Adanailo, our kinship minstrel was apparently taking our extended jaunt in Urugarth a little harder than expected and when Kildano decided to spill the beans... it hits the fan!
-Darrick
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Beware the Adanocalypse
Adanailo, our kinship minstrel was apparently taking our extended jaunt in Urugarth a little harder than expected and when Kildano decided to spill the beans... it hits the fan!
Friday, June 25, 2010
Maegbor: A Light In The Darkness
We all learn a little something about our Captain, Maegbor and in some ways, a little about ourselves. It was actually a toss-up between Dold and Maegbor but since Maeg's already been established as something of an excitable character it would probably fit him a little better.
Hope you all enjoy!
-Darrick ^_,~ \/,,
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Inner Workings of CoI F.T.W.
Because of an interest in what actually goes on during the illustrative process of making a CoI F.T.W. I decided to go ahead and edit out the inks and tones to lift the veil and show the horrors underneath. ^_,^ Enjoy!
It is a dynamic process that I use and it varies with almost each strip. For example in #1 I "pencilled" on my Wacom tablet. Got everything where I wanted it, "inked" it, then "toned" it all in Manga Studio Debut 4.0. Because the last panel was so similar and only the expressions had changed, I simply cloned the final product of the first panel and changed Aurelas and Doldin's expressions. A time saver of the highest degree!
For #2: "This Can Only End In Flames" I did the original sketch while I was away from my comp but I put down a simple indication of what I wanted, how I wanted it laid out and then placed the locations of my word balloons and numbered them so that I could decide of the dialogue flowed properly. The dialogue called for Daggerborn to talk several times in multiple panels but he would have taken up too much space to put in each panel, which is why you have his dialogue jumping down to Eranith's intro panel. As you can see I didn't deviate much from the intended plan.
For #3: "
Rune-keepers Do It In Self-Defense", I actually did a couple rough layouts away from the computer but I did everything on the computer. A subtle difference to this strip was that I decided to not use tones which hare so prevalent in the first two. I did all of the shading with the pen tool much like I would on a standard fantasy illustration piece I'd do. There were several times where I was working on the reveal of the second panel and burst into laughter by how much stuff was going on to express Narmir's rage using Scathing Mockery on an auroch (the big fat cow with the "dumb" face). It had to be one of the most surreal drawings I've ever done because it begs the question, "Just what could you say to make a cow burst into flames?"
Hopefully, you all have gained a little insight into the creative process that I go through when I work on the strips that tell the tale of my LotRO kinship, Children of Iluvatar. I will go ahead and include a rough of the next strip which I am currently laying out and we'll see what process I take that time!
-Darrick
It is a dynamic process that I use and it varies with almost each strip. For example in #1 I "pencilled" on my Wacom tablet. Got everything where I wanted it, "inked" it, then "toned" it all in Manga Studio Debut 4.0. Because the last panel was so similar and only the expressions had changed, I simply cloned the final product of the first panel and changed Aurelas and Doldin's expressions. A time saver of the highest degree!
For #2: "This Can Only End In Flames" I did the original sketch while I was away from my comp but I put down a simple indication of what I wanted, how I wanted it laid out and then placed the locations of my word balloons and numbered them so that I could decide of the dialogue flowed properly. The dialogue called for Daggerborn to talk several times in multiple panels but he would have taken up too much space to put in each panel, which is why you have his dialogue jumping down to Eranith's intro panel. As you can see I didn't deviate much from the intended plan.
For #3: "
Rune-keepers Do It In Self-Defense", I actually did a couple rough layouts away from the computer but I did everything on the computer. A subtle difference to this strip was that I decided to not use tones which hare so prevalent in the first two. I did all of the shading with the pen tool much like I would on a standard fantasy illustration piece I'd do. There were several times where I was working on the reveal of the second panel and burst into laughter by how much stuff was going on to express Narmir's rage using Scathing Mockery on an auroch (the big fat cow with the "dumb" face). It had to be one of the most surreal drawings I've ever done because it begs the question, "Just what could you say to make a cow burst into flames?"Hopefully, you all have gained a little insight into the creative process that I go through when I work on the strips that tell the tale of my LotRO kinship, Children of Iluvatar. I will go ahead and include a rough of the next strip which I am currently laying out and we'll see what process I take that time!
-Darrick
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Rune-keepers Do It In Self-Defense...
