Plural of Anecdotes

Quick notes for those who like them, though it will all come out in the comic itself eventually:

The fuzzy longtails don't have a species name for themselves; but everyone else calls them Osea. No one pronounces it the same way, but my spellcheck don't care, and it's shorter than writing out "fuzzy things" every time I mention them. So Osea it is after this. They're trooping scavengers, and live in groups of one or more family. Families consist of one sexually mature couple and their offspring. Sexual maturity is another topic for another day, but it's not age based.

Osea are, to oversimplify a bit,mildly empathic, with other sentient beings as well as each other. It's not something that most of them notice most of the time, in the way that understanding symbols isn't something that most humans think about most of the time, even though you're doing it right now. It's just a thing they do, and it mostly doesn't amount to more than a general awareness that other troop members are about and more or less ok. It keeps groups calm and generally affectionate towards each other. But when somebody's really worked up, it can override their individual emotional states to some degree. Panic is pretty contagious.

Kehl aren't leaders,that falls to the breeding pair, especially the mother. They're sort of a cross between counselors and mind cops. They're sensitive enough to pick up more subtle and specific impressions, sometimes at a good distance. Anyone born with that level of sensitivity has to have Kehl training, or they pretty much lose their personal selves in the overload. Those who take to it learn to separate their personal feelings from everyone else's, usually by keeping their own emotions very very stable. They're the ones who generally deal with non-Osea in less isolated tribes, and with disturbed members of the group.

Those who are born hypersensitive, but can't learn that self control fast enough... are a different, and not happy, story.

Mehrn is young, and has pretty good self control, but she hasn't got a handle on the practical end of her duties yet. Taking a crazy guy back to the group's main lair is not smart. Nehn is trying to be nice about this.

Alternate versions of characters we've drawn before on the challenge, over here:
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/carapace/practice/series.php

I am late for the art challenge, so I do penance by doing three people in alternate interpretations, instead of one. The characters and their deals, in order:

Hosanna Cutting-Green:
Previously from Personal Space and Character Sheet challenge. She'll probably show up in a lot of art challenges until the year comes that I start drawing her comic, at which point the Osea will take over.You will notice she is always smiling, because she is always smiling. A bit mad, when she's not quite made.
Her society is sexist, though not necessarily either misogynist or misandrist. But absolutely combative, and men do the fighting. She's normally a doctor. Men do nurse work, but they don't doctor much. They're not considered calm enough. I had thought she might be a bit upset about the swap, but apparently her general mania is adequate to the challenge.

Kes/Kesamari Dabain

Previously from the Character Design challenge, and the currently defunct Staff comic. It's coming back, I swear, once I have a buffer on the ongoing. So probably summer.
Kes isn't human, and her species tends towards a gender imbalance. A really quite pronounced gender imbalance. Different cultures have different modes of dealing with it. Apparently hers favors putting healthy breeding age males in a kind of rent-to-own harem house.
This was not something I knew before I drew this picture. More than anyone else I draw, Kes has her own opinions and is the only conduit for info on her society. I do not blame her for being ticked off.

Mehrn and Chren
No challenge pictures yet, but from my ongoing Skyfall comic. Also, Mehrn had a walk on in Otter Soldiers, which everyone should read. It's linked on th sidebar, people, read it.
Their species lives in sort of perpetual preadolescence until a complicated set of factors kick starts them to sexual maturity, a short but busy life of breeding and child rearing, and an early death. Before then, they've got less gender dimorphism than nine year old humans, since even the males lack external genitalia and the hormones are totally different. Not being breeders, they are not concerned about this at all. But they are fun to draw.