True Blue Mug

…tomorrow a king. That sentiment sums up my state of mind at present. Life presents its challenges, but as the Little Red Mug says “We shall prevail!” Once we do, it will be nice to change out of these tattered rags into regal garments:)

As for that webcomic I keep chattering about, important decisions will be made tomorrow and then I hope the watchword will be… soon!

When creating a fantasy world also known as “world-building” you need to add details that make your world unique. It seems that most authors and artists just draw from existing sources. I’ve noticed that fantasy webcomics in particular draw from D&D or WoW.

Boring…

A great way to realize your world is to start from the ground up, literally. In Ether we have something called the “land shrimp” which crawls through the cracks of every great city. Not necessarily the most distinguished aspect of our world, but certainly the tastiest when served with a little tarter sauce.

I haven’t been posting much about the webcomic, but that isn’t to say things haven’t been progressing. The first page was completed a little while back and it looks glorious!

There was a brief moment when we considered black and white, but I’m really glad Jeff decided to go with full on color. Fantasy almost demands it, especially when you’re dealing with a rich setting such as ours.

The trouble now is getting into a routine and deciding how many pages to update per week. There’s also the little matter of a website. It seems that most writers and artists side with ComicPress. It’s a neat little setup, but I think we might look elsewhere first…

Plenty of good stuff on the way, Jeff and I are just having a little target practice for the time being. We want to make sure we hit our mark.

What a year!

I can’t really sum up how crazy 2010 has been for me.  Good times and bad times… just times, I suppose.  Anyway, looking forward to 2011.

Working pretty much non-stop to finish up a script so I can send it on to a management company. No more posts until I finish.

Webcomic in the New Year for sure! I’m not 100% on the when, but I’m optimistic that it will be sooner rather than later. I leave you with a sketch of an alternate character design. Kinda brooding which is how I feel at present.

Another long meet over the weekend with Jeff and while we were discussing the webcomic, Jeff mentioned how big our world is getting.

It’s true.

Back in the day, when we developed Ether as a television series and thought to become rich and famous overnight, the series had eight major characters. Since that time through our various iterations, many new faces have appeared in the world of Ether. So many in fact that I’ve decided I need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all and to avoid creating names that might run too close to existing characters. 

The grand total is 250 unique characters, each with their very own personality quirks. The number is actually 252, but who’s counting? Me! That’s who!

I’ve created the vast majority from, er… the ether, but there are a handful that had an assist from some of my friends.

The webcomic alone probably accounts for a hundred of the characters. What I’m particularly proud of is that none of the characters seem unnecessary. They all have a place and purpose in this mad world of ours.

I believe Harrison Ford once said to George Lucas regarding Star Wars:

You can write this shit, but you can’t say it.

Equally… I can write as many characters as I like, but Jeff has to design them and that’s the task ahead. Never mind the unnamed characters and all the many, many locations…