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09-13-2018, 09:33 AM | #101 |
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No new comic today, but I do have some notes on issues 37 and 38 to share along with some alternate and cut stuff.
ISSUE 37 RECKLESS FIRE NOTES: Page 1: This recap page was made six years ago right after I had finished TAOWAR 36. Page 2: Roz's backstory is inspired by Meryl's backstory from Trigun Maximum. In it, Meryl's father gives her a gun for protection against from men stronger than her. Some of the lines are paraphrased from that manga. Mainly the small size and evening the odds line. I was going to use direct quotes, but I was changing the context from dad worrying about his daughter being raped by a man (If you're unfamiliar, Trigun is a sci-fi Wild West manga) to a brother worrying that his sister might be caught in a war zone. Joseph is finally named here. I should've named him long ago. You might notice that both Joseph and Roz don't have good shots of their faces. That's because Roz is just using the only little girl action figure I have and Joseph might not be his finalized toy. Page 3: I'll go into the details of Roz's Kai Blast some other time, but the one thing to note is that she used it once before and this is the "Second Bullet." The first panel of this page was taken 6 years ago. When I shot Issue 36, I wasn't sure where some scenes would end, so I shot extra panels. This is one of them. Page 5: This flashback is partly to clean up some loose ends. I had set up that Robert's hand is frozen but never explained it. Archangel having a similar kai blast gave me the chance to explain both at once. I do wish I had made this scene sooner. I skipped a lot of little scenes like this that I shouldn't have in the Paradox Saga because I wanted to do flashbacks like that. They were a popular way to tell stories at the time. Page 6: This page was added after editing the pages around it. I felt the cutback from the flashback was to abrupt. Plus, this gave me the chance to add in Archangel's catchphrase thing and give Archdemon a parody of it. Page 7: Title: Reckless Fire, the opening theme song to the anime s-CRY-ed. The main character, Kazuma, had a super powered armored right arm. I think you can figure the connection to Archangel. Also, just realized that Kazuma attacks were bullet themed. This worked better than I thought. The Kai Blast panels at the top are actually all in one GIMP file for Archangel's KB. Archdemon is just an extra layer so I can toggle who's KB it is. I actually only have one of that physical flame effect, so in panels with their fists hitting each other, one is shopped on. Also I intentionally made Archdemon's bigger. Page 8: Okay, now for a rapid fire set of scenes for mostly clean up (and fun). These were originally at the end of the issue, but I felt it was better to end on the Archdemon stuff. The Thief page was to introduce the Flying Wanyudo used in the finale. Thief's weapons have never been magical before and it feels very forced if she suddenly has one. While not perfect, this scene explains where that came from. Page 9: This page was originally part of the finale as the bridge to skip all the fights in Reckless Fire. This page would've been right after Thief asked Empp to open some Time Gates. Here's the original page: The top row was cut completely and replaced with Krang running away. The middle row had some effects redone. The bottom row had a line added to link it to the battlefield scene later. Page 10: This quick page of Tusk and Blade fighting Serpentor was a super late addition. 3 of the 4 pictures were taken 6 years ago. These were made as extra panels right after the big reveal. I liked the idea of using those pictures since they survived so long and it gave me a chance to more fully explain what Serpentor was. Plus he gets to beat up the heroes more, which I felt was needed. Page 11-12: Remember me replacing Springer with the Gen toy in older comics? Well, this is the main reason. I wanted to go back to the battlefield for a short scene where they fight Lord Zedd, the only Master to not have fought up til now. Also, this battle is very much Hasbro VS Bandai. If you're wondering, Hasbro wins. Why? Because one of Lord Zedd's legs broke off during the photo shoot. Thankfully the only panel left with him in it was the one of him sitting, but I'm still pretty annoyed by this since I finally had a Zedd in scale with everyone and it broke the first time I got to use it. Page 13-14: Back to the Archs fighting. The Cybertron Unicron was the missing toy I had to find a new one of when I decided to make this. Why not just use Armada Unicron? He's Kind of big and would've made some things much harder to do. Plus, he wasn't fully Unicron yet and the deluxe was a good inbetween stage. The muffin lines were added in editing and serve to lighten up this battle. Originally he was just going to talk like Unicron, but I felt he wasn't that far gone yet. Page 15: Scorching Feathers was a Kai Blast I had designed for Archangel years ago. Basically think of the X-Man Archangel's feather dart things, but on fire. It's also worth noting that these wings were made to go with Archangel's upgraded toy and I had to do some things to get them on the old