Web Comic

By now, Zyggy should have posted the 10 strips for the comic project. To save time during the busy busy busy busy busy finals week, He's posting everything once, and I'm going to link to his site. A such, the comic may be found here:

http://zyggy567.blogspot.com/

Right, one half of the author's perspective,go. Me and josh have a very scattered set of artistic strengths...very few of which were applicable during the creation of a traditional web comic.Neither one of us is the best at drawing and, I having tried to make a completely computer generated comic in high school, knew that wasn't the way to go. We ended up using something we both know well instead. The Warhammer 40,000 universe has been a gaming force since the 70's, and has a ridiculously detailed setting, created for a models and miniatures. Me and Zyggy both play the game, and have modest sized armies, of minutes we have modeled and painted ourselves. The offshoot of this is the following: we can use our miniatures and a camera, along with image editing software, to make a comic set in the WH40K universe.

This comic ended up being more of an experiment than a serious permanent attempt. The biggest problem we encountered, beside lack of editing experience, was the scenery. Taking pictures with a camera presented a big problem, it was probably very apparent in the end comic, that we couldn't look at all the pictures we took ahead of time. The end result was lots of editing for lighting, and lots of shaky shots that we couldn't fix. This was also re result of it being hard to hold a camera still outside. It also means we can't control weather, or the light of the sun. That being said, we made due with what we had, once the camera was returned. When me and josh look at the finished project, it's not exactly how either of us expected it to turn out. I ended up taking the pictures, and doing the particle and special effects. Josh did framing, and wrote the dialogue, though we both cam up with the plot before hand.

The plot itself features out courageous five superhuman space marines, squad Avernicus. It is technically a point of view comic, in that it is narrated form the point of view of the squad's rookie, Maxwell. After a short synopsis of the universe in the first two comics, we see the site of an embattled planet through the visor of a space marine, Max, as he emigres from the fog, eyes glowing. Unfortunately, the text we had on comic 3 was erased when we attempted to upload the comic, we could never fix the problem either. As he fights an Ork invasion, the other four members of the squad are revealed. "Nickles" the cheep humor and comic relief with the flamer. Isac, the heavy munitions officer, and the pseudo big brother of the group. Sergeant Avernicus, the leader of the squad, and Lucas, waring terminator armor, which is about as close as you can come to wearing a tank. He;s good, he knows it, and will make sure you do too.

The comic proceeds, introducing character during a fight scene, and introduces character, and sets up a plot leading to a confrontation with a big ork force, that took out some of their comrades. In the original plot plan, we had about four times the story panned out, but expected to be able to squeeze it into the same number of comics. We failed at that, and decided to end it where we did, to get it in on time.The big twist, was going to be when we changed viewpoints, and showed the entire story form the Ork viewpoint. Seeing that all orks are born from a fungus, and in the universe, all have an innate psychic mind over matter field they don't know about, ti would have been a very different viewpoint indeed.

This comic WAS a leaning experience. If me and Zyggy, or just one of us, decided to continue this comic idea, or in the same style independently, at on or two comics a week, I feel like it would be doable. Given the change to take more time on picture gathering, and making sure all the edits came out perfect, it might have been a great comic. Indeed, we are still talking about the possibility of flowing it up after winter break, or staring a new story line, at a decent pace, much more sanely. Here's hoping.

module 4, part 3.

Everyone had warned him. Everyone in the town said it wasn't worth it. Zeke never listened to everyone anyway. Now he had 2 extra legs, a tail, and was stuck up a creek without a paddle-or a working motor, nothing to say of the correct appendages to use it. What a day.....

The village is in a fortunate island, an island in the world that had no dead zones for magic, or technology on the mainland. Your phones would work, just as well as your thinkagrams. Not too many visitors from the outside world, they had to go through the reefs, and do it without tech or magic sails, because of all the shifting dead zones around the island. The satalight tv always made it through though, it was weird. But I digress.

