ManGodAi4x / AquaCoop, Comic, Cinematic…Terminal Dark.

[Rman Virgil]

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Honestly, was discouraged for a spell. Got started on this for a reason early this year then, all of a sudden, that reason was no longer valid. So moving on with just the comic ..

While I won't be splitting my attention anymore between the WZ "Triumph...." hybrid cinematic and my non-WZ "Masquerade.." animation film short, the X-mas / Pumpkin Studio spirit has moved me to proceed for a bit with this little WZ comic. Let's see how far I can get by New Years eve and my subsequent essential hiatus past the summer of 2013... The need is becoming more and more compelling.

First this -

The story segments and dialog are written but I'm still exploring what visual style is gonna work best. My visual style experiments will be obvious in the samples that follow. Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how to make my paneling more cinematic, not so predicably bounded by symmetric boxes all the time. This last is a main stumbling block for me right now, to be honest. Hopefully I'll work through this so I can settle on a consistent and more energetic visual style (translation: less boring) within the next week or so then I will start posting the comic book itself dramatizing the story sequences that I am not animating in the FMV. That's the plan anyway.

Well the paneling style I finally came to was a combination 90° boxes mixed with triangles and trapezoids. Basically, STERANKO meets Manga.

Style settled, I have to make new assets for the part of the story I was NOT dramatizing in my hybrid cinematic WIP.

Here's an early sample of that current process. It depicts the Scav leader Chandar, after reaching out to the Project Protectorate and making an initial overture for a truce, is told he must come alone and unarmed to a remote specified location where he will be met, and led, by Commander Boudica to the new Project Protectorate Council HQ.

[Rman Virgil]

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Continuing with my chopped liver offerings...

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It all starts with story.

There is the Pumpkin canon from various sources, the original campaign being the main one. Then there are new and fresh directions to explore (and depict) which donot contradict or violate that canon while creatively expanding it in interesting directions. (These can also translate into compelling game play. As Challenges, mini-cams, and so on.....)

This is the main dialog that sets the stage for the opening comic sequence. The visuals to depict the story elements as well the structure of the paneling itself will flow directly from these words.

The Doctor is commanding his minions.

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I'm sending the coordinates and MUAV drone intel now.

Your orders are simple.

I need the youngest and oldest of that scav populace for my work.

Your strike needs to be surgical. The collateral fallout has to be kept to an absolute minimum. This may turn out to be the scavenger breeding population I'm after.

And....it is also essential, absolutely essential, that your assault be seen as the unaffiliated work of some new post collapse renegade faction. No Nexus tech is to be fielded. This a false flag op and there can be nothing to tie me to this.

Understood?

Good. You have 48 hours to make it happen.

Besides the image posted in my last post, I'm working on...

~ A new visual of the Doctor issueing the above command. This will be the dominant panel on the left, a trapezoid with the other panels on the right, arrayed clock-wise in a progressive timeline of events.

~ 2 visuals depicting the Scav enclave target, done in WZ itself. Before the raid and then during the actual raid with the Doctor's minions assualting and Scav forces trying to resist. This would be one of two triggering events for Chander contacting the Project and proposing the truce / trade terms explained as part of the defunct "Triumph in the Balance" cinematic plot arc. There will be brief narrative and dialog elements in these panels. These will be staged and rendered on my "Aqua Coop" running various mods acknowledged earlier in this thread.

~ A new visual of the Doctor's experimental lab with captured Scav subjects from the raid. A dialog element here too.

~ The last panel will be based on the last image posted and it will have dialog exchange between Boudica and Chandar.

I am not yet decided if I will use any toon filters on any of my visuals.

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[Rman Virgil]

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Some more chopped liver...

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While the Doctor has his main HQ in the Artic wastes, he also has his air ship HQ.

His minions never know when he may turn up to see for himself their follow thru. Besides, with 22nd century tech you wouldn't just devolve into a Medieval military mind-set. I would think basic 21st century doctrine and tech like C41 would survive. It's smart and is a good fit with post collapse conditions

Depicted using the "Aqua Coop" map. Different angles of the same location, & lighting changes too.

Since this is all still work, I used a back-screen instead of a green screen for the WZ compositing element and, I must confess, didn't do any chroma keying.

Both are unsatisfactory experiments for the dominant comic panel. But having done 'em, I have a much better idea of what I'm after. Back to it. New Years is coming up quick..
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[Lord Apocalypse]

Overall still looks pretty good, sound story too

[Rman Virgil]

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Appreciate the feedback LA. The story and its associated visuals continue to evolve and accumulate as a body of work in an art form I would not otherwise have thought to explore.

Like enough dung fertilizer for a blooming garden of arresting colors, sometimes the dung is overdone and the blooming arrested.

However, truth be told, this all here came to feel like I was trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. An experience in need of subversion.

Being able to change the context elsewhere, along with an entirely different fictional universe to boot, (fundamentally averse to wasted efforts, you naturally see to multiple options and that in itself is basic to a storyteller's toolkit) it no longer feels like beating a dead horse into the ground. Elsewhere, it's still work but totally fun again. Engagement proceeds as it has normally transpired for decades in cyber space & longer in RL. In the big picture, thank goodness, an anomalous experience now sloughed like old dead skin.

So let's consider this a serpentine journey of learning (and creative evolution a la Henri Bergson) that ends here in a cul-de-sac as fodder for oblivion. Well, maybe not that long. It only took a few years for my "War School".

And thus moving on with renewed verve and gusto, by way of detatchment...

My main remaining WZ interest is in Commanders as WZ Creators originally envisioned and designed them. There are 2 essential means to that end. One is well on the road to maturity, the other is not. I'll monitor the latter pursuant to a complex mod detailed in my last thread on the subject. Moving to that goal's realization, an infrequent forum search for relevant info need be the only effort expended going foward. Once every 6 months should cover it.

Afterall this communication construct is not much more than an information aggregation / exchange between depersonalized "its" - not my cup of tea nor, I would hazard a guess, for the majority of the 16 defined personality types.…

Frick and Frack discuss -

"16 ! Do I have to take them all into account ?".....

"Clearly, there is nothing compelling you to. However, the narrower your accounting and careful regard, the more likely any org will be enfeebled in its mission. Top down and bottom up."

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In any event - Happy 2013 !

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And terminal dark here commences now...
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