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.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
you call that smiling? seriously it looks like she would have better things to do than this crap(which frankly i dont doubt)
huh this may actually be a first for me especially on this comment section
It’s her “You think this is my smile, but I actually stole it from some homeless guy, so HAHA to you!” smile.
In the first panel, she looks like she’s doing what i do when I smile: something more akin to a one-sided smirk
But in the last panel she has a very natural, attractive smile.
Yes, she has a lovely smile, when she is being ‘natural’ and herself
It’s more of a smile that you’d usually see from me. On photos. :D
Personally don’t understand why photographers want you to be ‘natural’ but then insist on you smiling like Joker
Any time I smile it pushes my cheeks up and closes my eyes so I get the nice duality from photographers of “smile and open your eyes” then I look like a psycho with my eyes bugged out and a big grin.
First they say “go on smile, don’t be afraid“. Then there is all the screaming and running.
The only muscles that aren’t strong as an atom bomb:
Her smile muscles.
Sydney does seem to be helping her train tho…
+1
Sydney + Max = best
Good thing paparazzi pictures would suck.
Actually, for a photo shoot, this wouldn’t be that hard. Some brighter lights set up with a diffuse screen at the right angles and taking the photos in HDR so the highlights and shadows could be played with in Photoshop would allow it to work. I did that once when I was taking photos of crystals and glass for reference. The highlights of the flash would blow out areas, but taking an HDR with no flash and some very diffuse lighting allowed for me to get the best images with just a bit of play in Photoshop.
And I bet that the HDR idea is what the photographer is planning to do, thusly asking Max to stand perfectly still for 5 seconds :)
There is a difference between just having a longer exposure and HDR. Because she never mentions HDR, I imagine she’s going to try a softer, dimmer light with a longer exposure to allow the light to come in which would also work, but has the same amount of control as taking it with flash. If she’s using film, this idea is the best option. However, since it appears she is using digital, then HDR would be the best option. I’m not sure if DaveB knows about this difference, but if he doesn’t, this should be considered. Especially since even iPhones have this capability now.
Contact Lucasfilm about how they filmed C-3PO. Most of the time they got around it by having him be rather dirty, but he was pretty shiny in the victory celebration at the end of ANH.
Or she could call Universal. Surely someone there recalls how they shot the Cylon robots in the original version of Battlestar Galactica way back when.
From what I remember of original Battlestar Galactica, they wouldn’t be able to help because when they shot it, it ended up really frakking specular and sparkly.
Thought that that was added afterwards
They should just ask Jonny 5. At the end of Short Circuit ,2 Jonny was completely gold plated, or at least his exterior was
Considerd latex masks like in mission impossible?
and what about permanent markers? those work on glass :P
oh and also, why did you put on a fat wideangle lense? 50mm focal lenses tend to be the standard AFAIK for portraits and those are pathetically small :D
Could be 50mm 1.2. Those things are beastly. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44FqqE6ukjY
Also, 85mm is actually the more common studio portrait size, as the extra tele gives a bit of compression to the features, which is more flattering than the 50mm’s true to life proportions. 50mms are the bastion of the street photog because they want that lifelike look.
So that’s more likely to be a 85mm, IMO.
Oh Em Gee it’s Sephiroth! =o
*fans start to gather*
You’ll see him in the remake, calm down.
Yeah, that’s what the prosthetic face is about.
ok then I just had a english language understanding check fail :D
Here‘s a ‘budget’ version of that… 8-)
Half of those don’t even look like masks! o_O
I dunno, but “covert” sounds like the exact sort of thing you would use people who are NOT Maxima for…
no doubt there USED to be more supers in the sandbox, and taking them out by surprise whenever possible reduced the body count and civilian damage.
In her part:
Major Jackson: Okay, Lt. Leander, forget the covert part. You get to be the distraction. Think Trojan Horse.
Maxima: There is no way you guys are are going to fit …
Major Jackson: No, no, no. I want you to dress in shorts and a T-shirt and stand over here [ pointing at a map ] like a statue. Mitchell’s crew will be here [ points to another location on the map ] and Carter’s squad will be here [ points at yet another place ]. When the enemy patrol comes by on this road [ running finger along the map ] they should investigate you and that will give us an improved element of surprise. No talking, just stand perfectly still in a pose you can hold for 10 minutes. [She demonstrates] Not Parade Attention. [ She tries again ] At-Ease doesn’t work either. Maybe something sexy?
promptly gets a death glare that damn near actually does kill him
You never know. While Max could probably blast and/or punch her way into just about any structure fairly easily, there may be times when this is not the best starting course of actiuon.
