track:

So yeah, all that had to be piled into a single comic, with no panels, and 5-6 major compositions/story-beats. Even I had no idea how I was going to do it, so I went back to an old storytelling tip: "Start at the end, and work your way back to the beginning."

So I started with the last frame, of Tanya and Naomi being gooped while Nabby focuses exclusively on Abby, and worked my way back. Even that wasn't much help, so I went back to the beginning and thumbnailed out my establishing shot, which was the last frame of the previous comic, from a different angle, and a little more intimate (hopefully DA doesn't mind!)

From there, it was pretty easy to establish Tanya's scary shiny glasses, and her hand reaching over for things it shouldn't be. I'm admittedly a little worried about her arm's implied relation to the rest of her body, but I'm hoping it's not too big of a deal. From there, filling in Nabby wasn't too hard either. 

Initially, I'd planned on giving Nabby an "angry/disappointed" expression with a y-inverted cat frown, but I found that didn't really work for her. It made her too "sentient," and I like the ambiguity of her thought process, with her "happy" moments being played for creepiness and uncanniness, rather than genuine catharsis and joy. So she just gets a neutral expression here.

EDIT: she now has pupils! Too creepy for normal usage, so only for situations where Nabby is actually mad. So, warning, don't mess with Abby!

As for Tanya's punishment, I wanted it to be more extreme than Abby or Naomi's (given that she actually instigated, as opposed to Abby's neutrality and Naomi's righteous/justified indignation), and I also felt I'd been relying too much on general encasement recently. While I like that people have been intimating, in discussion, that there's more happening to Nabby's victims under the slatex (slime+latex=slatex. That's what I'm calling it. Don't question it), I'm more of a "Show, don't tell" kind of artist. To that end, Tanya gets the full Nabby experience (with fondling hands and mouth intruder), rather simply encasement like Abby and Naomi. Of course, once that had been established, I couldn't back down for the ending panel, so Naomi and Abby get mouth tentacles too, rather than just restraint. It also shows a more integrated combination of Tanya and Nabby's punishments. I'd have gone further, but because I cross-post with DA, and they have pretty strict rules about what can be done/shown, Nabby gets toned down a lot. Here's hoping her wandering hand doesn't cause too much turmoil!

What do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments; Your feedback let's me know how I'm doing!
Catcha over Yonder!

-Saunter!