Regarding the first panel: Yeah, K’ip is using a body double for the extreme close-up. He’s a bit self-conscious about the way his whiskers look up close. He thinks they aren’t as straight and parallel as they should be. He’s even considered getting implants, but given how badly this kind of movie pays…
But, good-looking or not, his whiskers are definitely useful for exploring a dungeon – he can sense a snoring dragon from around the next corner! Other beings would have had to rely on their ears to detect it, and beings that have neither whiskers nor ears might even have run into it without warning! So, yay for evolutionary advantages.
Speaking of evolution, though, K’ip should really stop doing what he’s doing in panel two. Fairies like Si’ri haven’t evolved to be physically restrained. K’ip should have restricted himself to a verbal caution, or at most blown into her direction to gently bring her to a stop. (Mind the tuna breath, though).
What he does get full points for, of course, is the use of a mirror to look around the corner. I guess he must have had some run-in with a medusa or basilisk during the time-skip, and thus learned to apply caution. Much warranted caution, since cats get petrified quite easily.
He’s right, however, as far as the identification of the sleeping dragon is concerned. That is, most definitely, a copper. >_> The uniform is the clearest identification mark…the color of the skin is another one, but not quite as unambiguous – while most dragons of that color work in law enforcement, a few do join other fields, much to everyone’s confusion.
You might have noticed that the collar of K’ip’s tunic has somehow acquired a fashionable fur lining – that’s actually a kind of re-writing artifact, resp. editing problem. In the spirit of B-movieness (and not just laziness, as you might suspect), I’ve left it in instead of correcting it – I’ll explain what actually happened when we reach the strip in question. ^_^;
More on Mon…uh, Thursday.