Hostage rescue situation comes to mind as one possibility. She might need to sneak IN, find the hostage, then blast / punch the way OUT.
… Or, there may be a very good reason to have a super along on the mission – and an even better reason to not let it be known that a super is along on the mission.
i love how she pauses before saying specularity
I have to pause whenever I say ‘genealogist’.
So, you sing the song, “I Dream of Geneologist (with the light brown hair)?” Doesn’t that kind of mess up the melody when you pause?
You, sir, win one Internet. You misspelled “genealogist”, but that was funny. The rest of my family is still trying to figure out why I’m laughing like a fool.
If you think that’s a bad joke, how about forcing a menopause before saying the word, “gynecologist?”
And how she chooses her comparison point as something Maxima would understand.
At first I read it as “spectacularity” :)
Underneath her shiny exterior, um… does Maxima have normal organs? Please forgive the awkwardness of this question, but my curiousity makes me ask… Are Maxima’s periods purple? What happens with Maxy babies?
I sincerely hope we never find out.
Normal but super. She was born human. In the first (well.. Not actually FIRST, but best known) Fantastic Four movie The Thing has internal organs as seen by X-ray.
What character in the genre has an homogeneous internal structure? (Like a baked potato?)
The first example that comes to mind is Groot. Clayface also lacks human organs.
Sandman, too.
Ultimate Mr. Fantastic was basically turned into an amoeba-like organism, nucleus and everything. And Ben’s organs in the movie were present, but similarly rockified.
about the blood…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1508
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1512
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1526
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1529
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1533
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1536
…
…
…
https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/10/28/coloursofblood/ Apparently she’s now part squid?
One thing I thought of reading this page, if Max’s skin is non-porus and has no grease, that must mean she doesn’t have sweat glands. So, how does she keep cool, or does she even have to keep herself at a normal body temp? We know her skin/body is very tough, but what is her thermal durability. Could she walk through a fire, or sleep in a freezer?
Well her invulnerablity seems to extend to flames as she just kind of tanked it when she blew up the Tank at the press conference. Maybe she just doesn’t feel heat so she wouldn’t necessarily “need” sweat glands.
Keeping her internal body temp normal (for her anyway) is probably one of those “required secondary powers” that supports the biology of the rest of her abilities. Everybody starts with the same basic DNA & Human Genome, but every individual human will manifest it differently as they grow, both inside the womb & after birth, during the course of their lives. It’s literally true that there is no one else just like you…With the way that the environment, diet & personal/individual experiences in life can leave impressions on in your mind & on your body/metabolism, even Identical Twins aren’t truly identical.
Max babies? Be impressed if anyone can get to first base without getting pummeled. :p Also, she bleeds blue, so safe to assume that extends to… periods.
Pff even in the ideal case that someone gets to 4th, who says their sperm can penetrate the walls of her egg cells :D
Well, Dave did say in his blog up above that Max’s force field/aura is consistent down to the cellular level. Even if she can’t have babies, she doesn’t have to remain a virgin…Or does she? Losing virginity for a female requires the tearing of her hymen…Would that even be feasible after the point where her powers manifested?
O.o
The hymen stretches, with a decent lover willing (preferably eager) to take the time to get Max properly aroused there shouldn’t be a problem.
Also: nutrients have to be able to pass through the cell wall in order for food to be digested and cells to get the energy to do their thing, so odds are Max’s powers wouldn’t prevent pregnancy.
Had a mental picture of a man attempting to penetrate said metal hymen. A literal case of cock-blocking and blue (possibly purple) balls.
Losing virginity for a female requires the tearing of her hymen
Nope. Just nope. That’s an unfortunately all-too common myth based on a lot of very antiquated notions of women’s anatomy. Best update your mental file.
Yup, you can still tear your hymen and still remain a virgin (and yes, do mean ‘no penetration’ virgin, not ‘it doesn’t count because he is a nerd’ virgin)
all that myth caused was a bunch of poor girls being stoned to death.
Which myth?
