Grrl Power #334 – Make down
It’s funny for all the research I’ve done in to guns and military stuff in general, I had to make quite a few assumptions about makup here. I asked around a little about it, but Maxima’s skin is a unique situation. It’s smooth like glass, so makeup can actually be applied quite nicely, but it doesn’t stick the same way. It tends to fall off in uneven clumps. Anything more oily that does stick like lipstick or grease paint smears that much easier. It’s also flexible like skin, so if she covers herself in grease paint then applies powder makeup over that, it will still wrinkle and crack in short order. When Max was younger and got her powers initially (a story I’ll tell eventually) she spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to pass unnoticed in public. (She’s supposed to look 15-16 in panels 4 and 5 which is pretty tough to draw. A baby, that’s easy, but drawing the difference between a 16 year old and a 34 year old is trickier, especially with odd angles or expressions.) The closest she got was latex house paint with various makeup applied over that, but it wouldn’t pass close inspection. It made her look like a mannequin with the skin of a 70 year old. By the time the paint dried acceptably it wrinkled unnaturally and even began sliding off her slightly. The complication she didn’t understand until later was her personal, nearly cellularly tight forcefield which makes it so nothing sticks to her for long. Even if she keeps her actual force field to a minimum, that force field is the scaffolding all her powers are channeled through, so using her strength or flight or anything will hasten the degradation of any disguise she’s using.
The little outtro gag at the bottom of the page, some sort of latex appliance, is legitimately her only non-magic option for trying to pass as normal, but you’ve all seen those behind the scenes docs about how Worf or Quark needed to show up for work 4 hours before everyone else to get their faces put on. By the time someone can get a prosthetic face on Maxima, it’s already in danger of starting to slough off, so her window for moving around in plain sight is pretty slim.
We’ve already seen that Arc-DARK has spells which can entirely disguise someone, but they can’t hand those out willy-nilly. I’ll get into the why’s of that eventually as well. I haven’t decided if Dabbler can disguise others. Her glamour is self only, and she’s not much of an illusionist. If it has to happen when I get to that moment in a storyline, it will be severely limited, like it only lasts a few minutes or she has to actively maintain it and stay within line of site of whoever she’s disguising.
The site will almost definitely switch hosting this weekend, so there might be some interruption late Saturday and into Sunday depending on how quickly the DNS servers catch up. Hopefully it will go smoothly beyond that.
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Every gearhead knows the solution. Plastidip.
You know, If Max wants the look of having real human skin, there is always the ‘Silence of the Lambs’ option.
Maybe after she goes super-villain.
“The little outtro gag at the bottom of the page”
What outtro gag?
The bit written below the left panel: “Maxima’s only solution to look normal is a prosthetic face.”
You’ll find things like that under most/all? of the strips, a line of text under the last row of panels…
Scotch Tape!
A roll of the foggy colored scotch tape should work!
… to make her look like a foggy mummy.
If Maxima cant use make up due to her force field then why weren’t her clothes destroyed by her “big bang” attacks fall-out?
EXTREMELY good question. Well done.
Because ….. I have no idea.
probably because she has gold colored shiny living metal like skin closely resembling the colossus from x-men. her force-field protecting her mostly operates like superman’s invulnerability does ( a thin field created through his psi that just extends far enough to protect his clothing)
Mental blocks probably, if her powers came in before she started wearing makeup, she never got it into her head to think about her makeup as being part of her, the way she would think about her clothes.
Also, tactile telekinesis. She maybe can extend the field willingly around her clothes. This doesn’t help with makeup because the problem is the the micro-field surrounding each of her cells keeps it from sticking.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1443
In that comic Maxima indicates she has a further outer shield which generally protects her clothing
Correct. The cellular level force fields always remain on, whereas the other one is part and parcel of Maxima’s flexible use of her force field (a.k.a. zero range telekinesis).
