The Wannabe Pirates

[HomeSlice]

Very cute! It reminds me a little of Rocky and Bullwinkle ... but with higher production values

[KenH]

Wow. Beautiful clean style. It's beyond me how to reproduce faces so well. Have you decided to increase the quality of the cartoons or is it just that your style (dare I say talent?) is a little better than McCrary?

Don't tell him I said that cos he's talented too and he might draw me in as a dribbling village idiot!

 

Oh and even though it's a filler story, I'll be following along with baited breath.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

I take that as high praise, HomeS! I love Rocky & Bullwinkle!

 

Ken, there's definitely a difference in style (which is partly why I'm doing this as a spin-off rather than the actual strip), but the big difference really comes down to the amount of time I'm putting into this. McCrary would love to hand draw the strip, but his time constraints won't allow it. He's also had to work with my original character designs, which are a departure from his style. To make it feasible for him to do the strip, he has to make use of a lot of sprites. I think he's done a great job within the constraints of that!

 

Since I only have to do 15 of these and have the time to invest, I'm putting more into it. I'm also challenging myself to get past my usual laziness with this sort of thing and do the harder stuff. I suspect, though, that before I reach the last of these 15, I'll be wishing I'd gone that easy route. :-)

[HomeSlice]

I suspect, though, that before I reach the last of these 15, I'll be wishing I'd gone that easy route.

That is Bullpucky. You are going to be so in love with these beautiful drawings. As you complete each one, you won't be able to help yourself from pinning them up around your desk and staring at them with a goofy grin on your face.

[NancyGormezano]

I have to agree - definitely a nice clean terrific style

[apprentice]

That's a good work, Mark. I thought you guys changed the style on purpose but it's just they way you draw. It looked more cartoony, I liked it. The thick and stylized outlines reminded me of the modern toon style on tv (I don't know what's the name for that.) Hey, it's cool that you used AM too for the comics. It looked like you're using the models for drawing references instead of toon rendering it. I'm gonna try exporting my mdl to Manga Studio and let it do the 2D conversion. I hope it'll look good. Good luck with the 15 pages!

[largento]

That is Bullpucky. You are going to be so in love with these beautiful drawings. As you complete each one, you won't be able to help yourself from pinning them up around your desk and staring at them with a goofy grin on your face.

 

Well, true as that may be, I know just how much I love taking the easy way out. :-)

 

I have to agree - definitely a nice clean terrific style

 

Thanks, Nancy!

 

That's a good work, Mark. I thought you guys changed the style on purpose but it's just they way you draw. It looked more cartoony, I liked it. The thick and stylized outlines reminded me of the modern toon style on tv (I don't know what's the name for that.) Hey, it's cool that you used AM too for the comics. It looked like you're using the models for drawing references instead of toon rendering it. I'm gonna try exporting my mdl to Manga Studio and let it do the 2D conversion. I hope it'll look good. Good luck with the 15 pages!

 

Thanks, Andy! I do have a more cartoony style. I guess the thicker lines are in style in modern day cartoons, but they've been a staple of animated cartoons since they went to television. It helped make the characters easier to see on old TV sets. I try to imitate a brush when I "ink" in Illustrator. I like that it adds weight to the characters. I would think that watching all of those old Hanna-Barbara cartoons growing up in the 70s definitely influenced me. And the coloring books based on them!

 

...especially a certain stone-aged family... :-)

 

[Rodney]

Ahem. Coff Coff. Figit.

 

Anyone know wht those Wannabe Pirates have been up to?

I for one would love to see a pencil sketch or two (hundred).

[largento]

Ahem. Coff Coff. Figit.

 

Anyone know wht those Wannabe Pirates have been up to?

I for one would love to see a pencil sketch or two (hundred).

 

 

Big things are happening, Rodney.

 

For starters, after a whole year in the telling, the Henry Morgan's Treasure storyline is coming to an end this Friday!

 

This is coming much sooner than what I had anticipated, which means the Waldo strips are going to have to start next Tuesday. I wasn't expecting them to start for several weeks and haven't built up the buffer I needed for them to run twice weekly. It's possible that I could get them done on time, but that would mean I'd have no lead time before the next storyline.

 

So, the Waldo strips are going to run as a weekly strip over 15 weeks.

 

After that...

