I thought it'd be fun to hear 'behind the scenes' stuff from you all, now the entries are up. Like, what you thought when your match was announced, why you chose that page, what you decided to do with it, how you did it and stuff.
When I was drawn up for 'Wolf', my reaction was kind of 'oh holy crap!' Tantz is one of the big supporters of the remix project, a published novelist, an amazing comics artist, and somebody who even did two remixes last time, so I realised 'this is gonna have to be special'. I started re-reading Wolf, writing possible page numbers and practicing how I'd draw Zoe and Davey. There's a certain similarity of age, build and personality between my heroine, Rekki, and Zoe, but I didn't want to make them too similar. Davey's nose is great, it really helped give him a distinctive look! He had to have a baretta, because it's the only gun I have a good reference for (I have an airsoft toy version of the 'Samurai edge' baretta from the Resident Evil games in my room).
The hardest thing I discovered was that Tanz's pages are about a third longer than mine in average number of panels! Choosing a page whch combined a bit of drama, a bit of action and a bt of dark humour, I condensed everything down to my prefered style of fewer, larger panels, which really made everything move very quickly, and then proceeded to draw it. Wolf isn't FanDanGo. There are some similarities in the mixture of fantasy and modern life, a heroine with a big weapon, and a focus on the interaction of the characters, but it's a totally different feeling comic. Wolf is dark and unsettling, so I made it dark, literally, Hellboy dark. Mignola inspired black fills…mmmmm. Very different from the bright, Austin Powers world of FanDanGo.
I'm totally entering the remx 3.0 (there's no question there must be another!) this was incredibly good fun!
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General
Talk about your remix!
Glad you had fun Darth, your remix is probably in my top 5.
I started going through suzi's archives from oldest to newest. Alot of her strips support that she's built up these characters or tie into her newspost so strongly that they just don't stand alone nearly as well as they are when read with the entire archive in mind, so it was really, to me, a matter of finding a strip that I thought would really showcase Greater than Colon 0.
I put together a top 5 list and then went back and chose the final strip from that. I wanted to mess with angles a litle (I kind of plotted out how I wanted to do the remix in my head while I was reading everything) I wanted to focus more on my character design than nessecarily taking the strip out of it's atmosphere.
I did most of the pencil drawings during my lunch break at work, spent a couple days inking them and voila. Extending the punchline from panel 6 to panel 8 was kind of an epiphany, like most good changes that dawned on me while I was drawing the strip.
This is a cool thread!
Ok, I was completely bowled over with the smoothness of colouring in 20Galaxies as well as the very efficient use of blinding light as an effect. It was a stretch for me, because I usually don't use light in that way and *coughs* I don't shade my characters (as opposed to some backgrounds where I think it necessary) by conscious choice.
I also liked the mysticism there is to be seen in 20 Galaxies. A feel of magic and of relativity of dimension that, as I read the comic, gripped me. When I came to the point where the angel appears, I had no second thoughts. It struck me as a challenge as I even more rarely draw winged people, there were a lot of sparkles, blinding light and no lines! I rarely, if ever, draw panels with no speech bubbles, so to draw an entire sequence where there are no words and the expressions are minimalistic, almost, was a real challenge for me. I thought many times as to how to draw the transformation/appearance and decided to go for the dramatic (I am a sucker for drama ;) ) and made the angel dynamic.
I had enormous (positively illegal) fun drawing and colouring this, especially the wings and hair.
Sign me up for remix 3!
In hindsite I think I did the wrong Wolf strip. I wrote it down and lost it. When Kingofsnake posted that one strip I assumed it was the one I picked. I had no idea someone else was doing it as well (and better I might add).
I was more hesitant of Wolf than the New Lucifer. Wolf was more story driven and many of the pages simply drive the story, which is awesome for a continuing strip,but tougher for a one-shot.
With both of the strips I did I wanted to step away from my comfort zone. I drew New Lucifer first. Originally I was going to just make it black and white and add a dash of red here and there. That wound up changing, but I mostly stuck with shades of red and gray. The reason I chose that particular strip was the Bureaucrats. They looked very cool, but were also less detailed than the other characters. I thought I could really flesh them out a little bit.
I struggled with how to lay out Wolf and the style actually changed after I started drawing it. I dded the extra line work and wound up really liking how it turned out. I still don't necessarily like the flow of the page or the stiffness of the action, but overall I think it looks better than I anticipated.
I DID wonder when I saw the montage, 'uh, why is there another remix of the page I did?', but I just figured 'oh, maybe it's an extra for Tanz 'cause she did two last time that somebody did after their first entry?'
Funnily enough, the page Rebound was gonna use originally wasn't even on my list of 'pages I might use'!
I hope this topic gets alot longer now! I have so much to say about my remixes that I didn't want to clog into a comment.
