Hmmmm...If I was drift, I would be a little uneasy about Wheeljack Studying my sword. Nice way to work the lions in there. Drift's spark was a nice effect. Yeah, that was a pretty nice touch. I wasn't expecting it that's for sure! The effect itself is all right. It's the hard edges that make it stand out a bit. If you can change opacity settings on the eraser tool and go along the edges, it will look more like real lights fading. Of course, I don't know how the eraser works in gimp. Some kind of slight blur could also do the trick. Yeah. I barely understand most of the brush functions in photshop. I did Download some custom fire and lighting brushes in photshop. The lightning brushes look good, but you have to make a new layer out of it before you can really get it to the position you want. Yeah, I had forgotten about that. But it''s a good thing in a way. Made you jump in and "test the waters" of comicland. Yeah. It looks okay from the front. I like him, but I doubt he will show up in my comic. Kinda pointless to just have one Dinobot. Yeah. Maybe after DOTM winds down we will finally get them. Especially now that we have gotten pratically everyone else. Yeah I barely use my email, so it didn't bug me to much. Most of my online communication is done through other sites. For side by side shots it's usually just them lined up together, but for dogfights, I usually take separate pictures. Yeah this is true. They cared about what they were doing and it showed. They could have just chopped the show together, but they didn't. Yeah. I was okay with it at first. When you first found out he was rhinox. But then he get's his personality back and he's still evil? WTF. Most of those dinobot toys were pretty awesome. When I hirst started collecting, I wanted Dinobot sso badly...but he was long gone from shelves. That Pachy-remold dinotron was a nice way to at least get the mold. And of course T-wrecks was, and still is my main stand in for Megatron. I got the Stego dude too. With the headress...he might make it into the comic soon. I can't remember his name now. My issue would be I like to change up vehicle mode shots sometimes. So it's not the standard "here's another car driving" pic. So I would pretty much have to do it case by case. Yeah that just brings home how sad jetprime from ROTF was. No I want to combine RID Prime and magnus again. In fact...I might just go do that lol Meh- fast action battler. The stupid kiddie toy. I only got it because the day the first movie toys came out. I had like litterally ten bucks to spend, and I needed my prime fix. Of course I got most of movie one toys in the end.
It didn't feel right to cut from Classics Decepticon HQ to Animated Autobot HQ directly... Especially not in the middle of the update... So, I remembered G1's Faction changes, went to TFWiki to get the symbols (didn't want to bother trying to copy them off figures, especially not w/ my lighting, & worked up my own one panel version. I did this BEFORE 'shopping the update. Drift IS uneasy about it. Check the last panel Drift was in in Chapter Zero... He HATES that attack SOLEY 'cause he HAS to let Wheeljack poke around in him to make sure he's OK, 'cause no other Autobot has experience w/ Sparks... & this time, he wasn't quite... Drift would rather go offline than let Wheeljack do what he does best... Drift is VERY happy Wheeljack has no idea where to start researching that sword, & hopes it remains that way indefinitely. Maybe if I had faded the entire layer? & then blurred it... It was a first go, so I couldn't be expected to get it perfect. I'm not totally clear on the Eraser either... Sometimes it erases everything, sometimes it appears to erase in degrees. @.@ I assume the "lightening" for the Predator decloaking was via the brush I can't use? I'll work something out for Voltron... Well, I was going to do the ACO review to see how difficult making a comic was, the Running Battle to see how hard fight choreography would be, & if I could handle both, then I was going to start my thread & link to the review & battle... Instead, I find Gimp simple, do a complicated battle to start, then the review, then a battle w/ Voltron (though, it's probably better this way). Just like it's pointless to only have Grimlock, but he's easier to work w/ alone... That's probably EVERYONE's hope... As I've said, I'm Red Alert about security, especially online security. I don't like intermingling accounts, keeping my online identities seperate as much as possible. Well, if I'm going to be cutting them out regardless, I could position the 'bots how I want, proping some up at angles if needs be... AEG don't have too many fliers, & even fewer who would be in a drawn out dogfight, so it may not even be an issue. Shows where the cast & crew cares tend to be better for it. Well, there's brainwashed & there's character derailment when he becomes UNbrainwashed... Well, duh. Why do you think the Fandom can almost unanimously agree that the Dinobots are cool, in one continuity or another? Let's see, I think the Stegasaurus was Striker or Strika, the Triceratops something like Triceratron (not very creative) & the Archeopterix Divebomb? Something along those lines... 'Could look them up, but don't feel like it... Plus, the Archeopterix & Stegasaurus gave off indian vibes in robot mode, which is why I thought they were cut out of the show... That's my point, shoot all the shots I want as I go, till I have every angle I'd use in the comic... Long & tedious process, but in the end it could be worth it... Just depends on if I want to cut MP & G2 Optimus out every panel they're in to start out w/... Omega Prime was interesting, & decently posable considering Optimus was WEARING Ultra Magnus... That would be why I didn't know it. Except for combiners & limited Scouts, I rarely get anything simpler than Deluxe... No point if it's too simple.