Actually, at first I thought that (O_O)‘s question was raising a much more tricky question that the above comic provokes. Although it was reasonable to re-examine clothing protection, in light of the above, it did not go where I was hoping. So I guess I better mention it myself.
If make-up will not stick to Maxima’s skin, and her powers cause it to deteriorate, why does the same not happen to her clothes? Maxima’s skin (when factoring in the cellular force field) does not provide the necessary friction, which is essential to keep clothes from sliding off.
The answer, of course, can be drawn from your own reply to the destruction issue. The variable force fields that get raised, around the clothes, will keep them in position, in addition to protecting them. Thus preventing them from slipping off.* It also insulates them from harmful side effects from the cellular fields.
Maxima could develop a power stunt to do the same with make-up. madock345‘s reply, above, can inform techniques she could use to practice that.
* Of course if Maxima’s variable power pool requires 100% of her power to be shifted out of defence, then the logic dictates that such must happen. To preserve universal continuity.
You know, no one would care if you just said “magic pants” and that was the entire explanation.
I think you might have answered your own question below with that block quote. Due to no preview button, I won’t attempt the same, but Dave mentions that the cellular scale forcefield makes it such that things don’t stick to her long. The various degrading effects he mentions were particular to makeup and paint drying on her skin. Most of it sloughs off, and the stuff that doesn’t ooze/rub off right away starts to wrinkle as gravity pulls it down unevenly and it fails to stick to her skin very well. The makeup failed to stick because of the forcefield, which changes shape as Max uses her powers. As the shape changes, the more resilient paints crack and fall off, experiencing the hastened degradation mentioned at the end of the paragraph.
Clothes don’t suffer any of these issues. Even at a very slightly reduced degree of friction, clothing would stay more or less put based on facts such as her shoulders being wider than the neck hole, hips wider than her belt, and gravity doing 90% of the rest. They don’t crack and peel off when the surface they are on flexes in any meaningful way, tend to hold together under their own weight,
Good points against the degradation.
The slipping off part though is separate to that. Clothes stay on us due to friction. Consider a scarf, it only stays on by friction. If Maxima put a beech towel on her shoulders, it would have a hard time staying in place. Even under normal circumstances.
Maxima affects friction in two ways, her smooth, non-porous glass-like skin. Plus the worse frictionless nature of her force fields. If make-up slides off of it, clothes will be having a hard time too.
Of course, your distinction about degradation does come into play here. So Dave has not set it up such that we should expect Maxima’s clothes to slough off. Make-up suffers the double-whammy of degradation and lack of friction.
But that lack of friction is significant enough that Maxima is at considerably more risk of a wardrobe malfunction than for anyone else.* Barring other supers with frictionless skin or some kind of oily coating.
* If, and only if Maxima is unable to keep her forcefield around the clothing. With it up, she is invulnerable to any such problem, without the aid of a super attack capable of penetrating her force field.
I beg to differ. I doubt most clothing relies that much on skin friction. In your scarf example, it would still have friction with itself and with whatever coat she had on (unless she is wearing nothing but a scarf 0_o). Her vest or shirt cannot slide off, her jacket has the friction from the shirt, and most garments are kept in shape or in place by fixings (belts, buttons, zips, velcro etc.).
In fact, I can only think of two main areas where there would be trouble: socks and leggings would always slip down to her ankles (so suspenders would be essential); and hats would be prone to sliding off. There is obviously no way she would even try to copy Dabbler’s outfits.
Oh, and sunglasses. Make that three :-8(
And yet wardrobe mistakes still happen. Personally I think you are placing too much confidence in fasteners designed for use on people who do not have frictionless skin.
Her one advantage is she does have the services of a super tailor. :-)
I think you may be forgetting that even though her skin may have reduced friction, the cloth/fasteners, etc, all still have friction with themselves. A tied scarf doesn’t stay on due to skin friction, it’s due to the friction of the tie of the scarf against itself :)
Nobody said TIED scarf
Who in hell doesn’t tie a scarf and still expect it to stay on?
