Page 1270…
Hi all!
Sorry for missing yesterday. Lots of meetings.
And add to that the new location and damaged helmet…the renders weren’t finished unti this morning.
Thanks for your patience.
If anyone is going to be in Cookeville, TN this weekend…I’ll be a guest at OmniCon!
I’d love to see some of you come out to this show. Should be a fun little show for me to drive to.
Also…
Have you downloaded our new iPad app?
As ever, worth the wait. Though with the story at this rather impressive point I do find myself checking for updates every hour or so!!
First!
Love Alec’s face… “That all you got? My turn.”
darn it… not first. 🙁 haha
That would’ve made a nasty scar if it was any other type of armor 🙂
Wow, the focus in Alex’s eyes in the past couple close-ups has been awesome. You are doing a terrific job, Scott, and thanks for updating as often as you do. The fact that you still manage to churn out this many pages is incredible, especially considering the level of graphics used.
Whoa – that’s a dang thick helmet!
Good thing he’s got one though .. I can’t imagine a normal medieval helm would have taken a dragon swipe as readily.
So that armor CAN take damage.
That would have made an awesome scar
Suddenly-
“GOOD MORNING, ALEX!!!!”
Just saying. If there was an inopportune moment to wake up, it would be now. >:D
First time posting, but panel 3 made me do it. Awesome!
New Skin Unlocked: Damaged Armor Alex
[Scottish accent]
The shipYour armor can’t take much more of this,CaptainAlex! She’s giving you all she’s got![/Scottish accent]OMG Alex looks so bad! That’s an awsome ‘oh, I hate you, Nic!’ face, it’s so cool!!!!!!!!!!
Good thing the armor took that. Otherwise we’d be calling Alex the Phantom of Dreamland, and I doubt he can sing as beautiful as the Phantom.
He bears the mark of a true hunter… he did not look away from his target to shield his eyes at the moment he went to strike.
Go get ‘im, Alex! 🙂
…aaaaand I cannot stress enough how the simple little cute fact that you are making this sequence SOUNDLESS is so GOOD.
I *missed* being able to think when I read. It makes you reflect on the whole ordeal, the power of each adversarie… it brings out the poetic of good ol’ fighting.
Good one Scott. Love it, love it, LOVE IT!
hey scott i must say i just love your comics! i was just wondering a couple of things about the models you use if its ok?
first how many verts do you usaly use in your models
second i like the eyes but they seems kinda flat (or it may just be me) did you just use a sphere and used a spec map to get the gloss or did you use a multi-layered eye model and do you use sss shader for it or is it a little to hightec for this comic??
oh nearly forgot the damage on the armor did you use a normal map for it to save rendering times?
on the topic of maps what other maps are used in the models?
totally agree!!
the fact we know Alex to be lazy and not the brightest cookie on the tree (heh) makes his “focused eyes of focus” SO powerful!
really digging these pages!
Agreed on both accounts.
Oooohh..I know that look.. Nic’s in for a pummeling me thinks..
Make your vote count!!!
Nick: How many times do I have to kill you before you die?
or
Nick: What does it take to kill you?
or
Nick: Why can’t you just be a good boy and die?
You said it! Look at that expression. He completely un-rattled by this combat, so totally “on”. Great stuff, Scott!
Also, the original page print came yesterday. Awesome piece. Thanks!
Scott, lately the only ads that appear are “Project Wonderful” ads. This did not use to be the case, but increasingly (maybe 2 days out of 3), that is the case.
No cool-looking scar for Alex, eh? Too bad. He would have made a good one-eyed pirate! ARRRRRR!!!!!!! 🙂
DEFINITELY has to be “Why can’t you just be a good boy and die?”
My question is this, Where are his allies from the nightmare realm? Seeing as they have a vested interest in keeping old Nicky on the throne, one would wonder where they are and what is next on their agenda.
Odd. I’m seeing them. And they’re registering a bunch of hits.
Did you turn on an ad blocker or anything?
Thank you DeSpree!
And welcome!
I’ve never counted the verts. Never had to.
There’s 364,000 verts in the scene…if that helps.
The eyes do have a convex iris and a concave lens (I think I got that right).
But I think Nastajia’s new eyes are the best so far.
Still working on this.
I actually created “claw marks” as shapes and embedded them into the helmet then Booleaned the marks into it.