Zeke was always the odd man out. no head for numbers, and no skill with spell weaving, he was always behind everyone else. What did he care.... He always dreamt of leaving the island, going somewhere else, where he could fit in. His family loved him, he had friends, but it just didn't feel right to him. He kept building a boat, took him years too, with every thing he could. Eve found an old clunker of an engine, and stuck a propeller on it.He even swiped an old map from the library, must been a hundred years old. He got a gps too, but that wouldn't always work out on the currents. Zeke dreamed of the day he would ride out to the first island he could find.

He finally finished it a few days ago, the boat he would sail away. He named it the escape, and loaded it with food, some gas, and a few batteries. He set out, leaving his home behind on the open sea. He even saw an albatross on his way out, which someone had told him was good luck, he wasn't sure who. Maybe he could kill it and make a good luck charm. He actually did manage to lure the thing down, with some food. It ended up choking on some gas, and he kept it around a few days... Thats when things got rough.

Zeke may have had a map, but he forgot to eve learn how to read one. His gps keep ending up not working because there were too many clouds in the way. Whenever he was in a magic zone, storms would swirl around him, like he broke some taboo. He lost allot of his food, and equipment right then. During the worst night, he ended up in a magic zone, and it seemed like a lighting storm was simply hovering over his boat. As soon as Zeke realized this, 5 bots of lightning hit him simultaneously. When he woke up is was daylight again, ans he swished his tail, and sniffed the see air with his long nose......wait. Why was he a donkey?

In his unconsciousness, he had drifted into a tech null zone. Magic keeping him in his form was still working, and he was stuck with no motor, little food, and no way to use a paddle. What a sorry state he was in. Zeke had to trust to the currents, and the wind to get him to an island soon, and he had the strangest hankering for carrots....

module 4 part 2

So, time for part 2 of the animantics project. I decided to be a complete nerd and take my found images from a web comic, and my audio from a Joss Wheadon film called Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.The Film first: Dr. Horrible is a sort of internet phenomenon, created during the writers strike in not too distant memory. It is a musical told from the point of view of a super villain, Dr. Horrible, and how he wants to beat his nemesis, Captain Hammer, winning the affections of his love interest, Penny, and gain entrance to the evil league of evil, led by the infamous bad horse. The song, brand new day, is when horrible becomes try pissed, at the "good guy" captain hammer, and decides to sing about it. I don;t really want to spoil such a good movie, but you should watch it if you get a chance, especially since it;s only 45 minutes long. It's on hulu, here: http://www.hulu.com/dr-horribles-sing-along-blog

Dominic Degan, Oracle For Hire, is a web comic that has been running since 2002, and whose update schedule has never dipped below 4 updates a week, and for the bulk of it;s existence, updated 5 or 6 times a week. It has a whole host of characters, with the main protagonist Dominic, being a seer, who has lots of abilities dealing with seeing the past, future, and present. His "rouge's gallery", if it can be called that, includes baddies like his brother, the necromancer, TIM (fan named), The Inferno Mancer, who channels the power of the lord of hell, and arguably his arch nemesis, Clesto Morgan, the one-time champion of Chaos and Darkness during the storm of souls. For the purpose of this animatic, I decided to switch perspectives a bit, making Celesto our Dr. Horrible stand in, Luna-Domonic's love interest, as well as an extremely competent elemental caster- penny, and Dominic himself as Captain Hammer.

Now, this didn't transfer over perfectly. I realized when watching the finished project that my timing is off in 2 or 3 places, but windows movie maker seems to be unable to let me fix the problem. Also, I didn't have a comic ready for Celesto and Dominic for ever occasion, so I improvised a little, bringing back TIM for a few shots, and making him our pseudo bad horse. If you have allot of free time, and haven't read DD, I also highly recommend picking it up. With a few thousand strips, though, it may take you a while to finish reading. http://www.dominic-deegan.com/

Module 4 part 1

This is my animatic project, a little late, because of time crunch issues, and the fact that I was running out of sleep recently, but here it is.

For my audio clip, I chose a 1:05 bit by one of my favorite stand up comics, Brian Regan. He talks about Evil Kenevil a bit, and remarks on how he figures evil is doing today, and how he thinks when he's being interviewed. The video more or less speaks for itself.

