I've reworked the composition slightly - it's not radically different from the original version, but it does fit the aspect ratio better.

Edited 20050620 : In the same spirit as the original, with the dialogue rewritten and expanded (some of it on the previous page).

Personally, I think this image is vastly superior to the original. Scale, depth of field, etc, etc.

I also think that the reworked convergence -1- and -2-, in conjunction with descent, now puts Chapter One into its proper context.

Backdrop was done on the 19th. I would have proceeded with doing the entire page then, but problems started eating my ass. They still are, unfortunately - though it's quite a bit less severe than it was this afternoon.

As for the dialogue....

To say that Tantek's tactical helmet makes him look an awful lot like Briareos is a massive understatement. If you want to nit-pick, the only real similarities are the "rabbit ears" and the forward lens layout. I'd prefer to think I was inspired by Appleseed, rather than, say, ripping it off.

The upside, like Raven mentions, is that Tantek can take the suit off. And at a much later point in The Dualist, he'll swap out the tactical helmet for something better suited to the situation.

Until then, he's going to get needled about it.

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Original image(s):

 

Ph34r.

Original post:

If you can still spot the typo, then I haven't gotten to fixing it yet. Don't worry, it'll be soon. Also, I should note that all communication in the veil has no direct bearing on the story. Well, it does, but it's ultimately inconsequential. The reasons for this are twofold- communication inside the Terrestrial Veil is difficult for obvious reasons and this sequence in particular was visual, rather than scripted. Retroscripted pages always suck, ladies and gentlemen- there's a reason the writer hands the script to the artist, not the reverse. o_O

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Uploaded a fixed version on 27 May. Removed the threshhold processed peeps for hand drawn processed artstuffs. In other words, the characters look like the characters, instead of sloptastic approximations. The great thing about this is the rez allows me to play with dynamics, putting the male obviously in front. :D

I should probably note that the new page metadata is generated as I'm cleaning up the page - typically in one or two sessions - and is pasted in during the mass upload. The mass uploads have a creation period of a few minutes, compared to the days that a scene rework takes. I've been uploading in batches instead of one at a time for a few reasons - the big one is that it's just easier. Between the straight-html archives requiring a full rebuild to keep their shit straight and the tedium of ganking the original metadata and post timing out of the old db... it's better to do it all in one crunch.

That and unless I'm grinding out Brand New Pages, this means every update is several pages, instead of one every few days or weeks.

That said, Descent is up. I took a pass on the idea of nixing Tantek's "fifth eye," and sniped the first two pages of Convergence - they're now descent -6- and -7- respectively. This means Descent will be 19 pages instead of 21. Unlike previous scenes, it won't be One Big Upload - I'll rewrite it as one big scene, but I'll be breaking it into two or three chunks to make it more manageable.

Oh, and I don't intend to get started on the reformatting until next weekend. I've slacked enough on some freelance obligations... time to pull my head out of this thing for a few days.

Well, the Photoshop end, anyway. I still gotta do the rewrite.

The again-temp cover has been reformatted, the synopsis and production data have been ported over, and Convergence - Chapter Two of the second edition, Chapter One of the first - is ready for pages.

This won't be a straight crop-clean-and-dump a la Signal. Most of the original pages will be given the same treatment - I'm currently leaning towards redrawing one of them. Yeah, just one.

I'm learning, see.

So 35 reworks, one probable redraw, four new pages (which I'm pre-pre-rendering now)... all of it taken at a slightly more sedate pace than the previous chapter. It still needs a complete scene-by-scene rewrite... and I haven't officially started on that yet. The draft of Raven and West chatting doesn't count, at least not yet - the first draft is too much exposition with little in the way of impact on the story.

Reworks and cleanup have so far been fairly easy - the issue I'm toying with now is the idea of removing the O from Tantek's 8O8 optics - covering it over with the same gunmetal green as the rest of his armor. Redrawing the helmet completely is out of the question, but plugging the center could make the suit look more "Inspired By Briareos" and less "Badly Drawn Briareos." In theory, anyway. In practice, such a change would be a whole lotta work with very minimal payoff.

There's a lot of that helmet in this chapter, so I'm going to futz around a bit and see if I can come up with a viable solution. If I can't, no biggie - it'll be one less item on the to-do list.

And if THAT isn't fun enough... the core scene of the chapter - some 18 pages - is going for its second adjustment - first 1800x2400 to 2250x3000; now 1800x2400 to 1850x2774 (live area of 1800x2700). That's gonna be FUN! :D

Actually, it won't be. But appearances are important, or so I've been told.

Cage, which used to be Animal and Hammering before that, has been cleaned up, tweaked, or otherwise reformatted to spec. This completes the chapter - at 42 pages (actual), it's two pages shorter than the first edition version, thanks to the relocation of the "introduction" pages into Incursion.

It's taken just under a month from start to finish - and that's with stupidly enormous amounts of vacation time thrown at the project. The next few chapters will take longer.

Work on Convergence will start in a week or so - I have some commission work to take care of, and xeno still needs to typornograph Signal. It isn't actually done-Done until he gives it a thumbs up, so.

Speaking of Convergence.... I'll be adding four pages.* Four pages of badly needed context that fills in a pretty friggin' enormous plot hole. That happens near the end of the chapter, so I don't know how getting that done will effect deployment of reformatted pages.

I should also note that after this chapter passes typorno and I've had time to mull over any further changes or adjustments, I'll be proceeding with print formatting (grayscale and color) and, whenever I get around to generating a proper cover (front, back, insides)... hardcopy. Get this thing locked into something resembling CANON! before I succumb to changing it any further.

I've been threatening hardcopy for quite awhile now, and really, what I'm doing to The Dualist now is what Needs To Be Done in order to get it there.

Trust me on this, mmmkay?

* The Plan - which is much more coherent than the Cylon Plan, really - is to add four pages to Convergence, four to Clarity, and another eight-to-ten page wad ("expulsion") between Clarity and Motion. The additions to Convergence will patch a gaping plot hole; the extra pages for Clarity will sort of restore a scene that was cut, and Expulsion will just confuse the hell out of everything until I finish Dead City Radio.