[henrik]

Poor cat in that last frame. Is he ok?
How long does it take you to create one page? Sorry if it's already been mentioned. Good work.
_________________
http://www.somniostudios.com

[Snoozer]

It takes between 18 and 30 hours a page.

There's a bit of dialog I made up on the fly for this scene, but I thought it would be funny.

CB
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

Things ended up bloodier then I really wanted... The page was restory boarded about 5 times, the final version is much more dynamic.

CB
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

This is the latest page we've been working on.

There is also a animated trailer preveiw to check out. It isn't totally finished yet and the music hasn't been added. There are 8 different connection speed to view it with.

http://www.alpha-shade.com/www/AS-Ani/ASTrailer.htm

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

[Snoozer]

This is the last page in this scene...

CB

[Capt. Fred]

love the animation love it.
Some really nice work in there. I know it's not the central thing, but..

You have to do more animation you could really make something� something good.

[Awetopsy]

I have been following this thread since its inception and I must say, I really enjoy this comic. Ive always wanted to do a comic and to see you guys doing it is pretty darn cool. I think its great story telling too. some of the anatomy and stuff is off but that happens all the time in comics anyway and nobody gets mad so...

great stuff keep it up. I wanna see how this story ends.

[Snoozer]

Switching scenes to follow the body guards a bit. The damaged Inn, turned into a dressing station, was based off the buildings in the animation. I wanted the nurses uniforms to look practical not sexy. I always hated those silly nurses hats, so we gave them simple white head bands. I went for two white bands to identify hospital structures and vehicles. I thought Having part of the Inn's walls damaged and braced would add a bit of history to the scene.

CB
Alpha Shade

[Snoozer]

After the attack on the command post the two remaining flyers sweep fast and low over the camp to avoid any antiaircraft fire. Troops scatter and find cover as the birds scream overhead. The Station in the background is supposed to be a part of an outlying town that was captured before the siege of the city.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Dekard]

I got the girls confused with the girl/guy shooting the guns with the girl flying the birds.

They looks similiar...

[Snoozer]

This is the end of this three page scene from the ground. Only two more scene left to go and we'll finish out the chapter. There are over 180 characters were drawn in this scene, but I don't think it would have had the same effect with less... We tried to give this three page scene a feeling of both history and atmosphere. I think it worked out well for the most part.

The Anti Tank Rifle Ivan takes from the soldier is made up, It's based off a few different anti tank rifles of WW1-2.



This gun doesn't have a clip and each shell has to be loaded one at a time. The lower green object in the center of the gun is a flip out hand grip and the green tube above the grip is the sight.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

The planes on this page are from a different squadron than the planes in the beginning of the comic. These are army air units.

A few notes about the planes markings.

The far plane in the top frame is the squadron leader. His plane has yellow markings on the wings and a white stripe on the fuselage. This makes it easier for his squadmate to recognize him at long range. The serial numbers 20208 (the leader) and 20212 on the two planes do have some meaning. The first number 2 indicates army (number starting with one are built for the Navy) the second two numbers indicate the squadron 2-02 (army-second squadron) and the last two numbers indicate the plane number.

So The first plane number 20212, reads:


2 Army 02 2nd Squadron 12 12th Plane

The last two numbers are also stenciled on the side of the plane's fuselage. Each pilot decorates his plane with his own personal emblem inside the yellow ban. The red triangle right of the yellow ban is the pilots kill card. Plane 20212 has two kills, while the lead plane 20212 has seven. If the pilot would shoot down another plane or flier, the ground crew would repaint the new total on his score card.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

It took about 10 hours to get the tracers and sound effects the way "WE" wanted. I don't think the page would have flown as well if he didn't put in the extra effort.

The lead plane is diving in and firing on the left flyer. I wanted to show a Barrel Roll attack. The idea behind a barrel roll attack is to be able to dive in at high speed and then bleed some of that speed off, while still being able to keep the enemy insight and have a firing solution. The attack turns one pass into two, while retaining your speed.

Frame one.

The lead plane dives in, firing at the flyers left wing.

Frame two.

The pilot cuts his throttle to idle, as he shoot past the target and rolls over the top.

Frame Three. With the throttle still at idle the plane rolls over the top of the flyer and the plane drops back in behind the flyer.

Frame four. The pilot settles back in behind the bird after bleeding off some of his speed he gain in the dive. Note that in frame one and four the pilot is using the rudder to bring his planes nose/guns to bare on the target. The puff of smoke at the tail of the plane is from the pilot throttling up to full power again.

CB
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

The Flyers bank, crossing in front of biplane 20208, hoping to confuse the pilot. As they head off in opposite directions, the Flight leader signals his wingman to pursue the second bird.