toy's back. Page 16-17: Diamond Vision was used once before as a partial joke when explaining what the original timeline was doing in the time skip at the first of the Paradox Saga. Felt I should bring it back. The Pillbury Doughboy was something I thought up in editing and had intented to work, but after making it I realized it didn't work. However the visual of Unicron stabbing the Pillbury Doughboy made me laugh so hard that I decided to make it failing the joke. I'm really happy that I kept it. Page 18-19: So Archdemon thinking he's killed Wolfdemon breaks him out of it and this is when the comic was going to get super dark. I toned this way down from the original script. The script called for Wolfdemon being seen with a gun, Archangel and Wolfangel leaving, and then hearing two gunshots from outside the room. I think Wolfdemon sending them both into a void was more in tone with everything else happening and I'm glad I changed this. I don't think I'll ever be happy with that final panel of this scene though. It just kind of rushs, but I didn't have enough for another page. Page 20: How's this for a messed up ending? Yoda and GP have been long time allies to the heroes, but now we know that they've been using the heroes. Also filling in a plot thread from waaaaaay back in the Zombie Go-Bots story when Aaron Archer said Gobotron was destroyed. Turns out the Sages unleashed Unicron on the planet. So Wolfangel has been mindwiped by Yoda. Figured every one of the main characters based on people in my life should have something not good happen to them in this season. Blade had to deal with Scar Forte showing up, Star accidentally killed Yuna in his fight with Darth Nova, Archangel learns he's slowly turning into Unicron, and Wolfangel gets mindwiped. ISSUE 38 TIME'S SCAR NOTES: Cover: First of all, the last edit of this issue was saved at 11:59PM the day before I posted the comic. The last thing I did was re-edit the cover. The cover is a reference to Chrono Trigger's English box art that uses one of Akira Toriyama's concept art (and frankly my favorite piece of Toriyama art ever). On the TAOWAR cover, Blade replaces Crono, Claw Jaw replaces Frog, Seaspray replaces Marle, and Serpentor replaces the Heckran. The original edit of the cover looked like this: While I'll never been 100% happy with this cover, I do consider the final version way better. Also, at one point, the Thanks for Reading page was going to be the cover. Here's the cover edit of that: Page 2-3: The scene with Thief and Blade talking before the battles began was originally 3 panels at the top of the 3rd page and they were 100% garbage. Don't take my word for it, here's the original page: The version in the final comic is the best correction I made. It bookends the finale the way I wanted it to with Thief stealing the figure at the beginning and revealing she's alive and has it at the end. In order to wrap this up more quickly, I created a plot device in Atra Deus' sword. First, it tells Thief who Atra Deus is. She knew him, but didn't know his name when told at the end of issue 36. Seeing the sword jogged her memory and her reaction is basically "time to run." The Time Gates were an added plot device to have an exit point for the heroes. Page 4: Darth Nova appears here. He's actually a bit of a red herring as I was considering using him to buy them time to escape instead of Leader-1. I left this scene in because I wanted to remind people that he was here and left unresolved. Until I use him again, you can assume he was erased with the paradox, but know that I have plans for him. Page 5: Blade's sword is changing forms throughout this battle, but I limited it to 3 forms, original sword, axe, giant kunai thing. The only other form change with the sword is when he form changes into the Raider form later. Aside from maybe the axe form, I don't plan to use this ability in the future very much. It's too much like Thief's Release KB. Page 6-10: Pages 6-10 might be my favorite comic work I have ever done. I had a blast taking the pictures, editing them, everything. I can shit on my own work sometimes (like eariler in these notes), but these 5 pages are why I love making comics. It's fun. Pages 6 and 7 are a two page spread, though the forum's scaling might make it hard to tell. Title: Time's Scar, the opening theme to Chrono Cross. Can you tell I like the Chrono games? Because I love them. In fact, there's a point where I referenced something different specifically because I felt I had too many Chrono references. We'll get to that later. W. is back! Yay? It was on these pages that I realized that W. and Nega-Gnome have never met and I had to have some fun with that. There's background stuff with them throughout this. While there's one more scene focused on W. later this was intended to be his send off. I'm happy with it. Then we begin the combo. Stone Passion Wack is the old stock photo of W's KB I've used forever. Just wanted to use an old stock image one last time. I probably would've used Scorching Feathers in this combo if I had made these comics in order, but I honestly kind of like the Unicron attack better. We end with what might be my favorite single page. Everyone with a ranged Kai Blast just unloading on Serpentor. Star and Scarlett use a fusion