Yeah. It was totally awesome to see. Not something that is normally in the comic side of things. Yeah. but if I was him, I would have hidden my sword before going to see wheeljack lol At any rate, wheeljack reaching in to manipulate one's spark would give anybody pause......though it is a necessary evil if you want to stay functioning. Yeah...that should work out nicely. You'd be amazed what even a little bit of blurring can do. Fade the opacity a bit...you should be golden. I don't know how it is in gimp-in photoshop there is a slider to change the opacity of the eraser 0-100% opacity. Just saw your post in my thread about that. Actually that one wasn't a brush. That would be too much copy pasting for one panel. That one I drew "by hand" using a very small circular white brush. I don't now how to get glows in gimp...but i just added an outer glow of darker blue and an inner glow of light blue. Added a slight blur. There is no wrong way to draw lightning...just get some jagged lines going....however many extra bits to be "forks" as you prefer. This method works better with smaller brushes....larger brushes sizes tend to stop looking like electricity. Some of my older stuff was just one blue glow for lightning-as opposed to inner and outer glows. The brushes I referred to I used back in salvation...during the megazord formation and finishers. Much harder to work with...as you have to basically make those glow "the hard way" photoshops easy glow settings won't work. Yeah...the harder stuff out of the way first. Yeah. Just grimlock is much easier to work with. Just Snarl/slag...not so much. Yeah the bots who have yet to get the modern treatment are starting to run thin. Some of the triple changers....a "real" blaster...the dinobots are the only ones I can come up with off the top of my head. SKy lynx...but that's my fan dream that will never happen. Yeah. Once you commit to a dogfight.....you really have to make yourself see it through. Some of the ones I did made me not want to work on the comic lol Yeah...especially when you see things like the energon show ugh.. I only saw a few episodes...it was enough. Yeah...talk about a radical departure! Yeah your right ...it was stirker. Mine is the green one though. I think it was in universe? Yeah, probably. I always thought it was a cool design choice. Yeah, that's the million dollar question. Yeah. It was the most intense bot for me when it came out. Soo worth the price. My Prime is derped though. A sibling long ago stepped on his ladder and shattered it. I ended up removing it...so now he turns in to a weird flat-bead truck thing with sirens. Yeah. He is definitely my toy of shame.
