INKING?

I've been lurking in the Inking Forum over at Digital Webbing a lot lately, scoping out some prospective inkers. I'm not quite at that stage yet, but I decided to check in the Bax and see what she thinks.

Bax wrote:

"About the inks: what I did for the last stories I drew was to aim for a very tight and clean pencil line, so we had no need for an inker. We can do that for your story too. What I suggest is that you send me the script, I´ll do a couple of pages the way I´m used to, and we can see if it works. If not, we get an inker. We´d have to look for someone that fits my style and etc etc.

Maybe you will be able to save the time/money/effort of looking for an inker and spend it on searching for someone to do coloring, or grey tones if you planned on having this black and white. That would be very nice since I don´t use black areas in my sequentials."

Probably not a bad idea. I think it all depends on what the sequential look like. I might just find a good colorist/inker person. Maybe I should go lurking in the colorist forum too...

NEW SCANS

Got some new scans today!

Bax wrote:

I´m sending you better scans of the images of Nik and Klurm. Also another version of the camera, this time more portable but with the magazine case. Take a look.

NIK AND KLURM

Bax sent over the next batch of character concepts:

Bax wrote:

I worked a little on Nik & Klurm. I still don´t have my scanner back, so what I´m sending are shots from my digital camera. Not very good shots at that, but you can get the general idea, I hope.
Klurm was inspired in catfishes. By the way, I was looking for reference pics and WOAHH I didn´t know that catfish could get so big. Anyway, feel free to suggest any other fish or animal you think would fit. I hope he´s not too weird even for indy standarts :oD
As for the breathing thing, I thought that maybe it could not cover his mouth - for _expression purposes - and be only in his nose and gills. Maybe gills only. But tell me what you think.

I really like doing the fishy moustache things. =D Aliens are fun to draw.

And Nik I thought that maybe you´ll think the one on the left is too bulky. I can slim him a little if you want. Can he have a ear piercing? Oh I just realized I forgot his eye patch. I´ll do that later ;o)

Tell me what you think about those! =)

I´m anxious to start doing some sequential work. I think the concept is great and will have a great chance of seeing print/publishing soon.

Take care,
Julia

FORMAT

My storyline is pretty well nailed down, but I still have some room to fidget with the story format.

It seems like most indie books and scripts are written for 22 pages of story. The book then has a few more pages added by the publisher for advertising and the front/back covers.

Since this is my first endeavor, I'm not gonna stray too far from what appears to be the standard. But....

...here's what I was thinking for the layout:

10 pages - story 1
10 pages - story 2
2 pages - story extras***
------------------------
22 pages total

I just have so many stories to tell in the frame of the main story, and I want to be able to drop out of the main story line and throw in some backstory, or shift character perspectives. (I could also shift the pages to 12/8, 14/6, etc - it all depends).

This approach isn't new or anything. Ever watch Lost on ABC? Every episode has vignette flashbacks throughout the story that reinforces the featured character's motivations throughout the episode.

And Jay Faerber did a similar (and might I add, brilliant) approach by making Noble Causes only like 15 pages, and then adding a shorter mini-story at the end that fleshed out some characters.

Here's what he said in a Comic Foundry interview:

"The “why” is money. It all came down to money. When you’re publishing without the financial backing of a big company, every dollar counts. The most time-consuming part of the project is having the pages drawn, so we initially used the split format (having 15 pages of one story, and 8 pages of another) to make it easier on the regular artist (who’d only have to draw 15 pages a month, instead of 22)."

I really like Bax. But if I get desperate I can hire her to do the important 10-15 page stories and slot in some other artist to do some alternate stories. Might be cost effective, and keep the book looking fresh.

[***oh yeah, and the 'story extras' will be 'found items', diagrams, journal entries, film equipment demos - things that are related to the story, but deserve their own little spotlight.]

CHARACTERS III

Here's the next two characters that I sent Bax. I didn't have time to slap together a reference page for her, but I gave her some links to some photos I found online.

Here's what I sent her:

CHARACTER #5 - Nik (the engineer)

He's a BALD, and somewhat big guy. I picture him as African-American or maybe even Polynesian. He's from a colony on one of Jupiter's moons where the gravity is stronger, so he can lift things that are so much heavier than the average human. He's just a little bit above normal height, and he's a little muscular ( I say, "a little muscular" becuase I'm not really fond of all those beefy-looking superheros you see nowadays).

