Dr. Quack: Reducks Episode 9 Thumbnail.
This is honestly one of my favourite art pieces yet, I feel like there's a lot to love about a picture that has literal, and metaphorical layers such as this! It's also the first thumbnail of Dr. Quack: Reducks to be focused more on Dr. Quack instead of Amnesia, although she still makes a small appearance as a plushie, I just couldn't leave her out.
Episode 9 is when Season 2 of Dr. Quack begins, this was when I decided to steer the comic into a more story driven direction, instead of just comedic gags about how Amnesia is a silly little slime girl and Dr. Quack is being a funny duck scientist, I wanted that as well as a plot centred around their struggle to keep Amnesia a secret from the government because for one thing, they'd be incredibly shocked that a creature (don't tell Amnesia I called her that) exists, as well as the fact that Dr. Quack isn't actually a real Doctor who doesn't pay his taxes and isn't legally allowed to be doing anything he's doing. This episode focuses on that aspect of Dr. Quack, he has no money, no income and doesn't plan on paying his debts any time soon, he's shown literally burning a pile of bills and tax forms that arrive as letters to his house.
The character I wanted Dr. Quack to be is very simple yet complex at the same time, on the surface he's a man who doesn't seem to care about things he finds frivolous, but also has such a deep and emotional connection to Amnesia that he outright refuses to accept the situation he's in, when Amnesia brings up the fact he could be arrested, he snaps back basically saying that will never happen, he will never allow himself to be detained by the police or government because somebody needs to be there for Amnesia. As more is learned about Dr. Quacks past, more of his actions and morals make sense, at least to me, they do, but that's for way later in the story, Season 2 just gets the stories ball rolling.
Anyway, I could talk about the deeper meaning behind a simple joke about a duck man burning bills he'll never pay more, but I really want to talk about the picture itself. Like I said, this one is a lot more intricate than what I usually do, it's also one of the few pieces where I edited it in Photopea, and it actually didn't look significantly worse! Sometimes I have to turn to Photopea to add things like gradient overlays, lens flare, Gaussian blur, among other things because MS Paint just isn't built for it. I know I sort of crippled myself by dedicating almost 4 years to just one single art program that lacks about 80% of the features most programs nowadays do, but in all honestly I don't regret it at all, drawing in MS Paint has given me the opportunity to understand it on an extremely fundamental level, and my work wouldn't be the same if it wasn't in the goofy free app.
In this picture, Dr. Quack is laying on a couch in front of a dimly lit television, an acute eye might have been able to tell that this picture is inspired by the cover art for Vylet Pony's Love Letters album. Vylet Pony is an artist I used to listen to a lot back in the day, and I still try to keep up with their releases today, the music has become an essential part of the brony community. While I'm not nearly as devoted of a fan to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as I used to be, I still love and adore the things the community has created related to the show, I'd even go as far as to say the fan works are better than the show itself! I listened to Love Letters a couple of times while drawing this picture, and it's honestly become one of my favourite Vylet Pony release to date, when the night is dark and starry, the lo-fi aesthetic music just hits hard and, at times, right in the feels.
This is one of the very few times I've drawn Dr. Quack without his glasses, the glasses are just integral to Dr. Quack, they never have a reason to leave his face, and so they never do in the comic. The only time in the comic Dr. Quack ever takes his glasses off is in the episode Finale Part 3, when he sheds a tear at Feign and Amnesia hugging each other as Amnesia prepares to undergo experimental, life-saving surgery, saying he really does have a nice family. Also in the picture is the Fake P.H.D sitting on the edge of the coffee table, this is a bit of a recurring item that appears from time to time in the comic, its conception was in Episode 3 of the series, Science Degree, where Amnesia makes Dr. Quack realize not having a P.H.D is slightly concerning because he's essentially been lying to the government for years. Dr. Quack asks Amnesia to draw him a P.H.D, of course the fake diploma is a mess and wouldn't pass on any official documents, but Dr. Quack knows that Amnesia had a lot of fun drawing it and put a lot of effort and passion into giving the Doctor the best gift she could have given him, despite her limited knowledge and abilities, so the Doctor keeps the totally real P.H.D as a memento.
In all honestly, I don't have much more to say, I just wanted to cross the 5000 character mark for this episode of Archives, please enjoy a picture about love letters, for a comic about not-so love letters.
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