091 – Myth Turned Frighteningly Real
090 – What Could Go Wrong?
Jul 252012
Welcome back to the Wednesday Mash-up!
After last week’s intensive mash-up, I decided to go with something a little simpler for this week’s installment. Truth be told, I’m not a huge Scooby-Doo fan. However, these were quick to draw and I like the end results better as mash-ups. I like how that works out.
First up, we have the titular character of our show, Barney-Doo. Here Barney-Doo is preparing to have himself some Barney Snacks.
Barney-Doo’s best friend is Shagrick. He’s a little bit of a scaredy-fox.
The leader of the gang is Fred Rich. Doesn’t he look smashing?
The brains of the operation is Velmara.
And finally, the beauty is Sassney.
That’s it! No Scrappy-doos here! Come back next week for another Mash-up.
Jul 232012
Hey there blog fans!
So last week I started talking about making mash-ups. After writing it I was left with the task of deciding what would be last week’s mash-ups. As you saw I picked the Ronin Warriors. In the mash-up post I said that I was a little disappointed with how they turned out. That was because in becoming overly concerned with the detail of the armors the characters were wearing, I forgot to make the designs mine so to speak. They really just looked like Ronin Warriors armors with Animus faces. This is an important point in making mash-ups. You have to achieve a balance between the two sources you’re combining.
Getting back to where I left off last week, after casting a character, I’m ready to draw. I like to find a good reference picture of the the original character I’m combining. Yahoo Images is my Go-to source. I can usually find several good pictures to use there. Below is a new mash-up I drew specially for this blog entry to show the steps.
I use MyPaint in LiberKey to do my mash-ups. There are no doubt much better drawing software packages around, but this one was free and I’ve gotten used to it (though I just downloaded an update recently and now I’m finding myself having to relearn how to do certain things that were more intuitive in the old version).In this case, I decided to do a mash-up of Todrick and Booster Gold. The source picture of Booster Gold I found on Yahoo! Images was drawn by Todd Nauck. You can find more of Todd’s work here.
I’ll leave the Yahoo window with my reference picture open next to my MyPaint window so I can look at it while I’m drawing. I have a Bamboo tablet which I use to draw everything for Age of Animus. I hold it on my lap to draw since my desktop is a little too high and I need access to my keyboard to use quick commands. That means that I have to look up at the screen to see what I’m drawing. That’s a big adjustment compared to drawing on paper on a desktop.
First I draw a “quick” sketch using the pencil brush in MyPaint, usually in red, though I have started using different colours to distinguish more easily between layers in the picture.
Once I have my sketch, I can use a marker brush to “ink” the drawing. The inking won’t always follow the pencilling as I often make slight changes. When I need to draw something that intersects with something else in the picture, often I’ll add a layer so that I can erase what’s underneath without affecting the new elements that will be covering them. That’s one of the great advantages to drawing digitally I find. When the inking is done, I make the pencil layer invisible.
When I colour a Funnies strip, I use the Fill-in tool that’s available in Manga Studio Debut (and most picture editing software). MyPaint doesn’t have a Fill-In tool (or I just haven’t found it) so I colour the pictures manually, like I would colour a picture in a colouring book. I’ll add a layer and move it under the ink layer so that I can’t colour over the lines. It also allows me to easily resave a black and white version of the picture if I make any changes while I’m colouring.
For certain pictures I’ll use different brushes to add light and shade. The Wonderland mash-ups are the best examples of that. Again, I’ll use a different layer so I can erase without affecting any of the other elements.
As I said earlier, drawing digitally means that it’s never too late to go back to fix something. I can just switch to the appropriate layer and add a brush stroke wherever needed. When I’m satisfied that everything is as good enough, I’ll save a colour and black and white version of the drawing.
I repeat the process for each character I’ve planned for that particular mash-up. As mentionned in last week’s blog, I like to pick themes that have roles for all nine Animus cast members, but it’s not a hard rule. The Ronin Warriors theme had twelve different drawings while this week’s theme only has five (you’ll have to check in on Wednesday to see what this week’s theme is).
Anyhoo, that’s how the mash-ups are made. Most of it is really just common-sense based on the tools available. If I get on a roll and the designs of the theme I’ve chosen aren’t super detailed, I can produce one character mash-up in an hour give or take. The more detailed mash-ups take longer. I think some of the Ronin pictures took two or more hours to draw.
See y’all next week for the blog!
Jul 182012
Welcome back to the Wednesday Mash-up everybody.
