US Ch. 3 Page 6

Kay~! :D
I really like drawing her. Not sure exactly why. Also, you may notice that the large panel of her is, in fact, a tracing of an earlier (rougher) sketch. At the time, I just wanted to draw her in her parka/overcoat/thing, but when I was done, I thought, "actually, that's exactly what I was thinking when I wrote her introduction scene."
There's a part of me that's still amazed that it only took three months to get from there to here.


Script:

ALWIN: You ain't an engineer...

    [He starts circling around the still-shocked Kaleem, peering at him in a somewhat creepy way.]

ALWIN: Whatcha doin'? Whatcha doin', eh?

    [From somewhere across the room, a green burst of light zaps him in the ass. He howls, and bounces off into a corner, grumbling. Kaleem peeks above his arms, to see a girl come strolling towards him. She's wearing a parka and goggles, making it nearly impossible to see her face. She's also carrying a large gun.]

KAY: Sorry about him.

I changed a few minor things in the script, as you can see... For one, I thought Kaleem should be more bewildered than jumpy after seeing Alwin get shot in the ass. I also wasn't sure how I should draw him bouncing off. :P Some phrases just don't translate well from script to page...

US Ch. 3 Page 5

Welcome to Engineering. It's rather cold here.
(This was really fun to design... all that time working on construction sites helped a lot!)
I'm still a little uneasy about the shading there... just to be safe, I have a scan of this page before I put those shadows in the middle panel. What do you think; do they look okay?
Also, dynamic entries are fun. :3

Script:
    [He arrives at a door marked "Engineering 2 -- Starboard Mid". When it opens, he is greeted by a blast of even colder air. Inside, the walls have thin layers of ice, and the occasional icicle hangs from the machines that fill the room. Shivering even harder, Kaleem begins to wander around the room, seeing no one.]
KALEEM: H-h-hello...?
    [No answer. Kaleem wanders farther in. Suddenly, an old man with frizzy hair wearing a parka swings down from above to pear at him upside down.]
ALWIN: Whatcha doing here?
KALEEM: GAH!

US Ch. 3 Page 4

Script:  
KALEEM: What! That's grunt work!
SAREN (while glancing, amused, at the crewmen working around him): The 'grunts' are busy. Get to it.
    [Kaleem leaves, followed by a few low chuckles from the bridge crew.]
KALEEM (to himself): Grr..! Freaking Admirals shouldn't have to... gah.

US Ch. 3 Page 3

I'm glad most of that negative space will be erased in the final version... so messy...
Script:

SAREN: What is it?
KALEEM: You know, for someone who keeps insisting he's not going to take over things here, you sure spend a lot of time on the bridge.
SAREN: It's just the night shift, Kaleem.
KALEEM: It's what?
SAREN: You're still on Chiron time, aren't you?
KALEEM (while glancing at his wrist-panel): Shoot, you're right... Anyway, why is it so damn cold on this ship?
SAREN: We're not sure; it looks like there's a problem with the environmental controls. Go down to the nearest engine room and ask them what's going on.

Even more characters

I seem to be on a character drawing/creating spree, so I thought I might as well get these guys out of my head too... given my interest in politics, I've always kinda wanted to do a spinoff of US set on Earth, focusing on the politics of the 101st century. :P It probably won't happen any time soon, but it's fun to think about.

So I got a new mouse today.

 

And in keeping with tradition, I gave it a greek letter for a name, and drew him as a human. Because why not. 

Also, this mouse works like a freakin' dream-- especially for gaming. Normally the buttons just do mundane things like back/forward/etc but hit one button, and suddenly they all do completely different things-- perfect for complicated games like EVE. I can now control the entire game with one hand. 

Well I suppose I always could. But this mouse makes it even more convenient. 

Also, this is the 100th post I've made on this blog since I started it ~7 months ago! Let's hope the next 7 months are equally productive.

US Ch. 3 Page 2

*sigh*
That last panel is what happens when I look at the clock and say, "only 1:30 am? I can keep going, no problem!"
At least I stopped before it got worse. Replacement panel is below.
Script:

KALEEM (under his breath): Why the fuck is it so cold...
HIKARU: Perhaps this is why gloves are part of the uniform.
KALEEM: No way. There's NO way it's like this every day.
    [Kaleem makes his way back to the main bridge, and walks in. Saren is sitting in the captain's chair, giving orders to a crewman by his side.]
KALEEM: Hey!
    [Saren's brow tightens slightly, but he keeps giving orders for a moment longer. He then turns slightly to look at his son.]

There, that's better. A bit better anyway. Might re-do it again at some point.
Also, I swear to god I'm trying to avoid smudging this time around, but it doesn't seem to be helping... maybe computer paper just isn't good enough for this sort of thing... if so, that's too bad. I have no intention to become reliant on a type of paper that isn't so easy to get.

US Ch. 3 Page 1

I know I said I'd start working on Ch. 3 the moment I finished Ch. 2... and I did, actually. But I was kinda fatigued from working on Ch. 2, and long story short, you DON'T want to know what the first draft of this page looked like. 'Twas awful.
But now I'm back in the mood, so here we go! Time for Ch. 3.

I wonder, should I post the script in the description, since I'm not writing the lines on the pages anymore? I might as well. Without the script, the pages can get kinda dull.
Bear in mind that stuff often gets changed/edited in the process of script -> draft -> final. Lots of the visual stuff gets made up on the fly-- Kaleem taking off his jacket during the conversation at the end of Ch. 2, for example. That wasn't in the script, but I wanted him to be doing something more interesting than just sitting there.
Anyway...