The ones on his chest are bump map.
Not sure which works best.
They’re looting the castle as we speak.
Not that hard to figure out. They can’t act openly, because the denizens will automatically turn against them. If they turn up to visibly support Nick, that’d guarantee an open rebellion, and Nick would lose what influence he still has.
Likely, they’re also figuring that if Nick isn’t strong enough to beat this kid, then he’s not strong enough to hold the throne either.
Am I the only one thinking “Tiger Alex” right now?
You damage my helmet. Now I damage your face.
Err, he already did that. Remember?
Yep, I did… but I didn’t think ‘belly’ would sound as tough, since that happened just now.
Does your renderer support displacement mapping? (as opposed to bump mapping which only tweaks the normal vectors, displacement actually moves the vertices). Hadn’t thought of using Boolean for something like the armor chunked out, but it does sort of make sense.
alex:” you damaged my nice awesome shiny armor, now you will pay” >:C lol XD
Reminds me of the scars the hunters wore in Gargoyles. Loved that series 😀
It does. But to be perfectly honest…I’ve never had much luck with displacement maps.
No knock on them. I’m just bad at getting them to do what I want.
🙂
Wow, that face is seriously epic. LOVE it!
Alex: My name is Alex….you killed my ancestor…..Prepare to die….
Nic: *slashes armor*
Alex: My name is Alex….you scratched my armor….Prepare to die….
Nic: *gouges helmet*
Alex: My name is Alex….you scratched my helmet…Prepare to die…
Nic: STOP SAYING THAT!
LOVE the last panel! That is so cool!
Alex: I PITY THE FOOL that thinks a dragon scratch will stop ME!!!!
Really loving the change of attitude in these last few pages, if there’s one thing Alex DOES appreciate it’s the importance of this fight. ‘I ain’t got time to bleed…’ and so on!
Verrrry nice last panel!
Raindrops, mirror image of Nic – this is a masterpiece!
To put smudge in your cup of victory – would it be possible to put some raindrops in the scar marks as well? (Looks a bit odd that they are dry while the rest of the helmet is dripping wet.)
I love the picture!
Or how about:
I killed you too quickly the last time, a mistake I don’t mean to duplicate tonight.
PLEASE, DON’T WAKE UP!!!
LOVE those eyes. Not intimidated, not raging, just cold business. Alex HAS grown up.
And yeah, good helmet. Without that helmet (i.e., without a helmet OR with any ordinary helm), that wouldn’t be a “scar” as others mentioned, it would’ve been “Alex’ Head in Three Pieces” which would have brought a rather abrupt end to this comic.
Oh, yeah, that would totally suck. “Now the final blow, Nic—”
*RING RING RING*
Unh? Morning? DAMMIT!
Two things I’d like to see happen…
1.Alex getting an armor upgrade
2.Alex carrying the seriousness of what happened in battle over into the real world!
His helmet was fine last time he punched him (which was a harder punch), what happened?
This scene wasn’t so much a “punch”; it was a claw “claw” or “slash”. If you notice the fingers aren’t actually balled into a fist like the first punch. Think Nic was actually hoping to tear into/through the armour with that blow.
Hehehe… like the reference… though for the sake of accuracy I don’t think Alex is actually RELATED to Arthur, at least by blood. At least that’s not something that’s mentioned in-comic canon. It would be cool, and mysterious… but from the list of leaders Dreamland has had [I think Nicodemus and Arthur discussed some of that in the loooong flashback/exposition/sword-talking-its-hilt-off sequence] I doubt they are related any closer than the rest of us are to one another provided you hold a belief in Creation.
That’s absolutely correct: when you look at the bottom frame of the previous page, you will notice darker bits of “stuff” mixed in with rain droplets, to the left of Alex’ head, right below Nic’s hand. Those are shrapnel from the helmet.
Wow, that last pannel is the most amazing thing, ever!
Alex: “I am so not geared for this instance. Orion, we need a strength totem!”
My name is Nicodemus. You damages my kingdom. Prepare to die.
I wonder if the armor has a ‘self-repair’ function? Even if it took some time to do it, that would be really awesome. I could see Alex having to find some metal to add to the armor so that it has some raw material to use for fixing the missing bits. Of course best stuff would be the original bits from the armor. “Great. Now I have to search for all the parts of the armor that didn’t already rust away in the rain. grumble-grumble”