I ended up doing this whole video in MS paint, for a few reasons. The biggest one is that I'm tired of finishing all my work on paper, then having trouble scanning it in, having to touch it up, orient it, and have gobs of the quality ruined. I actually wanted to see how much detail I could get into a bunch of images created with the program as well. It's certainly not the best looking thing ever made, but it cam e out a bit better than I imagined. I also was able to sneak some trick in. I never had to draw a face, and evil was always in a helmet. I used a "bounce counter" to help keep flashback time. Also, to save image creation time, I was able to use the ancient and venerable technique of stock footage. :P

The Death of Obi One Kenobi

For module 3, part 1, I decided to take a classic Star Wars moment and put it to story boards. It turns out that I was far from the only one to have this idea. I'm actually missing one of my sketches. I really have no explanation, I did 8, and there's only 7 around now, so I'll upload what I have now.

A little background: Obi One is engaged in mortal combat with Vader, while the rest of our heroes are trying to get back to their ship, the millennium falcon. Our first panel was of the heroes arriving in a nearby corridor, but as stated, it went missing. They are also unable to move because there's a group of storm troopers guarding the falcon. Before they have a chance to come op with a plan, Obi One and Vader's dual reaches a nearby door. The following panel simply shows their battle from a different angle, showing the storm troopers noticing the loud fight. The camera changes again, to Luke and his team's point of view, as they see the soldiers running in a different direction for some reason. Something I noticed through all these shots is a pit on the room where the falcon is. I included it in all the drawings I could, because it gives a point of reference for all the different groups looking into the room. Soon, R2-D2 and C3PO, as well as Luke and company, make a dash for their ship. Luke stops, realizing that it is Ben fighting Vader that captivates everyone's attention. Ben sees they young boy's concern, smiles, and raises his lightsaber high. Vader slashes at Ben, and Ben's robe falls to the ground empty. In my last panel, Luke crys out in anguish, at the loss of his mentor.

Module 3, part 2

Once again, this is a story board sequence I worked out all on one abnormally large piece of paper, and scanned in several times, resizing things so that all the frames are relatively the same size. This, along with my less than perfect drawing skills lead to the low-ish quality of this set of story boards. If the images aren't clear enough, i will now relate what they are supposed to be.

I found the script for Jurassic park 3, and decided to take scene 4, and story board the beginning of it. The fist panel is of 2 plastic dinosaurs rwaring, and growling at each other. The next series of panels zoom out, and show the setting. A father, watching his toddler play excitedly in a sandbox with toys, while his wife stand over him with a newborn. To add to the suburban sense of the perfect, normal family, I added a grass yard [with sprigs of grass], a picket fence, because there always there, and a bright sun. The exact lines that follow detail the father telling his son he's playing with the toys wrong, because he's having the two plant eaters fight each other. He then picks up a meat eater, and starts having it fight the other dinosaurs. The boy starts crying a bit, probably at having his toys take away, and played with by his father. The mother ends up reminding the father that the son would be the one playing with the toys, so the father gives them back, saying "right, right, nice dinosaurs".

I would comment, that though I have seen this movie, it was several years ago, and I don't remember this scene at all. Soon, I'll probably go and see how close my story boards match the actual visuals of the movie.

Module 3, part 3

I drew this set of story boards up all on one paper, and re sized and separated them, putting them in one file. Th quality took a little bit of a hot in the process. But I digress. This is the story of a cosmic can of warthog soup. The first panel is simply of our "ship" finding it;s way to earth, passing a wayward satalight on the way. The second is the aerial view of the human residence that is about to have it's warthog population increased by 1. Drawing on both some original ideas, as well as my fondness for the loony tunes of my youth, I decided to mess around with my setting a little bit. The soup can;s thrusters fry a passing bird, mid flight. It also does a jump over a suspension bridge, on it;s way through town. On it's way out of the city, it passes an apartment building, and messes up the satalight dish (probably of the device it encountered in orbit) messing up a man's tv reception. After all of this, our errant warthog crashes through a barn, makes a long streak crater in the ground, almost hitting a cow. Perfect landing. He then proceeds to kick off the door to his soup can/ship, directly into the face of the farmer in residence. He then dramatically steps out, clanking on the container, and adjusts his sunglasses and jacket.