False Knees

I was just playing on ‘finished is better than perfect’. I know it doesn’t make sense, but often these expressions don’t make sense in practice. On one day, this saying might help me, and on the next it’s the opposite that I need to hear.

A crow kicks a small ball of snow. They then start rolling it into a larger ball while saying "trust the process...". They kick more snow into a pile and stick a branch in repeating "trust the process" to itself. They place small stones. They say "Phew!" and stand back to look at its creation, which we see now is a mess of a project that looks somewhat like a melted bird. The final panel the crow says "haha it's terrible".

Finished is better than terrible #oldknees

We see two house sparrows drinking out of a puddle. The male says to the female: "Good puddle!" to which she replies "I love you but you have low standards". Pigeons arrive in the background, the female says "Ope! Here comes the herd" There is a long horizontal frame of the two sparrows in the midst of a bunch of pigeons cooing around them. The male then says "gentle giants" the female agrees "mhm" and then says "coo" and the male responds "haha. coo!"

Coo coo

"Do you remember what you were like when you were younger?" asks one crow to another as they are landing on wet snow. "Bitey" replies the second crow. "Right... but do you remember what it was like to BE you?" "What did you think about? Have you changed fundamentally? How can you really know?" The first crow is pondering. The background is a pattern of blue circles. "I guess I don't bite as much as I used to" answers the second crow. "You bite enough" says the first.

Bitey

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The book will have some additions and will be edited quite a bit. I will also look into other fonts to make the text easier to read.

Bagglyn and Grell are being triumphantly thrown into the air, while the sun sets behind them.

"Who are those two heroes?" the Queen asked the red knight. "Two of the best historians I've ever met, your Highness," he replied. "Excellent! I shall have them weave a tapestrye of this very event!" "A better gift than one's own castle set to flame, I should hope!" jested the red knight. The Queen smiled. And all was good in the warbler's realm once again...

Kneesvember 2025 Day 26

As Grell coaxed the beast forward, it saw the grub and started to charge. Bagglyn ripped the bolt from her cap, stuck the grub on, and threw it to the blue knight. "Give this worm some wings!" she shouted. Just as the beast descended on him, the blue knight launched the baited bolt as far from the castle as he could. The horrible beast followed it and was never seen again!

The blue knight fires his crossbow, which shoots the wormed bolt so hard that it blows the hats off of Bagglyn and the red knight and it knocks the yellow knight right over. Grell safely dismounts from the beast as it speeds greedily toward the bolt.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 25

"Your colleague is crazed!" the red knight shouted to Bagglyn. "This daemon is too powerful for us! Its destructive desires are insatiable!" "Insatiable... that's it!" cried Bagglyn, flying to a nearby branch of the great oak. She sung a sweet melody and soon a fat grub wiggled out from the wood. "Grell!" she yelled, "Over here! Get it over here!"

The great beast is staring at Bagglyn, who is holding a wriggling worm in her beak. Grell is still on the beast's back. An inferno burns on in the background.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 24

"Throw me my sword!” urged the yellow knight, emerging heroically through the smoke. She cut the bunting above, entangling the beast. Meanwhile, the red knight lobbed a fire stick directly into its horrid beak! But this only served to enrage the beast further. “This is a stable boy’s time to shine,” Grell thought to himself. He jumped on the beast’s back!

A violent blaze in the backdrop to this haunting scene! The white beast has purple bunting ensnaring it and smoke coming out of its beak. Grell rides its back and is using the bunting as reins. The red and blue knights are in the foreground, looking frantic.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 23

The gull is attacking the castle! Turrets are on fire. The knight group have arrived. The Queen is staring at the gull in shock from a nearby window. Her guard are using long weapons to keep the gull back.

The heroes returned to the warbler realm to witness a scene of chaos. The slithering servant of evil was wreaking havoc at Oakcliffe Castle!

Kneesvember 2025 Day 22

But just as the red knight hurled his fire stick at the Dragon, a familiar bolt pierced it and deviated its course. "Cease the queste at once!" cried the blue knight. "We have new orders! The Queendom is under attack!"

There is an explosion in the top left corner, and in the top right corner is the Dragon (cormorant) flying away. The red knight is looking surprised, the blue knight has returned! Bagglyn and Grell are also there.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 21

The great beast (a double-crested cormorant), wings out-stretched, is a small distance from the warblers. It is purple and blue with a green eye and white crests emerging from just over its eyes. There is an orange, pink, purple, and blue explosion of colour coming out from the centre of the drawing. The warblers are behind a bush and are very small in comparison.

The giant beast stretched out before them–magnificent, horrible, and reeking of fish. Without hesitation, the red knight jumped out and faced it. "For the Queen!" he boomed.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 20

Our three warblers are hiding in a bush and are in monochrome blue-purple, with shadows covering most of the faces. They peer out expectantly.

Suddenly, a guttural rumble erupted from overhead, like the sound of a stick dragged over a rib cage. The brave warblers ducked under a shrub and watched in fear as a winged terror landed no more than four hops away. "A veritable Dragon," whispered the red knight, his eyes shining in anticipation of the Queen's praise.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 19

We see Bagglyn and Grell following the red knight along the water's edge with greenery in the background. Bagglyn still has the arrow through her cap, and has now attached the yellow knight's sword to a rope around her belt and it is being dragged behind her. She is also now sporting the blue knight's discarded eye patch.

