Post by Jeff on Apr 1, 2004 15:02:31 GMT -5
Ep 15: Auditions
Episode 15 marks the begining of a dangerous threat I flirted with many a time in creating a toy-based web comic; namely the desire to include each and every strange toy you come across. This worked well at first with the color coordinated minions introduced in this episode (from Filmation's Blackstar series), but ultimately led to the creation of characters like the Not-Particularly Canny Hog-Men, who were funny for one episode and then got old very quickly.
I had recently won a Blackstar ebay lot, and felt such a tendency. The minions made it into this episode, and Overlord (the main bad guy from the series) was my first pick for the minions' leader. I ultimately decided that Phil was a far better choice (I'll get to him in the next episode summary), and instead came up with a plan that the comic would randomly cut to Overlord and Kadray (another bad guy from the series) from time to time, where they'd be standing around saying ominous things like "it's nearly time" and "the plan is almost complete". The gag being that nothing would ever come of such statements. These ominous foreshadowings would go absolutely nowhere. It seemed like a funny idea, but it just never made its way into the comic. There were too many other stories I wanted to tell.
Blackstar Overlord and Kadray
I honestly have no idea where my characterization for the minions came from, but the idea seems too cute and inventive to have come from me. If I stole this from some film or novel without realizing it, I sincerely apologize.
Having so many characters talk in a single panel was my largest challenge in this episode. If you recall, the lines from a character's head to their word bubbles was the hardest, most time consuming part of making the comic at this point. I was still coloring individual pixels. It was in desperation, a little more than halfway through this episode, that I finally discovered how to use the filled triangle tool, which got the same job done in a matter of seconds. I continued to use this process for word bubbles until I finally switched to Photoshop word bubbles in episode 130.
Flamewing and Turkey appear again at the begining of this episode, just because I loved the sight gag. I still had no plans for bringing them back after this episode.
The final panel was far more fun to pose than it is to view
Episodes 15-17 were created and posted on February 1st, 2003.
Episode 15 marks the begining of a dangerous threat I flirted with many a time in creating a toy-based web comic; namely the desire to include each and every strange toy you come across. This worked well at first with the color coordinated minions introduced in this episode (from Filmation's Blackstar series), but ultimately led to the creation of characters like the Not-Particularly Canny Hog-Men, who were funny for one episode and then got old very quickly.
I had recently won a Blackstar ebay lot, and felt such a tendency. The minions made it into this episode, and Overlord (the main bad guy from the series) was my first pick for the minions' leader. I ultimately decided that Phil was a far better choice (I'll get to him in the next episode summary), and instead came up with a plan that the comic would randomly cut to Overlord and Kadray (another bad guy from the series) from time to time, where they'd be standing around saying ominous things like "it's nearly time" and "the plan is almost complete". The gag being that nothing would ever come of such statements. These ominous foreshadowings would go absolutely nowhere. It seemed like a funny idea, but it just never made its way into the comic. There were too many other stories I wanted to tell.
Blackstar Overlord and Kadray
I honestly have no idea where my characterization for the minions came from, but the idea seems too cute and inventive to have come from me. If I stole this from some film or novel without realizing it, I sincerely apologize.
Having so many characters talk in a single panel was my largest challenge in this episode. If you recall, the lines from a character's head to their word bubbles was the hardest, most time consuming part of making the comic at this point. I was still coloring individual pixels. It was in desperation, a little more than halfway through this episode, that I finally discovered how to use the filled triangle tool, which got the same job done in a matter of seconds. I continued to use this process for word bubbles until I finally switched to Photoshop word bubbles in episode 130.
Flamewing and Turkey appear again at the begining of this episode, just because I loved the sight gag. I still had no plans for bringing them back after this episode.
The final panel was far more fun to pose than it is to view
Episodes 15-17 were created and posted on February 1st, 2003.