 

If all goes to plan, I'm going to be eating my words ...and doing the strip in 3D.

 

I honestly never thought this would happen.

 

We'll also be going to a Monday-Friday schedule and be putting up 5 strips a week!

 

This will hopefully help with gaining regular readers and it will allow us to tell more stories in the time we have to work on it. This also means we'll be able to fill up books for publishing in a faster time.

 

But... this comes at the cost of the animated project. I've been split in two between the webcomic and the animated project and that simply isn't working. I need to focus on just one project and I'm choosing the webcomic.

 

Obviously, with it now being done in 3D, I'll be able to make use of all of the assets I've built over these two years and I'll be creating tons of new ones over the course of the strip ...plus I've got some ideas of how animation will be used in conjunction with the webcomic. (Not to mention that the comic can serve as a basis for storyboards for animated versions of the stories.)

 

This project keeps evolving and I'm not sure how it's going to go, but this feels like the correct course for now. I could write reams about all the pros of doing this, but I think "it feels right" is the most important one.

 

I certainly had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first started this thread! :-)

[Rodney]

Color me shocked with a tint of speechless.

I've got questions. Yes I do.

 

Thanks for the update Mark.

I'll try to recover and formulate those questions into something other than gibberish.

That's some serious breaking news!

[largento]

To be honest, I haven't entirely come out of shock myself.

 

This is going to be a large undertaking and the reality of the deadlines is kind of scary.

 

Still, I feel like I've been floundering without that pressure.

[Rodney]

Mark,

Two words...

 

Amass a collection of stock images with Alpha Channels (preferrably in PNG format) to use in the comic strip.

 

Okay, that may be a few more words than two but I hope you get the picture.

Its okay to think in terms of Hanna Barbera here.

As the strip will consist of many of the same images anyway it'll be good to have a library of assets available should you need them.

 

Yeah, I know you know this already but this is just to make sure.

In twenty years I'm gonna want access to them.

[largento]

The production is going to be very complex and involve a lot of compositing.

I'll certainly be making use of 20 years of being a graphic designer.

 

I'm not sure how much re-usability will play into it. I'm sure there'll be some.

[KenH]

Probably a good move. You can build up a library while making the strip and keep the strip readers while seducing the 3D market too. I wonder how the 3D characters would look "tooned". I'm sure you'll get around to an animation some time in the future.

[largento]

That's very much what I'm thinking, Ken.

 

The harsh reality I've had to face is that my productivity has dropped when it should be over the top. I've been spinning my wheels for awhile now and this represents a way to get over that.

 

And I'd really like to see the webcomic grow and I think upping the number of strips a week is integral to accomplishing that.

 

It remains to be seen whether or not the look of the 3D will garner more interest from readers.

 

What would be great is if the webcomic garnered enough attention that readers began to ask for animation. I've certainly appreciated the comments on this forum, but the reality is that the animations have elicited zero comments on the website. That's disheartening.

[Rodney]

I'm not sure how much re-usability will play into it. I'm sure there'll be some.

 

Don't underestimate the value of the assets you have already.

Any reuse will make a collection of useful imagery handy.

If there is a lot of reuse you may wish you'd saved more of your renders in Targa or PNG.

 

I'm thinking not only of the strip of course but of promotional work and other venues that will appear.

If you at least have the art available you have something to work with when crunch time nears.

If you don't you have the resources you'll spend your time tweaking and rendering.

Why render an image again if you already have what you need?

(rhetorical question)

 

Here's a minor example:

Lets say you have something that will reoccur in your strip; an environment, characters, props or other things. Or you've got Flemm holding a crummy soup spoon when you need him to hold his favorite ladle. You could go to all the trouble of posing and constraining or just position the image and erase those parts of the image not needed.

 

Perhaps you'll find out you need to do a special Pirate's Tools page for a magazine. If you've got all the props rendered as PNGs with Alpha Channels you can just import them and drop them on the page. Since there is no need to rerender you can move on with your storytelling focusing on assets that are really needed.

 

...and of course some of these assets will be useful later for 3D.

 

Edit: Perhaps the focus for animation can be on Ads.

[largento]

Edit: Perhaps the focus for animation can be on Ads.

 

Exactly my thinking, Rodney.

