So a recent story line in UnCONventional involved a group of Homestuck cosplayers. This did present me with a particular challenge: even though I see hordes of Homestuck cosplayers at every con I go to these days, I don't actually follow Homestuck. While I know generally what the most popular characters look like, I'm not actually sure what the characters look like exactly. This meant... I had to do research.
In the end I think it turned out well, as I created stick figure interpretations of cosplays which are interpretations of a different simplified art style. The very use of this joke though leads me with a problem.
I've instantly dated the strip.
See, I normally avoid commenting on actual properties and characters. I use fake voice actors, reference fictional webcomics and just overall attempt to create analogs whenever possible. The reasoning is simple - things that are popular now aren't likely to remain popular. I didn't always take this policy, which is why you'll see moments like this back in the (much more poorly drawn) first chapter of the comic:
I made a few cheap "L" jokes back in the first year, and they don't age well. We no longer face an epidemic of people dressed as L entering cosplay contests and wandering the halls. I want UnCONventional to be timeless, and I ruined that effect by making the direct reference to a property which is no longer as popular as it once was.
I admittedly made another jab at L cosplayers in the third year too, but it's loss of popularity was also part of the joke as well (at least from my point of view).
You'll notice in that scene that Veronica was wearing a cosplay from "Wage Project" - a fictional anime series that I usually place in too.
But I couldn't do that in the case with Homestuck. I mean, seriously, a horde of gray teenagers is a unique phenomenon, and I can't imagine any fake thing I made up not just being an obvious rip off anyway.
So I had to use actual Homestuck.
- Traegorn
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So my day started rather interestingly enough - with receiving a cease and desist letter from convention organizer Ryan Kopf. Ryan Kopf, who runs "Chrono, LC" (the company behind the conventions Anime Zap, QC Anime-zing!, Anime-SPARK!, AniMinneapolis, Meta Con, Con Alt Delete, and Anime Midwest), was the subject of a bit of controversy this summer - and I wrote a fairly lengthy blog post about how I plan on never going to one of his events.
The C&D claims I have been attempting to defame Mr. Kopf, and lists a number of webpages where I have allegedly done this. On that list are several articles I've writen but also (and quite puzzlingly) my old LiveJournal profile (?) and several Rip Off Reports I did not write nor do I think I have even read. This letter, from Attorney Salar Atrizadeh, was clearly sent to scare me, but here's the thing...
I'm not scared.
Defamation, be it through slander or libel, requires the statements made to be false. This is not my first rodeo, and I'm not a dumb person. When I write things on my website I make sure that everything I say is true. Not only that, but I make sure I can prove it's true.
In my post I make sure it's explicitly stated that Kopf hasn't been convicted of any crime, and while I express an opinion on that matter, there is no denying the police report I linked to as genuine. Retrieving a clean copy would be quite easy, as it's a public record. Secondly, when I allege that Kopf has staffers as young as fourteen, I can back that up too -- by just showing the statements made by a (then) fourteen year old that they staff a Kopf convention ( here's the about section from when I wrote my first post and their current "about" section).
And, of course, I have copies of all personal correspondence I reference as well.
Frankly, when I wrote that, I had a lot more information on Mr. Kopf - but I didn't want to make statements I couldn't back up for this very reason. I have verified some of it since then, but I don't see the point. What I've already said is bad enough, and I don't need to say more. If Mr. Kopf chooses to file any frivolous legal action against me, he has no chance of winning.
Especially since I don't think this Attorney is all that committed to Mr. Kopf. This letter is full of references to Wisconsin State law. Wisconsin is a state that neither I, Mr. Kopf nor my web hosting provider are located in. It's even more confusing when you realize they then proceeded to mail me the letter to my Indiana address. So I'm in Indiana, Kopf is in Iowa, his lawyer is in California, and my web host in North Carolina... but again, this letter is full of references to Wisconsin.
Where I haven't lived since 2010.
The ironic thing is that this Cease and Desist letter does nothing more than draw more attention to my previous article, as would any further legal action. The Steisand effect is a funny thing.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 19 ) ]
So this weekend my lovely wife Crysta and I went out to the Exploration Acres Corn Maze which is just south of Lafayette. Our day at the corn maze is becoming an annual thing it seems, and it did not disappoint this year.