Fantastiteam: Was a tough choice to begin with, because I wanted a comic with the four main's in it, and I wanted something I could run with. The seven panel tack-on totally evolved from two panels. At first it was just lining it up and then stabbing himself in the eye, then I added the dramatic raise, then I extended it it a little further. Then I was like "should he salt it first, would that be funny, or would that be too long?" so I had to go to a second party for that one, so I added the salting. I took alot of inspiration from old WB cartoons, becuase the reader knows that Wile E. Coyote is going to fall off that cliff, it's the buildup itself that's actually funny. If I were animating it I'd totally have him line it up again before stabbing himself in the eye. In fact I wouldn't have even have him stab himself, the last panel would've been something unexpected, like being attacked by a wolverine, but I dediced that that would be too far, and I didn't want to throw the pacing off.
Phillip the Tortise: When I was deciding what strip to do, I was watching one of my looney tunes box sets on DVD (notice a pattern here?) and there was one short (I think it's called "Hare Tonic" where Bugs tries to convince Elmer that he has Rabbit-itis. And in one scene Elmer demands Bugs leaves and bugs is all like "I know when I'm not wanted you tell me to leave and I leave! Goodbye!" *slams door* *immediately re-enters "hello." And just the way Bugs said it stuck in my head and was the exact same inflection when I read the monster reading his line and I knew exactly how I was going to do it. I wish I'd worked more on Moose from the side shots, he still looks a little wonky to me. And Phillip, was totally based offa cecil tortise, only with a little less interior lines so he didn't look so old. It took me a bit to figure out how to get the shell to look right, but once I got it into my head that it wasn't part of his body it was something he wore, like a shirt, it fell right into place. The last panel looks a little wonky to me too, but thats because, in the old cartoons when they get all big-eye'd like that it's only for a fraction of a second, in animation. No one frame exists without the other. Whereas you have to take this as it is.
Tex Avery was a genius.
This was my first REAL attempt to draw in looney tunes style. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, but I know I could do better.
For me, the remix was a real challenge. I had never bothered to try drawing anatomy properly before- I was usually content drawing spaghetti-string arms that flew every which way. Since that didn't work particularly well for the girl's outfit (I didn't read enough of the comic to know her name), I wound up redrawing each panel 20 times over- especially panels 2 and 3. I decided to tack on an extra joke to the strip, because I thought it was funny, and I wanted to make it as awesome as possible. Overall, though, it was a lot of fun, and was pretty good practice. But man, I'm lucky to have found such a good page to remix, amidst hundreds of other strips. I definitely want to try this again.
My turn. :) When I got my assigned comic, I was sort of excited. In part it was because I had always intended to read Somewhere in SF (sitting there near the top of the manga comic strips…) but not gotten around to it yet. I just needed motivation. The other reason was I knew I could handle a remix because of the content, mostly conversations rather than lots of action and fighting (which are a terrible weakness for me). At the same time, I worried that I had two people to potentially disappoint rather than just one.
When I read the comic, I had a complete halt at that page. It was just the right one for me to remix. I could picture the remixed layout in my head immediately. I actually had to use a page and a half to do the remix, since it just had so much "more" in it than my usual pages. I had a lot of fun drawing "pregnant" Natalie, especially in profile. My favorite part was squeezing in Jenny's commentary. I like that tiny little panel. And I liked doing a super-cartoonified expression for that last "WTF?" I found coloring a little tricky. I decided before even getting an assignment, that my remix had to be in color, so when I ended up with an all b&w one, I had to scratch my head over what colors everything should be. I ended up looking through all the filler material to figure things out. Um, I also spent a ridiculously long time choosing a font. I have no idea why. Such a small detail, but it drove me nuts.
Anyway, I think it turned out the way I wanted it to. This was my first time trying anything like this. It was really fun. :)
When I got my assignment, I had mixed feelings. It's like "OMG! Red Moon? That's the first comic I read on DD! I'm honored!" but at the same time it's like "I've never done this before…what if I mess up one of my favourite comics?"
It turned out very close to how I envisioned it(my mind's eye is more artistic than my hand's). And the fact that the comic is all lineart made me even more excited to do it in colour!…And the venus was fun because I had been watching Little Shop of Horrors the day before, so if it looks like Audrie…that's why…lol
I had a laugh when I found I was doing 'Everybody Hates Herb'. It's a very funny comic. I also realised that it's miles away from my usual style. With 'Wolf' I just made minor stylistic tweaks, but it was largely done with the same process I do FanDanGo with. I decided to surprise everybody by doing it a bit differently. The style is not dissimilar to my old pencil sketch gag strips 'Anglomanga' (never uploaded on Drunk Duck, and Hyper-comix is down right now, so no AM to show you guys, sorry) but in colour and with higher production values.
At the time, I was experimenting with drawing using my tablet, and this seemed like a good opportunity to do something entirely digital. I used a lot of coloured screentones and effects and stuff here, and went very stylised with the colour. It was fun mostly because hardly anybody recognised it was my work until my name was in the comments!
I had a rather scary sense of ever-growing glee when I was assigned Used Books to remix. The type of a bad guy laughter which goes mwe..heh..heh.. hehehhehehehhahahahahhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!! as it didn't take me any browsing at all to decide on what page I would remix.
I wanted to do something that stepped away from Wolf's generally vibrant colours and the equilibrium I strike matching a light, saturated colour palette with some really dark, really unsettling and sinister plot. It was a challenge to make a scene that is not quite a death scene but it is also serious enough to warrant due distress. So I made all the colours drab and subdued, but because the guy doesn't die in this scene, I made the lighting surreptitiously lighter with each panel that progressed.