Google image search “scarf” and count the tied ones. Unless it’s like -20°C, I basically never tie it. So: Most people.
It’s not because of her force-field. It’s because Her skin is smooth and non-porous.
Actually it is both. But the force field is the more significant of the two. Check out DaveB‘s commentary under the comic, above.
However the technical details of her skin (and the molecular force fields associated with it) are a state secret. Maxima is telling the photographer as much as she can, without impinging on that.
missed that line.
Grease paint is used for clowning and they do powder it so it fixes in place. It doesn’t crack unless you really go nuts with it. Of course, maxima would not likely have studied clown make up as a way to blend in, so it entirely reasonable that she overlooked this avenue of makeup.
Great…Max hates being objectified as a female, so getting objectified as a clown would sit with her any better?
Objectify? I think it would be more likely to trigger clown phobia!
Being objectified as a female and being a clown are completely different experiences. I say this as being a female who has also been a clown.
Besides, there are “skin tone ” grease paints. She would have had to go the fierce makeup route, but it would have worked… At least as well as anything could have with the protective shield shedding everything it can.
Though, if dirt sticks, why no try mineral make Ups? Just powder it on.
If Maxima’s skin is metallic, then the answer is rather…interesting. Magnetically charged, or ionized, powder, of some sort. Wouldn’t last too long, but it’d take some of the glare off. Kinda like..powder coating a metal chassis for a car or truck. But a light loose coat, not a solid one.
That would be vetoed, without a reason given to the photographer.
However that would be due to it impinging on a classified secret. Maxima’s skin is not gold, nor necessarily any kind of metal. Its exact nature is secret, and anything which would allow analysis of that (such as showing it to be magnetic or not) would be prohibited.
Powder coating, like Miafillene, has nothing to do with magnetism. Can Maxima shuffle her feet and build up a static electricity charge like everybody else? That’s the only thing it would reveal. (If ionized particles won’t stick to her, then the answer is “at least she never has to worry about shocking herself when she touches a doorknob.”)
Grr. “like Millafillene suggests“. Somehow I left out a word.
LOL!!! I almost got irritated at your post…then slapped myself silly and laughed when I saw your addendum there. I am not too certain about powder coating and how it works, since all I ever know of it is through RC Cars and metal furniture. >.> I think since they’d probably have personal forcefield belts through a certain succubus, something could be rigged to give Max the charge necessary to hold on to some powdery substance…but then…this is all going WAY WAY WAY far for some sexy photos that a simple change in lighting and Photoshop could handle…>.>
Indeed. Especially when something as simple as a 1-ply toilet tissue over the lens might do the job.
Also, that’s pretty much the way powder coating works. The powder is usually a thermoplastic or thermoset polymer. Without getting too technical, it means that once it’s sprayed on and heat-cured, it becomes a solid plastic or rubber coating. (I’m over-simplifying; that’s the layman’s explanation.)
When it is sprayed on, to make it stick, an electric current is passed through the target. It isn’t until after it’s been cured in a high-temperature oven (anywhere from 165 degrees Fahrenheit to almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the type of powder) that it becomes permanent.
Most often, I’ve seen it used as an extra layer of rust protection on important structural parts of cars (I watch a lot of car restoration shows). If you’ve got a steel car frame that’s been zinc coated and then powder coated, it’s damn near invulnerable to rust. There are plenty of other uses for powder coating, though. That’s just the use I see most often.
At this moment, Grrl Power is over 2k votes ahead of second place comic.
Carry on.
You got one thing wrong though. When applying camo paint to ones face, you paint the WHOLE face with a green layer and then break the silhouette with brown paint. May differ from army to army but that’s the general idea.
you forgot the black. Most “woodland/forest” camo kits I’ve seen had black, green and brown.
Well, we had only green and brown. More specialised branches of the military might have the elite-camostick ;)
Still, my point was only that the whole face is at least covered by a base layer of paint.