[Rob_T]

More comics keeps your readers coming back more often and staying longer. It's a good, proven strategy for increasing traffic. Of course to really build your fan base you are going to have to start going to conventions. Sinfest is the only webcomic I know of that is very popular but never has a presence at conventions. And even he has Dark Horse selling his books at the conventions now.

 

Have you ever seen this 3D comic? British, 3D, prett funny. I've conversed with the creator a bit, good guy.

 

http://www.secretagentbritishintelligence....com/page-01.htm

 

To go back to that off topic topic before... I see you guys have done a lot of pirate stuff. Have you ever done pirate stuff with a fantasy element? Magic or something like that?

 

I ask because I have a friendly acquantance who is the senior editor for Black Gate Magazine.

 

http://www.blackgate.com/

 

I could pass something on if you want, they are always looking for good Fantasy stories.

 

Back to WBP. I think it's great you are ramping up and I agree your art is fantastic. I'm extremely jealous that you have two great artists on your webcomic and I don't even have one. Congrats. I wish you much success.

[largento]

More comics keeps your readers coming back more often and staying longer. It's a good, proven strategy for increasing traffic. Of course to really build your fan base you are going to have to start going to conventions. Sinfest is the only webcomic I know of that is very popular but never has a presence at conventions. And even he has Dark Horse selling his books at the conventions now.

 

Have you ever seen this 3D comic? British, 3D, prett funny. I've conversed with the creator a bit, good guy.

 

http://www.secretagentbritishintelligence....com/page-01.htm

 

To go back to that off topic topic before... I see you guys have done a lot of pirate stuff. Have you ever done pirate stuff with a fantasy element? Magic or something like that?

 

I ask because I have a friendly acquantance who is the senior editor for Black Gate Magazine.

 

http://www.blackgate.com/

 

I could pass something on if you want, they are always looking for good Fantasy stories.

 

Back to WBP. I think it's great you are ramping up and I agree your art is fantastic. I'm extremely jealous that you have two great artists on your webcomic and I don't even have one. Congrats. I wish you much success.

 

 

Thanks, Rob_T!

 

Well, throw into the irony that we have two artists and we're not going to be drawing anything on the strip anymore. :-)

(That's not entirely true, since I'm certain I'm going to be creating a lot of 2D art in Photoshop to look like extra 3D stuff.)

 

I had not seen that secret agent webcomic before. I'll have to dig through it. His character designs are smart. Rigging those would be a breeze. :-)

 

I'll check with McCrary re: the magazine. Fantasy/Magic has never been an interest of mine, but we're playing with fantasy/magic elements in WBP. I know I'm going to be swamped for quite some time to come finishing out this fill-in story and getting the 3D comic up and running.

 

I do plan on starting to make some convention appearances later down the road. Once I've finished the strips for this Waldo Morgan Chronicles story, I'm going to put together our first book that will contain all of the 2D strips. The books after that will strictly be 3D. But as soon as I do have the book done, I'll at least start attending local cons.

[largento]

Wow, how quickly do things change! :-)

 

Big news about to be posted on The Wannabe Pirates website!

 

I'm going to make the Waldo Chronicles story a book-only exclusive!

 

Instead of running it on the website, it's going to be bonus material for the book: and extra 15 pages of comics!

 

In place of Waldo, we're going to start on Monday running our "Greyhawk and the Starbucklers of the Caribbean" graphic novel! It'll run Monday thru Friday for about 19 weeks!

 

The big reason why is that we're going to make the next Wannabe Pirates story a cross-over story! Flemm & Co. will meet-up with a cartoonized 3D version of Greyhawk & Co. to battle invaders from outer space! :-) This way, we'll have fresh content during the break *and* we'll be able to introduce the Greyhawk characters to our audience.

 

I'm very much looking forward to this!

 

Now, gotta' go change the announcement on the website!

[Rodney]

Interesting news Mark!

 

I was wondering if I'd ever get a chance to see those Greyhawk characters up close and... low and behold.

 

Keep us posted.

[largento]

Thanks, Rodney!

 

I'm a little worried about how it's going to be received, since folks are coming to the site to see The Wannabe Pirates and Greyhawk isn't the same. However, we're going to need the lead time to get the new story up and going. Especially since I'm going to have to create a lot of elements, and this way we're at least providing content. And it will be relevant to the next story. Luckily, I still have the original files that we used to create the book, but I'm having to re-letter every page. Back when this was done, I was still using Pagemaker! Lettering a page a day isn't too much work, though.