Had a friend who had her hymen break when she slipped on her bike and landed on the cross bar, or are you going to call her a liar? o_O
I think he was referring to the myth that a torn hymen is proof that a woman has lost her virginity (which, as has been pointed out, is not universally true.)
Pendrake was agreeing with you, not arguing with you. Sexual intercourse outside of marriage is punishable by death, through stoning, if you happen to live in the wrong parts of the world.
Thus believing in the myth that a ruptured hymen is proof of loss of virginity can have fatal consequences.
There are many possible causes other than accident. Horse riding is sufficient (hence why side-saddles were invented). Presumably the same would apply with oxen, mules and various other means of transport. Plus various reasonably common diseases can have the same result.
Oh okay
Blue periods… Well I never… :P
I get the impression she will go through a surreal phase too.
#SuperheroProblems
#NonTwitterUserAndHappyWithThat
A Sucubuss might be able to shift someone else. But it would require some rather intimate contact to do so. Probably nothing more than a close hug and eye contact but with a sucubuss that could equate to a death sentence depending on how strong he is and how much control over her power she does not have.
Barberian survived.
One advantage of e-mail over a regular postal mail box: Trees didn’t have to die to provide the shrapnel in there…
Nuts! This should have gone into the comment thread immediately below this one, concerning RTheM’s request to Dave…
Did somebody say nuts?
Mu hu hu hu!
Did you actually bookmark your first link, from when I posted it somewhere
<——- waaay back there?
O.o
Actually I just did a google for “squirrel” and “nuts” but got surprisingly few funny hits. But the callback seemed highly appropriate, when I spotted it. “Squirrel Overlord”, on the other paw, always yields rich rewards. His devious influence has permeated throughout the world!
It just goes to show that, regardless of how competent the Squirrel Overlords are (refer to the BBC documentaries known as “Daylight Robbery”), they still got some hangups to keep them in their place.
;)
Yo, Dave. Can you unsub me from the email notifications, please? Never should have done it, my email inbox looked like a bomb went off in it.
Done.
Thank you very much. :)
Did that once. Hit the ’email me when new comments are added to this thread’ button. It stopped being crazy by the time the next comic went up.
I get emailed every time there’s a comment on any post, fortunately gmail groups them in stack of 61… which is a really odd number. 50 or 99 would make sense, even 64 I’d understand, but 61. I’m sure there’s a youtube video explaining that somewhere.
Such secrets are known only to the secret society of 301+.
If I understand correctly, then Maxima’s skin is glass like in texture, and has a golden or at least gold-like color, yes? Well, i guess she should contact a photographer specializing in jewelry-photos (since I’m a goldsmith-in-training I have a little bit of expertise in that area :-) ) Basically, taking photos of Max is like taking photos of a highly polished gold statue…. meaning you need a dark background, good, bright light ( preferably with a warm sheen, like the old lightbulbs; avoid cold, blue-tinted light, otherwise the jewelry will look like a piece of plastic or cheese), a high contrast setting in the camera and (optionally) mounted on a tri-pod, so you can increase the lighting-period without getting a shaky picture (sorry if I don’t use the correct terms for everything, I’m learning all this in a different language)
oh, and while we’re on the subject of Max’s appearance: is her hairpurple-purple ( as in the actual color purple) or is it more a metallic sheen of purple? Or maybe more like strands of Amethyst (so kinda a transparent, crystalline-looking purple)?
Actually I’d go for the Amethyst. The Metallic sheen would make it look like she has wire for hair.
From what I’ve seen for modern jewelry photography in my profession as a jewelry cataloguer (and yes, I’d use a jewelry setup to shoot Maxima), the jewelry is placed in a cube of white nylon that the lights are on the outside of, pointing in, giving a diffused light overall, allowing for detail, and an optional brilliant point light (not diffused) from the front for highlighting. Everything else is photoshop.
I’ve seen that kinda setup used for other things, seems to work well. My main thought tho is replicating it for Maxima. I’d suggest putting the screens over the lights, but that might not work if they’re too far away or if the rooms actual lights are on too…
And since it will not work either because her highly reflective skin will be fine, but her low reflective clothes will be underexposed, then the only solution will be make her to have the same specularity all over… oh, wait, we are already at the start :)
Not a serious photographer, but I have heard that they might use “dulling spray” on shiny things.