How else was I going to transition though? I wasn't happy w/ how I cut to the Dinobots their first apparence, but they started an update, so it really isn't as harsh a transition... Maybe I need to make an eye catch for the Dinobots too? But what to make it look like? I already know what the one for Voltron will be. Drift feels naked w/o Tenka Muso-ken. & he knows Wheeljack has no way of working out how the Sword works on his own, no matter how good he is... I've noticed Smudge is a good tool to use to blend things together too... I'd have to poke around to see if the eraser has any settings to it... Yeah, doing it by hand was my fall back... It'll be a similar process to Drift's Spark charging his sword... Just A LOT! Glows are simple in Gimp, at least for me: 1) select the area you want (there're even 2 color select tools, one for all, one for touching regions), 2) Feather the selection (basically make the selected area/s bleed color), 3) drag & drop the color you want to "glow". The degree of glow varies w/ the Feather option & how many layers of color you add. The rest of Soundwave's Cassette Army: aka his fliers. But everyone's probably wanting a Blitzwing as much as the Dinobots. A proper, $10/ $13 Tripplechanging Springer would be nice... Though, DotM or WfC could give us a decent Blitzwing toy... maybe... & Sky Lynx is probably a pipe dream... So are Omega Supreme, & the City-changers. Well, I wouldn't try anything I didn't want to finish... & it can't be as hard as recreating the panel w/ the Lions...Again, it's just getting the angles of the fliers right... & I'm kinda going to have to tackle Lion-fights in the near future, as the Lions were used in dogfight senarios... Energon felt like a Power Rangers ripoff... A bad one... Just above Turbo, but probably not by much... I could see Rhinox's machine thinking in that, but he lost his soul & mystic aspect. Megatron was a bit odd in BM too, as he embraced his Beast Mode in BW, ESPECIALLY his outer Dragon. I'm not sure which BM Dinobtos I have... They did look cool, but Airraptor's (looked it up), the Archeopteryx, wings "poncho" limited his posability a bit. Triceradon's shoulder pad too... Well, I might go through w/ the story element, see how bad 'shopping Op is, & decide before the no return point. Yeah, not only does Op have 4 robot modes (if you include Omega), most forms he can take look cool... Though the "base" could've been executed better... Not a bad try, though. & I've intentionally invoked "flat-bed mode at least twice. My "toy of shame" is probably the RotF Icecream twins... I got someone else to pay for it though. Just the idea of them revisiting 2 bots: 1 vehicle was interesting; though I despise their characterization.
Just managed to read this comic. For a first time comic maker, your effects are pretty good... probably a lot better than what I'm able to do currently. And other than the images looking rather dark and blurry, I don't see anything wrong with this comic. Dang, Bludgeon sure is one tough, powerful, scary dude. I'd hate to have to constantly go up against him in a fight. Looking forward to seeing where this comic goes from here.
I seem to be getting "your effects are better than mine" consistantly, & I'm not sure why, as I never edited a pic before, d/led Gimp not long before I started the comic, & keep the effects simple so my head can deal w/ them. & yeah, I wanted Bludgeon to be a major threat... HE'S A SLAGGIN' TANK/ SAMURAI; like Rhinox, his armor has to be super thick... & guess who's stuck facing him repeatedly due to having one of the few techniques that is somewhat effective against him? & I'm glad I managed to get all that across... especially the scary. I only have some of the story planned out... W/ this head injury, I find it better & easier to leave some leway as I'm shooting an update, so it can flow on it's own. Glad you like it so far.
I don't know..that's a tough one. I don't think the Original dinobots had a symbol of their own. I know the beast machines ones did. That's a good thing for Drift! Yeah. I'm guessing that it probably does. Yeah. Actually not too hard. That sounds kinda like how I make the glows for the lighting brushes. Most of the time I use photshops easy inner and outer glow features. You just make a new layer and turn it on. You pick the color, and it has a bunch of sliders to adjust size..opacity and such. Then anything you draw in that layer will have the glow. Another way to do it I sometimes use is to draw say a lazer or lightning in white...copy the layer, go back to the first layer and blurr it a bit..then change the color of the first layer. then the white copy on top kinda makes the white center, and the blurred colored area is the glow. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't Yeah, I know we will never see sky lynx...but I can dream. He was just such a crazy toy for me to not like. I too would love a new springer and blitzwing. Sandstorm or broadside I never really cared about too much. Of course there is the fan dream of an actual g1 arcee. We will never see that, cuz even if they did do it...hasbro would make a "real" altmode. Seems to be their MO lately. Yeah, it wouldn't be right to not have lion fights. The "dogfighting" always made the lead up and formation of voltron that much more satisfying. Lol I watched all of turbo. bu then, I never really quit watching until disney took over. But I agree about turbo being the worse. My issue was I loved those zords..so i had to watch. The series finally wasn't too bad though. But yeah. Energon was bad. I could even tolerate armada more than energon...and I didn't have any love for armada show either. lol Yeah...that was kinda a head scratcher. Silverbolt too...he was all noble as can be in beast wars. I can understand some character change from being forced into jetstorm....but he was pretty angsty. I just remembered I have another one. The gray-ish TM2 dinobot repaint. Yeah. Probably best. My favorite was always the normal robot with just the huge shoulder missile pads attached. Yeah, it's worth having for the novelty of it. that thing transforms so much...especially the mudflap part. Plus Pink ice cream truck is not something we will likely ever see again for an altmode.