 

I sat down and re-read the graphic novel a couple of weeks ago and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. At this point, I don't remember what I wrote (I wrote the script in 1995), so it's like reading something written by a stranger. :-)

 

I'm really jazzed about all of this, though and really looking forward to designing the cartoon versions of the characters we're going to use.

 

I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but we're at least entertaining the idea of doing a Sunday strip with new Greyhawk material after this is all finished. But that's waaaay far away right now.

[largento]

Page One is up!

 

Going to be curious to see what (if any) response we'll get to doing this. Hopefully there won't be any angry readers. (Fingers crossed.)

 

I've made some slight changes to the site. I updated the header graphic to include the new logo and to acknowledge the Greyhawk story. You may have to refresh your browser to see it. I also added a list called "Stories" to the sidebar which lets the reader go to the beginning of any of the stories we've done so far.

 

I'm planning on doing a full site re-design at some point before the new strip launches.

[Rodney]

Hey! What have you done with my Wannabes!!!

 

 

Just kidding Mark. Hang in there.

 

I do think the changing of your header graphic is a good idea.

At least readers will know this new strip isn't something thats been broken on the webpage.

The change in style and genre may be pretty jarring but I'm sure fans can adjust accordingly.

Sell the controversy!

 

So... should we all begin working on our own pirate-themed comics to fit into future cross over continuity?

Maybe you could get Andy Mulia to do a short strip or two leading up to a cameo by Werewolf and Firefly.

Its all part of the tear in the fabric of the time/space travel continuum thingy.

 

Edit: Hey, wait a minute.

You are going to model, texture and render all the Greyhawk characters in 3D and have them interact with the Wannabees!??

You soooooo insane.

But I'm there with you!

[largento]

Edit: Hey, wait a minute.

You are going to model, texture and render all the Greyhawk characters in 3D and have them interact with the Wannabees!??

You soooooo insane.

But I'm there with you!

 

I appreciate that, Rodney!

 

And I'm only "sorta'" insane. :-)

 

I won't be doing all of the characters from the graphic novel, but we're going to use several of them. Of course, they'll be re-designed to look like they belong in the Wannabe Pirates. We're not going to do any of those alternate dimension things. There simply will be a version of Greyhawk's Island in the Wannabe Pirates' universe. Greyhawk and Flemm are contemporaries. "Greyhawk and the Starbucklers of the Caribbean" is set in 1689 and "The Wannabe Pirates" is set in 1691.

 

I'm going to be modeling a *lot* of new characters, set pieces and props over the course of this. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'll get a sort of instant gratification from it, in that they'll be seen much faster than if they were part of an animated project.

[TheSpleen]

I thought it looked really really good.

[largento]

Thanks, Gene!

[apprentice]

Hey, congrats on the new direction, Mark! It would be so cool to have a famous 3D webcomic made with AM. I really liked the second page of Greyhawk. The establishing panel, the silhouettes reminded me the "storytelling spirit" of comics. Sometimes, when I fuss too much with the technical sides I forget that.

 

Maybe you could get Andy Mulia to do a short strip or two leading up to a cameo by Werewolf and Firefly.

Its all part of the tear in the fabric of the time/space travel continuum thingy.

 

Sure, let's do that sometimes

[largento]

Thanks, Andy!

 

Are you still working on the 3D versions of your characters? I think it would be pretty fun to insert them as a cameo in one of the strips!

[apprentice]

My 3D versions still got a long way to go right now, Mark. I'll let you know if I have something. Hm, I don't know exactly how W&F can appear in Wannabe but it'll be fun to figure it out lol

[largento]

Status update!

 

Feeling pretty good! McCrary is in town and we not only knocked out the story for "The Wannabe Pirates and the Curse of Greyhawk Island," but knocked out the next story for Greyhawk and the Starbucklers of the Caribbean, too!

 

It's going to be a great experiment, but we're going to see if I can do 5 WBP strips a week and McCrary do 1 Greyhawk page a week (as a Sunday strip.)

 

Very productive couple of days!

[Rodney]

Mark,

If its not too much to ask please drop a rough storyboard image or two on your blog.

I love that 'Here's whats coming up next' stuff.

[KenH]

Great! Lots of reading in store.