It's funny, last year was my first time ever going to a Corn Maze, and it was just because I'd honestly never considered the idea. Crysta really wanted to though, so we went... and now it's one of my favorite fall activities.
I think this kind of indicates what a boring person I've become. But hey, I'm having fun at least.
- Traegorn
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So last week I put up a series of images of what the UnCONventional cast would look like if I drew them in a more realistic style. I did most of the major characters, but I left off a few - including Tara and Phil. Immediately afterwards my wife asked me what Tara would look like. So I found myself drawing her... and then more characters followed.
And I pretty much finished off the rest of the cast.
Of course there are technically some more named people from the comic I haven't included, but for the most part this is the core of the comic (and a few outliers already). I'm not as happy with this batch as I was the first set, but that's just my own hypercritical nature.
I'll probably toss these in the back of the Chapter Four book as bonus material when that comes out this spring, but that's the closest I'll do of a print of these versions of the cast.
Fun and exciting.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
So every once and a while I like to post an updated airship comparison chart for The Chronicles of Crosarth. I haven't put one up since February, so we've seen a few new ships introduced to the webcomic in the interim. Personally, I love charts like this - so if you don't... well, no one makes you read these blog posts.
If they do, please let me know. I will send help.
A notable change from the earlier versions is that the "concept design" of Samantha Von Taeliac's flagship is now slightly larger. This was done because I wanted the Hummingbird to feel just a tad bit smaller when the two ships docked back at the end of Volume One.
And just a reminder, you can buy the entire Volume One in print right now. Just saying.
Anywho, I happen to find things like this neat, so I thought you would too.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
 So back in March I was contacted by Adam Rambousek of AnimeFest, the longest running Anime Con in the Czech Republic, if he could include a few UnCONventional strips in his convention's fanzine. As Adam is largely responsible for my disproportionately large number of readers from the Czech Republic (seriously - I have more Czech readers than I do in the UK and Australia combined), how could I say no?
Anyway, that was a while ago. In yesterday's mail my copies of the fanzine arrived, and I cannot describe how weird it is to see my work in a language I do not actually know how to speak. In truth, I have no idea if the five comics of mine they published are accurate translations, but whatever. It's neat.
So for those of you who might be curious, I thought I share two of the five comics that appeared in the AnimeFest fanzine (alongside the original English versions). The two that I've selected both originally come from the "In the Beginning" storyline which finished Chapter 3.
Strip 1 - "Unorthodox Methods" 11/28/12
English: Czech:
Strip 2 - "Judging Criteria" 11/29/2012
English: Czech:
Will there ever be more translated strips? I have no idea. It's up to Adam, really. But hey, it's still pretty cool.
- Traegorn
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So this weekend I had a random impulse to draw some of the UnCONventional cast members in a more realistic style than the stick figures I normally depict them as.
Why? Because I saw some terrible artwork I put online of them from early 2010, and felt I needed to do a better job. To be clear, when I started drawing UnCONventional I actually had stopped regularly doing any artwork for about four years. It's why the comic started as stick figures frankly. Since then though I've been regularly producing art (including the much more challenging Crosarth comic).
Now for this I went just slightly more realistic than I draw The Chronicles of Crosarth, but not by very much. I happen to like the way they turned out - and it may surprise some people how I picture some of these characters in my head.
Inevitably someone is going to ask me "will you switch to drawing UnCONventional in a more realistic style," and to that I say a firm no. Part of the reason the stick figures work so well is because while these may be the official looks for the characters, by presenting them in the abstract normally it allows the reader to see themselves in the characters more.
Or at least that's what I say to justify my continued laziness.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
 So a long time ago I wrote about how UnCONventional's Lynn Baxter was originally created as a character for a different project. My creative recycling, of course, neither started nor ended there - because, y'know, I'm lazy.
So today I thought I'd give some insight on the creation of Ilyena Masters, one of the characters in The Chronicles of Crosarth.
Most people have no idea that over a decade ago I attempted to write a science fiction novel. And by "attempted" I mean "wrote three chapters and gave up." The story was intended to be an action comedy that followed the staff of a far future waste disposal company that would end up saving human civilization.