INT: Kal's Quarters

    [Kaleem wakes up shivering.]

KALEEM: Hey, Phil...

PHIL: Yes?

KALEEM: What's the temperature in here?

PHIL: Two degrees.   

KALEEM: Two...! Errg. Where is my father?

PHIL: Main Bridge.

    [Grumbling, Kaleem gets out of bed and pulls on his uniform. He slouches out into the corridor.]

In retrospect, that *yawn* isn't exactly appropriate. *groan* seems better... gonna go change that now...  

And yes, this is how one gets ready in the morning in the year 10007. There's nothing computers can't do... 

Misc. US Characters 3

Yes, the similar setup to an earlier character page is significant. These are the Nalghites-- aliens that act as translators and peacemakers. Every chosen representative of every race is paired with one. Their physical bodies-- their avatars-- are composed of thousands of tiny plates that bend to the Nalghite's will. In general, you can judge the age and experience of a Nalghite by how well it mimics the form of its chosen species (Ex. Hikaru and Akahoshi are young; Raijin and Kisame are old).

I'm starting to realize just how huge my cast is going to be... nine-ish representatives for each of 15 races, and a Nalghite for each representative... plus the REST of the cast... yikes. Good thing none of these guys will show up for a while.

Misc. US Characters 2

So. Yeah. Andersen's been around for a while. He's actually extremely old-- older than any other human characters, anyway. Medical technology has pretty much tripled his lifespan.
Also, I'm sorta retconning something here. In chapter 1, Kaleem and Saren wore these half-cloak things around their waists; they were meant to be a mark of rank that no one else had. Problem was, I could never get the damn things to look right. So now the special article of clothing reserved for high-ranking officers is the Officer's Coat, as seen on Andersen here. A bit more traditional, but a lot better at conveying the sense of... largeness that I was going for.

Misc. US Characters

Did a massive reorganization of my (physical) art today and came across some old character designs. Thought I might as well draw 'em again before I forget how. :P

*sigh*
I hate hands. Why couldn't humans have evolved tentacles or something else that's easier to draw? 

Edit: Would you look at that, it's been 7 months to the day since I started this blog. How about that. 

New American Syndicate 2

Speaking of NASY, here they are again. I keep seeing my last drawing of them in my folder and thinking, "I need to draw them again!" So I did. The idea this time was to draw them in a way that brought out another side of their personality-- or at least a different facial expression/angle. I think it worked out okay. I might end up digitally cleaning this one up at some point.

ISS Forster

I was out wandering along the beach; I looked down, saw a piece of driftwood, and thought, "you know, that would make a pretty cool ship."
And thus was born the Forster.
(P.S. The ISS stands for Independent Space Ship-- as in, not affiliated with any government.)

Random Scenery 2

This slightly-adorable-yet-creepy thing was sitting next to the lighthouse sculpture. You can see the top of the light in the last drawing, on the bottom right.

Random Scenery 1

So, I just got back from a 3-day vacation at a beach resort with my family. Not terribly exciting; it was very cloudy most of the time. But for some reason I had an urge to go out, sit down and just draw whatever I saw. The urge didn't last for long, lol, but here's the result. Outside our room, I found this sculpture-- it's a tree stump; the top half of it was carved into a lighthouse but the bottom half was left unchanged. I thought it was pretty damn cool.
(Also, I downsized it a bit because it's harder to tell what's going on if you look at it up close. Drawing nature does not come naturally to me.)

Chapter 2 Preview

UPDATE: Chapter Two is up!
Page 1: http://0mni42.deviantart.com/art/Under-Stars-Ch-2-Page-1-319098864?q=gallery%3A0mni42%2F10861395&qo=14
Or if you'd rather start at the beginning: http://0mni42.deviantart.com/art/Under-Stars-Act-1-Cover-217373729

IN 3-D!!!

Are your eyes hurting yet? :P
Long story short, I was hard at work on revising Under Stars, and I accidentally did this. :)

US Ch. 2 Pgs. 15.2 and 15.3

So, here are the replacement panels for page 15... wait a fucking minute, did I just draw Kaleem with the wrong uniform on? Goddammit... this chapter is not going quietly into the night. 
The top panel, by the way is a tracing of the first panel on page 1; having a Light Box really helps! :D I was thinking about copy/pasting that panel here digitally, but the original is about an inch too short. So tracing was the only option, really.

Here's the final final FINAL version. ^_^ I'll try to clean up this (and all the other pages) soon, so expect the finished product in... a week? Maybe.

US Ch. 2 Pg. 15.1

Ugh. This page. I'm so glad I can replace panels digitally, otherwise I'd have to start over. 

The top right panel was originally going to be a tracing of Ch. 1 Pg. 40, but then I realized: I went through hell, drawing all those tiny soldiers, and they still looked like crap. I'm never doing that again. But I wasn't sure what I was going to put in that panel, so I thought "hey, I'll come back to it later." 

The bottom right panel, well... I realized halfway through it that it was getting too smudged to work with, and that I would rather draw Kaleem with his jacket half on rather than slung over his shoulder. Much easier that way. :P 

US Ch. 2 Pg. 14

So... many... smudges...
Digitally cleaning this page is gonna be a bitch.