ZX page 12: Hyper Back-alley Brawler II CE, to be exact

The fires are out, the house escaped (barely) and the political fallout is well underway. The destruction was very extensive, but in purely ecological terms and in houses and livelihoods lost. What will this all mean and whether people will stop trying to figure that out once somebody explains it away for them (as per usual) one can only hope against but we'll just have to see.

But how about a comic, right? Here's some thoughts on the comic, on this comic blog.

That tree in panel 2 came out pretty much procedurally, if you'd believe it.

Anybody notice the Space Invader bandanna? ZX's not playing our side, if you know what I mean.

About clipping through stuff in videogames. I've been talking with Graham Lackey for a few years how somebody's got to make a live action short film full of 'early 3d' tropes and bugs like say, people talking without their mouths moving, or holding something with a hand that is just all the fingers glued together in a karate arm form and the item just glued on the open palm, or, of course, glitching out in geometry all over the place, noclipping. Dudes bunnyhopping to get somewhere faster, you know what I mean. Somebody will do this eventually, and I'll know it was our idea first!

ZX wears shorts out of courtesy.

Really not much theory to talk about this page, I think the technique is pretty straightforward if you've been attentive to how I use rendering to convey mood. It'll be interesting to see the whole comic from beginning to end, I'm starting to be hopeful of that day, since I'm on page 20 now and the comic'll be about 35-40 pages, so I'm past the point of no return now. Keep reading, keep commenting and keep trying.

Also, this summer I conquered Neapoli for the second time. It was a great time, I'm sure we'll go there again.

-Helm
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ZX page 5: Embarassing Family Photographs

Don't you feel really weird when new people come to your place and check out the family photographs?



This is a formalist variation to just a straight strip of rectangles. I feel it's pretty successful in summing up the background of Mary. We'll catch a glimpse of current motivation in Chapter 2, which is 4 pages, sadly it's mostly internal monologue, but I've tried a few tricks to keep it interesting, we'll talk about them when we get there.

Her hand in the last frame is really big and I need to fix that for the final release.

On other news, I am going to finish page 12 today. I'm lagging behind a day or so! For shame!!

Do communicate with the lonely author if you get the time, feedback is really appreciated. I'll repress the urge to urge the urge in the readers to tell their friends about this comic and this blog because judging from the google analytics, ~500 hits a week and ~5 minutes on average on site seem just about right.

You know what else? The summer is beautiful here in Greece even if it's terribly hot. It's difficult to not dream up positive futures in this country. I've travelled a bit around the world with the company of wonderful people (who are currently convening in Florida without me :( ) and I don't think I really could live anywhere without such a pleasant climate, such beautiful sky and wonderful beaches. Not that I've been at any beach yet, but I'll kidnap my girlfriend and take her somewhere... soon. "Paleflesh nerd making long-format comic, doesn't go anywhere" will have to be a cliche to combat! But it's so difficult, because a page takes 3.5 days to do right. One for conceptualizing and drafting and penciling (this REALLY should have been 2 or even 3 days if I could spare them because a lot of little errors in fundamentals are creeping in, but they're pretty negligible I hope) and 2 for inking and .5 for lettering in two languages. About 5 hours a day, man. And yes, I know, you people working real jobs are scoffing right now at my part time creative haven of an occupation but do keep in mind: a) I'm not getting paid. This creates unfortunate psychological effects, like bouts of 'who am I kidding? This isn't worth it, go get a real job' b) 5 hours of creative work a day are very taxing on the primate brain. Lots of artistic decisions every minute, and lastly c) my brother has moved out and taken black thing with him!!


He's happy with him and his girlfriend, but... but... I love him so much :(

I went to visit them at their house-warming party and he crawled on my shoulder and nuzzled around my neck, he hasn't forgotten me. He purred and purred and I asked him "do you want me to take you with me?" and he extended his claws slightly and prickled me playfully at the neck. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TAKE THIS. And then when I left I heard him crying above in the apartment. He never cries!! :( Man, it's taking its toll on me, the lack of black thing.

At least I still have Cat!!



So... enough of that. How's the summer going for you fleshy bags of emotions?





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:( black thing :(


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