Y'know, basic stuff.
I was young though, and didn't have the patience to stick with the story at the time. It fell by the wayside, but two of the characters stuck out in my head - Ilyena Masters and Vince/Vinny Vescucci. And I'd recycle both of them several times (Vinny eventually got his name changed to Delgado).
In the graphic above you can see one of the later pieces of concept art I had for Ilyena for the novel - because I can never resist drawing them. This is where the core of the character came from. This version of Ilyena was probably more articulate than versions that would follow, but the mindset of only working with what was in front of her and her short temper would persist in all later iterations.
Ilyena sat on a shelf for a few years, until some friends of mine in college asked me if I wanted to join their weekly tabletop game. They were playing a game of Returner's FFRPG, a role playing game unofficially based on the Final Fantasy franchise (hence the Chocobo). It was in this game that many parts of Ilyena's background got developed including her family history, growing up on a farm outside a small town, and the death of her grandfather. It also introduced two key elements - the three scars on her neck and her hatred of talking to people. In fact, this version of Ilyena (who was a good ten years younger than the versions from the novel and from Crosarth) pretended to be mute so she wouldn't have to speak.
Which led to quite a few entertaining gaming sessions, let me tell you.
I would later bring her back for a D&D campaign pretty much unchanged (other than now riding a horse instead of a chocobo and being a Fighter rather than a Swordmaster).
Years later, when I was developing my ideas for The Chronicles of Crosarth, I needed to fill out the crew for the HMS Hummingbird. I already had created most of the primary characters (Hayworth, Kellin and Friday), but I needed a few more. In came my favorite pair, Ilyena and Vinny.
This version is back to being in her thirties, but incorporates a lot of the depth that was created in my years of playing her as a table top character. Of course, as she's not the main character in Crosarth, a lot of this depth has yet to be revealed to the reader... but we'll get there.
A year into Crosarth she got a redesign - abandoning the pony tail she'd previously always had - but remains the same. And I can't wait to let you guys get to know her more.
- Traegorn
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So the image above is an uncropped version of a panel from today's UnCONventional in which recurring Troy Harrington pretty much challenges a storm to a fight.
Normally when I do this sort of exterior in UnCONventional I like to use photographic sources, but in this case I didn't have access to a photo that conveyed the angle I really wanted...
...so I made it from scratch.
Many of you know that I build my comics in kind of a collage style, using elements from different sources to create a final panel. I talked about doing this waaaay back in 2011, but I thought I'd go through a much more complex example.
Now the first thing I need is the framework for a structure. Using very basic two-point perspective, I chart out the frame of the hotel. After I do that, I erase the unneeded perspective lines.
Now I know ahead of time I'm going to only see a small portion of the building in the panel, so I only need it to resemble the basic structure of a hotel/convention center. I have no need to get too fancy or add detail the reader will never see. My next step is to add flat colors to the building and ground - and I pretty much go as basic as possible.
I also dug out a photo of storm clouds from my hard drive that I took over a decade ago -- because hey, I need some storm clouds for texture.
The next steps are fairly important - first I needed to add the doors and external lights to the building. Now the doors I've baked in advance, as they've shown up in the comic before. The light fixtures will mostly be obscured by the lighting, so I just make a couple basic circles, so that's not too difficult.
Once I've inserted the doors and the lights, it's time to add lighting. I add a couple of basic gradients -- two opaque to transparent circular ones for the light, and then a translucent black to transparent set of gradients to darken the world in general (leaving the "lit" area lighter than the rest of the world).
Now that I've built the basic world, it's time to add the actual weather.
First we add some mist and fog on the ground through a set of translucent white layers. I'm not going for realism in this element, as if it got too realistic the stick figures would feel out of place. Also, by making it multiple layers it will allow Scrappy to stand in the middle of it.
Once I've added the mist/fog it's time to add the rain. Adding the rain is a little more complicated - the short answer is that I create a couple layers of black with a white "noise filter" applied. I then just motion blur the noise and mess with the weather's visibility.
All that's left to do is insert Scrappy and Troy and we have our panel... well, after we crop a bit off the left so I can hide that I didn't draw 90% of the hotel.
So yeah, that's how I do that.
- Traegorn
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