SEIZURE

No word on my submissions packet yet, so Bax and I are still charging ahead on the series. For the entire month of February I was in Italy, but that didn't stop us from going back-n-forth on a few ideas.

And, I got really hung-up on the layout for page 9. It's a one page flashback that reveal that part of Lucy's seizures. Each panel zooms out a little more.



Above was the initial layout - which was good, but not quite what I had pictured in my mind. So I grabbed one of my reporters and had her go out in the freezing NBC parking garage and model for me.



I wrote:

Here's some photos I did as examples for page 9.
I made my reporter go lie out on the floor in the freezing parking garage and pose for these shots. She's no actress, but I hope you see the "dead on" view I'm hoping for.

Bax wrote back:

The photos look great! Probably the cold floor helped her in making the dead-with-eyes-open face. Poor thing.

I reworked the layout. I love the way you made the panels shrink as the camera zooms out. If you don´t mind, I followed very close to what you did with the pics. There were 4 panels in the script, but as the letters are captions only, we can work them in 3 panels and we get to have a veryy big shot of Lucy´s seizure face.

Again, I liked the layouts, but I'm think the 'angle' should be right on the floor. I used to have seizures and one thing I always remember is waking up with my face on the floor.

Bax wrote back:

Attached is a new version of page 9. I took a few photos of myself trying to figure out how to keep the point of view very low. Then I noticed that floor lines help create depth, so I added those. What do you think?

The perspective is perfect, and now we're just working on the panel sizes. And then we're moving on before I drive her insane with this page! I'll post the final layout when she sends it my way. And, actually now I'm thinking I really liked the last one she sent...

PAGE 8

SUBMISSION

It's time to "put up or shut up" as they say. So, here it is in all its glory...the Image submissions packet. I put everything together into a binder, got it all organized, and am hoping for the best.







I'll cross my fingers for a little while, but then it's back to the typewriter (figuratively) as we keep on cranking out pages.

Thanks for all the emails and encouragement! I'll keep you all posted!

CRAACK!

SELF-LETTERING

Okay, so as the preview isse nears completion I decided to try my hand at lettering the issue. I think I've done a pretty swell job, but when I rendered out this page to show y'all it come out a little "stripped down" when I did the output to a jpeg. Anyway, you get the picture.

Here's Klurm's page:

PROCESS

There's a buch of stuff going on "behind the scenes" in Anamorphic land, but there hasn't been a whole lot to blog about. We are getting very close to getting our submissions stuff in the mail - more on that later.

I'm kinda at the point where I'm not gonna post every single new page we get finished, but the other day Bax sent me some great stuff for the blog. Along with page 2 of the preview issue, she sent her various stages of work, so you can see how it came together.

Here's the rough layout, based on the script:



She sends it off to me, and I say "That's rad" so she'll start really sketching it out:



And, then the final pencils (with some added line weights).



Magic!

PREVIEW PAGE 6

I've been showing a ton of concept art and pages from the upcoming books, but there's one thing that's definitely been lacking.

Gaffer.

He's the semi-retarded robot crew member, and is most-likely destined to be the breakout, loveable character of the series. [That, or he'll annoy the hell out of you]

So, in honor of my much-neglected robot character, I've decided to let you peek at Gaffer's interview page for the Anamorphic preview book.



There's no dialogue, but you'll probably be able to tell from the sketches that he's probably screwing stuff up. Gotta love him!

PANEL PROGRESSION

Here's a quick look at how Bax and I work together on plotting out how a panel ends up looking. For the most part, I'll write what's happening in the panel and she'll draw it. But, there's a bunch of instances where I'll have something specific in mind and we'll go back and forth, making various changes.

Take PAGE 4, PANEL 3 of the upcoming preview issue:

In the script I wrote:

This is a wide, expansive shot of the engineering room.

Nik is standing at the edge of a platform in the massive engineering section of the ship. It’s dark and scary in there. Nik is nervously fixing a maintenance panel near the door, and from the area to the side of the platform, scary spider-like legs are crawling up from the pit below.

NIK: The ship wouldn’t be half as hard to repair if I was allowed to go into the tech core.

NIK: But, as long as it’s home to an Xhekvarian Dragon, I’ll just have to work around it.


Here's what she came back with:




Which is pretty good, but for some reason I pictured the shot being more of a "side view" (like an old school video game). There's two other panels later in the preview issue that'll have the same look, so I thought it was important enough to change.

