Script Is Done!

I just completed the script (the current draft, anyhow) for the comic prologue that Melia and I are doing to flex our creative muscles and test our mettle. It's fourteen pages at current count and features Jay, Wiki (or Professor Forge as he likes to be called), Casey Jones, some Martians, and something else *tease*

It sets the stage for the comic proper and puts some pieces into place for the first arc. It's been fun writing and Melia has given me some good feedback throughout the process.

Here's a snippet:

Page Three:

Three rows of Panels. The top and bottom are long and unbroken. The middle is broken in a jagged way (leaving negative space) to signify distance over telephone.

Top Panel: Wiki's office/boardroom. There are people in suits. Wiki is one of them, but he sits at his desk. A slanted view from behind Wiki (his back facing, his face not shown) would be best, Wiki's back at the right. To the left, there is plenty of space to view the people, the office, and the word balloons. On Wiki's Desk lie a couple of half finished doo-dads, including maybe a half finished version of his helmet and a fully functional gauntlet.

Wiki: Why do my sensors have you in New Jersey?

Jay (over com-link): Nothing... just some Minor Issues... with the Martians.

Wiki: The Martians? This is intolerable. You know our agreement. I get top billing on all extraterrestrials threats.

Jay (over com-link): What could I do? People were in danger. If you want to fly out here and pose for your little cameras it's your...

Panel Two:

Jay, looking up at something

Wiki (over com-link): What?

Jay: Dalby? You might want to get down here. The situation has... altered.

Panel Three:

A close up on Wiki's mouth (preferably from the side?) His face still hasn't been fully shown, but a smile is blossoming on his lips.

Wiki: Beautiful

Panel Four:

Another long panel in the office. Wiki stands up, facing the reader, fixing the gauntlet onto his arm (his jacket off, the sleeve rolled up). He's looking at the gauntlet and not the other people in his office. The wires that come out of it are dangling down.

Wiki: Well I'm sorry gentlemen, but it appears you'll have to finish these accounts without my assistance. It looks like I'm needed at...

Page Four:

Full Page Spread of Wiki flying towards the threat. Try to make him as big as possible and for him to take up the whole page. Try out your best Hero Shot.

Caption: - my other job!


Hope you all stick around for the final product. Melia is working on pages as we speak and there should be something to post pretty soon.

Peace.

Sketches

It's going to be a slow couple of weeks (so slow I might start using this as an actual blog), but here's one more post before pages.




Some action/pose sketches for Cassia and Jay. As always, I think Melia does a great job bringing out personality effortlessly.



And a Peek at Wiki's helmet. Though this is just a quick sketch and might be subject to change later on.

Later on, maybe some Martians.

Thanks for reading. As always, more of Melia's stuff can be found at her deviantart (http://sinspire.deviantart.com/)

Final Designs (They're So Pretty!)

Final character pieces! Isn't this cool? Wiki sticks out a little bit, it seems, but I think that it might just be that his colors are so far and away from Jay and Cassia's.
Here's Cassia. She's probably changed the least of all. The Tats are gray now, but they'll probably change color regarding her temperament or spells. There was a minor misunderstanding resulting in a full on redesign (which might get posted in the interim between this and the pages), but she's been the most agreed on of the characters. Some of this could relate the fact that I left all of her entirely up to Melia.
Wiki has changed the most in the design process and I still don't know what the final helmet design looks like beyond a sketch in Melia's Moleskin. I'm really happy with the different greens and the contrast between the fabric bits and the metal bits. I think Melia found a great middle ground between Iron Man and The Rocketeer. There are so many little bits here, like the glowing buttons and the stray wires, that make this pop. This is the most pleasant surprise, since I'd never seen Wiki colored before today. Thankfully it works.

Jay is like Teflon in both the comic and the design process. Accessories seem to bounce off of him like bullets. No shoes, no goggles, no necktie, no belt. Melia even forgets to put the fingerless gloves in half the time. I feel like Jay gets vaguely cheated by this whole character design process as he's defined more by his motions and his actions than his look. Still shots like this will be rare for Jay, I assure you.

So there we have it. All three characters, deftly rendered by Melia (*cough* http://sinspire.deviantart.com/ *cough* ). Prepare for another lull between this post and the pages from the prologue we're working on. Maybe I'll post the Cassia misunderstanding as well as some sketches for other characters from down the road.

Doc Caveman?

The Jailers?

Ghost Girl?

Emilia Erhart?

It just depends what I can convince Melia to draw.

Wiki 2.0

So here's a new design for Wiki. I really like the lack of helmet and the bigger shoulderpads put against the jumpsuit.

Action and Colors

Got this late last night from Melia, I can't get over how much the colors make Jay and Cassia pop. I also like how Jay looks like he's trying to throw a punch that won't take off someone's head. I had nothing to say about the color schemes. This is all Melia doing her thing, and I'm blown away.

Everything from the color schemes to their facial expressions sell these guys, to me at least. It's the rest of the internet we need to win over now.

Enjoy, all seven viewers.


As always: Melias' Deviantart page: http://sinspire.deviantart.com/

Let's start off with ART!

I think I shall start this blog on an exciting note:

I've wanted to do a comic book for ages, but, being completely incompetent at drawing, things never came together until my wonderful girlfriend, Lindsay, introduced me to her highschool friend, Melia. Melia expressed interest in doing something like this and, liking my pitch did up some character designs for this project. Here they are below. Aren't they keen?


The plan is to kick these characters around for a few months until we maybe move to an ongoing online endeavor. But when I got these designs in my inbox, all I could do was gush.Jay
Excerpt from pitch:

This is our hero in the most traditional sense. He's indestructible, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap buildings in a single bound. All superheroes owe their existence to Superman, so there's no shame in any of this, but if anything, Jay is a tribute to the Golden Age Superman. That Superman wasn't omnipotent, didn't have X-Ray vision, couldn't fly, and existed in a harder, edgier world. That isn't to say Jay is going to be edgy. He's compassionate and smart and willing to help and empathetic to an absolute fault (but more on that later), but he doesn't have a Clark Kent personae like Superman does. The two entities aren't separate and while this means Jay never really finds himself elevated above the people he protects as a brightly colored hero (note: no flying) he never quite feels at home. He doesn't know where he came from. He doesn't know why bullets bounce off of his skin like raindrops or how gravity doesn't seem to work quite as well on him as the rest of the people he sees. All Jay knows is that he isn't from this brittle, cardboard world and he wishes that anything he has seen in the only three years he remembers (and he has seen some interesting sights) could explain who he is and where he came from. Jay can't feel pain. He has no one to love. No one can hurt him. The only way he can feel these things is by empathizing with people. If people around Jay hurt, Jay hurts too. He helps. He has to. It's all he has.

Wiki
Excerpt from pitch:

Wiki can invent anything, but CLASSIFIED. [...] his brain is wired into the internet, allowing him to call up data on any person, building, painting, body of water, fish, etc that he happens to see. His biggest secret is CLASSIFIED ironically, the science-hero of the comic will be CLASSIFIED Wiki is the kind of person who takes charge, only to find out that he is completely over his head. He spouts factoids almost as a reflex, as if he's afraid that anyone would think he isn't completely in control.

Cassia
Excerpt from pitch:
She's strong and a little scary. She knows things that make her a little more removed from the human dilemma (but minus Jay's empathy). this isn't to say she's sinister. She ascended, put herself through untold horrors to gain her level of knowledge and magical ability for a reason, but she comes back to find that CLASSIFIED. She's going to try to CLASSIFIED, and it will be intense, but ultimately futile. She's the only character with this extreme sense of tragedy at first and it makes her a bit disagreeable, but she becomes more and more integrated into the lives of Wiki and Jay and more and more attached to this brave new world she finds herself in.

So this is two days of preparation. I'm hugely optimistic about everything, but half of that could just enthusiasm. We'll have to see.

More of Melia's work can be found here: http://sinspire.deviantart.com/