Page 1501…
Hi all!
So…we’re back to the old CGI part of the story.
No more hieroglyphics.
Being as I’ve only upgraded ONE of the machines (thank you so much) and the second workstation is still being built (due at the beginning of June)… the renders are still taking a bit longer.
Sorry.
On the bright side, though, there are only 14 more pages left (about 3 weeks) until the end of this chapter.
I’m writing the next one and there hopefully won’t be too much of a gap between chapters.
We’re building new environments and creating new characters.
Lots to do.
Thank you again for all of your support.
Scott
OOooooh, these are starting to get really interesting! Can’t wait to see what happens next. 🙂
Humans that have lived in Dreamland for CENTURIES! Imagine how they evolved… I can hardly wait for them to be found!
Congratulations on 1501!
Really liking that underwater machinery.
Yes, but WHY is there so much underwater machinery, hieroglyphs, bas reliefs, structures, etc, etc? Either Niviene has been VERY busy for the past 1000 years, or there’s a submerged city it might be nice to have details about…
Cool environs here, Scott! 😀
Erm… evolution happens on the scale of hundred-of-thousands to millions of years, not over the course of a few centuries.
Though, I suppose a culture would evolve that quickly.
lovely 🙂
And imagine a tech base that’s blended with magic. Isolationist though they may be, I wouldn’t want to cross those folks.
Awesome!! *is super excited about the upcoming pages*
TWC: #4 with 5,312 votes. #3 has 5,566. We still need about 30 more votes a day to get pass them.
Please, remember to vote!
Also, as Lunaroki mentioned yesterday, the place gets too quiet when no new pages are posted. Could we think of something to keep the audience coming on weekends? Something not involving Scott (he’s already doing at least two to twenty times what a man can do,) but making it worth while for people to come check the new comments and maybe click a few links, including the TWC voting gateway. Any ideas?
We could take turns singing or story telling….
I think he meant “evolved as a society.”
fan art
They we’re probably put underwater to hide them from Nicodemious… (did I spell that right?) Seeing as he’s in all the heiroglyphics.
Of course, with mer-people existing, underwater buildings/ruins are a lot easier to imagine…
Well, that, and a little unexplained mystery keeps the fans busy 🙂
If I did the fan art, it would drive visitors away… ;o)
I couldn’t agree more. So much of this part of the story doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fit within the larger story.
What does thetered mean?
Besides that the mythology behind dreamland gets more interesting and awesome every page! Great work Scott!
I have a sneaking suspicion that such details are coming.
@ Oncedark: the story is going through a bit of a transition. If anything, the fight against Nicodemus was a smaller episode, while this is the larger story (think LotR in relation to the Silmarillion). The entire scale and scope of the characters’ understanding of the world around them is growing. They’ve addressed the initial problem, Nicodemus, by forcefully overthrowing him. Their next challenge, finding Nastajia’s parents, cannot be overcome just by throwing a powerful army at it. It requires a greater understanding of the Nightmare Realm, and apparently these Guardians as well. As the story expands in this new direction, we and the characters will learn more about these other lands and peoples, which had not been a factor during the previous adventure.
I hope that helps…
Is there some magical prize for being in the top three? I mean, Dreamland Chronicles is one of my favourite webcomics, so I vote for it fairly often, but surely #4 in a list of hundreds is amazing enough. I’m not sure what the point is of all the campaigning.
Tethered (the “h” goes after the second “t”) means being tied together so that they remain connected. For example, a hot air balloon is tethered to the ground to keep it from floating off until it’s ready for launch. Similarly an astronaut is tethered to his ship to avoid floating off into space and being unable to return to the ship. Mountain climbers generally tether themselves together to keep anyone from falling off the mountain if they slip. In this case the five rocks are tethered to Seraphopolis to provide a way to reach it. Think of it as giant steps tied together by chains.
Umm… here’s a bit of a catch 22, there are five stones in that picture, I’m going to make the conclusion that each stone is one of the sisters, if they’re THERE and Niviene hasn’t seen Nas’ parents, well it stands to reason that they never GOT to seraphopolis.
So why go? I mean obviously they didn’t make it if this is the ONLY way to get there.
That’s exactly what I meant, LOL
They might have made it to Seraphopolis. The five stones may not have been under water for that long, or something happened that they ended up under water. Plus who is to say that those five stone aren’t represented by five other stones on the surface…
It’s perfectly pointless. Just like Life, the Universe, and Everything. That’s what makes me so persistent.
On the other hand, though, it’s only been two months that The Dreamland Chronicles enjoyed being in the top 10. Hopefully it means more new readers and more clicks here and there. And you don’t stay top ten for long unless you keep trying to reach #1.
Is it just me or is the steel chain and reel clean in one frame then rusted in the next? seems off kilter to me. Could be clean b/c of magic. Could be rusty b/c of salt water… Doubt they only halfed the job of magically protecting it.
Aaaaaaand after 12 hours of rendering…still only 1/4 of the way done with this page.
Really?
In case anyone was concerned…
New computer was the 1 of 4 computers that got his job done….sigh.
I was told workstation number 2 won’t arrive until June.
Only 13 more pages to go…I’ll use this time to get chapter 18 ready.