To get my point across better, I made the following image in photoshop and wrote:

"Here's my idea for panel 3, with the monster coming up from below. I was thinking of a little more of a side view, and him a little more unaware of what's going on. Of course, my drawing is horrible - but maybe it'll help you."

And, the drawing must've helped because she sent back this panel and wrote:

"Hehe, your drawing was great. The tentacles were the best. The point of view makes it look like and old 8-bit adventure game. =)"



There you go! That's a basic panel progression - although most of the time, I just write it, she draws it, and we're good.

Anyway, I'll show you the final panel as soon as it's done. Later!

LITHIUM

Bill from Lithium Pro sent me the lettering for pages 1-5, and they are sweet. Here's a low-res glimpse of page one.



And, here's a close-up of the 'film motif' he did for captions. Pretty rad!



We now have a complete sumbission packet. Sabrina is working on coloring the extra pages, while Bax sketches out the preview issue.

I love it when a plan comes together.

PREVIEW

Bax started doing the layouts for the preview issue. It'll be 8 new pages of art, and probably a cover image. She usually works 4-5 pages at a time, and then finishes them up.

The whole issue is done like a documentary film about the crew of the Anamorphic, where each member of the crew talks about their various jobs.

So here's a little peek at the first batch. I'll post some comparisons to the final pages soon.





I sent a few suggestions for panel layouts and stuff. I'll show you all that as bax send back more stuff.

PAGE 15 LETTERS

While waiting for some of our professional lettering to come back to us, Bax tried her hand at lettering some of our secondary submissions pages. I'm not gonna post them all, but here's my favorite of the bunch:



Not the highest resolution scan, but I hope it's a little bit readable.

PROGRESS REPORT

Okay, so I've been looking over everything and we're in pretty good shape! The website needed a little attention, so I'm messing with the template a little bit.



The ultimate goal is to put together a comic book that totally rocks, but we've been all concetrating on our immediate goal: making a submissions packet. Using Image comics as a benchmark, here's how we're shaping up:

Checklist:

1. Typewritten cover letter with all contact information.
2. Typed, one page, synopsis of the over-all story.
3. At least five pages that are fully inked and lettered. <---
4. Cover mock-up, with logo placement.

We're waiting on the lettered part of the first 5 pages, and the submissions stuff is ready to go. And we're darn close to the Dark Horse requirements, as well.

But we're adding an additional 5 pages to the mix, and quite possibly the eight page preview issue now. We were gonna use it to introduce readers to the characters and setting of Anamorphic, so why not use it on the edtors as well?

That's the update on the project today. Sabrina is working on some great colored pages that'll be going up very soon. And, Bax is getting the preview issue layouts all planned out. And I'm working on the website!

Since the story is sorta told by Lucy, the 20th century goth chick, we decided to make the website URL something that specific to her. Hence, the website now has a handy marketing domain: thefuturesucks.net!

PAGE 12, PANEL 3

All the pages for for the 11-15 sequence are done, but we're currently discussing a small detail about page 12.

Bax writes:

"Now, the only thing bothering me is Evelyn´s main panel in page 12. I going to give it one more try (I did a different version that I didn´t like - I don´t think I even sent you) and we´re done with these pages."

And later she wrote:

"...new panel on page 12. I like it, but I don´t know if I like it more than the first version!"

Here's the three different versions to compare:



I think the first one is probably the strongest first iimpression for Evelyn - and my favorite. Although, I like the latest one a lot.

PAGES 14 &15

Here's the rest of Evelyn's introduction sequence. Now that you can see all five pages, it probably all makes more sense. Anyway, here's the next 2 pages...


Page 15:



Page 14:



There's some continuity errors with Evelyn eye in the last few pages, but it's already been taken care of, I probably won't post the updated pages.

At this point, we're only waiting on the lettered pages to come back and the submission packet for image, darkhorse, and some other fine publishers is ready to go!

COVER MOCK-UP

I was toying around with cover mock-ups for the submissions packet. I want to do something with a widescreen look (which would be cool, considering the book is called Anamorphic).

I think made the letterbox on the characters too narrow though. Still working on it...

PAGE 13

The newest page has arrived, and Evelyn's introduction sequence (pages 11-15) is coming together quite nicely.

Page 13:

No word yet on the lettered pages, but I'm hoping to post them in the next week or so.

PAGE 12

Bax sent me a new page today in the 'Evelyn introduction' sequence.

LOGO FINAL

Bill from Lithium Pro sent me the logo final - in four different variations (red, white, black, and white/red). I decided to go with solid color logos, over stuff with gradient colors. Seems more bold and confident, is my reasoning.



