otisframpton.com

Figments 2007? Sort of . . .

I've added the Figments Gallery back to the sidebar.  If you'd like a print copy of the Figments, I still have copies of my 2006 Convention Sketchbook available.  I had planned on doing another round of Figments this year, but my plans changed.  In fact, they changed in a way I couldn't have anticipated.

While I was in Japan, something happened that rekindled my interest in doing a comic based on a character I'd drawn a few times over the course of last year, including a few times for my Figments series.  It's actually a character that I'd come up with years earlier while playing around with learning 3D animation.  I'd long since given up on 3D as a major component of my work, but the character stayed with me, always in the back of my mind.

Anyway, I started thinking about the story I'd developed for this character and it really started to come together in my mind while I was in Tokyo.  Upon returning to the States, I'd pretty much decided that the time was right to do a comic book based on the character.  It couldn't wait.  It was fresh in my mind and I had the urge to do something quick and dirty that I could get out in my "spare time" (I have none, really).

So that means my book Flynn is being put off a bit longer and I'll be working on a new book over the next year.  I've already started working on it and I'm aiming for a Fall finish, knock wood.  I'm in the penciling stages right now, and I'm still up in the air on whether or not I should go with color or black & white.  Time will be the deciding factor . . . color schemes take a while to get right and if I'm short on time, I'll go with black and white.

So who is this character?  Sorry, no hints.  Okay, maybe a few.  But you'll have to look for them.

-Otis

Flynn Production Journal

It's been a while since I've posted to the Flynn Production Journal, but I'll actually be doing some producing now, so here we go . . .

I'm beginning to write and layout the first book.  The process I'll be using for Flynn is different than the process for Oddly Normal.  With Oddly, I wrote out full scripts for the entire 4 issue run.  With Flynn, the writing process is more loose.  In fact, the writing and layout stages are happening simultaneously.  As I layout a page, I'm actually writing dialogue directly onto the digital files I'll use for the finished pages.

I can do this because the story has been in my head for so long that I really don't need to put it down in script form.  Also, this book involves a lot less research and development in terms of the writing.  Oddly is, by design, heavily influenced by other sources and has a lot layered into it, which made scripting it out very important.  Conversely, while I have tons of notes for Flynn, the story is so straightforward that it feels better just putting the images and words down simultaneously.

For the most part, the layout pages are pretty rough.  I'm using my wacom tablet to do quick and dirty painting as I go, just to give an indication of content and composition.  Here are the layouts/roughs for the first 3 pages:

Also included in the roughs are images created in 1999 for the Flynn webcomic and 3D renders of the airship which is featured in the story.  A few years ago, I built the airship as a 3D model in Carrara Studio, and I'm using renders of it to trace over in Photoshop.  It's a great time-saving device and keeps the look of the the airship consistent.

Thanks for reading!  More soon!

-Otis

Flynn Production Journal 1

Welcome to the first entry in the Flynn Production Journal!

What is Flynn?  It's my next comic project, one that I hope to begin working on full time in August of 2006.  This is a project that has had more stops and starts than anything else in my life, and I've decided that it's now or never for Flynn.  I had planned to kick-start a new webcomic called Zeek, but I've become so busy with sketch card work and writing/coloring Oddly Normal, that if I'm ever going to get to Flynn, it has to be soon and it has to be my main creative focus.  It simply can't wait anymore.  That being said, once I'm finished with the Complete Avengers sketch cards, I will be diving head first into this new comic.

Flynn is a fantasy adventure that could be described as a cross between Treasure Island, The Ten Commandments and The Lord of the Rings (with a touch of Zorro and Batman thrown in for good measure).  It is set in another world . . . a world of steel airships, ancient dragons and warring nations.  The world is called Magentia, and its history will turn on the mysterious origins of a young girl named Flynn.

This is a story I've been working on, in one form or another, since I was 17 years old.  It started as a simple pirate novel, and I wrote quite a bit of it during my senior year of high school.  But the story kept changing and evolving in my mind over the years.  I began working on a black and white comic version in my early 20s that I intended to self-publish, but never did due to various (slacker) reasons.  For years after, I worked to refine the story.  In 1999 when I bought my first computer and began to explore the world of the internet, I began doing Flynn as a webcomic.  I actually finished the first chapter, but my limited knowledge of Photoshop (I didn't even know about "layers" . . . it took forever to create the art and I never saved it correctly) led me to stop so that I could learn the fundementals of computer graphics, improve my skills as an artist and refine the story even more.  Here is an image from the webcomic version, created in fall of 1999:

One of the refinements is a story point I've been trying to alter since I first started writing the original pirate novel during my senior year of high school.  You see, in all previous versions of the story, Flynn is a boy.  I always wanted Flynn to be a girl, but couldn't figure out a way to change the sex of my main character and still keep the name and title that I loved so much.  That problem has been solved since the days of the novel and webcomic.  You'll have to wait for the actual comic to see how I managed that little trick.

Once I knew what I was doing in the world of digital artwork, I began Oddly Normal, putting
Flynn on the backburner once more.  But now that the world of Oddly is up and running, I'd like to resume working on the series as a set of graphic novels.  I've already pitched the series to my publisher, Viper Comics, and it's a go.  So all I have to now is stop putting off my dream project and get to work.

I hope to keep a journal about Flynn here on my blog as a way of documenting the progress of the project (and also as a personal motivator).  So stop by once and a while to see how the project is coming along!

-Otis