An Apple a Day... #63 and 64

Robot
Parts XXVII and XXVIII
  Some notes on Parts XXVII and XXVIII:

• Since these two parts feature Apple's return, it was a logical place to begin Act III, The Consequences. Originally, they were the last two parts of Act II, but I felt that Act II was already running too long.


• Part XXVII is the first comic to not feature any color in quite some time (since AAAD... 18 I believe).


• It was incredibly fun killing the yogurt people in Part XXVIII. I'm not sure how this will play to District's content guidelines, so I hid most of the death in the explosions.


• The news anchor is a different banana from earlier. There's a bit of backstory that links the two bananas as the only news anchors in the area, who also happen to be twins. (I haven't explored that yet, however.)


• Apple's final line in Part XXVIII will most certainly have to be edited for the District release. I think that it sums up exactly what Apple is feeling at that moment, after seeing Edward making a huge mess of things.


• The fact that Apple could guess that the Green Ranger was Edward so quickly is more do to his voice, not his actions. I never understood why NO ONE knew who the Power Rangers were when they spoke to their friends when in costume. It's like, c'mon people, don't you know the sound of your friends' voices?

An Apple a Day... #61 and 62

Robot
Parts XXV and XXVI
  Thus, we've arrived at the end of Act Two, The Solution. I think it's only fitting to have an update to celebrate the supposed Mayan apocalypse since Robot started production on the previous doomsday (Rapture Day, 5/21/2011).

Act Two clearly shifted the focus of the story (and, by extension, the comic series as a whole) from Apple to Edward. It really, sort of, tries to do a lot of things at once, in terms of story progression and character development, while attempting to keep the overall feeling of the story light and humorous. Act Two's production began August 26, 2011 and went until August 31, 2011. This was the quickest turn around in terms of writing and artwork because I was pretty jazzed about the story progression. Around this point, I had begun to formulate my end goal with this story, and eventually knew how it was going to end. However, the school year began and Robot was put on hold, indefinitely. During the hiatus, I kept brainstorming how to move on from Act Two into Act Three, which left me dead stumped for a few months. Around the start of January 2012, I began to clean up Robot so that I felt like I was making some progress. I cleaned all the way to Part XIV and sent it off to District by the end of February, where it began its run in April. Around this time, I had finally figured out how to move the story forward.

Production picked back up on April 25, 2012 with Part XVIII. From there, it continued relatively uninterrupted until Act Two's completion on May 5, 2012.

Some notes on Act Two overall:

• As previously stated, Act Two shifted focus of the comic series away from the titular character in order to focus on Edward's personal development. By the end of Act Two, I was getting seriously concerned about how I would bring the story back to Apple.


• I made the decision to make Edward a Power Ranger, and effectively change the course of the story, when I was watching the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Netflix during the summer of 2011. When the idea was planted in my head, it made me giggle with excitement and I knew that I was on the right track.


• The reason why I hit a road block after Part XVII, was because I wasn't sure about how to go about showing the Green Ranger leaping into battle. In the end, I decided to just use a jump cut sort of transition that was used pretty often in the show.


• There are a few instances of symbolism floating around Act Two. However, they don't become apparent or get explained until the end of Act Three.


• On the whole, I feel like Act Two flows better than Act One.

 

An Apple a Day... #59 and 60

Robot
Parts XXIII and XXIV

Some notes on Parts XXIII and XXIV:

• These are two of my favorite parts from the entire story. 


• I really strived to make these two parts more cinematic in presentation than any of the previous parts.


• Part XXIII's panels are a meticulous recreation of the actual Dragonzord summoning sequence from the Power Rangers television show.


• The "DOOM DOOM DOOM" sound effect used in the last panel of Part XXIV is indicative of what's in store for the remainder of the story. (It's also my poor attempt at subtle foreshadowing.)

An Apple a Day... #57 and 58

Robot
Parts XXI and XXII

Some notes on Parts XXI and XXII:

• Part XXI is one final attempt, on my part, to underscore the ridiculous nature of Edward and Zordon's response to the robot's perceived "menace."


• Part XXII represents the beginning in a shift in tone for the story as Act II begins to wind down.

An Apple a Day... #55 and 56

Robot
Parts XVIX and XX

  Some notes on Parts XVIX and XX:

• These two parts represent my attempt at slowing down the pacing of the story by using less panels per page. It works to a certain extent.


• Part XVIX shows my attempt at playing with panel placement by using an insert panel. I like it but think the panel sort of gets lost in the details of the larger panel. (The rough versions of these two parts were in full color and the panel insert reads much better in color.)


• There is something vaguely dirty about the way Robot is hugging Edward in Part XX. It was not intentional.


• Part XX is the last time I reenforce the fact that Robot only wants a hug and is not, outwardly dangerous.

An Apple a Day... #53 and 54

Robot
Parts XVII and XVIII

  Some notes on Parts XVII and XVIII:

• Right off the bat, the color of these two pages seems a bit weird despite them being the same hues I've been using all along. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know. The amount of time that passed since cleaning up XVI (something like 8 months) could probably be a contributing factor here.


• I had really high hopes for that Zelda joke. Unfortunately, it never really gets properly implemented in later parts of the story (as we'll see soon enough).


• Part XVIII features yet another Robot redesign.


• I was pretty happy I could bring back the VS split from Moustache. It also serves as a nod to the previous story (much like Edward's off hand mention of a bet in Moustache was a reference to The Bet.)


• Boy, those yogurt bastards sure are dramatic aren't they? (Yes, Edward and his ilk are yogurt. Recently I read something which called him a stack of talking rocks with moss. It was kind of refreshing after years of hearing Edward being referred to as poop.)

 

 

IN PROGRESS: Balloon Cat - Revised Space

So, I wasn't happy with the previous Maya renders (as if it wasn't made clear in the last post), however, I hacen't given up the ghost yet. I decided to go back and remodel and stage everything, this time using paint effects and minimal lighting to try and achieve the look I'm after. Below is the result:

Already, this is a stark improvement over what came before. Some more tweaks are needed (for example, the stars are a bit too large) but it's definitely a step in the proper direction.  I figure, in terms of textures on the planets, I can craft something in Photoshop that I can map onto the Maya polygons that would help blend them in with my visual aesthetic. Also, when exporting the scenes for compositing, If I render them in layers, that would give me more control over individual tweaks I may need to make down the line. While playing with the lights, I got to experiment a bit with leaving the objects in the dark. When I turned the light off, I was presented with a scene that had some dark, almost cloaked objects, that helped break up some of the negative space in the shot. It was a nice little discovery (even if it is a bit obvious) that will benefit me later on when staging the shots leading up to the black hole.

The next thing that I need to focus on is getting the framing of the shots solidified. I have to take into account the cat's coloring and be attentive to his fading into the background textures. Some of this could be solved by decreasing the size of the stars, overall, but it will, probably, still take some figuring out. Wide shots are going to be a key aspect to some of these space scenes, however, they won't work if the cat blends in too much. So, I'm really going to have to nail this staging before I can proceed.

Looks like it's time to set up a 3D animatic for these shots.