(click to see the full page, those are just the first coupla’ panels)
This is exactly what it looks like. I’ve had this idea rolling around in my head for a while now, “If you had to condense all the best elements of Bionicle’s story into one simple, cohesive narrative?” Streamlining it without cheapening it. Well… here, assuming I can find the time for it, that’s what I’m going to attempt to do. It’s something I’ve tried and failed at a few times over the years, and chances are this will crash and burn too, but I need something simpler to do while I get into the right frame of mind to jump back into Nova Orbis, because right now that’s pretty difficult. Will update with new pages as they’re completed.
I’m interested in this whole retelling premise, the creative liberties you have will allow for so much potential. Out of curiosity, will it include Toa besides the original 6, or are you sticking more to what G2 did?
As for the art itself, I like the contrast between the realistic backgrounds and you drawings in certain frames. They aren’t too glaring and create a nice effect.
The shading is really bare bones, everything just looks kind of, damp, I guess is how I’d describe it, that said the line work is fine, the coloring is fine, it’s just that the shading was bugging me the whole time, it needs to properly contour to the shapes of the objects casting the shade and be more contrasting in places.
Regardless I look forward to seeing this comic develop.
Sorry man, this is just how I like to shade things. At first, it was just a matter of technical limitations (I’d need a proper drawing tablet to feasibly do a “proper” two-toned cel shading style) but then I started paying a lot more attention to sunsets an’ whatnot and realized things don’t always look that clear in real life. If anything, I’ve grown to see soft, slowly changing gradients as more beautiful, and I’ve been coloring this way for years. It seems especially well received in Planet Ripple, where large chunks of the story are spent in the dimly-lit, claustrophobic bowels of a submarine. It might not be the “right” way to do it, it might be unconventional, but that’s just another reason why I do it. I’ve embraced it because it helps my work stand out.
Hey look, it’s Nixie watching the Toa’s fall as the storm clears up in their wake! Yeah, lots of old faces will be making appearances like that. It’ll be a nice wink to long time fans, and just make the island feel more colorful and populated to newcomers.
Yeah that’s all there is today. If I want to still have enough time to finish at least one page of Planet Ripple per day, I can only upload a little of this fancomic at a time. In the past, I would’ve done, like, 2 or 3 sheets of paper, but I don’t have time to do any more than this for the moment. You can read the full backlog here. NickOnPlanetRipple User Profile | DeviantArt
I thought it’d be nice to show where each of the Toa landed. Onua’s in a cave, Pohatu’s in a ravine… but you may’ve noticed someone is strangely absent from this scene.
Oh dang. So while the other five Toa harmlessly landed in the ocean and were gently carried to shore where they could reassemble themselves with relative ease, Tahu crashed right smack-dab on the island. Yikes.
Also, that Ta-Matoran to the left in the first panel is female. Yep. Doing away with Ga-Matoran all being girls and everyone else being boys. Every tribe has boys and girls in it now.
These along with the Toa actually falling from the sky this time are the first of many major chances we’ll see, and I hope it will get the message across that this ISN’T just another beat-for-beat retelling of the same ol’ Mata Nui Online Game story.