Comment
Archive for colonel
11 results.
The page that almost never was.
Originally this and the following page were combined on 6 panel page. The results were quite squashed on top of each other.To me, it felt muddled and confusing no matter what I tried, neither expansive nor informative. So taking a brain-break I cracked open Dwaryn Cooke’s New Frontier, which I still do, since to this day it is one of my favorite stories. In this book, the scope feels so much larger by maintaining a 3 panel page throughout most of the run, capturing that wide breadth and cinematic feel.
So of course I tried it, page constraint be damned. (I would combine the following two pages to make up for it.) The results, as you can see are some of my best works to date, and has the first feelings of what my current style has evolved into. In terms of lighting and story telling, a leap forward even just a small one.
Like with Eric and Theo, ‘The Colonel’ himself has a visually represented mindscape and since we are getting a glimpse of it while giving his speech. We as the audience get to see a more classical feel to a comic book from the silver age in presentation and feel. The give away (I had hoped) were the halftone dots throughout the background of these panels, to break up the imagined from the real. Much like Eric’s watercolor like memories, and Theo’s un-explored blackboard like darkened depths. Both presented on the previous page.
Each and everyone of these Capes and/or Cowls from panel 2 have a name and several will be appearing in the future. As for the names. I have them all individually saved on the Photoshop layers and could happily dig them out for the curious among you.
PS – To those who were wondering! The finger in the last panel was suppose to be broken, originally I drew it with a bone exposed but later removed it so it wasn’t as graphic.
Double PS- The Cowl front and center is Super Sonic, the source of single hearing aid that Eric wears, though the cowl wears 2!
As Always, Thanks for Reading!
Oh the Stars and Stripes.
It’s an ambitious idea to say the least, maybe overly so but at the very least they are trying to do something that no one else has tried, super reform. Giving everyone that one chance they might not have had otherwise, for them to choose to embrace or slap away.
As one of the major themes, this is definitely going to expanded and shown more in the future with the start of Issue 3. As well as seeing some of the other students enrolled!
For the 2nd panel, we have the faceless politician taken to a whole new level. I like to think the sheer amount of military background that the Colonel embraces colors everything in his memories as slight tint of red, white, and blue. Or he just wouldn’t be the man who lives for ideals that you’ll be getting to know.
Then we have the School Yards Big Three, the faces that make up the main backers of the Schoolyard and some of the heaviest hitters in the UD Universe.
Those shown in order are Bedbug, Atlas, and Armory.
If you have been reading the comments, you might have heard a little about them so far but there will be much more to come in the future of the comic for all three. They all have some pretty major effects on the Schoolyard and beyond. I can’t really touch on it now but I’m very excited for when I finally can.
As Always, Thanks for Reading!
I like to experiment a lot with my pages and see what works for me.
After those last two pages that took ever bit of my art anima. I wanted to do more than just 3 panel pages and see what I could really fit in with enough hard work and angles. And thus this 8 panel page was born! I have to double check but I think this page actually borrowed some of the panels from the next scripted page to help make that splash happen. It did.
It was a lot of hard work but I absolutely loved what came across in this page.
One of the biggest themes of Underdogs are the challenges that one faces in a life, both emotional and physical. The main one shown here being the Colonel’s sacrifices to a long life of heroics. It will be eventually touched on, but he was one of the more well known Capes of his generation. Old injuries do not stop him from being a commanding presence, or a true force to be reckoned with and I wanted to bring that across. The Colonel has always been a mixture of Clint Eastwood and Wes Studi in my mind, so you can see the intensity I strive for.
Also if you are looking back, this was the first real page that I started to really not be afraid of using shadows, and tried to use them to define the forms rather than cling to the edges. Using multiple layers to aid with getting the images to seem alive on the page, that has really influenced my art since. Gosh, I really do like this page, it’s a blast to look back and just see the little things I did or what I would touch on differently now.
As Always, Thanks for Reading!
The Splash Page that Broke the Camels Back!
I love this page, it is a gem in the history of the comic and also the last page uploaded before everything came crashing down. This was my chance to show all you reader’s a glimpse outside the Crow’s Nest into the vastness of the Schoolyard. Then the site crashed, and disastrously.
Within the week of me pouring all my hard work and budding talent into this page, I transitioned over to the wonderful 1and1 from my previous host and lost everything. Nothing carried over like it was suppose to and I lost all the page descriptions, comments, and conversations from you lovely people. It was a lot, and I mean a lot of data I’m never going to fully get back.
It was a big blow to me right when I was starting to hit a stride again, I have just recently started to heal that by mounting the task of re-typing and editing was was lost. Hopefully to somewhere close to it’s former glory.
That said, I still love this page. It captured exactly what it needed to at the time, an expansive and strange techno wonderland. Partial reveals of a Giant Robot (BedBug) and structure carved out of rock face, it was and is a big deal to me. Drawing the layout of such a facility from a fixed point was not something I had given a lot of thought too, and this was a real test for me.
I think it really paid off, and I hope you do too.
As Always, Thanks for Reading!
New Pages!
Always great to share what I’ve been working on while the site has been in transition (aka exploded between host and becoming fiery wreckage from which no comment/older page write ups could escape alive.) When trying to move from Bluehost to our new home a 1and1, all of the things went wrong and I was hit with a 2 month black out while we tried to sort through the difference in sorting/naming and files to recover info (It didn’t work.) Then we rebuilt the site from scratch using all my backups!
Because if you do art, save it everywhere… and then some. (As of May 2015 I’m learning to handle it all on my own.)
Jacobson and Theo will forever have my favorite banter moments, I used to just chuckle to myself at the computer at night like an unhinged individual when writing their dialogue. It’s aged decently and the more all-age friendly wording made it onto the page. I always picture these two just sitting in the back of a van insulting each other on long drives, which if I could work into the script would be pages upon pages.
That said – Welcome Back!
As Always, Thanks for Reading!
Finally getting two of the heavy weights back into the pages, misses the design of these two dearly and the relationship they carry. Working on getting it complete in the off week, and I am happy to say I hit the 3 update goal for the 4 weeks!
(Off week is tweaking site, answering comments, tweaking pages, and filling the cast page.)
Reaper’s altered chest piece due to the run-in with the boys last issue, so obvious still thrilled over that.