attack. Shortround even finally gets a Kai Blast of his own, Black Friday Missiles. Why didn't I think of this sooner?! When I added the Blow Out Sale sign was when I knew I had made something good. And the final panel of this page is the most Super Sentai/Power Rangers thing I have ever made. The only thing on this page I'd improve if I could is the Overkill sign. It's from Final Fantasy X and I could only find the HD version that was usable. I would love it to be the original sign. Page 11: Exposition time. Needed to explain the plan to the main cast. This was originally going to be at the start, but I feel it better here since Thief needed to tell everyone else anyways. Either way, it's basically technobabble. I even used a Trek style analogy. Also wanted to address the wheelchair that disappeared and since Thief hasn't seen Blade since the battles begun, she doesn't know about it. Page 12: Now it's time to use that plot device from earlier. The idea here is that this paradox exists in order to bring Atra Deus back using a clone (Serpentor) and Atra's sword. The sword itself houses a trigger to make the clone into Atra. I never decided how exactly, but given his abilities later, I think assuming the sword has Atra's soul in it is probably what's happening. As Serpentor starts to become Atra, I put his past faces floating behind him to make it clear that he was in fact "The Master" from season 1. Page 13: Worth noting that Atra is floating here. He can float like Magneto, but doesn't do it a lot because it wasn't easy to do. He barely looks floating on this page for example. Page 14: And we have Atra Deus properly introduced. I wanted to make sure that you got a good look at the new custom toys being used in this finale. Both Atra and Blade's Raider form have nice big panels. Atra Deus customs parts: Head, mask and cape - Darth Bane Body - "The Doctor" Corba Commander from Rise of Cobra sword - 1/144 Gouf Custom model from Gundam I did make this custom around the same time as issue 36, so I've had it for at least 6 years. Atra's personality a clam one. He wants to talk, not fight you, but he also wants to screw the world up. Page 15: Suddenly, Leader-1 helps us. I wanted to have a send off for him since I put him through a lot and this was the right turn for him. It cuts away before he dies, so like Darth Nova and others, you can assume he's dead for now, but I will not rule out bringing Leader-1 back some day. Page 16: Time to talk about the biggest thorn in my side for this comic: The Time Gates effects. In total, there are 24 Time Gate effects. A lot of these also had characters walking through them to. It was getting very tedious to do and I was actively avoiding them being in shots by the end. Still, I feel I kept pretty good continuity with them. Also, I've mentioned it before in another comic, but the Time Gates are taken from Chrono Trigger. Page 17-18: Setting up the final battle was a pain becuase originally it was not going to be in the Paradox Chamber, but inside the Time Gate. The idea was Blade and Thief would just be trying to get out of there and the close the gate on Atra. Atra would be doing things like blocking them. I like what I ended up doing instead, but I do hope to do a scene like that one day. Page 19-21: Theif's back story: This should've been done sooner. Because I didn't do this sooner, it's all right here in the middle of the climax, but it had to happen. Couple of things about this backstory I want to mention. There is one proper noun used, this is because I didn't want to overload this with terms because it's not impotant right now and I honestly didn't have names for a lot of it yet. The noun is the kingdom's name, Cygnus. While it is a name of a constellation, it's also the name of a kingdom in the game Radiant Historia. If you've never heard of Radiant Historia, it's basically Quantum Leap in a classic RPG setting. Go play it. It just got remade on the 3DS and it could use the love. The other thing I wanted to point out about this is that I originally wrote King instead of Queen. Late in editing I decided that I wanted Cygnus to be a female monarch. This was just because pretty much every RPG, Disney movie, and the like always has a King or 2, but rarely a Queen Regent. Blade's Raider Form: "I'M A KAMEN RIDER!"...I'm not even sorry for doing that. The Raider form is made up of parts from Kamen Rider Ex-Aid's SO-DO line. That line is great for customs. These are made from leftovers from the line. Head - Para-DX Knockout Fighter Torso, back plate, and arms - Brave Level 2 Chest plate and legs - Gemn Dangerous Zombie Shoulder pads - Jet Combat Level 0 Backpack and belt buckle - Fuma Sword - I actually have no idea. I have 2 of this sword and no idea where they came from. I specifically used Dangerous Zombie parts because there is a bone design to them and it makes Blade look like he's wearing bone themed leg braces. Picked the Para-DX head because it looked good with the rest and had a headband like Blade. The chin strap also made for a passable beard. I really wish I had one of the Dai SO-DO bodies with the extra joints. That would make this even better. So originally Blade was not going to get a new form this season. The original idea was that Atra Deus would be revived and the