The T shaped thing towards the end of the gun barrel is part of the cooling jacket's design, not a site. In the second frame, the wingman is holding back far enough to cover his flight leader. We also used a backwards sound effect on that plane. I think it gives it a sense of movement. In the last frame you see a puff of smoke behind plane 20214 as he throttles up his engine to full power. The planes control surfaces are in a "diving roll" to the left.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Sketchesa]

ah, alot of great action, good sequences, color/anatomy is of high quality and consistency on every page. what brings me a bit down is the faces on your characters. they all look the same, i suggest more practice on faces and emotions.

good stuff though <3

[B0b]

really like the strip, but as birds aren't like planes ie. they don't need to be traveling forwards with speed to keep in the air, they could very easily take out the biplanes buy altering direction and swinging their tallons around and ripping the wings off..

the first 2 captions on the 2nd but last page really confuse me, the biplane is making a diving attack on the birds, as if they don't hear the engine of the aircraft are the birds and riders deaf?

and then once he's made the attack he's some how pulled the aircraft upin what looks like a 90 degree turn, probably in a 8-9g manouver which would have pulled the wings off of the aircraft (blacked out the pilot) and he's then turned inverted.. which while all looking very dynamic on the page is total pap

what would have happend is, the pilot/bird would have heard the engines of the planes @ 5 or so miles out if not more and then turned to attack, out manouvering the biplanes very easily would have ripped the wings off and ended the combat.. but thats just my opinon

[Mon]

As Bob's last comment shows, your stuff is very engaging I might have said this before, but i really like what you're doing and i'm always looking forward to you next update.
_________________
www.mattiassnygg.com
Blog!

[Snoozer]

The fourth flyer Dives in,smashing through the wings of the biplane. We added a few combat markings to the new flyer. I tried out a new frame layout for this one, but some people thought it was confusing. I think the top frame may need a bit of tweaking before it goes to print.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Wagner]

I watched the trailer and this is a project I'm going to keep my eye on!

For the movie I think that it looks too 'illustrator-ish', and I think the colors need to be more dull.

Good job on minimizing the amount of animation needed, but I think the different thicknesses in the lines make it difficult to animate smoothly no matter what.

I think using a mix between tradional animation and what you are doing now would work good. I think tradional animation would show the emotions better on the faces. But this is just my opinion (from a Patlabor, Gasaraki, Jin-Roh fan, so you can see where all my opinions are coming from )

I think this is great especialy coming from a team of only two people! The website dosen't realy have much info on the movie though, I'd like to read more about it.

I had a 10-20 min. animation planned about a round legless cat, but I never got around to it, but I've been inspired to do it!

I hope the comic and animation go well for you!
_________________
I just realised that my screen name is Wagner, but my last name is Wagner, I'm not making any references to anyone.

[Snoozer]

Page 77. The Fourth flyer Zooms back up after hitting the second biplane. It spins out of control slamming into a tent, scattering a few soldiers. At the same time the Lead plane is closing with the other low flying flyer. I wanted to experiment with a twisted sound effect to show the planes spinning decent. I think the tracer effects turned out well. We'll have to go back into the squad fire fight scene and redo the older effects.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

The flyer flares it's wings to close with the biplane. Fliping over it, skids along the dirt road. With it's rider safely clinging to the underside of it's neck, the bird prepares to sink it's talons into the undercarriage of it's pursuer. I really wanted some sound effects in the bottom panel, but in the end it just looked too cluttered.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[_Kat_]

Woah!
Nice!

I like the part with the Flyers and the planes (From WW1).

[P-Rik]

Wha!! Nice ! And What hapened what hapened !! ^^
_________________
Pierrick l'Illustrateur des bois.
Website !

[Snoozer]

This is the last page of the flyer vs biplane scene. We tried to get two actions in at once, the Flyer grabbing the plane and using it's momentum to flip it on it's back, while the rider's swinging back around to her saddle. I knew it would be a difficult page to pull the flipping action off but I think the paneling help move the action along. We went through a few versions of the sound effects at the bottom... I think the last one turn out nicely.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

Finally a change to draw something other than sand and tents... It was fun to work on a different atmosphere. The ripples in the water and the rain effects turned out nicely. The fire reflected in the low clouds and water seems to work well with the over all night feel. Some people were confused by Laura's darker colored hair. We used one of her darker shadow colors to give it a wet, dark look.This page and part of page 81 are a small preview of what's to come in the next 11 chapters.

CB
Alpha-Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

Page 81

Effects like the water dripping up, the handgun disappearing, and the panthers turning to smoke were added in order to clearly illustrate that this scene is a dream and not a flash back. The change in text bubble style was suppose to symbolize Grey's intrusion into her subconscious. The transition of the panther into Grey in frame two really turned out nicely.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[Snoozer]

Page 82

Leyna and Osvka appear on the ridge of the command post. This page is full of dust and smoke effects. They seem to add depth to the page. Having another squad entering the scene in the last two frames wasn't in the script, but I thought it world add more suspense to the final scene.

CB
Alpha Shade
http://www.alpha-shade.com

[spline]

I�m a BIG comic book reader and I�m impressed!

[Morgorth]

Kepp it comin!~i've done some little comic before and its sure aint easy~! apart from the flaws lunatique mentioned~i find tat e style is quite catchy,wit all e effects u put in~good effort really~keep it up!~i can see the time spent on tis~
_________________
Morgorth,new deviant,started in digital arts since May,2004,a sentient focused on enlightenment and leveling up in the digital arts field.