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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006, 01:32 pm

This whole comic thing is pulling together quite well. The colouring/shading thing looks pretty good - not quite comic, not quite 3D and somehow more satisfying than going with photorealism which I've never liked in conjunction with traditional cartoon word balloons.

So

Characters: Ehh.... I have maybe... half the characters worked out in the vaguest sense. Obviously I've thought about our hero the most but I don't want it to be about any one character.

Character models: Check - I have a few made and they're getting easier. You've seen Wendy already. The rest, including Dr Brennan are in progress while I get their faces right - so right now they're butt naked while I alter the width of their mouths and the curve of their noses and tone of their skin and whatnot. Clothing being somewhat iconic in comics I want to get that right too and give them something appropriate to their personality - which means Wendy is in for a slight style change (but those clothes were there mainly to demonstrate technique without having nipples all over the place).

Backgrounds: Check - what I can't draw I can model in 3D. Truth be told, the modelling is probably easier for me and 3D is a lot more recyclable than a sketch. Those months spent making random bits in Wings3D have not been a waste after all.

Word/thought balloons and/or effects: Check - Outlined white elipses with pointy bits coming out of them easy to get right at the worst of times.

Plot: I know the main thrust but the details still elude me.

I think whats happening here is that I've (deliberately or otherwise) been waiting to see if I can get it to look how I want it to look before I got too excited about the plot and now I'm discovering that its as much work again to get started on that. Bum...

I have a strong suspicion that I need a (co)writer for this thing anyway. Particularly if I want to do more than a page a month - I'm my own worst critic and I know full well I'll spend ages revising and tweaking every sodding line a hundred times before I ever put model to renderer.
 Leave a comment | 7 comments

Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 01:49 pm (UTC)
miramanga

Oooo I'd love to help! You could try ideas out on me or we could have a storyline symposium maybe!?

Failing that, I could introduce you to Kieron Gillen...!
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 02:02 pm (UTC)
mr_wombat

I reckon the best thing I can do is flesh out the general plot and character archetypes I think work in it... or put together something in the style of a proposal to a publisher since that works quite well for getting the point across. When thats done I'll fire it on or post it here or something and let you and anyone else who wants to have a peek take it apart. I have fairly specific ideas about the ... y'know.. core of the story but past that I'm less clear.

So.. yeah, I'll chuck some ideas your way :)

As for Kerion.. see if you did that I know full well I'd have some sort of fanboy moment and end up geeking out and ... I dunnow, having an asthma attack and wetting myself and god knows what else. I mean.. I was reading him in Amiga Power when I was a teenager - him, Warren Ellis and Einstein's hairdo are probably my top three favourite influences ever.
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 02:28 pm (UTC)
iresprite

so right now they're butt naked while I alter the width of their mouths and the curve of their noses and tone of their skin and whatnot.

Without context, that sounds kinda creepy.

(but those clothes were there mainly to demonstrate technique without having nipples all over the place).

Dude, how many does she have? Is this a plot element? :)
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 02:34 pm (UTC)
mr_wombat

"Without context, that sounds kinda creepy."

It puts the lotion on its skin or it gets the hose again...

The face creation bit takes a long time to get right though, I don't want to fall into the trap of having all the characters with the default square jaws and strong foreheads that the models have by default. Their bodies are... well less important because you don't generally recognise someone by their ass or breasts and if I alter them then they don't fit the clothes any more anyway.

"Dude, how many does she have? Is this a plot element? :)"

Well... two normally but there are several characters and... well one of the things about texturing is that.. well you can get it wrong and one time I did.. very very wrong.. and the character I was working on had nipples on every surface. Two on each arm, two on each leg, two on the scalp, two on each lip and two tiny tiny little ones on each eye.
That aside.. many characters, many nipples.... nipples nipples nipples...

PS - I still have to reply to your last mail... you lengthy replier you.
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 04:21 pm (UTC)
iresprite

PS - I still have to reply to your last mail... you lengthy replier you.

Oh, you think that's lengthy? Don't get me started.

Anyway, if you can respond before thew weekend, that'd be great, since I'm thinking of running it at Picnicon. I generally do better when I have some dialogue on these sorts of things. Anyway, hope your day is going well!
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 03:25 pm (UTC)
bremxjones

"I have a strong suspicion that I need a (co)writer for this thing anyway. Particularly if I want to do more than a page a month - I'm my own worst critic and I know full well I'll spend ages revising and tweaking every sodding line a hundred times before I ever put model to renderer."

Just get the pages laid out. You learn more by doing stuff than just worrying about doing stuff. You can always change dialogue later. I'm tweaking Phonogram's dialogue all the way to it going to press, if only to get a little more room to see Kitten's art.

The bigger problem in "writing" for comics are big structural things - what to stick on each page, how many panels, and so on. If I'm feeling uninspired for dialogue, when writing a script, I've been known to just go with panel progressions and movements with stand in dialogue ("SOMETHING WHERE HE TELLS HER HE'S KILLED HIS FRIEND" "WISE CRACK TO SAY SHE DOESN'T BELIEVE HIM" "CHILLING AND KIND OF FUNNY STATEMENT WHICH MAKES HER BELIEVE") which I can turn into something better later.

Dialogue's the easiest part of the story. Story is structure.

KG
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Thu, Jun. 29th, 2006 04:20 pm (UTC)
iresprite

Ooh! Thanks for the suggestion. I've thought about writing comics before, but since I have no hand for drawing comics, it's sort of limited me in the past in terms of being able to lay out the story.
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