I'm gonna revamp the site and make some cover variations now. While I'm doing that, Bill is doing the lettering, Julia is drawing 5 more pages, and Sabrina is coloring pages and promo art. It's all coming together!

PROMO ART

Sabrina just colored one of our pin-ups, to be used as some promo art or cover art for the book.

Orson and Evelyn promo art:




Also: the logo is officialy done, and I'll post it here in the next day or so - along with a site revamp.

LOGO STUFF

Bill from Lithium Pro sent some logos:



And he sent the following message:

Attached are 4 color variations, two I went on a tangent from the last version and used a different approach, the other two I went to a sepia hue and a steel blue hue -of which I like the best.

I'm working now on a variation in the line art a bit to add a more retro feel to the surrounding drop shadow and maybe try to eliminate using black in the logo itself, as it will usually sit on black.

Let me know if any of these spark interest...

The logos are in order of my most favorite right now - which changes every few minutes, since they're all good. But, I've already sent him two emails with different preferences, so I can't change my mind back now.

PAGE 11

And here's page 11, fresh from Bax:

PAGE 5 COLOR

Sabrina just sent along a colorized page 5:



And, she's gonna go back and "upgrade" page 2. Can't wait to see what she does.

ACTION LAYOUTS

Here's a few more pages from Evelyn's introduction scene (pages 11-15).

Pages 13 & 14:



Page 15:

PAGE 11 CHANGES

In case you're wondering about how pages layout progress, here's an example of how we do it:

This is the page layout Bax sent me (based on the script below).



This is a condensed version of the page script (I took out the dialogue and some stuff that won't make much sense at this point).

PAGE 11, panel 1

Set amongst a nearly endless sea, is a futuristic maximum security facility. It looks like one of those off-shore oil drilling stations. The last part of dialogue from the previous scene carries over into the first panel of this page.

The caption is in the bottom corner of the panel.

PAGE 11, panel 2

Orson is standing in lobby/security office, The place is swamped with monitors and has a very military/prison look. There's a few ARMED GUARDS nearby. Orson is standing with the security captain, who does all that talking. They’re a large wall of monitors and security equipment by them (it comes into play later in the scene).

PAGE 11, panel 3

This is small panel that shows the guard's hand pointing at a layout of the building. It’s reminiscent of the big blueprint of the Enterprise that Geordi always referred to in ST:TNG. There's an underwater elevator that goes all the way to a complex on the ocean floor.

PAGE 11, panel 4

A big, wide panel showing Orson and the guard talking near the bank of monitors. Evelyn's "mug shot" is displayed on a large screen.

PAGE 11, panel 5

Evelyn is coming up in the elevator. She's wearing a wide electronic collar, thick electronic handcuffs (and there's a metal bolt on her metal arm - which is very exposed in her prison t-shirt and pants.)

PAGE 11, panel 6

Small close-up of Orson talking

PAGE 11, panel 7

Reverse shot close-up of guard, as he continues to insult everything that is dear to Orson.


And, here's the page that I sent back, after running it through photoshop - making notes and stuff:



Some excerpts from the notes I sent her:

Panel 1 - Im thinking that the prison building should be off to the right more, so we can make more room for captions...and it seems more cinematic...This panel is just a short introductory panel. It can be much thinner, since the rest of the page is way more important anyway. In the layouts, i kinda shorteneted it up (but acciendtly cropped out the space car). It can be even thinner than that.

panel 5 - this is the one that bugs me the most, but it's all my fault. I think that we shouldn't reveal Evelyn until the next page. The security camera shot takes the punch out her introduction. What do you think about making panel 4 bigger and I'll just pour the dialogue into that panel. This'll effect the layout of the page, so think it over and get back to me.

panels 6/7 - I made these horizontal. I thought they looked too weird back-to-back, and looking in opposite directions. If you kept panel 5 where it's at, but made it wider, then these panels should be fine if they were scrunched over a little bit to make room.

Here's the new layout she sent me today:



Bax wrote:

There goes the version wth the changes. I think the last two panels on page 11 work so much better this way! You have a great eye for layouts. I agree about avoiding centralizing things too. I´m glad you´re there to remind me. =)

Page 12's revisions were much less dramatic, but I might post them soon if I don't have any logos or colored pages later this week.

PAGE 4 COLOR

Sabrina sent me page 4 today, with colors:



Here's a link back to the uncolored version.