I also had not had the opportunity to draw a dark alley with a wounded person in it within Wolf's confines (though I did draw a shot of David in such a sticky spot as a flashback) and I did not have the chance to draw two figures in various compositions of mourning poses (I wanted to evoke a feeling of mourning reminiscent of old masters' compositions of women lamenting a dead hero, or a Pieta effect).
In any case, it was a great way to make great emotion and drama be expressed through a rather minimal set of gesturing and a non-sugary or over-dramatic script. Tons of fun!
I can't wait for the next round.
When Kingofsnake PQed me and asked me to do a remix of a Wolf page, I was a little hesitant at first. Wolf is a dark and serious comic and I'm known for generally goofy and silly stuff on the duck. At first I planned to do it straight up and serious, then said to myself..self, Tantz has already done a great Job on this page. the dark feel and serious nature of it and all. So why not just let me be me and goof it up?
I'm glad to read through the forum that Tantz was happy with the end result. Up till now I didn't know Tantz and wasn't sure if I'd be insulting the work.
It was fun. love to join in on the next series, but be warned everyone, I'll most likely do something silly with your comic.
J. Michael
ncbaddwolf
I'm glad to read through the forum that Tantz was happy with the end result. Up till now I didn't know Tantz and wasn't sure if I'd be insulting the work.
I did have to look twice to see that it was not an insult, but a very creative take on a scene that is rather sinister :) I did decide it was a joke in good nature though because of all the effort and thought you put in the gimmicks. It was no sloppy work, and everything was really paid attention to, so that a certain result would be achieved. And that convinced me, and then I could relax and just snicker along like the rest of us :)
I hope you'll want to get to know me now, then ;)
Tantz, I never expected you to take yourself so seriously! :)
Really now? Do you not know of my ploy to lure unwitting artists near and then POUNCE on them with my sudden revelation of …SERIOUSNESS!? lol!
And like I said, the line between a joke and an insult is often thin ;) Isn't it?
I did mine after I got a message from KOS reminding me of it. I had forgotten about it completely and had to brainstorm ideas on the fly. My first thought was to use photos of Uwe Boll as the guy, because I had seem some where he was wearing a cap. So after hunting around I found what I needed. I fancied them up. Then I did a few different versions. I had a gladiator arena in the last panel at one point, and I also had the monster as Godzilla at another. I finally decided it would probably be a better idea to do it penis style. So I made that page. I then thought that it wouldn't go over well with everybody penis style, and since it was due the next day, I went ahead and sent the photo one in.
I always used to do "joke" guest comics, one for KC Green is the stuff of internet legends, but thats beside the point. I tried really hard to work with the material to do something more dynamic. The big thing that I don't like is that third panel. I thought the black and white approach would work, but it really doesn't. It takes all the focus away from the other stuff. I think I'm most proud of that last one, its very silly with the inflatable dinosaur. Its the same one featured in a couple movies, and I used to have one like that. Its a big blow up clumsy thing that I thought would work great since instead of being a big scary monster, its this whacky blow up dinosaur. I guess it didn't come out the way I wanted.
The other penis version isn't much better, I think I prefer the photo one over it. Apples and oranges though. Can't really compare stuff that drastically different.
The photo one is really funny, but the penis-style one looks like it took more time and effort (whether or not it actually did) – and it's more dynamic with poses and motion. I like the way he looks like he's being attacked by gray blob people. I think it would have gone over better. But, hell, you're marine. Whatever you make, you seem to end up pissing someone off. :) (People see your name, and they think "insult" instead of "joke." )
And just for the record, my other remix wasn't because I didn't like it (I'm one of those weirdos contributing to penis's pageviews… ;) ), but to help ease the people who were upset. I don't like people being upset. (I suspect you actually put more effort into it than I did, and yours is far funnier.)
I had not read Vindibudd before getting the PQ and it took me a while of reading the archives to pick up on some things about the art. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what was on his head, before I realized it was a backwards hat (I think).
I chose the strip I did because of the Ninjas. In the original the Ninjas are sort of glossed over in terms of art. They look more like shadows, so I wanted to bring them to life. In case you can't tell, the Ninjas are heavily influenced by the Tick's Ben Edlund.
What I found interesting about the REMIX I got was for the second straight time no one interpreted my characters. Both were brilliant, and funny, but 2.0 was a Southpark look and 3.0 the Remixer used McDonald's characters (keeping it out of the graphic novel). I find that an interesting twist of the draw.
Again, hats off to KOS for the hard work.
I'll be back for 4.0.
Due to the nature of the project I look forward to the individual remixes almost as much as you guys do. Especially when it's someone who, clearly, has been putting alot of effort into doing a great remix, like Rebound. I remember that I was so dissapointed with the remix that Rebound got in the first round that I sent it back to get redone. It looked like he had just used a filter on the original. The second one was the one that went up and had some new camera angles. I think of all of Rebounds Remix's I like Tera's the best, she really played with it, and it really does feel like its hers.
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