That would have the same affect as hairspray. It’s not designed for things that move :D
I would just crack most likely, or as with the hairspray, make her look like a dirty shower door.
Even so, it might last long enough to get through the photo-shoot. If necessary, Max could occasionally wipe it off when it starts to cause a problem, then another spray-down to continue with the photography.
Of course, she’ll want to have access to a full bathroom/facility for a thorough cleanup afterwards.
Not as fun as duelling spray.
Replying to this in passive attempt to find out how to insert those spiffy quote boxes… :)
When you hit the “reply” button, underneath the box that appears are several tags that can be used here. Including <blockquote cite=””> which is the one you want. I usually modify it as below, which you can simply copy and paste, to use wherever you like. Then just copy the text you wish to quote into the spot indicated.
<blockquote>”Text_to_be_quoted_goes_here”<blockquote>
Anytime you want to test stuff like this, there is a sandbox you can try it out in at:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links_w3schools
Just paste in your entire comment, and click the “see result” button, to make sure nothing went wrong. It does not work with the spoiler text, but other than that it is mostly compatible with the code used here.
Bother, I missed out an important bit. Note the “/” in the second part. That is absolutely vital. Sorry.
<blockquote>”Text_to_be_quoted_goes_here”</blockquote>
You need to do the same with any of the tags. By example <b>Demonstration of bold</b> gives the result Demonstration of bold
Always happy to help, if I can. :)
For a duel, I prefer hand-to-hand combat:
https://picchore.com/art-2/hand-to-hand-combat/
Now that is modern art that I enjoy. And would happily pay for something like that in my garden.
And will stand the test of time better than an unmade bed or a dirty ashtray. We all know that some modern artists are members of secret conspiracy, where they present an annual award to whoever gets people to pay the most, for a pile of c*ap.
Membership of which is only permitted for artists, who can keep a straight face, when journalists ask their opinion, and indignantly repeat the phrase “Yes, of course it is art!”
Also, yay Maxima in a pink fluffy towel~!
sadly he said she is 15-16 in that picture so……guilty YAY
I mean, not to be creepy but 16 is legal everywhere except like 17 states.
My defense is going to be “If it’s meant to be seen, it shall be seen”
Actually, if you notice that her boobs aren’t as big under that towel as they are with Max’s current appearance, it’s not hard to see that she’s younger in that panel. It’s a bit more difficult in the previous panel where she’s wearing the tanktop , because she’s leaning a bit forward & the bottom line of the panel cuts off a little too high to get a good comparative view.
So makeup and Maxima don’t mix???
They are like two non-mixy things which don’t mix.
“Specularity”. I thought it was called “reflectance”, but apparently not? Man, English technical terminology still sounds crazy to me even after years of reading it.
I’m guessing that is exactly the problem reflectance and other technical terms might make her sound even more removed from being a normal human (you know psychologically it might be hard) and specularity makes it just sound like she owns it. You know in the kind of yea this is me so deal with it way.
people who speak english as a first language have problems with technical terminology
Even those of us who downloaded the entire English dictionary into their head have trouble with it. Might not be able to say all the words, but at least there’s stuff I can do Humans cant… :P
Specularity deals with the amount of light reflected, reflectivity deals with what’s being reflective. Usually something reflective has a high specularity, but not always the other way around. They’re dealt with as separate issues when you’re talking about computer graphics, because mathematically they’re different, but also in a video game, something that reflects its surrounding can put a heavy toll on your graphics card.
Back in the day when I was doing 3D stuff we have nothing near the processing power to compute an actual mirror, not even in still images. The usual trick was to take a snapshot with a camera placed on the mirror object, and apply it as a surface pattern on the mirror object. It was kinda a measure of skill to take the snapshot in the right angle and not just straight ahead :)
To expound on Dave’s comment- Specularity can be thought of as the ‘highlights’ on stuff. Like the little ‘shine’ spot you put on drawn apples. Reflection is more detailed, dealing with how much the light going into the object is mixed up when reflecting back off it. Because light actually reflects off everything.
Or, Specularity is simply the glow or shine coming off of an object, Reflectance is being able to see a reflection in the object
English is not my first language either, but the technical definitions are the same as in Spanish, and the informal use seems to be as well, so if it helps…
“Specularity” tells about how much the spacial relationship between rays of light is conserved after being reflected (*), while “reflectance” tells about the after and before relative intensities.
