heliothaumic: updates tuesday and saturday

I’ve gone totally insane and made character blogs since it seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. Anyway, feel free to peruse the rich inner life of Cassandra and Takako.

Or not.

Whatever.

A few questions that occurred to me while I was thinking about how to promote the comic and the state of the archives and stuff:

1.) How did you find out about the comic? Was it an ad? A link somewhere? A recommendation? Did you follow me here from the smoking wreck of The Midlands? Or did I just lit. tell you about it in IRC or something? :V

2.) The first time you read the comic, what was it that made you keep reading? What was the first thing in the archives that really jumped out and grabbed you enough to still be here today, reading this post? What, in a word, hooked you?

Knowing what everyone thinks about this stuff would help me learn some stuff about you lovely readers that isn’t apparent just from the raw numbers of site stats or referrals or whatever. :)

Everyone’s entries were super great, so it was like totally hard to decide who won! In fact, since they were getting the same prize anyway (a full-color commission), I decided that instead of having just one winner and two runners-up, there would just be three winners– a triumvirate of tattoos! Alliteration!

THE STABLE OF CHAMPIONS!
First up comes sisterscientist, who came up with this:

Kiyohara’s tattoo’s are all about love and family. She’s got one for each of her passions and for each of her families, so when Isa sent her a collection of historical essays on Thaumatology she had found, Takako thought the illustration above the profile on her father was perfect. The Chartannian design and character even tied into her own complicated history with the country and academia. It was kind of a no-brainer to get it etched on her skin.
Not only was this design so striking and the backstory so detailed I’m willing to overlook how incredibly hard to draw it looks, but sisterscientist also went the extra mile and drew a cute picture of Takako sporting her new ink, suggesting a hairstyle that doesn’t just cover up the whole thing.

Next up, there’s this from Clockwork Virus!

(Additional image)
Why this design is good and represents Takako well:
- It represents the three main branches of neural computing (supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning)
- It incorporates the ARIA triangle logo
- I heard the ancient Kyokanese were totally big on circular trefoil-type family crests so it’s like cultural and shit
- It kinda incorporates the Cyberdyne/Skynet logo SO ITS SUPER NERDY SECRET REFERENCE DONT TELL ANYONE SHHHH
- It looks fukkn wykkid

I haven’t actually seen Terminator so I have no idea what a Cyberdyne is but I like the AI and kamon connections and the incorporation of ARIA’s established symbols, so there you go!

Finally, blazelust gives us this:

This is a really nice encapsulation of Takako’s belief that education and peace, rather than blowing things up, are the ways to change things for the better. Also? Birds kind of own.

The first appearances of these will be scattered over the next couple of chapters. Maybe she already has one of these right now…

sisterscientist, Clockwork Virus, and blazelust– each of you win a free color commissioned drawing from me. It can be basically anything– something from the comic, one of your characters, horrible Baltar/Head Baltar slash, whatever. Email at BLRiley@gmail.com me with your idea and we can hash things out! Or just harass me over IRC. Whatever.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Narrowing the field down even to just three was incredibly hard, and all of these entries are really cool:
Travis Tye shows us the intersection of the biological and artificial, Amstrad entered with some pretty cherry blossoms (additional image), and Maj thinks transistors.

Each of the three honorable mentions will receive a black and white commissioned drawing. Once again, drop me a line with what you want!

Once again, congratulations and thank you to everyone who entered!

Kiyohara Takako, Ph.D., Sc.D., F.R.S. has rather a lot of tattoos. And, as time goes by, they steadily increase in number. Since she’s been wearing a suit for this entire chapter, she might already have a new tattoo!

But instead of me just sort of making something up at the last minute, let’s make things more interesting–

THE AMAZING INCREDIBLE DESIGN TAKAKO’S NEXT TATTOO CONTEST
I’m giving you folks a chance to make an mark on the comic! Also win fancy prizes.

Here’s how it works: Send an image of your design for Takako’s tattoo (including where it should go), along with a brief description of why you think Takako would emblazon herself with it, to BLRiley@gmail.com in an email with “Takako” in the subject line.

A Grand Prize Winner will have their tattoo in the comic basically forever. They’ll also receive a free, full-color commissioned drawing from me of whatever they want!

2 Runners-up will each receive a free, full-color commissioned drawing.

3 honorable mentions will receive black and white commissions.

The deadline is March 19th, and the winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Remember that Takako is a horrible nerd with no taste at all, so be as creative and weird as you like.

EDIT: Whoops, the original wording wasn’t clear. The design should be sent in the form of an image.

EDIT EDIT: Here is a reference of Takako’s current tattoos. NSFW since she’s naked and stuff. :V

whoops i miscalculated when i’d be less totally busy with stupid stuff

Perhaps this was obvious from the fact that the “Tuesday” comic went up on, like, Thursday or whatever. D:

It’s cleared up now but I need a bit to get back on schedule, so I’m going to delay the next comic until Tuesday, so from there I can be back on schedule, rather than just fall more and more behind and be off-schedule forever.

Hopefully from here on out it will be smooth sailing.