Hello everyone and apologies for the huge gap in updates. There was a much needed holiday from rainy Manchester, plus a new freelance job doing some colouring for Panini magazines. Oh, and Harry Potter seven came out but I managed to read that in just under two days, so that didn't distract me for too long!
I have been working hard on the comic pages between my full time job at Travelling Man and the colouring for Panini, but they are pages that I won't be posting just yet as they contain a bit too much info. So for now I'll just be posting more development sketches.
Thanks to everyone who has still stuck with us!
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Sneak Peak! First Two Pages.
Some of you may have already seen page one, but seeing it once ain't good enough. Here it is again! I will probably end up tweaking all my completed pages again, so don't expect these to look exactly the same when I'm finally done with issue one. But only a tiny bit of tweaking. Honest!
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Sketch Dump 3
Lazul's little embalming shop, which appears in issue one. Also, I have been mutilating hieroglyphics today between finishing some pages of the comic. Tomorrow though I'm back in the shop for a full day of work, but I should get some sketching done in the evening while I run the games/comics night.
I've now also done what I said I would never do, I made a Myspace. It's basically just an advert for this blog however. Honest!
Monday, 11 June 2007
Sketch Dump 2
Say hallo to some more character designs. These are all characters who appear in the first few issues.
Saturday, 9 June 2007
The Cast: Part 5
Lazul's father and the High Priest of Anubis. He's a thoroughly unpleasant chap, and is responsible for banning hospitals and doctors from his home planet. Saving lives unnaturally seems to be an offense to their god, Anubis.
No one really likes Ahjin very much. Lazul's family is a lot of fun to draw though, they're all very different to him.
Thursday, 7 June 2007
Sketch Dump 1
Hey guys! Sorry for the wait, but here are a few character sketches from the last few days for you.
Thursday, 31 May 2007
The Story So Far
Hello, then! I'm the Dave who writes Nemesis Fleet. Insofar as "Script" can be a job description, it will be listed as mine inside each issue of the comic. The first issue, though, is testament to the fact that it isn't as simple as me writing a script and Abby drawing it.
Today, we sat down around the stack of paper that makes up the first issue, and went through it pointing and laughing. Nothing has changed, we haven't suddenly decided it's rubbish, it's just something we do as often as we can, to make sure we're looking at the comic objectively. It would be the easiest thing in the world to come up with a story, bash out a script, slap down some drawings and call it our unalterable Word, but we don't like doing it that way.
The story for issue one didn't begin with a script as much as it did a head full of ideas. I'm technically going to be "writing" this comic, but really what I'm doing is organising the story into something other people will be able to read. The whole thing has existed in a sort of bubbling, exciteable form in Abby's mind for a fair while. I just divide it into issues and panels and set down what specific words the characters should say. I make sure all the little bits of the story go in the right direction and end up in the right place. I don't write it, I herd it.
Today I helped Abby lock the barn doors. No, forget that metaphor now, it's gone too far. What I'm trying to say is that we made sure it's where we want it, and it isn't likely to escape. We went over every page, picking apart each panel and making sure we had told all the story we needed to tell, had omitted nothing that needed to go in, and generally had written something that reads well and doesn't just dump exposition on the reader. The problem is that we are quite picky, and prone to thinking up entirely new and much more interesting plot ideas each time we look at it, meaning Abby has faced total re-draws more than once before.
But here's the good news. For the first time ever, we found we barely wanted to change anything. A page here, a panel there, a few camera angles and the emphasis of some scenes, but nothing major. Nothing that means rewriting and redrawing the whole thing yet again.
That's got to be a good sign, surely.
Today, we sat down around the stack of paper that makes up the first issue, and went through it pointing and laughing. Nothing has changed, we haven't suddenly decided it's rubbish, it's just something we do as often as we can, to make sure we're looking at the comic objectively. It would be the easiest thing in the world to come up with a story, bash out a script, slap down some drawings and call it our unalterable Word, but we don't like doing it that way.
The story for issue one didn't begin with a script as much as it did a head full of ideas. I'm technically going to be "writing" this comic, but really what I'm doing is organising the story into something other people will be able to read. The whole thing has existed in a sort of bubbling, exciteable form in Abby's mind for a fair while. I just divide it into issues and panels and set down what specific words the characters should say. I make sure all the little bits of the story go in the right direction and end up in the right place. I don't write it, I herd it.
Today I helped Abby lock the barn doors. No, forget that metaphor now, it's gone too far. What I'm trying to say is that we made sure it's where we want it, and it isn't likely to escape. We went over every page, picking apart each panel and making sure we had told all the story we needed to tell, had omitted nothing that needed to go in, and generally had written something that reads well and doesn't just dump exposition on the reader. The problem is that we are quite picky, and prone to thinking up entirely new and much more interesting plot ideas each time we look at it, meaning Abby has faced total re-draws more than once before.
But here's the good news. For the first time ever, we found we barely wanted to change anything. A page here, a panel there, a few camera angles and the emphasis of some scenes, but nothing major. Nothing that means rewriting and redrawing the whole thing yet again.
That's got to be a good sign, surely.
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