It's not been a good week for me and there are a few things I need to get off my chest, mainly that I'm officially making Raiden Legacy a Bi-weekly thing, at least until I can actually make money off it.
Before now I had been working to release Raiden Legacy weekly, but for one reason or another it always ended up being a week late. But now I'm starting to feel the effects of my endever and need to make some changes to my schedule.
You see a standard page takes me around 2 hours each, with 20 pages a week, that equals 40 hours a week. But I have work shifts, sleep and a social life on top of that. If I'm awake for 17 hours, 4 pages a day would mean working for half the day, not taking into account food. Work is the main drain on my time; I'm signed on to work at least 16 hours a week, but it often goes over 20 hours, or in the case of this week over 40. And this isn't counting editing.
So all that math = an exhausted idiot.
So I'm changing my schedule to 10 pages a week (20 hours a week), spread out over 6 days, giving me one day off.
The long and short of it means that if I focus on 10 pages a week I can work on other projects, like mini comic strips (that I miss making) and animations; the first will be Raiden Legacy based, essentially an opening music video for an animation (there is no Raiden Legacy animated. I am one man with with limited work hours). It's something I've wanted to do for a while now and hopefully should act as a mini advert for the comic itself.
In terms of the comic itself, chapter 07 will be posted later on tomorrow, with chapter 06 being posted on Deviant art at the same time. The aim is to finish chapter 08, so that I can release volume 01 as premium content here on Deviant art. Plus with the extended time frame I can create more content for the volume itself.
Don't know if anyone would buy it, but hey nothing ventured right?
Sorry for moping, but when you find yourself hyperventilating while pacing up and down an IKEA restaurant telling yourself to get it together, you need to get something off your chest, even if it's typed up in a small dark corner of the internet. But your welcome in my dark corner, and hopefully my work can entertain you (I'll even loan you a reading light).
But enough of being all Emo and shit!
Comic talk!
This is where the story finally gets going for me, with events having a more significant impact on the characters. The first 6 chapters became devoted to establishing a status quo, as to introduce the characters and situation quickly before we get to know them.
New characters introduced are Gioconda and Fioralba; an idea I had ages ago of a sniper and knife wielder tag team. Their role has always been as Rocks subordinates; loyal to him no matter what. The age thing was important too; it was established in an earlier draft when Rock was more of a womaniser that he would just blank them most of the time, when ironically they were the ones who actually liked him. This got toned down when Rock became more of this info manic, curious observer, so Gia and Fio had to develop their own personalities. I'm still getting the hang of them, but I like Fioralba already; she's like this petite cynic, with a passion for cheeseburgers (yet she stays tiny). Gioconda is a bit more generic to me besides being kind of angry and dressing a bit more girly than the other characters. Maybe I can flesh her out when I get into her back story next time.
Mainly I'm glad to have a fight scene with Natsumi, who i consider to fill the protagonist role (Keanu's more of the Han Solo to Natsumi's Luke Skywalker if you get me) but she hasn't really fought much. I wanted to have her come across as competent, if a little inexperienced. Also the fist of many costume changes for Natsumi. For one reason or another, Natsumi is just the one with the drastic changes, matching her more impulsive personality. Izumi changes her shirts, but reuses the same hoodie and jacket combo, so you don't see it. But I feel that it kind of fits her character too, that she likes the safe and familiar.
If this wasn't back and white Natsumi's hair would change too, but there are some colour pages coming soon so hopefully I can show the difference there. I would change her overall style, but I kind of write myself into a corner by giving her short hair, so there wasn't much I could do with it besides the teased spikes look. The changes in outfit is also why I gave her those spikes on the back of her head to distinguish her. Plus the way her central bang curves towards the right side of her face, unlike Izumi whose curves left and spikes at the front, to keep them similar but different too, since most cartoon characters are really distinguished by their hair, although I do try to put in little differences like Sekai having a sharper chin and nose from Natsumi and changing the eyelash shape on each character (Izumi and Natsumi both have 2 large spikes, while sekai has the same but with 2 smaller ones near the bottom of the eye.
Hopefully these changes come across to the people that notice them.
Also on the subject of the cities these guys visit.
You probably noticed by now that I like to name cities after Mathematical terms. Namely Vector, Radius and Scalene. This is different for the bigger cities, which are named after the greek alphabet like the capital of Huntren being Omega city.
Another thing you may have noticed is that I like to make cities, for lack of a better word, gimmicky. Like Vector being on giant stilts and Radius having that huge wall. That's because I like to incorporate cites around the fight scenes. For example in Radius I wanted a fight on that giant wall, which proved to be a pain since gravity is all messed up while characters are fighting on them. Scalene on the other hand was based on a thought I had; "you know what I want to draw? People fighting on giant ass cables!" So I based the city around those cables.
In Scalene I've pretty much written in everything I wanted to show. Which is good for me, since I didn't get to show what I wanted to of Radius, which was originally more water based, but for what ever reason the multiple rivers, fountains and aqueducts didn't get drawn in; the city ended up as super boring as a result, all it had was the wall.
Still I really liked the initial designs and I really want to use them, but so far I'm not sure where. There is a location that is pretty much a city which is a desert roaming convoy, but I'm not sure how I can work it into a fight, so I might use it there.
Vector felt under utilised, mainly because the guy they were fighting was very ground based. I wanted the fight to bounce between the giant platforms, or falling onto lower levels. Fortunately there is a flashback fight where I can hopefully get to use a lot more elaborate fight moves. To that end I'm really looking forward to chapter 13, which I've written to include a lot of transitions and moving vehicles. Though one shot on a speedway I'm not looking forward to, but it should look awesome if I can get it right. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Designs I'm looking forward to is a cliff side ski resort, a city built into the sides of a giant pit and a fight on a flying aircraft carrier as it crashes into the ground. I have some lamer ideas, but I feel like they could use punching up.
There's a wild west themed fight which could be incorporated into the convoy idea, but we'll see. I like crazy set pieces.
On that note, check out GI Joe Retaliation, if only for one scene where Snake eyes fights an army of ninjas while swinging along a mountain cliff face. It's fucking awesome!