In Monday’s blog, I discussed some of what goes into making a mash-up. The biggest decision, of course, is the choice of subject to mash up with. This week, I had a lot of trouble deciding. I wanted to pick a different genre but I didn’t know which. This week I turned to one of my favorite anime series. I don’t remember what exactly I was looking when I thought of Ronin Warriors (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers in the original Japanese), but I drew Todrick in armor as a test and then Nektara as Lady Kayura. But I wasn’t really convinced. It was when I cast Big Oonch as the Ancient, or in this case, the Oonchient, that I got more enthused for the project and decided to go through with a full cast set of mash-ups. This week is even bigger than usual as I decided to use the Pickle Patch Bandits to fill out the three remaining Warlord armors. Anyway, let’s get on with it, shall we? As always, you can click on the pictures to embiggen them.
A thousand years ago, Talpa and his evil Dynasty from the Netherworld were defeated when they tried to take over the mortal world. Now Talpa is back to try again with the help of his Pickle Patch Warlords. Only the Ronin Warriors can stop him.
The leader of the Ronin Warriors is Zoë of Wildfire. She can project the power of the volcano through her twin katana blades with her special attack, “Flare Up Now!” The katanas don’t look the same size because I was trying to make it seem like she was holding the left sword forward and the right sword back a little. Coincidentally, when I tried my hand at creating new female Ronin Warriors back in the nineties, their leader was named Zoë of Mantle.
The Ronin Warrior of Light is Sass of Halo. Her weapon of choice is a no-dachi sword which she uses to administer the Thunder Bolt Cut!
Todrick of Strata is said to be the more cunning of the Ronin Warriors. He wields a bow to fire the Arrow Shock Wave!
Barnaby of Hard Rock may be slow-witted, but he has the most heart and is the strongest of the Ronin Warriors. Foes must be wary of his tetsubo and his devastating Iron Rock Crusher attack.
Mild-mannered Blue Rich of Torrent’s armor draws power from the water. He wields a yari, or trident to attack with his Super Wave Smasher.
The power of the five Ronin armors can merge together to form the Armor of Inferno, worn here by Deema. Normally it’s the Ronin Warrior who wears the armor of Wildfire who becomes infused with the power of the other four Ronins, but I needed something for Deema to wear, so there you go.
The Ronin Warriors are guided by the Oonchient, the warrior monk who banished the evil Talpa to the Netherworld a thousand years ago. It was he who forged the Ronin (and Warlord) armors from Talpa’s armor. He sacrificed himself to create the bridge for the Ronin Warriors to cross over into the Netherworld to stop Talpa.
Speaking of the Warlords, their leader, Cyran, was the Pickle Patch Warlord of Cruelty. He used his kusari-gama to unleash his deadliest attack “Quake With Fear” in service of Talpa until the Oonchient showed him the error of his ways and he reformed. He briefly wore the robes of the Oonchient before wearing the Armor of Cruelty one last time to free Lady Nektara from Talpa’s evil influence. Sadly, though he was successful, he did not survive.
The Pickle Patch Warlord of Corruption wears the Armor of Darkness. Like Sass, he wields a nodachi, which he uses to attack with the Black Lightning Slash.
The Pickle Patch Warlord of Deception is a master of illusions. Amongst his weapons are the six deadly kamas he uses to spin the deadly Web of Deception.
Finally, the Pickle Patch Warlord of Venom uses vile poisons to weaken his foes, particular when he laces his six taichi blades with them to administer the Snake Fang Strike.
When the Pickle Patch Warlords are unable to dispatch the Ronin Warriors, Talpa turns to Lady Nektara, the last surviving descendant of the Oonchient’s clan who Talpa corrupted to serve him. She wields her twin sais to perform the Star Sword Scream. It looked like she would be successful in defeating the Ronin Warriors until the reformed Cyran gave his life to free her from Talpa’s influence.
Looking back, I don’t think the Ronin Warriors made for the best mash-ups. I wasn’t able to stylize the armors in a way to make them fit the characters, so it just looks like drawings of the Ronin and Warlord armors with the Animus character faces. I definitely should have drawn them without their helmets on since the ones I feel turned out the best are Big Oonch, Nektara and Cyran. I did like how the Pickle Patch Bandits matched up with the Dark Warlords pretty well. Dais has an eyepatch and webbed feet that lent themselves well to the rooster’s bird feet. Cale’s armor is patterned after a wolf. Sekhmet’s armor’s design was the easiest to adapt for the big pig belly. Anyway, I can use this week’s attempt as a lesson going forward with other mash-ups.
Come back next week to see how well I learned from this week’s lesson!