What I wonder here is, does Kasia know what she’s doing here? As she never interacted directly with “Private Misza,” she probably doesn’t know about Masha’s conflicted position…
I wanted to really push the Vermeer-ish feel in the school room. So, I spent a good amount of time shading here. When I shade, I’m actually cutting with a soft eraser into an adjustment layer set to low luminosity. The resulting lighting looks nice, but the composition and notan (balance of values) of the first two panels isn’t quite all meshing.
I get the impression that Kasia realizes something is afoot, but she hasn’t quite got a grasp on it… yet.