A perfect white wall would have high reflectance because most of the light is reflected (in every wavelength), but low specularity because the rays are reflected in diverse ways “messing the image”.
A coloured mirror (like Maxima’s skin) would have high specularity (the rays are reflected coherently) but low reflectance since most wavelengths other than the particular colour (yellow in this case) are absorbed. A one-way mirror (semi-transparent) is the same except all lightwaves are reflected but only partially each.
* for instance if two rays that hit parallels are reflected also parallels.
Is she that… shiny… everywhere?
Asking the important questions I see ;)
I’m sure that question is occurring to a number of people. :)
Since we’re going there anyway: does her forcefield provide her with natural “protection”?
She could probably tell Bender to bite her shiny, metal @$$…
Knowing him, he would oblige her :P
Of the people we know in Archon so far, I’d guess that only Dabbler & Achilles would still be alive by the time Bender is built, without involving some kind of time-travel incident.
Heh, thought you were going to say that only Dabbler & Achilles would still be alive “after taking her up on the offer” :D
she’d use Universe 1’s Bender quote: “Bite my glorious golden ass!”
And the purple, is it prolific? How is landscaping achieved, if at all? What about a hair cut? Nail trim?
I’m wondering what happens if she donates blood to someone…
Anybody we know would probably die due to incompatible blood. The single exception being Vance. Spiders have blue blood, so at least the basic chemistry will be similar for them. But even then they would need to have matching blood types.
This would be more likely if it they had a family connection. Note Maxima’s pointy ears, which is a characteristic of drow. Perhaps Maxima is not super-human, but is super-drow, and is actually Vance’s hive mother.
MAXIMA THE SPIDER QUEEN
weird question but i gotta ask how does she shave? or does she not need to?
Fine grain sandpaper?
wouldn’t be much of an invulnerability if she could just be sanded down. :D
Primary and secondary invulnerability. Primary is the forcefield that protects her clothes – secondary would be her golden skin – and only possibly her hair.
She may not even HAVE very much hair except eyebrows and on her head. Some people don’t.
Angle grinder, perhaps? Kind of how the movie Hellboy trims his horns.
if she completely drains her armor pool maybe?
So who volunteers to do the bikini waxing? Anybody? Anybody at all? No…?
Well, time to take one for the team… :P
*acts like Stuart from the “Minions” movie
ME! Pick me!! MEMEMEME!!! Ooooo, pick meeeee!!!!
“OO! OO!OO!OO!” Like Horshack in “Welcome Back, Kotter”
:D
Hancock did it with his nails (just dragging them over his shin).
Supes did it with a mirror and his eye-beams.
Now I’m thinking of a pic I saw once of She-Hulk, wearing a bath-towel, legs flecked with shaving cream, surrounded by mangled razors…
Goes out to the firing range, makes sure she’s alone, then opens fire on then unwanted hair…
“…how does she shave?”
I’d guess she would have to pull as much power out of her invulnerability as she can, then use bolt cutters.
Wait, that’s not lipstick? Her lips are naturally that red? Okay I guess. Anyhow, the best way to photograph something like that would be to use only diffused light, from the sides rather than behind the camera. Also, be very careful of what other things are around off-camera, or you might get unusual reflections going on.
Heatwave mentioned earlier that Maxima does not wear lipstick. This was right before the Punk Busting.
The Maxima Wedgie (more lethal than an Atomic Wedgie)
A photographer would also probably use a polarized lens
https://www.digital-photo-secrets.com/tip/2279/why-does-my-photo-have-so-much-glare/
Would it be possible to take a photo with sound? like a sonar-camera?
how do you intent to get a color on that?
By using the fine old photographic tradition of tinting them by hand.
Or you could do what an electron microscope does; take an image from two (or more) slightly-different angles, with each image displayed through different colored filters.
Yes, but the image colours and contrast would indicate how reflective (or absorbent) the image was to sound rather than light wavelength. Also some solid materials will appear either translucent or invisible to certain sound wavelengths further removing the image from what you can see. I doubt that there is a large “visual sonar fetish” community out there (rule 34 or not!).
Probably wouldn’t help for Maxima anyway, I’m guessing she’s just as shiny to sonar as she is to visible light (It’s that personal force field of hers, very hard objects are almost always very sound reflective).
Makeup is hard, even if you have “normal” skin.
