New Plan (WHY I CHANGED LAST MINIUTE)

The first plan has been a disaster frankly. I planned to do a comic, but I keep on putting in too much time to make it good, one page taking more then 3 days, still counting. I need something to show, and making the product takes too long at the standard i want, and I don't want to make a bad product just for the sake of getting something done in the timeframe, otherwise that is time wasted.

I am instead going for something a little different.

I will make a character synopsis for every character, along with some artwork of them. I will show my previous attempts that would be great, if only I had a year to do this... I will show a single episode synopsis, and some artwork related to that, and perhaps a single page to show what a full product could look like.

Although at this point that seems like half a finished product to me, and like a glorified pitch, which honestly is not much progress at all, but I have put so much time and thought into making this comic something worthwhile, that I have no time, or the skills to do it justice- if i can just show all that work I have put in, this would be a successful product.

I will:

Write up for each character and a few pictures of them, including their progression, motives, backstory,etc

Write up a single episode and have some artwork from that, eg: The town, the people, the henchmen, the palace

Show what a single page at this standard would look like


This will suffice and show what this project COULD be, if I had a year.

Animation so far

here is my animation so far. it get's more sleepy as time goes on, and by tapping, he would wake up. I planned to add 2 more scenes, ones where it attempts to eat by mashing it's head into the bowl, angry because it has no mouth. A second scene would be play, which is when he hides and scares someone, here are the concepts for it. I do not think i can do all of this, as the amount of time and effort to do what i have already done, is already too much, and i am very much out of time.

Emotion Research

With these images I asked a small test group of 4 if the emotions I had drawn are clear to see. It was needed to have this test,because of the character's unique visual trait-no eyes-just eyebrows. eyes are the easiest and most direct way to show emotion, and i have hidden them. Instead i use the eyebrows, lines, and his body and clothing to show emotion.

The test came back overwhelmingly positive. Every emotion was clear to see apart from the face on the bottom right, which was an experiment to see here it could lead. Someone said if i added context and perhaps some blush, it would look like he is trying to hide being embarrassed.

I then asked about his design.

  


I asked if they liked it, and if they thought the design and the title: ASIA MAN was offensive. Everyone said they liked the design, one saying it was my most unique design yet. and everyone said the whole concept was not offensive.

Personally I see the comic as a celebration of Asian (mostly east) culture, not an offensive joke. That was what I was aiming for.

I also did a test on text, for the cover of the comic. i went through many drafts, and then using photoshop, stitched all the best parts together , into the best product.





I would like to darken the red a little

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This test was very useful, as I made my way through the drafts I could begin to see what worked and what did not. I came up with an interesting technique: When the eyebrows cross over the face, if I mimic shape of the eye , with the end of the eyebrow, it makes emotions more clear. For example look at the happy face- the eyebrows are circles, mimicking a happy closed eye. It was very helpful.

For the text if i made sure no letters overlapped, things became much easier to read. However it is difficult for those with not perfect eyesight. However my text is effective in showing the theme. As a typeface it is very bad, but as a title trying to show the audience what my story is about, it does it's job well. People are reminded of asian fast food places and asian films.

I am planning to do more tests with other emotions, which I will now bring into context, for example the "embarrassed and trying to hide it", which is quite complex for an out of context picture.

I will also be testing how extreme I can make my perspective, until it becomes hard to see. I will also be testing colour and no colour, how to work within these parameters.

Using this knowledge I make make the comic more effective.

Sammy Concept

allan

 

Character Sheets

Asia Man

Personality
Quiet
Gentile
Good Hearted, can't help but feel he needs to help somebody in a tough situation
Finds it hard to talk, prefers to speak with his actions.
Always wants to improve
Finds it difficult to see a joke from a true statement

After the Unstoppable Evil broke out from his prison, imposed by Asia Man's master, the world has been thrown into chaos. Boundaries are twisted as foreign landscapes clash and meld creating a strange world. Wandering across a Wild West/Samurai setting (with possibly others) he seeks to find his home, the monastery in which he was raised and trained.

When he was young he was left at the base of the temple. He was raised inside the temple by the master, an old man with incredible psychical and mental prowess and martial arts mastery. He never grew hair on the top of his head, apart from his eyebrows and was bullied by the other children. Finding it hard to talk with others he began to try communicate through his martial arts to his master.

Training relentlessly so he could defeat his bullies, he became a truly powerful warrior.

Thrown into this new world, Asia Man wanders in search of his home and family, encountering many friend and foe along the way.

The Unstoppable Evil wants him dead.











The Unstoppable Evil

A very powerful evil spirit locked away by the Master. Breaking free, it ended the world as we knew it.

Possibly either Master's bother, or Asia Man's brother. I think Asia Man's brother is better.

This is because I wanted this bad guy to be envious of Asia Man. As a child Asia Man was master's fave and was really good at his Karate. Perhaps this bully was his brother. So becoming vengeful perhaps plotted to kill Asia Man but was stopped by the Master.

Wants to mentally destroy Asia Man, before killing him, by killing everyone he loves- The Temple, his family, Master, to get payback.

Possibly born with powers, being different, or uses a great power to gain godlike powers. Has to be consumed.