His space suit is similar to everyone else's but he'll have all kinds of random tools on his belt, and possibly a little armband that has gadgets on it. I think that his outfit should have some kind of gadgety backpack on it when he's in the field. If you got any cool ideas, then drop them in.

I think it'd be cool for him to wear some kind of gadget on his head that's similar to an eye patch. There's a band that goes around his head, that has a clear little screen that flips down over his eye to magnify/analyze stuff he's working on.

He's the guy that keeps the ship, and the film equipment running. Early in the story he gave Lucy her futuristic iPod, that he made from scratch.

The closest actor I can think of (even though he's a little bit older than I'd like) is Michael Clarke Duncan (from Daredevil, and The Green Mile).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/SMichaelClarkeDuncan.jpg

http://www.usaweekend.com/01_issues/010729/images/010729duncan.jpg

---------------------------

CHARACTER #6 - Klurm (short for Klumaniar'Divotag'Nar)

This is a weird alien delegate that is assigned to join the crew of the ship. He's humanoid, but is slighty different (kinda like how nearly every alien on Star Trek is a guy in makeup, with some random changes to their head). Have fun designing him. My initial design thoughts are this: he's only got 4 fingers, he'll be a gross grey color, he should look slighty fishy or reptilian, but - whatever you do - DON'T make the eyes and head all big and weird like those grey aliens that american farmers are abducted by and probed all the time.

Basically he's a Galactic Historian that's assigned to watch Orson and later report his findings to a big space library. He's snooty, rude and arrogant when the story begins.

Somewhere down the road we learn that his race is bioengineered from parts of other dead aliens - like Frankenstein - so there's something initially creepy about him.

The trick is making him look differnent, and a little repulsive, but still something that we can safely look at ( and eventually come to like as a crew member).

His gear:

He wears a spacesuit thing that's designed by his race. It should be a combination of robes and a form fitting space suit.

He wears a breathing apparatus ALL THE TIME. It is a clear mask that cover his nose and mouth - the tube leads down to a panel on his chest (which is connected to one on his back). He has no possessions except a little metallic book/bible that he keeps in some hidden pocket.

Also, there could be some kind of alien sybol on him somewhere to denote his heretige.

I found an alien race that I think he'd kinda resemble fomr the game Everquest2. There' some screenshots you can flip through on this page:

http://everquest2.station.sony.com/en/main.vm#racesErudite

WRITING CONTEST

While I'm moving along with this project, I've been on the lookout for little things to expand my writing portfolio and sharpen my writing skills. Lucky for me Comic Foundry just launched a 'one page story' contest!

Basically, you write a one page script - from a topic they give you - and then it's judged against the other entries. The winner gets drawn and inked (in two similar contests). Sounds like fun.

After reading the topic, I spent the next few hours at work brainstorming for an idea. I decided to do something about a dying alien race seeding a planet (much like the Martians did with Earth). Here's my script [Twilight], if you care to read it (or perhaps draw/ink it).

THE CAMERA

Since the concept of the comic is 'filmmaking in space' - we need to focus just as much on the props, as they are crucial elements in making this over-the-top story more grounded.

Here's a few sketches of the camera:

PINUP 2 LAYOUT

Bax wrote:

I did a layout of what I think would be a nice depiction of this 2 characters. I imagined Orson sitting in a director´s chair (I´ll get some more reference on that before making the actual pinup) with his camera by his side.

And I made Evelyn with her robotic arm exposed. As for the eye, I imagined that the cyber eye could be white or another color with no pupil. With a small circuit thingy next to it. Take a look at the sketch.

ORSON & EVELYN

Got the latest round of sketches from Bax.

Here's Orson:

And, here's Evelyn:

I think the characters are coming along really well, and only had a few minor changes on these.

Here's what I replied:

Orson - I like the look so far. His 'lens thing' around his neck should be a lot smaller - the reference pics I gave you didn't really show scale, sorry about that. It should be like 1/3 the size of that, maybe just a little bigger the size of one of those cansiters that 35mm film comes in.

Evelyn is looking good, and you have her anger down pretty well. She'll need the robotic arm though, since it's kinda crucial to her character (and, her robotic eye too). I love the space suit - it looks great!

As I work to polish and refine the first few scripts, it has become increasingly easy now that I can visualize how the characters will actually look in the book.