Yeah, but at least everyone else has reams of “how to” videos and expert advice they can work with. Max is kind of on her own there.
I just had a mental tangent of Max secretly having her own YouTube beauty tip vlog.
This comment is why we need a upvote button.
It’s not even her skin. Even if she found something that sticks to metal properly, her powers actively wear down any foreign objects on her skin.
Powder-coating? Shouldn’t be too hard for her to get a static charge, and I’m certain she’d be able to stand in a couple-hundred-degrees oven for a few minutes. With the right coat, it’s decently flexible, and if it’s all the way around, it’ll have okay cohesion, even if just from the suction o an airproof surface on a smooth surface.
Actually, she simply needs to go barefoot and stand on a patch of ground. Concrete won’t work; she would need to be physically grounded… or earthed, as the British call it. Then they could use a tribo gun. The powder picks up a positive charge while rubbing along the wall of a Teflon tube inside the barrel of the gun. These charged powder particles then adhere to the grounded substrate.
The question, though, is “does Maxima’s force field prevent her from being properly grounded”? If it does, then the powder coating wouldn’t stick.
I thought Max said before that Dabbler could only disguise herself? Maybe that was an “as far as Max knows” thing?
Also, I think you did a good job on young Maxima. I like the blurred eyes in that middle panel, it reminds me of how my sister does her eyes (though she can get it to work).
Wouldn’t surprise for Dabbler to hold back on a power of hers or two. Especially if it’s something she’s not really confident about herself.
The frustrated look in young maxima’s eyes, sure being super is nice and all, but if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself and just be ‘normal’ for a bit, then it must definitely be beyond frustrating for her.
The standard conundrum for many teenagers – they want to be unique AND part of the crowd at the same time.
Strange, I never wanted to be either :/
Many, not all.
It’s not as easy as Superman does by putting on a suit & glasses, after all…
Yea glasses or no glasses, somebody would get suspicious.
Ambush Bug easily saw through Clark Kent’s disguise…but then again, AB is as fruity as a nutcake.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/AmbushBug — In the entry “Medium Awareness.”
**Warning—Avoid getting sucked into TVTropes too far or you risk wasting the rest of your life.
See, see! The Squirrel Overlord’s influence extends even to other universes, in one subtle way or another!
I also think we can trust your contribution to keeping a check against the Squirrel Overlords too:
https://acidsquirrel.com/post/78941
Ooops. Sorry, wrong link. It should be
https://acidsquirrel.com/post/78967
Hey, what can I say? Peggy is winning me over!
Yorp: I think we can do better than a still picture Σ¬⊃
God that last statement makes her sound like she’s paraphrasing Sydney.
uh, Mission Impossible latex mask? That would hold makeup, right?
Possibly, but I suspect it would also wear out pretty quick.
So? It’s not designed to be permanent, just for planned photo shoots, and the papanasties deserve to have their eyes burnt out by the Lens Flare of Death
Watch the Mythbusters Mission Impossible Special, or just Google Mythbusters Latex Masks’..
Despite what one might see in movies or on TV, those things can’t be just churned out like doughnuts or Oreos. To produce a mask that is at least ADEQUATELY life-like takes specialized equipment and a lot of work – including a substantial amount of crafting by hand.
Again, ‘just for planned photo shoots’, not so she can go to the corner store without getting mobbed
…… Which one would need a GOOD-QUALITY latex mask for. Very probably more than one – because they are being worn by a person with super-strength in a variety of poses under (presumably) hot lights. Expect to go through a few, I’d say.
Discussed in the comment: It works for a short period, but it’s hard to keep on.
As for your thought on just using it for this photoshoot – sure, if you wanted to spend the time, effort, and money it could work. But it also completely defeats the point: They wouldn’t be taking a picture of Maxima anymore. If they wanted to do that, they might as well just create the image from scratch on the computer. It’d only be marginally less work, but it wouldn’t cost their top asset’s time and the results would be more guaranteed.
I was happy until the mention of the prosthetic face, then I started thinking of Element Girl, which made me sad and gave me the urge to type this and spread the misery.
Well, the Thing may have the worse deal, but super-tough skin can have its price. Achilles might be relatively weak offensively, but at least he gets all the defensive perks, whilst only having to put up with his ’70s’ haircut.