As a child was talkative and social. To make up for a lack of connection with the Master, becomes Friends with everyone else?

I like the idea of being Asia Man's brother. it makes the rivalry more intimate and related to Asia Man.

It will be difficult to make an audience sympathetic to this villian, but I will try. Perhaps by making them funny. perhaps he thinks of Asia Man as a danger to the world.

Perhaps Asia Man and Unstoppable Evil are both super humans, or like a demon and an angel. One is gentile one is destructive, one is quiet, one is loud, one is shy, one is confident. each wants to be like the other and so they develop a hatred for eachother. this is a good catalyst for the bully and the whole thing. This is also good for raising the stakes, as like Dragon Ball, once the guys find out about thier super powers they acend and that could be cool.

Perhpas Sun And Moon




How were they found, and why do they have powers?

Found as abandonned babies

Found in a fallen meteorite, perhaps this is the truth but never told.

Fallen from the sky

Crawl from the earth.

Side product of some great legendary battle

Master blanks out brother memories for Asia Man.














Sammy

Farmgirl wandering with Asia Man. a kid, about 8 or 10. wants to be a big hero and explorer.

For some reason is with asia man, and is trained by him. Perhaps in debt, saved, or is an orphan already.

Fiery, Bullheaded, Passionate, Childish, perhaps Sarcastic.

although having 2 americans on the team is a shame, even if both are good. since I have the chance to make veryone a different culture. however she fits best as american and so does shooter.

Could be a rabbit, for some reason a rabbit with a katana seems fun to me.

want a gif of her swinging a sword liek a moron as she says she wants to fight with a big sword like asiaman, whoosh whoosh whoosh.






Shooter

Cowboy as Asia Man's rival. Perhaps works for UE, but more like blackmailed.

Wants to be cool, but just is not.

Crappy hat with holes-Children in each town tease him for wearing a cheese hat. He is embaressed, by tries to make it seem like his collection of battles. Each man he kills, is another hole, but in reality, it is how many people shoot at Shooter.

Sarcastic.



Perhaps hired to hunt down Asia Man. Calls his gun Partner.


Is made of metal and has a big bullet for a head. why? no idea. maybe due to UE's magic on the world.

Outlaw name is either Bullet Hell Shooter- in reference to the gaming genre, or Full Metal, something- reference to full metal jacket, and full metal alchimist.



Perhaps hears of asia mans heroics and wants to catch him and beat him in battle so he can leech his fame. joins and becomes a hero gunslinger. changes his evil ways.

maybe asia man keeps taking out the bad guys,so shooter gets annoyed that he has no chance to be a hero. Taking his thunder. this could be a funny idea, where shooter just wants to be the hero for once. considering his personality this would mesh well. He wants to be famous, so we walks in does his monologue before a battle asking if perhaps the outlwas know him, and of course nobody knows him.

This could make it so, shooters arc is, he becomes less selfish, and more centrered on just being good, and this still gives him no fame. the audience could be vouching for him to one day get his shot at it.

he is a good clash to asia man, because he is basially his polar oppisite. he is cynical, sarcastic, and wants fame and fortune. Wants to indulge.












UE. Not only stitching different time periods together, but aso different dimenions. this can explain the monsters he sends to fight asia man. and why asia man must keep wandering, otherwise he will bring danger to people around him.

FMP- How Will I Research And Experiment?

1. Peer Assessment and Questionnaire

Done a few of these already, as i was testing my main characters emotions, and seeing if an audience responded to them. All were understandable- quite the surprise considering my character has no eyes to be seen. I also asked about if the character design was appealing.

2. Read other successful comics

It may be a good idea to examine other comics. See how they work. I need to see how Watchmen does it, as apparently they push the comic to it's limit. I understand they they use colour to show emotion, and they use a 9 frame format each page. I will also be researching comics from other countries and how they do it, as there will be differences.

3. Test Groups

Once i finish the draft, I will have a small test group who will read it. At this point I can see flaws in the story, characters, etc. And work towards a greater final product. I will do this episode by episode, since I have chosen for a semi-connected format, where each story is it's own, but the whole story is every episode back to back, but you can still get a good experience from just one story. I hope to make 3 episodes or more, but if I perfect one I would be happy with it.

4. Drafts

I will have many drafts, and probably variants of each scene, and I will experiment with each and see which does the best. During this stage i can see how far I can push the unrealistic art, until it becomes unintelligible to a reader, and to be honest, as long as I use key points for a reader to reference where a character is, i think I could push it quite far.

I will also experiment with colour, if I decide to colour the comic, which I may, because black and white is hard to work with, with my limited skills, and things quickly become hard to tell apart, but with colour, it will be easier to see everything.

5. Research Culture

To get ready for the story I have been doing lots of research on History and Folklore from Asia, mostly Chinese and Japanese, but some others as well, but nothing close to the amount of Chinese. Soon I will begin research on The Wild West. I hope this new information can help me write the plot. I have been looking at their fiction as well, mostly film, as this was my main source of inspiration for this project- the similarities between samurai and western films, and how most westerns are "adaptions" and teetering on the edge of plagiarism.