Ultra-Pedia

In order to make my universe more user-friendly, I decided to create mini-encyclopedia pages for each of my characters, which I'm calling Ultra-Pedia.

I'm attaching the first one here, but all of the rest will be Webtoons and the Fotki photo-hosting site (both in the links)

Webtoons

After thinking about it for a while (and wanted to get more content produced), I decided to put my comic up on Webtoons!

I only published it about a half hour before writing this post.

Here's the link...Webtoons

Here's how it looks right after I launched it:

Then when clicking on the Superhero category, I was the lead one for a while...

Hopefully this will bring the comic to a wider audience.

I do have to say that the colors on Webtoons are much brighter and pretty much the way that originally created them, not the darker colors that happens on YouTube when I upload them there.  

For now I'll continue to upload to both, but in the future I might lean more toward Webtoons, I don't know yet...

Please feel free to check it out - you don't have to sign up on Webtoons to read them (and they have some other cool stuff there too besides my comic).

Issue 10

Issue 10 is up!  It took me much longer than I thought to get this one done, but it's finally finished.

Here's a link:Issue 10

This issue was a bit of a challenge for me, it took place in Italy, in the towns of Rome, Popoli and Fossacesia, the last two being towns where my ancestors came from.  Besides doing my comic I'm also bigt into genealogy and I wanted to pay homage to my genealogy work.  While most of the rest the characters I've been using so far were created a long time ago, Italus (who debuts in this issue) and all connections to Italy were created in 2015 as I was outlining the stories I wanted to tell for the first two years and I'm happy with how those parts turned out.

The tricky part is that I was using some very real places - besides the ones in Italy, I was also using Times Square in NYC and Seattle, Washington, so I was trying to match colors as much as I could, and that slowed me down a heck of a lot more than I thought it would - but that's alright, tonight I'll relax and tomorrow I'll start working on the next issue.

This issue also introduced a few new characters and concepts that will go on to play a pretty big role as the series advances.  

Lastly, there was only one deleted scene which I'll include here.  In the issue Titan asks Phantom, Phantom Queen and Serpent to go on a mission and I did two panels showing them betting ready to go, but I realized after I inked it that I really didn't need to panels for that, so here's the one that got cut:

Writing Ahead

Before I launched my comic I wrote several months ahead - of course if I could only draw as fast I wrote, I'd have a lot more issues out by now!

Right now I have enough issues written that should take me up to Summer of 2020 and I'm just beginning to draft what comes after that.  

One of the things I plan is for more characters - I love creating them, here's a super sneak peek of one that will debut next summer, I won't say anything about him, but this is the first draft of the character that I created this year...

It is possible that his final appearance might change a bit, I don't know yet.  

One of things that I was concerned with when I started the comic is if I would still be able to create new and interesting characters?  Most of what I created I did in back when I was in grade school, but so far I'm learning that the creative side is still there and I'm creating a ton of new characters.  

Also, you may wonder why all of these, and the ones posted on the photo site, are all in the same pose? Well, these are actually the color guides I create to help make make sure that the characters are colored the same throughout all of their appearances.  I basically just have male and female templates that I use for the bodies and then I just fill them in, not as creative to look at, but the consistency makes it a lot faster to color.

Comics and Genealogy

The next issue (number 10 should be out next week) is a little special for me as it combines my love of comics and my passion for genealogy.  

When the economy tanked in 2008 I found myself unemployed for 22 months!  (I've been working steady since, thankfully)  In that time I developed a passion for genealogy and tracing my family tree.  Today I'm in touch with about 400 cousins across many different branches of my family.  

One of the things that I specialized in with my research was my Italian side of the family - I read over 50,000 civil records from one town alone in order to create my tree.  

While I don't want to give much away, my next issue is set in one of the towns my ancestors came from - Popoli, Italy and with that as backdrop I introduce a new character into the mix called Italus.  Of course don't be surprised if the issue also sees a trip to Rome and maybe the comune of Fossacessia as well.

While genealogy itself doesn't play a role in the issue, the creation of the character is a homage for me of the time I spent working on my family tree and my connection to my Italian branch of the family. 

Unlike most of my characters, which were created years ago, Italus is a fairly new creation.  I came up with the character in 2015 and wrote him into the stories then.  As well as Italus, you will meet a few supporting cast and a new villain in the issue as well, plus the hint at a concept that will play a large role in the lives of our heroes.  

Bit of a Twist

I actually published the newest issue on Friday night, but I wanted to wait until I had a chance to sit down and say a little something about it.  This issue, which you can check out here: Interlude 1 is actually the first in a series of interludes that I plan to mix throughout the series.

While I strive to make the regular series monthly and all connected, the interludes will be random and stand alone stories.  They will service to introduce characters or concepts that will be used later in the series, but nothing that ties in directly to that month's issue.

The first interlude is an adaption of the Blue Light fairy tale told by the Brothers Grimm, it takes the basic elements from their original story and expands on them and links it into my universe.   When I originally wrote my series I had no interludes planned, but last summer the idea for this came to me and here we are.

Right now I have Interludes 2 and 3 written, but they won't be published for a while.  

The other thing was the style, this gave a change to try a different style that I hadn't done before.  In order to get the unique look for the issue, I had to use some outside help.  I actually created the comic the usual way and then used another company's free editing program to create the look I was going for.  This company, called LunaPic generously allows anyone to use their program for creating interesting special effects for their pictures.  You can check them out here: LunaPic.

Here's an example of what I did, below is the picture how I created it and right below that is how it looks after I edited it with LunaPic.

This gave the story more of a fairy tale look, well - I least I think it did, which is what I was trying to go for. Hopefully everyone will like it.

Throwback Behind the Scenes

I just found these in a folder from last year, these were original sketches that I did, some ended up getting used, some didn't...

This is the one for Titan, when I was prepping issue # 1, I thought it would be cool to have an image of the founding characters flash across the screen.  It actually wasn't and it looked better in my mind than it did in reality.  What follows are some other sketches, 

All of the above pretty much stayed the way I drew them, with just a few modifications.  Below are the ones for Phantom and Savage, which changed completely from the final versions.