heroes would have to run. Atra Deus would be a full time villain in the next season. When I decided I wanted to have a more opened end story in the future, I realized I needed this fight to happen. Page 22: If I had known that Atra's cape would look so damn good in green, I would've painted it. Cursed Chorus came from needing a Kai Blast for Atra and a summoning like one just felt right. I've had these creature toys forever and wanted to use them. Plus, this got that cape off of Atra, meaning it was easier to pose the figure. Page 23 and 28: I cut back to the End of Time a couple of times. Archangel has a bigger role in these scenes because I made them back when I was still going to cut his fight with Archdemon. These scenes are mainly to act as a mid battle reset and let these characters that haven't met in the arc interact a little. Page 24-31: Not a lot to say about this fight. It's mostly ad libbed. I like how it turned out. Thief does seal the Cursed Mask as a means to defeat it. This means in theory she has that chimera in her collection. The new summon, Thunderblast was originally going to be the big thing that Blade got instead of a new form back when it was about escaping. Except is was going to be Thunderblast twins and they were going to be based on the Shiva twins from Final Fantasy XIII. I might add the other one later, but for know Southern Bell Thunderblast will do. She also breaks up the fight with some humor. Page 32: This is another page that I really enjoyed making. I wanted 2 panels and I wanted them on top of each other. I think it turned out really well and looks cool. Don't think it tops page 10, but that might be because I had to fight with Atra to stay strapped to the console. Side note, the red crystal is right behind Atra. Make of that what you will. The Epilogue: A lot to unpack here. When time tried to fix itself, the world became one of 7 worlds. All of the worlds have names and different themes to them that I plan to reveal later. Nega-Gnome was never meant to survive. He was meant to be an ally that would stay behind or something like that, depending on how the paradox ended. Due to everything ended up happening, he's still around. I would've given him a bigger epilogue, but he'll be useful in the very next story I want to tell with these characters, so he'll be acting as my tempt W. for that arc. The epilogue's main goal is to end the stories for most characters in case they never appear again and bring it up to date with the real world year. Example: Archangel and Wolfangel do have a kid in real life, but weren't even married in the comic's year. It's worth noting that Claw and Hanz are no where to be found in the rest of the comic. I was originally just going to not even bother with them appearing, but found a place in the epilogue for them. Also gave a reminder that Jack Sparrow was still golden. This is mainly here because I sold the Black Pearl (and some of the figures) soon after taking the picture. It was the last chance to use it and I currently have no plans to resolve this sub plot. Tusk's story arc is basically over, though I may have something to do with him and his son now. There's a time skip of about 10 years so Stickly is a teenager/young adult now. Haven't found it yet, but there's a story to tell there. I like this way of writing W. out. It breaks the forth wall and Blade gets to lie his ass off to get him to go away. Side note, I considered Tusk and/or Thief to replace the W in the title by revealing their names to start with a W, but never settled on names. Blade's epilogue took forever to get working correctly. Originally had written a much longer one where Thief just "lands" in town and it ends with everyone getting together. I didn't like that. Too long and kind of bland. Then I had the letter being a ransom note from the next mini villain, but that was to cliffhanger-y. Thief challenging Blade to take his toy back was the perfect balance between the 2 ideas. You know she's safe and it's an more uplifting note to end on. Then there's the final page with the Sages. This page gave me so many problems. I kept moving it around to the beginning, middle, and end of the epilogue. Finally I just redid the whole page a few days before release. I like the new one much better. Here's the original: This was to wrap up some loose ends. Specifically to answer two things: 1) "Who is the guy in the robe at the end of season 1?" Gravel. 2) "Why was Gravel attacking Blade?" Because he and the other Sages were making their "Hero" to fight Atra Deus. Much like the Unicron thing, this is a little messed up. I want Blade and the others to one day learn about this, but that's a story for another time. And so TAOWAR is over. I still have the TAOWAR holiday specials to post later this year, but any stories with these characters will continue in ATTF. My plan right now is to do a Land of Summons arc that's 3 issues max. I have a simple story set up for it. I plan to do it the same way I did these two issues where I make most/all of it before releasing it so I don't have a cliffhanger ending. Next Week: And Then They Fight #39 "Diner Time" |
09-20-2018, 10:14 AM | #102 |
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Back to the basics this week with a short gag comic. Enjoy.