Now shooting the first bit of the next update/ Review... not sure if I'll be starting the reviewing or just getting everyone there yet, though... Good point... May use that or try to recreate it... Slag's head would look hilarious if I did that! If he didn't KNOW Wheeljack couldn't even begin experimenting on his Sword w/o help, he'd hand it to MP Prime for safe keeping during Maintenence. I'll work something out... I'll have to find a still of the formation lightening (shouldn't be too hard to find) as a reference, but I'm sure I'll get it close. Well, HasTak did do Drift & "Straxus", Sky Lynx may be a dream, but it's not totally outside the realm of possibility... A TF4 would be more likely, as would be movie Dinobots in it, but not impossible... There were at least TWO Robeasts defeated by just the Lions... I think the first one & I remember one where Voltron wasn't enough, but the 5 Lions made for harder target locks... Could be wrong, though... I watched SOME of Turbo, but the Zords didn't seem to have much thought to them... Well, you'd be angsty too if you enjoyed being what you despized while brainwashed... My RiD Op was in that mode a lot too... I made a make-shift base out of the remaining bits... Not easy to do... Yeah, I get MOST of my TFs for interesting, complex, or unusual transformations... Very Few (Optimus, Wheeljack, Dinobots, & a few others) do I get just for the name/ a representation of the character. Though, the ones I do get just for the character tend to get cooler toys...
Yeah, that would be pretty funny. Well you can't really go wrong making lightning. Unless you are going for the exact shot by shot. In that case, as long as you get it close to onscreen it should be fine. Yeah. Movie dinobots would rule. Bay's hate for them is the only reason we haven't seen them. I could understand if the guy doesn't like them...but to then turn around and have a metalized death creature in each of the three films? Sigh. You might be right. Of course my voltron memories are hazy at best. I think I liked the turboand rescue zords so much because that was back before I returned to transformers. Kinda tickling my nostalgia for vehicle robots back then. The rescue zords especially as they had "robot modes" too. Yeah. I just think they went too far with it, as he didn't really become himself again until the very end. Yeah, even the base mode in the instructions was weak at best. But at least they did something with all the extra parts. Lol I used to be like that...then it degraded into "well I don't have this character yet"...then it went downhill even more until I was pretty much buying everything.
Next update has been shot. Not sure how long it'll take to 'shop. I intend to try to approximate the main shots, but don't intend to get OCD about getting it exact. Well, Bay says he's done at 3, so a 4 would be by someone else, & fanrage would practically required the Dinobots be included... The bugs & Ravage do kill the "why would they have that mode" argument. The Rescuezords were interesting, as they had a "realistic" formation sequence, using the flying Green Zord to lift the Blue & Red Zords into place... I probably altered how I did the base mode a bit... Turn pieces around so they look better, attached them to different spots, etc. I've never had the money nor desire to try to buy every TF I saw. Except for Beast Wars & CHUGRU, my Autobots have always DRASTICALLY outnumbered my Decepticons. Beast Wars was the only show I wanted a representation of all the ones that got on screen, as well as when they upgraded... In fact, before I got "Straxus", I didn't have enough Decepticons from one line to try a comic... Most have been Megatrons, which I know of only one comic that can get away w/ TONS of Megatrons...