Surely the technique is modified according to the prevailing terrain? If you are going to be crossing open ground, with sparse vegetation (say ploughed fields, with weeds or early spring crops just poking through), it seems to me that a brown base, broken up with green (as per the guy in that panel) would be the better option.
Doubtless Maxima was trying to replicate his colour scheme but… slipperiness won.
I took it as it was how she ended looking “….after getting it on every surface within three meters…”.
Maxima don’t need no stinkin makeup she’s a natural beauty.
Although unfortunately for her I guess being a neon yellow human glowstick can be annoying if you’re going for stealth.
Ok.. so the objective is to be able to be photographed… Try a thinned out mixture of clear silicone, alcohol, and a tiny amount of baby powder. You’d have to let the silicone set, but if you did you could very thinly paint on a layer to diffuse the light reflection.
Try a tissue over the lens.
No, seriously. My dad’s a photographer. He used this exact technique at a wedding recently to get some nice shots of lit-up centerpieces. The tissue diffused the light enough that you got a shot that almost perfectly replicates what they looked like to the human eye. It might work to diffuse the glare from the flash in the same way, giving Maxima more of a subtle glow than a bright dazzle.
Plus it shows your photographer as the kind of flexible personality that you’ve been going with already.
I just checked this with my iPhone camera and a car outside. (It’s pretty sunny today.) A 1-ply tissue does indeed diffuse the light and significantly reduce glare. Great idea!
We get to see a huge range of expressions from Maxima. But her look of resignation, in panel 5, just sends tingles down the back of my spine! Especially as it carries (to me) a hint of “sorry boss, I tried.” Or perhaps “I told you it would not work”.*
Not to mention making me laugh. :-D
* The casting agent, for ‘Girl Power, the Movie’, is going to have a tough time finding an actress capable of replicating expressions as specific as this!
I think I agree more with “Sorry, boss…”
Yea, on reflection, I agree. The former was what I got, but I was grasping for other ways it might be interpreted, and that seemed to fit the context. However, looking at the expression again, there is no hint of smarminess or being a smart aleck. Those expressions are distinctive enough that they would stand out.
I always imagine using a MtF transperson for a live action maxima.
“(She’s supposed to look 15-16 in panels 4 and 5 which is pretty tough to draw. A baby, that’s easy, but drawing the difference between a 16 year old and a 34 year old is trickier, especially with odd angles or expressions.)”
First think I’d suggest is to eliminate that folded-crease-like cheekbone line. It’s very severe, even for an adult face. I think it’s deliberate to give her an impression of “hardness”, but for a teenage look you’d want her to appear and softer, and perhaps just a bit rounder on the jawline.
Here, let me take a quick stab at it, to show you what I mean:
(And if the html don’t work, here’s a direct link: https://i.imgur.com/vo6deDa.png )
(Apparently no embedded images, just a blank line there. Didn’t see the in the allowed codes at the bottom of the page, but thought I’d try anyway. :P)
Anyways, in addition to what I said before, I also softened her forehead a bit. She’s younger, those frowny creases aren’t as set in yet. ;)
I only modified her face, though one could easily imagine a teenage Maxima wasn’t quite so muscular at 16 either; softening her arms would add to the effect. I also skipped the dirt-smudged panel. That one would be much easier to modify before the dirt-layer is added, and I naturally only have your finished page to work with. :P
Actually, you DID a younger Maxima once before: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/720
Not quite at the same angle, but you can still see the softly blended cheeks.
i demand a “who is who” for candy!
she talks and we know her name.
this is internet therefore i am right! as always! cause internet!
also, Grrl power is leading by 2200 votes! keep it going!
maybe we can stay first for the rest of the month?
the link to the vote is right under who is who section on the right of the page.
I got to thinking… Regarding Death Toll… or more to the point, regarding someone who would be tougher to beat.
