Runaway to the Stars: Page 123 and 124

FULL SIZE IMAGE

Much to think about.

Talita is preforming a rolling hexapodal gallop here, where only one foot is contact with the ground at a time. It is the fastest gait a centaur can achieve, and if they're workout freaks like Talita, they can reach highway speeds for a minute or two. This kind of sprint is extremely strenuous and rest and recovery is required before pulling it off again.

Someday, god willing, I will have the time to finish animations again, but here's a rough concept of what the gallop looks like in motion and the foot contact sequence (though this depicts the sequence starting with the left forefoot, and the comic depicts it starting with the right... and takes some additional liberties with posing for dynamism.... whatever)

An animation of Talita performing a hexapodal gallop. Her legs contact the ground in a sequence where only one foot is on the ground at a time, and at three points none of her feet touch the ground.

Transcript

The speed of the treadmill surpasses typ human limits, and Talita transitions to a hexapodal gallop, only one foot contacting the ground at a time. She breathes heavily, in through the nostrils on her face and out through the nostrils on her lower torso.

SFX: HUFF HUFF HUFF HUFF

50 km/hr

70 km/hr

The sprint rolls down her body, and her muscles work in time with her breathing like the pistons in an engine. Her hooves dig into the surface of the treadmill, the steely elastic tendons of her limbs taking on the weight of her entire body with each stride, wrists practically bending to touch the ground.

SFX: HUFF HUFF HUFF HUFF

90 km/hr

120 km/hr

The yard is gone. Talita is alone in her mind while her body works like a machine taken to its physical limit. Memories of the centaur script from the outside of the Runaway and its cluttered interior flash past, simultaneously meaning nothing and too much.

The sprint program begins to wind down.

100 km/hr

80 km/hr

40 km/hr

0 km/hr

She comes back to standstill, all six limbs touching the ground. Then she leans heavily on the tablet stand, panting with her forehead against her arms. The yard begins to fade back into existence. Talita puts her glasses back on and picks up her tablet to make a call.

Talita: Hey, Bip?

New Year, New News

So sadly I missed the holidays but I’m pleased to announce that there’s two new merch items in my online store, baby Talita keychains and Bip pins! Two very different flavors of troublemaker, now both wearable.

Additionally, while I was busy grinding out chapter 6 for Patreon I sold out of, like, most of the books in my shop? So because I can’t really afford to eat all of those reprinting costs at the same time, I’m doing reprint preorders. Order any of these books right now and they will be shipped to you in February 2025:

Also coming up in the new year, conventions. Unfortunately I can’t guarantee I’ll be at any of these other than Further Confusion because they’ll have to accept my dealership applications first, but I’m currently hoping to be at:

I’m also currently streaming art work on my Twitch channel every Tuesday and Friday in the PST afternoon. My goal for streaming has always been to force myself to focus on the task at hand for several hours and not to gain as many subscribers as possible, so while I have tried and failed to keep a consistent schedule I remain chronically unpunctual. Usually, I start between 2pm to 6pm and stream for around 6 to 8 hours. I enjoy having company while I work. 🙂

I think that’s all for now. Wish me luck in staying on track this year and finishing Runaway to the Stars book 1 by February 2026. I think I can, I think I can…

Minor Store Update and 3D Talita

Some miniprints and assorted stickers are now available in the shop. I am sold out of the Shyam and Talita character sticker, sadly, but lots of new ones are available as one-offs.

I have also gotten down to last handful of my Talita pins, some of which have some enamel fill errors and resin dents that prevent me from selling them at full price. If you’re looking for a discount and don’t mind some superficial defects, check out the B and C-grade pins. They’re charmingly flawed, just like the lady herself.

In other news, as birthday present for myself this year I commissioned a low-poly Talita 3d model from incredibly talented artist Lazer-T (Tumblr, Twitter, Bluesky), who really went above and beyond with rigging her silly over-complicated design. Look at these turnarounds he did, they’re great:

There is also a Barbie doll nude version of her, since I wanted one for generic posing reference (and also, she looks cool with the stripes out).

This model has among other things: 8 total eyelids, adjustable pupil sizes, an antler slider with velvet stages, nostrils that open and close, and mane and face feathers that can puff out. Here’s an example of expressive animation, also done by Lazer-T!

[Silent animation of Talita looking away, then jolting in shock, blushing in embarrassment, and waving bashfully at the viewer.]

I’m not very experienced with manipulating armature in Blender myself (I’ve barely got a handle on hardscape modelling) but I’ve been having fun moving the model around and learning how to pose different parts and use shape keys. Below: me messing around with the file.

Ok, that’s all. I hope the turnaround gifs don’t make my homepage run like ass, if they do I’ll replace them with the still renders.

Shiny New Webcomic Site

Hello everyone. If you got here from social media, you probably know about this comic already. I’ve been posting it to Patreon for quite a while, but it has always been my dream to contribute to the ecosystem of free-to-read webcomics that I spent the majority of my childhood voraciously reading while hunched over the computer past my bedtime. I had initially started working on the Official Book after signing it to publisher, though, and originally was only allowed to post a third of it online. But a couple years into working on it, I got permission to fling it out onto the internet in its entirety. So voila! Runaway to the Stars: Book 1, out in public, updating 3 times a week!

If you hadn’t heard about this comic, welcome! Runaway to the Stars is a worldbuilding project that I’ve been working on for over a decade. It started as an excuse to design some aliens and throw all my science fiction thoughts in the same vat, and eventually a book started to grow out of it like a fungus. If this comic intrigues you, there’s tons of additional artwork, writing, and short comics that can be found on my perpetual work-in-progress Neocities website and my ancient tumblr blog. There is quite a rabbit hole to go down, if you don’t mind some bespoke coding jank.

I’ve decided to not run sponsored banner ads because in recent years, internet advertising has become so aggressive and hostile to adblockers that frankly I’d rather not contribute. The random banner in the sidebar is a selection of projects I like and stuff I want to promote. If you hate looking at it, download uBlock origin and use the element zapper on it. It is your right.

That being said, to be pragmatic, the only reason the comic gets made as fast as it does is because I currently make enough income through my Patreon and store to not need a second job. If you like what you see and you’ve got money burning a hole in your pocket, consider tossing me a buck. Patreon supporters get the perk of reading the pages before they go public. As of posting there is a massive backlog of over one hundred twenty finished pages uploaded there, so if you want some instant gratification it’s a great time for it.

But regardless of anything, thank you so much for reading! I’m excited to share this comic with you, and I hope you’ll stick around for the ride. See you on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays!