Sci-fi/Fantasy Webcomics
Page 20, Chapter 2. Introducing…Ace! His crooked nose is from a sparring accident. Artor still feels bad about that one.
In this comic, <all text between carrots is in English.> All text without <> is translated from the main language of Pelkern.
Chapter 2, yay! Here is a bigger size image of the Polaroid. Artor is not one to smile for any new-world contraptions, that goes double for cameras.
*Edit — Between this page and the next I had changed Ace’s design slightly, so I went back and made the changes retroactively. His nose is now more crooked, and made him clean-shaven. You can see the original in the photo below.
I am finishing up the prep work for chapter 2 this week. The thumbnails, color-scripts, and other prep work have taken a little longer than expected, but I am pretty excited for this coming chapter. Stay tuned, new page next week!
This is a rock formation photo I took while holding my camera down close to the ground. I probably looked quite silly squinting up into a camera with my chin resting in the dirt, but if you photograph an object from a lower angle, you can make the object look bigger than it is. It will not look quite right in the photo–our brains can still figure out the scale from the information the photo provides–but you can correct this when you draw it. This is a trick I use for creating reference photos for fictional landscapes/settings.
Chapter 2 is going to be a longer chapter, so I am still working on thumbnails and color-scripts. Next week I will post Chapter 2’s cover.
In the meantime, here is an old cover design for The Pelkern Cycle with fun mythological creatures. This is from 2012 (6 years ago at the time of this post). At that point in time I was spelling Pelkern as “Pelqern.” After finding that the pronunciation was too ambiguous I changed the Q to a K.
This is Part 2 of a Behind the Scenes compilation for Page 6.
For the final layers, I started with the inking layer of the setting (top left). I then inked the characters in (top right). Next I put in the color for the setting (bottom left). I usually do the color layer for the setting only on one layer, because it is faster to paint and adjust the colors. In this page I have a few extra layers for the stream, because I was experimenting with the effects. Finally, I did the color layer for the characters, and added in shadows for the characters as well (bottom right).
I am taking a page break this week to finish my work on the thumbnails/prep work for Chapter 2. So here is a Behind the Scenes Look at Page 6.
In part 1, I started by sketching the setting. In Part 2 I drew in character sketches that nail down gesture and size. In Part 3 and 4, I refine those sketches into the final sketches.
Page 18, Chapter 1. Here is where I admit that I have muddied the waters on this website by making a switch. Originally the Arrival chapter was posted first as the prologue, and the creation myth narration was posted second, as chapter 1. After writing, making, and posting the Arrival chapter, I came upon my earlier prologue sketches–the creation myth. I felt that it added something missing to the story, so I posted this creation myth next, fully intending to switch the order once it was finished. Now it is switched. My apologies for breaking the links on the RSS feed for these pages.
Page 17, Chapter 1. *Edit: I changed it from Maia’s father to Myles’s father because it makes more sense for later on in the story.*
After a two week vacation and then being sick for a week, I lost my comic page buffer, and have run behind. I am still working behind the scenes though. I have been making the next two comic pages well as researching and taking scads of reference photos. In Germany and England I took over 6000 photos, and this past weekend I took 2177 photos of rock formations and fossils at Falls of the Ohio State Park in Indiana.
I’ll be posting page 17 of the comic this Wednesday, then Page 18 next week. Thank you for your patience on the two weeks of being MIA. : )
Here also is the link to the video showing how I made Page 17 of my comic.
Page 16, Chapter 1. One of the reasons Myles would expect Artor to have answers is that Artor is the age of Myles’s father. Culturally, people from Pelkern respect those older than them (much more than in the youth-centric U.S.A., for example). Another reason Myles would expect Artor to have answers is that Artor has traveled through portals before.