Has anybody ever read the Xanth novels? If you have, you probably know exactly who I’m thinking of…
For those that haven’t read them, Xanth is a fantasy novel series that takes place kind of in an alternate plane, in the same location as Florida… There are conditions as to whether you enter Florida or Xanth when crossing the border.
Anyway, the vast majority of humans in Xanth have magical powers. Everyone has a different power, the same power never repeats itself. There are people who have similar powers, but never exactly the same.
So, there’s this one character named Bink whose power (or “talent” as the books call the powers) has two functions.
1: Nothing magical can possibly cause him any real harm.
2: The talent attempts to conceal its nature to prevent people from catching on about what his power is, so it prevents the harm in ways that often harm Bink’s pride far more than his body. For instance, causing him to slip onto a banana peel at just the right moment. It even causes strange things to happen to prevent someone who knows what it is (very few people know, and only because the talent LET them know, because doing so was the only way to prevent harm from happening to him). For instance, someone tries to say what his talent is and there’s a loud noise so nobody hears.
Bink’s talent is entirely passive and he does not control it in any way.
Now… there has been, for some decades now, speculation that Bink’s power ALSO protects him against non-magical threats, but to a lesser extent, as non-magical things have happened to him that should have killed him, but didn’t.
With that in mind, imagine a character whose power is entirely passive, and its nature is such that they can never be harmed in any way, at all. There’s always some unfortunate event that happens that prevents whatever harmful action was about to take place to happen.
For instance: Peggy tries to hit him with a sniper rifle, the rifle jams, or she accidently loaded a blank, or whatever. If Maxima tries to punch him, he might slip on a banana peel, or accidentally fall down an open manhole that wasn’t there previously (though nobody would notice that it just suddenly appeared, otherwise they might figure it out). In falling down the manhole, he lands safely on a feather couch some bum had moved down there.
Just what somebody tries, some inexplicable event always happens that seems like dumb luck for him, or bad luck for the other person… The power would even manufacture situations, like making some innocent person inadvertently get in the way to prevent a marksman from taking a shot. Whatever it takes to prevent anyone from figuring out what’s really going on.
Should probably also note that this passive power wouldn’t care if something happens to him if it’s beneficial to him, or doesn’t cause any issues. So if someone had the power to change other people’s hair color, it would work on him. Powers that could be used to divert him, like picking him up and throwing him, would still work, but the power would manufacture a situation where the throwing actually works out in his favor, in a dumb luck kind of way.
In this manner, the power conceals its nature even further: by allowing certain things to happen, it can’t be said that he’s just untouchable.
He wouldn’t be undefeatable… You could arrest him by simply walking up and slapping handcuffs on him. But that makes about as much sense as superheroes going up to a supervillain’s hideout, knocking on the door, and politely requesting an audience.
Needless to say he wouldn’t be much of a hero, since he can’t control the power, and all it does is protect him. His power likely would likely manufacture ways to keep him from joining a super team, good or bad, even if he did figure out his own power (Bink didn’t know HIS power until it was told to him by the first person (as far as I know, the only person) who figured it out, who was actively trying to cause Bink inconvenience by turning him into things).
He’d been able to turn Bink into various other animals, but it was always beneficial to do so. The moment Trent tried to turn him into a butterfly to render Bink useless, the transformation somehow hit a nearby deer instead, just for example.
This super powered person in particular would probably have figured out the nature of his power, even if he wasn’t aware it was a power… Like I must be the “luckiest man alive” type of thing, and so he pushes his luck further and further, gaining the attention of ARC, and becoming like this person who pops up on occasion, and they can’t figure out why they can’t take him down. All they have to do is walk up and slap the cuffs on, he can’t run very fast, Maxima could do it in an instant… But what are the chances that would happen? Even after Fedorka?
About the “luckiest man alive” type of thing though… it wouldn’t work on gambling, obviously, because winning at gambling can actually be detrimental to one’s health.
Please Google “Teela Brown”.