[KenH]

Oh just on house keeping, I hope you're getting your files real organised and backing up for this marathon! I have a separate drive with synctoy scheduled to back up to it daily. It works well. Just a reminder.

[largento]

Oh just on house keeping, I hope you're getting your files real organised and backing up for this marathon! I have a separate drive with synctoy scheduled to back up to it daily. It works well. Just a reminder.

 

To be sure, I am, Ken!

 

After my hard drive went kablooey last year, I've been even more cautious. In addition to the online and external drive backups I do every day, I have my 1TB Time Capsule set to back up my entire computer every night!

 

'Tis probably a bit early to be showing this, but I did the first 3D webcomic today!

 

[KenH]

Wow. This is going to be fun. In the first box, the guy looks like a real model. I think the blurred background is helping that....with the lighting. Love it.

[Rodney]

I was about to head off to sleep and thought I'd put of commenting until tomorrow.

Nope. This praise can't wait until tomorrow.

 

That is really outstanding!

[KenH]

Hmm....just thinking aloud, but the models/scenes could be value added content when the book is bought.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

This page came together pretty quickly since I didn't have to create any new models for it! The next one requires a new character, so I'm going to have work to do before I can finish it.

 

Ken, I see what you mean about the first panel. I think there are a few things that contribute to that. Certainly the lighting and the blurred background, but also I think his mug looks like it could be plastic and I used a global color in the choreography that was overlayed onto the background art, to create the look that they shared the same light.

 

Hmm....just thinking aloud, but the models/scenes could be value added content when the book is bought.

 

You mean like production art? That's a good idea. I'll have sketches of the characters that I make while designing them and there'll be a whole lot of that, at least for this story. I'm hoping that the following stories will require less and less new stuff ...which is probably just wishful thinking. :-) I am trying to mostly stick with recurring characters and locations (besides the story-specific stuff that has to be done.)

[agep]

I definitely like the style. Looking forward to see more

[largento]

Thanks, Stian!

[apprentice]

I really liked it. The lighting looks good. The composition helped a great deal too. I think Dreamland Chronicles looks kind of jarring (I think it's the composition.) I like yours better, Mark!

[mtpeak2]

That looks great, Mark! It's about time you put them in 3d.

[KenH]

I was thinking of offering some of the AM models on a password protected server. But your idea is good too. Just something to mull over.

 

Do pirates not say "Ye" instead of "You" and "Oi" instead of "I"?

[largento]

I really liked it. The lighting looks good. The composition helped a great deal too. I think Dreamland Chronicles looks kind of jarring (I think it's the composition.) I like yours better, Mark!

 

Thanks, Andy! That's very flattering! I do think that there will be inevitable comparisons to "Dreamland Chronicles," even though they are very different stylistically. I won't ever have the resources to create full 3D environments and charcters like Sava has, but hopefully I can find enough creative ways to work around this and produce a nice looking product.

 

That looks great, Mark! It's about time you put them in 3d.

 

Thanks, Mark! Well, the cost of doing this is abandoning the animated version, but I'm beginning to feel even more okay with that. I feel more like I know what I'm doing with the comic.

 

The real challenge will be to see if I can meet the 5-days a week deadlines! That's a lot of content to produce! Running Greyhawk will give me some lead time to build up a buffer, but that will disappear quickly if I can't keep up.

 

Do pirates not say "Ye" instead of "You" and "Oi" instead of "I"?

 

We've kind of stayed away from heavy dialect stuff. The anachronistic spirit is alive and well in The Wannabe Pirates. Despite the fact that we say Flemm is from England, he speaks with a generic American accent. Mr. Sneeze tries out the pirate talk, but he's not very convincing in it. The storyteller does have a bit more of a "pirate" voice, but it's not put on that thick.

[johnl3d]

Great idea love the style !!

[largento]

Thanks, John! I appreciate it!

[largento]

Working on a new character. This is old Doc Bokor, the local Voodoo Witch Doctor. Well, his head anyway. :-)

 

wd_headspin.mov

[TheSpleen]

Great work buddy!

[Paul Forwood]

Great looking character, Mark!

I love the rendered comic strip too. One tiny little criticism concerns the posing in the first image of your comic strip. The glass that the captain is holding looks like it has been posed with a spirit level. Like I said it is just a small thing and may not be worth bothering with.

I wish you every success with the Wannabes.