Update 7: The Review Part 1: Gathering More dark shots... Though, some are intentional... About 1/2 way through, I got a BRIGHT lamp to use, but didn't want to rework the shots I had already taken for 2 reasons: 1) I have an in-Alternity excuse for why it's dark there & 2) it'd ruin a shot that required such deep darkness to pull off... Also, I found a "Night" setting for my cell, let me know if that helped the dark shots... Can't remember if I found it at the beginning or part way through... Also used some motion blurs, let me know how those worked out. Particularly on Straxus. Tried a Shadow Drop Filter to get the Twins to not stand out so much, as their pics were taken under a light, but they're flying in a dark area, let me know how that looks too, please... This is mostly talk, but there are a few points I couldn't help but laugh at as I thought of them & again when I proofread them... Hopefully they'll make some of you laugh too... This update also gives a look at just why it is that Wheeljack knows so much about Sparks... So, hopefully his working on Drift makes more sense from here on out... Oh, I also played around w/ the fonts... Let me know if you like me mixing them up like this better... I tried to be consistant for the update, but can't guarantee I'll be able to be consistant between updates. I've been doing this for Drift the whole time. Update 7: The Review Part 1: Gathering Note 1: I PROMISE the next Update will start the acutal reviewing of FansProject Crossfire 02 A & B. Note 2: I used Pol's Tutorial for an explosion for Grimlock's attack (which is a combination of his Flame-breath AND his back-mounted Laser Cannon, kinda hard to tell due to the angle & explosion). Bit small, but making it too big wouldn't've looked right. Note 3: Any ideas what I should call Rodimus & Wheeljack's alternate combination, where Wheeljack is in charge? Also, if you have a better name that Rodimus-Jack, let me know... works for the joke, but not sure I want to keep it... I don't remember what Energon did, assuming they just didn't say "Super [name of whoever is the head]"
In Energon, they just used the name of the bot on top for the name. For an example, lets use Hot Shot and Inferno. If Hot Shot was on top, the combined form would be referred to as Hot Shot and vise versa.
That's a stupid way to name a combiner... I prefer using parts of both names to just one... There are a LOT of things I, & probably many others, have to question about choices for Energon... At least the animation has the excuse of being from Japan... (unfortunately, not the best example of anime, as MANY are of better quality than US cartoons) But the Dub doesn't have that exucse... Thanks for letting me know... It's been a while since I've seen Energon... & I don't particularly want to revisit it... I hope to make what Energon characters show up much more interesting...
Yeah, Energon is not the greatest TF series... I only watched half of it before I lost interest in it. Can't wait to see how interesting the Energon characters turn out.
Just consider Wheeljack G1, as that's where I'm taking his characterization from... Rodimus is a bit trickier to define... I haven't decided what others I'll be using yet.
Looking good, Picture quality getting better, But you need to work on posing, Jazz and Drift being static standing stright up and just being blurred doesn't look right. If it was a metalliko technique wouldn't they have to be in a trance or cross their legs etc...
Yeah, after I posted the update, I realized I should've posed their arms like some portrayals of Ninja when they use hand signals before using a Mystical technique... Not sure why I didn't... But a way to think about it is that the best trained Ninja don't need to go through all the flash & ceramony to use their skills, since neither the crossing of legs or arms has anything to do w/ teleporting... In fact, crossing the legs could hinder a teleport, depending on circumstances. & I want my Ninja able to draw on their skills midcombat. Drift & his sword are a special case, as he's still not used to it... He doesn't use it enough to learn more about it, yet...
Once again, sorry for my long delay in responding. Hectic week and all. Nice update. Those shots with the bright lights are coming out way better. I liked Drift and blurr's teleport. A nice little touch. Wheeljack and rodimus combining was unexpected. I mean they are energon toys and the feature is there, but you never really see it used in comics anymore. Rodimusjack works for that one. The opposite is a little harder. If you follow that "naming pattern" then you get wheelimus...which sounds bad like wheelie got the matrix or something lol That's what I figured. Shouldn't be too hard then. Some quick, squiggly lines and a glow and your all set. Yeah, if they were gonna use that as their defense as to why there are no dinobots, then there really shouldn't have been any beast formers. Whoops. I was talking about the other recue zords. But the ones your are talking about are pretty cool to. I actually have that megazord. Been toying with it showing in the comic, but then i decided nnot to. As I would then have to explain why his "partner" supertrain megazord was a skynet harvester. Yeah. Of course you get really cool base setups if you take all the supermode parts from the various primes of that era and make a base from them. Throw in some g1 prime trailers and those WERE my bases back in the day lol. Yeah. For a longtime decepticons were on the short end of the stick. And for a long time I only got what "I needed". ROTf onwards really is when I fell into the "must have everything" mindset. It was more my cash levels improving than anything. But I think after A few bots I need from rts(already planned for the comic). I'm gonna be out of the major toy collecting days. I recently found out I'm going to be a father! So that's where my cash is going. I'm sure I will still get a tf every once and a while. But my buying everyhting days are done.
