The P.O.W.! Project

[Robotus]

A project begins.
What have I gotten myself into? This is my meditation in a moment of self reflection.

This message was sent to Ilaekae:


This is a project I'm planning, please give feedback.

To go through your POW challenges and, doing 2-3 pages on each one in order (or reverse order?), create a cohesive storyline and fully illustrated comic respecting time limits on each (or as an aggregate time limit? Need to design characters, ect.)

Due to the cohesive nature of the project, I was considering not using challenges #10, 12, 14, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, and possibly 20.

[ . . . ]

The purpose of this is to learn skills by public critique and practice as well as to get used to consistency of work.

These are your challenges and would like to get your input on how this project should be carried out, whether it is worth the time, and where my steps towards completing the project should be posted in the CA forums. (My instinct is to post them to the POW forums, but this may not be appropriate.)

Please respond.

He gave me his blessings and here we go! :tihi:


This link will take you down to where the action starts:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2883348&#post2883348

[Robotus]

A random number generator was used to sequence the order of the challenges in the story instead of moving through them in order. Decided to keep challenge 20 but reserve the right to replace it with zombies or the number ten.

The story is being roughed in using the time honored techniques of objective chance, free association, fantasy, inspiration, and the paranoiac critical method. Things are turning out interestingly.

Fine details in the story will be developed alongside the development of the artwork.

Just so happens that if I do the bare minimum of pages by this train of thought, there will be 64 pages.

Hope to learn a lot.



Will keep you (all) updated.

[j.s. sabastian]

ummm...i'm confused so your going to take previouse challenges. combine them together with a basic story and then we produce the art.

So are we all working as team? becuase the lot of us have completely differen't styles???
if so it wouldn't be p.o.w.....it's a challenge....granted i get my ass kicked......but i try

another thing P.O.W is do or die. you have to realize a lot of poeple who commit in the beganing don't actually make the deadlines (guilty as charged) becuase they have lives...sometimes you make the deadline, sometimes you don't...

all in all. i'm still not sure what youre end game is here to come up with some art collaborated graffic novel?.... any way's good luck....i'll try to keep my scheduel open;)

[Robotus]

Actually, I was going to do it. Just going to do them all - why the hell not - as one long comic book. Or several of a linked series while obeying time constraints.

In order to learn.

I hope you and the others will help with critiques and words of encouragement (or discouragement if you like.)

I have most of the plot blocked in now and am working on character sketches. Don't have a stable form for the characters yet, but will try to get them scanned in soon.

Should I reveal the plot right away, or should I leave it a mystery that unfolds as I post progress reports? I'm leaning towards slowly unfolding the mystery in order to keep this more interesting for everyone.

[artiphats]

this sounds like a great idea. Are you open to the possibility of posting your story and characters, so that other artists can run with the same theme and present their own interpretations of it? I think it would also benifit you, Robotus, because in addition to getting your own work critiqued, you could see how other people made certain decisions along the way that worked to give different results. I have participated in all of the community activities except POW, but I would consider running with this theme and giving it a go if the details were given, and I'm sure other people would try their hand at it too.

[j.s. sabastian]

artiphats basically as read earlier he's picking and choosing previuose challenges for his story line. too combine...
robotus so your going to do the art and the storyline.......i mean honestly why even bring it up on a community level?????? if KiTTy say's it's cool than it's cool. it just becomes more baffling....if your looking to be critiquede on youre 64 page graphic novel based on previuose challeges....we'll critue you oh, yes...
----i'm not afraid-----(luke skywalker)------you will be-you will be-----(yoda)

[artiphats]

yes I know what he is doing, but I meant that since he is putting a specific story together with specific characters, he might give that information. Just a thought really, I'm not trying to say he should do all the hard work for others to just benefit from, but I thought it might benefit him even more for reasons I stated above. Either way, good luck Robotus hope you learn a lot and grow :)

[Lightpunk]

I think this is a cool idea - go for it dude!

[Robotus]

The order of the challenges given by random number generator will be approximately this: . . . well actually the way my notes are set up, it would take an unnecessarily long amount of time to decode the original numbers.

The challenges I excluded are due to the difficulty of incorperating them into a cohesive singular storyline without writing the story around them.
Things like editorial cartoons, comic strips, and the like. There was one where one was supposed to follow a pre written story. One that required ten pages of material. The challenges being undertaken are not the ones I've chosen as much as only avoided the ones that disqualified themselves as impractical by the very nature of the project. There are many that will be done as a challenge but would rather not do them. (What the hell am I going to do with Harpy?)

What you will be treated with tonight is actually about five pages in to the comic.

P.O.W.! Challenge 39--The Telephone...
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=183247

[Robotus]

The story here in brief is that the lead character is studying arcane texts online with his buddy when he gets a call reminding him of an appointment. He tries to tell his buddy that he has to go, but the guy won't stop talking. He leaves anyway only to be stopped by a man in the hallway. Finally he gets to his car. This is leading up to the assignment "Really Bad Date."

It is all in pencil right now. Will be inked when a full section is complete. This may actually end up as several individual comics. Each inked once completed.

Anybody have any good references for doing the lettering in those speech bubbles? How do you know how much space to give them so the lettering fits?
What formalities are there for best technique?

[Robotus]

This is the first part of the challenge order; time to reverse compile my notes:

pow 42 should be dealing with an harpy
pow 17, not our kind
pow 39, the telephone
pow 37, REALLY bad date
pow 35, okaay, we're screwed
pow 2, we'll just work out the details later
pow 27, demons among us (may exorcise my spirit of discretion to reverse the order of pow27 and pow2 in defiance of the laws of strict chance.)
pow 15, the messenger

so that should take us to the end of the first section.

[Raoul Duke]

when it comes to speech bubbles, estimate how much room you think you'll need and leave an extra half. Unless your working for some long winded prick like Allen Moor, then you might as well write the dialogue first and draw around it.

[Robotus]

P.O.W.! 42 - Harpies (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=188658)

[Robotus]

Since I'm not getting any feedback on this, I will just go ahead and finish the first section before posting on this thread again.

[donalfall]

Lettering is a tough judgement call. Practise makes perfect. I recommend lots of copying panels to get ratios right, and a fair bit of reading.

If you're going to do text by hand - and you should at least give it a go - you also should try getting an Ames Guide (http://cgi.ebay.com/AMES-LETTERING-GUIDE-INCH-METRIC-Drawing-Drafting-Art-/190460913810?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c585ae892#ht_3270wt_924), which makes the process easier. And a really good t-Square. ;)

Those sketch pages from Harpy are looking well. I have to review your plans to give more feedback, but it's going good!

[vineris]

Anybody have any good references for doing the lettering in those speech bubbles? How do you know how much space to give them so the lettering fits?
What formalities are there for best technique?

http://www.balloontales.com/
http://www.blambot.com/handlettering.shtml

How do I know how much space to give them? Usually by doing the lettering right in the roughs. Since page sizes vary, there's a lot of trial and error involved.

Save yourself a lot of trouble and do the word balloons first. It will help you avoid issues like "OMG I can't bear to cover up even one millimeter of my art so I'll push the balloon off into the gutters".