Not sure what's next week. Might take the week off, might have another short comic by then. We'll see. |
09-27-2018, 10:25 AM | #103 |
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Surprise! Got a new comic this week after all. Just had to wait until Punch arrived. Enjoy.
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10-04-2018, 09:00 AM | #104 |
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Today I have the cover and first page on Spy Troops to share. This will be a page a week until done, with a few exceptions. Enjoy.
Schedule for October 2018: 10/4/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Cover and Page 1 10/11/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 2 10/18/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 3 10/25/18: T.A.O.W.A.R. "Halloween Special" |
10-11-2018, 10:58 AM | #105 |
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Spy Troops Page 2. This was the original one page gag that started this little story. Enjoy.
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10-18-2018, 08:35 AM | #106 |
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10-25-2018, 01:44 PM | #107 |
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No Spy Troops this week, I'm posting the T.A.O.W.A.R. Halloween Special from way back in 2009. Enjoy!
NOTE: -This was written by Star the Wanderer. It's good stuff. I wrote some extra bits of it, I can't remember what though. If you see something unfunny, just assume that my doing. -I believe this is the only time the Tales of the Time Thief custom figure of Thief is seen without her dress piece on. I upgraded her into the modern style soon after this. -So I just realized I've posted Wii-PO's story completely out of order. Whoops. The correct order is 1) "Bush's Last Night Before Christmas in the White House" (posting in December) 2) Filler Funny 36 "The Adventures of Wii-PO and Raider" 3) "T.A.O.W.A.R. Halloween Special" So I posted the middle first, the end second, and will end with the first. If I had noticed this sooner I probably wouldn't have held the holiday specials back and posted all 3 together in order in one post. -I had sent a picture to Star of a bunch of figures that could be used as costumes. I don't remember who's idea it was to use the Grimace as a ghost for W's costume, but it was the best choice by far. Side note, not sure how many of these costume figures I still own. -The blue ghost guy is a McDonald's Silly Slammers that was one of my favorites. When slammed he would say "Now you see me..." "...now you don't!" Couldn't pass up using him in a Halloween Special. -I know the Monster Mash bit was my doing. I think it goes on a few to many panels now, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I didn't still like it. -After the finale of TAOWAR, I considered making a few different comics, one was a sequel to this Halloween Special that would be a slasher movie style comic with Wii-PO as the killer. However, I was hitting burn out on TAOWAR story and characters, so I went with Spy Troops instead. I might make that slasher Wii-PO comic one day, just not right now. Next week we get back to Spy Troops and it looks like November will be all Spy Troops. Schedule for November 2018: 11/1/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 4 11/8/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 5 11/15/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 6 11/22/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 7 11/29/18: ATTF Transformers Spy Troops Page 8 |
11-01-2018, 12:53 AM | #108 |
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Spy Troops Page 4. A little early, but I might forget in the morning, so getting it now. I previewed an panel from this page while I was shooting it a month or so ago on Twitter.
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11-08-2018, 11:32 AM | #109 |
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Spy Troops Page 5.
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11-15-2018, 12:05 PM | #110 |
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Spy Troops Page 6.
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