The solemn trio continued their queste upstream. "What cowardice on display from the Queen's supposed finest!" said the red knight. "How is it that two historians are braver than knighted warriors?" "This beats manual labour," said Grell. "–ah what my colleague means is that the strenuous transcribing of historical manuscripts is not for the faint of heart," Bagglyn was quick to add. "Quite," said the red knight, narrowing his eyes.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 18

Bagglyn and Grell are somewhat blurry in the foreground, looking at each other. The red knight is further on sort of soapboxing on his own.

"Blossoming bladderwort!" exclaimed Grell. "Dragons are dangerous!" "Pff! That was no Dragon, but a simple slithering, servant of evil," mumbled the red knight. "Forget that turquoise turncoat and his cursed bow. Onward! Our objective is near." But the red knight was clearly in low spirits. Bagglyn and Grell exchanged a look in silence.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 17

The blue knight and his steed, the dragonfly, are flying in front of a blurred green, blue, and yellow background. The gull is close behind.

"What a nightmare!" screamed the blue knight. "What a monster! What a ghoul! Gaze upon its unyielding plumage! We haven't a hope to defeat this beast! Come, Sapphire!" Throwing his eyepatch to the ground and renouncing his allegiance to the Queen, the blue knight and his steed disappeared into the wood. And the creature pursued them!

Kneesvember 2025 Day 16

The four warblers are facing against a large gull. The blue knight is shooting bolts at the gulls head to no effect. The frame surrounding the image has various health bars which makes the scene appear as if out of a video game. Or that's what I was going for, anyway.

Frantically, the blue knight shot bolt upon bolt at the interloper. "Aim at its weak spots!" urged the red knight. Alas, the horrible creature had none.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 15

Thanks so much!

20% off all books in the False Knees store! store.falseknees.com

The image is drawn duochromatically, with red and green. There is a gull taking up the majority of the frame and it is eating the snail. A red spiral is drawn emanating from the snail.

Before the blue knight could yell "Dragon!", the creature descended from the sky and in one flick of its beak, devoured the snail whole. "Mine steed!" cried the red knight. "Mine sweet, slimy steed!"

Kneesvember 2025 Day 14

This is better than anything I have ever, or will ever, create

We see our four heroes standing on a rock. The red knight sees his steed, the snail a little ways off. Bagglyn is still dragging the yellow knight's sword. The blue knight sees something in the reflection of the water, which is a spooky silhouette in front of the sun.

"Ah, we've caught up with my faithful steed," remarked the red knight. "It looks like it has found something... perhaps the scent of a Dragon!" A reflection in the water caught the eye of the blue knight.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 13

The four warblers are walking along the water's edge on large rocks. There is a tree with yellow leaves centred in the image.

On went the newfangled quartet, with the red knight leading the way along the water's edge. "It'd be speedier if we were to fly," suggested Bagglyn. The blue knight rolled his eye. "Where is thine sense of adventure?" he said, before doing a backflip from one rock to another. "So cool..." breathed Bagglyn in awe. "I quite enjoy strolling upon the earth," panted Grell, "as if we were a fellowship of adorable little bugs!"

Kneesvember 2025 Day 12

Thanks so much!

The red knight is in the foreground, speaking to a distracted group. Grell is wistfully watched the snipe wading away. The blue knight is releasing the yellow knight's steed, the great bumblebee. The blue knight's dragonfly steed is hovering overhead. And finally, Bagglyn has her cap back–with arrow still lodged through it–and is tentatively picking up the yellow knight's discarded sword.

"Hah! That was no Dragon, but a mere malevolent minion of darkness!" scoffed the red knight. "Forget that yellow-bellied knight and her leaden greaves. Onward! I have a strong notion we shall find what we seek." So onward they went–toward certain disaster!

Kneesvember 2025 Day 11

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"What a horror!" cried the yellow knight, "What a brute! What an ogre! Gaze upon its great lance! We haven't a hope to defeat this beast!" Unbuckling her sword's sheath and renouncing her knighthood, the yellow brid vanished into the wood. "I think it looks quite kindly for a Dragon" said Grell.

We see a snipe wading near the shore. Grell and the blue knight look on.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 10

"So," began the red knight, "when capturing my likeness in tapestrye, ordinary red thread simply wouldn't do my plume justice–" but was interrupted by the yellow knight frantically pushing him from behind. "Shhh! Hide!" she hissed, "Dragon!"

A dreary scene in monochromatic pencil. The warbler crew are moving behind a rock in the foreground to stay out of sight of a scary beast at the water's edge.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 9
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Not a silly question! I am using pencil crayons. This one is different from the rest in that I was time-forced to use a digital paint bucket to colour the background green. To this point I’ve only been using traditional tools like pencils, ink, and some watercolour.

Bagglyn is shown inventing a story with yellow and red stars in a green speech bubble. Grell is next to her looking nervous. Along the bottom of the panel, we have the blue, red, and yellow knights, all in a row. The red knight is laughing and the plumes of his helmet are touching the yellow knight's head. The snail is also there!

"Errr... we are the Queen's historians, sent to record your heroic feats to relay to Her Highness" fabricated Bagglyn. "Your peasant garb is an uncanny disguise" laughed the red knight, "though I wouldn't have used so much dirt!" "Ha" said Bagglyn, "Ha ha ha ha." "I weave them historical tapestryes!" blurted Grell, "all them pretty pictures with nothin' but wee threads!" he continued, winking at Bagglyn.

Kneesvember 2025 Day 8