Hmm, not sold on the 15/16 deal there. Maybe if she didn’t have such hard lines on her face, it’d be more convincing? Ah well, it’s not that important! I do want to give props for giving the photographer a distinctive, not-100-percent-ideal appearance. SO many artists have trouble not giving everyone the same face, so I’m glad to see you making the effort!
How did the TV news crews manage Maxima’s glare-effect (the specularity, that is, not the facial expression)?
Mixed bag. We’ve seen Sydney suffer from it just hanging out with her. News crews aren’t lighting her, just using natural light. Outdoors. And if they get some shine, it’s not constant. Moving vs single still image.
You calling the Golden Elf of Destruction a bag!!! o_O
Where do you want messages of condolence on your passing from this mortal coil be sent?
If Max’s skin is that impermeable, does she even have sweat glands? If not, how does she regulate her body temperature? Or is this one of those mundane things that members of the super community don’t have to worry about?
One suggestion for the ‘personal’ photo shoot. Put Max in the same setting and pose as Bond’s painted girlfriend in the movie Goldfinger.
Overheating isn’t much of an issue if you’re functionally invulnerable. Max’s skin is probably near-superconductive regarding heat anyway so any excess/lack of heat probably gets shunted off/fueled by her powers.
Max might have had to work on that at first though, her operating in Iraq in summer and accidentally getting hot enough for her fatigues to spontaneously combust…
…and now I’m picturing a half-naked Maxima, clad only in smoldering tatters of camoflage…
Another invotive idea DaveB :D
Just as a reply to the author commentary on drawing a younger version of a character, in this case Maxima. Looking closely it is very hard to tell given the angles and expressions she has. Her scowl does give the impression of wrinkling she has later in life, particularly the laugh lines right at the edge of the mouth which wouldn’t otherwise be there. Using Sydney as an example, because with Dabbler it could just be a quirk of alien biology, but given that characters with Manga style features are present making the eyes themselves slightly bigger might help. Normally just making the iris bigger would work, which I think was done, but the angles make it hard to see because she is squinting in one and widening her eye in the other. Maybe a softer physique would help provide emphasis on youth. Unless she has a Toby Mcquire Spiderman origin with over night abs.
Wait a second. You got half of SG-1 there! Where’s the other half!?
There is a surprisingly simple solution here. Paint! There are paints formulated to work on glass – and they are safe to work with. (Pain to clean off human skin tho) As a plus, all the glass paint usually takes days to dry and so would be easy(ish) to clean off Maxima after a photo shoot. The smudging problem would still apply, but far less then grease paint.
And try film for a High Speed Camera. They get good exposures in a fraction of the time.
How is covering up Maxi’s golden shine going to help? No-one will believe it is the real Maxi
Its exactly the same thing makeup does. Paint and makeup are both translucent, so you are seeing her “real” face there. Just like makeup – you’d pick colors that match the original skin tone. Just… more even and less shiny. And its not like Maxima is ever gonna be naked in those pictures. Her clothes will cover far more then any makeup would, but you are still seeing “her”.
The translucency thing is why it takes several coats of paint to properly cover a wall.
Tiny recommendation for the hosting change. Update your DNS time to live (ttl) and set it for 10 minutes. Then when you change where your DNS a/www records are pointing it will only take up to ten minutes for the new info to propagate. Meaning less down time.
And please, if you have to switch to Disquis, turn on the ‘guest posting’ option, please?
Oh by all the gods and goddess’ past and present, no Disquis! PLEASE!!!
I don’t think I’ll change the comment system. There may be ones with better options or different pros and cons, but unless I’m 100% sure I could retain all the comments made so far, I wouldn’t consider it.
It’s just that some who have switched either didn’t know to turn on the ‘guest post’ or for reasons deliberately had it turned off (hasn’t stopped me from continuing to follow and enjoy the webic, just has made me into a ‘lurker’)
+1
At least Maxi is willing to ‘play along’ :D
Suddenly, I’m reminded of the artist who made metal face prosthetics for WWI veterans with facial scars and damage. She worked from pre-war pictures and made them as close as possible to their original features. I don’t think that’s going to work for Maxima, though.
I bet a prosthetic face on Maxima would look like a T-600.
Oh dear gods I love the “GAH” expression Maxima has in the fourth panel. It’s subtle and glorious. I’m really impressed with that one in particular, for some reason.