Sorry for the delay….
Whatever you do… DON’T FALL OFF AS YOU JUMP FROM PLATFORM TO PLATFORM OR YOU HAVE TO START THE STAGE OVER FROM THE BEGINNING!!!
Its worse than Mega Man, man!! 😉
Don’t feel guilty about things you cannot do. Especialy with murphy’s law who can still do stuff.
If you want a bit of help you can always ask 🙂
With school semesters winding down, I assume that some of us will lose access to some of the computers we had been using for voting, so I think a bit of a decline in voters for all comics on that list is to be expected.
Starting????
Scott, you have told us about how you create the pages.
I am curious about how you work when you “write the new chapters”.
Do you use a scrapbook, storyboard, a word processing software program, or something completely different? Do you have a step-by-step checklist?
Getting a good story is usually not just “sitting down with a blank piece of paper”…or maybe it is, to you?
Please let us know how to create a truly GREAT story!
Still sitting at #4…but we’re only 91 votes away from #3! 🙂
This really smashes my old brains. I mean, how come? Sure thing, I live in civilized West Siberia, not some backward East Europe, but… losing one’s Internet access? Completely? In 2012 AD? Last time I went out of town, I’ve only experienced access problems for about 2 minutes when crossing a particularly dull piece of land, and it was a 250 kilometre journey.
Guess I should consider kicking your Internet Service Providers out of the business as my pension plan.
Well…I start off with the outline I had 10 years ago.
It lays out various goals for each chapter.
Then…I start taking notes on what plot points I want to flesh out for this chapter (and also hitting each of the goals I planned for 10 years ago).
Since there would be MAJOR spoilers for chapter 18…
Here’s my notes for Chapter 17.
You can see where I ask questions…and eventually come to different conclusions.
SOme things I never pursued. Others I fleshed out in the script.
Need a side story. Kiwi? Felicity? Dwarves?
Maybe they go pirate hunting?
Alex weighed down by all of the duties and requests of kingship.
Wishes dan could do it
Nastajia chastises him and reminds him if he relinquishes the crown…he loses her forever.
Visit Ashendel
Kiwi is helping restore her town too
Alex must get his armor fixed. New helmet and fixed chest
During the days…Arvamas searches for any info on the floating cities.
The trail leads to Naroobi. So the two go there.
While there…they discover the secret of the islands.
Sea Serpents guard them.
Do I have them go off alone?
Dan should find out the next step. Not Arvamas.
What is the key?
Is it Nicole and Dan researching?
Native Americans?
Merlin?
Maybe encounters with some Wraiths sends Daniel and Nicole to find out how to ward off these creatures.
They must learn Merlin’s magic?
Teacher? James Hong character?
Take train to a store that has the book?
Is the book widely known?
Daniel has a dream. A vision of a shadowy figure (Merlin) telling him where the next step is
Or where he is.
Does dan need to free him?
Is Merlin in limbo? Dreamland? Or did he visit native Americans?
The Lady of the Lake?
A portal from Dreamland?
Excalibur/Sword of Kings?
Arvamas can’t find info. So he sends them to Mermaids to find lady of the lake.
They are in love. Merlin and Niviene.
He (desperately trying to save Arthur from his purgatory) travels to Dreamland in hopes of saving him.
But he falls in love with Niviene. And trains her in magic.
Have Felicity/Nicole moment?
If Alexander goes through the portal…what would happen to his body back at home?
Or…does Alexander find it and just tell dan who goes there?
The portal leads anywhere niviene wants
Alex looks through and sees the tree that Merlin is encased in
Niviene tells of how he taught her his magic so he could pursue. Arthur
Then…he came here too
We see his merbody sleeping
She strokes his hair
Now that Arthur is gone. The tomb empty she hopes Merlin will wake
Alex goes back and tells dan gives them a lake to go to.
He and Nicole go that night
They see Alex and nastajia
And Alex has a surprise
Felicity
Only niviene can breach
Well, we can vote once per day per computer, so losing access to the university computer labs takes away half my votes (still voting from home and work computers). I kinda assumed that anyone else who voted did so on as many machines as possible. Maybe I’m the only one voting this way, so it won’t have that big an impact after all…
that’s awesome, i love seeing thought processes. 🙂
I do something similar for my own stuff, but they tend to take the form of post-it notes and whatever scrap paper i could find stuffed into a notebook. Eventually they get organized and consolidated, but often my notes are for very far in the future, so it takes a while.
Hmmm… one thing you might think of doing, Scott, until your 2nd computer arrives, is have copies of the file/scene you’re rendering on the older computers on the new one. Then, when the new one finishes it’s job, start the one that’s furthest behind (or a random one if all the same) on the new computer. I’m not sure what the rendering time is new to old, but it sounds like it’ll be worth it. If that works, then another possibility is to split up the remaining frames somehow to reduce waiting time on the remaining computers.
Thanks for the explanation!
Uh… As I’ve said before… It’s one vote from one IP address a day. 😉 😉
Thanks, that’s really great stuff!
And when you’re done with the above, do you just go straight to 3DStudio Max and start to flesh it out, or is there another step (or steps) in between?
Staj’s lips look like gold on the second panel.