CoI F.T.W. #3 is ready to open it's bleary eyes and gaze upon the outside world! Enjoy!
-Darrick
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Presenting "CoI FTW"
At long last, I've actually posted something new! I hope to make this a regular strip based on stuff that happens within my LotRO kinship, Children of Iluvatar.
The first strip is based on a conversation I had with our kin's married couple, Aurelas & Doldin about their misadventures out in Angmar.
Enjoy!
-Darrick
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Surprise in the immediate future...
I will be posting something a comic strip based on the interactions/events/topics of conversation with my kinship on Lord of the Rings Online. For the time being it's titled "CoI FTW" since I don't want to use the name Lord of the Rings, or Middle-Earth, or anything like that.
I'll post it in the next couple days. Just gotta finish inking and toning the last panel.
-Darrick
I'll post it in the next couple days. Just gotta finish inking and toning the last panel.
-Darrick
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Long time no see!
So I checked my DeviantArt page and saw JB actually responded to a note I sent. He's doing good. He's going to be watching to see the BY pages when I post them. He's going to I.T. school right now and is hitting his project hard as he can. I'm going to try and get him to join the challenge just so there's more people involved. Only thing holding my plans up right now is I gotta get the old pages shrunk down somewhere to a scannable size. Updates to come.
-Darrick
-Darrick
Friday, January 15, 2010
UPGRADE!
So a while back I made reference to Manga Studio Debut having moved on to Version 4.0, so since I had opportunity I decided to finally upgrade to it late last night/this morning. I really haven't had a chance to dig into it yet, but I was still able to open/edit the stuff I did with 3.0 so it at least has that done right. I liked the layout and setup of what I've seen so far but only going toe-to-toe with it will tell me what I really want to know about it.
On a side note, Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Wii is INSANE good! I've been playing on "Shura" mode which is basically Hard Mode because you have to time all of your parries and dodges. I'm only Lv. 18 but I managed to time things right and pulled off a 144-hit combo. I had the hardest time beating a particular boss in the game Yukinojyo Yagyu, but after many tries that I realized I was having a hard time because I was playing ULTRA hard mode because I was trying to beat him without using items! Once I realized that I was able to cook rice balls in the game and could use them in battle, Yagyu went down on the first try. LOL Go food-crafting! It's crazy how good that game is and it's a sleeper hit on the Wii as far as my store is concerned. My goal is to get our last copy of that sold to someone before Saturday the 23rd. I partially have to agree with Dan, that it's an odd choice for a game like that to be exclusive to the Wii, but when you think about it Odin Sphere was done by the same guys and it was PS2 exclusive. Maybe they will make a PS3 game down the road. Maybe Vanillaware is trying to help the Wii out and show that the Wii DOES have some good exclusive titles outside of "X Mario X". To be honest, I've played it with the remote and nunchuk, but I at times feel myself gravitating to using the Gamecube controller. I may give the classic controller a whirl before the weekend is over.
-Darrick
On a side note, Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Wii is INSANE good! I've been playing on "Shura" mode which is basically Hard Mode because you have to time all of your parries and dodges. I'm only Lv. 18 but I managed to time things right and pulled off a 144-hit combo. I had the hardest time beating a particular boss in the game Yukinojyo Yagyu, but after many tries that I realized I was having a hard time because I was playing ULTRA hard mode because I was trying to beat him without using items! Once I realized that I was able to cook rice balls in the game and could use them in battle, Yagyu went down on the first try. LOL Go food-crafting! It's crazy how good that game is and it's a sleeper hit on the Wii as far as my store is concerned. My goal is to get our last copy of that sold to someone before Saturday the 23rd. I partially have to agree with Dan, that it's an odd choice for a game like that to be exclusive to the Wii, but when you think about it Odin Sphere was done by the same guys and it was PS2 exclusive. Maybe they will make a PS3 game down the road. Maybe Vanillaware is trying to help the Wii out and show that the Wii DOES have some good exclusive titles outside of "X Mario X". To be honest, I've played it with the remote and nunchuk, but I at times feel myself gravitating to using the Gamecube controller. I may give the classic controller a whirl before the weekend is over.
-Darrick
Saturday, January 2, 2010
HAPPY NEW DECADE!!!
I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year even though it IS the second day of the year. May your best day of 2009 be only half as good as your worst day of 2010!
-Darrick
-Darrick
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