I pull out a gun and shoot him dead. Mundane stuff works wonders on Bink. >.> Only the magical is affected. Which is why Bink was such a treasure, really. He’s almost a foil for…like…EVERY other Xanth character. I miss that series. Was pretty fun.
Yeah, I’d say Bink had a pretty useful Talent, though he was very nearly exiled until Trent figured out that Bink actually did have a Talent, just not one with immediately obvious effects. There were some characters in that series that were mentioned in passing that had pretty useless Talents. Like the one guy (mentioned in the very first book, if I remember correctly) who could change the color of his urine at will…
I like the ability to grant wishes. Even if it does happen very slowly, and appears to be the result of more mundane actions.
That can, and does, happen. Read Superbitch* for one example, although several others sprang to mind.
Not only that, but it is actually the way they are legally obliged to do it, in the Grrl Power universe (and ours, for any analogous situation). Unless they have a warrant, or justifiable emergency, that allows them to storm the place. Plus it is the civilised way to conduct business!
* Sydney endorses it!
If she wants a disguise, she needs to call American Mom! Points if you know what I’m talking about.
DaveB: your blog, 3rd paragraph:
…should be ‘sight’.
Just wondering…. why doesnt she just use a digital camera to take pictures of Maxima?
When you have lots of light already, you can just use a digital camera with no flash.
Maxima’s specularity is pretty spectacular.
Sorry. Had to be said.
It seems like the thing they used in The Hollow Man would work. They never described it, but it appeared to be a fast drying liquid latex that they poured over the invisible man’s face and hands, and let clothing cover the rest.
Now, exactly why a bunch of genetic researchers would conveniently have a batch of fast drying liquid latex around is another thing entirely…
“Come on, just think about it. How else are they going to conceal their errors, if the grant committee turn up, for a surprise inspection?
On the topic of limiting Dabbler’s possible ability to disguise others, maybe you could make it tactile? Sure she can disguise you just as well as herself, but she’ll have to hold your hand the whole time to do it.
There is an established way to photograph reflective surfaces like Maxima, using circuity polarized light(cw and ccw) you can take a picture of a reflective surface, the camera lenses then have a circularly polarized filter going the the same way. Because the bright part of the reflection are going the opposite direction the filter blocks that part out.
I didn’t see anyone mention it, but there’s further tricks that might or might not work for a photographer trying to light Maxima. One of them is the oddball trick of cross-polarization: You put a polarizing filter on the flash head and then a polarizer at 90 degrees on the camera lens. The result is that light that’s absorbed and retransmitted by the colors of the object gets into the camera while the direct reflections of the flash do not, or at least get preferentially squelched. The only issue is that metallic reflections are actually an electromagnetic phenomenon that absorbs and retransmits light, but doesn’t polarize it. If she’s really metallic (which isn’t a given with how hard she is to analyze, metal has a very specific definition that might almost preclude imperviousness to testing, and would at least be something you could test) then this technique doesn’t work. Would almost certainly work for the Marble Maiden though.
The other technique is diffuse; diffuse the heck out of it! Photographers already use what amount to rough silvery umbrellas to scatter the point source light of their strobes, because sharp shadows aren’t all that attractive on normal human skin either. If that isn’t diffuse enough you go bigger, eventually you will get a balance where the energy is spread into so little from so many directions that there’s no real glare, just a highlight of a reflection. The cheap approach to this is bounce-flash, point the strobe at the ceiling or some other surface of the room and use the light it emits as your source. Most good flashes made since the 70s have had this feature.
maxima looks really human in the camo panel, and i don’t mean physically
Showing emotion you mean? Yeah her flashback panels are always a bit heartbreaking. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2074
I thought the one of her sharing a keg of beer, with Peggy and the rest of their unit, to be heart-warming, rather than heartbreaking.
Something that has always bugged me about this page: isn’t Maxi and her CO already wearing a balaclava? So why is he handing her one? Unless it’s a clean one…