"Orchestrating the Silence" Doujin (WiP thread)

[Angel of Will]

So I felt like chronicling my progress via vlog last night, so I'm starting up this thread, which is where I'll put everything regarding the progress of this doujin. I encourage relevant suggestions, criticisms, and general discussion of the original fanfic as well as its adaptation to comic form. A pre-line draft of the cover-art is below.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/533872_10150777694786942_352486647_n.jpg

Link to the original (amazing) fanfic: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4140913/1/Orchestrating_the_Silence

I got back from the author some time ago (SerialRavist) with permission and blessings to go ahead with this. Of course, with my personal life/studies, progress on this will be slow even if I one day put out a completed chapter.

So for the video- this is my coverage of the 'dirty-thumbs' I've done thus far. Not quite worthy being called thumbnails, because they're hideously drawn, they're my first step in the story-boarding process and serve as a quick and easy dump of every raw image I imagine, technical effort be damned. Later on after the chapter is completed in this fashion, I'll go over them and develop proper compositional thumbnails- for page and panel lay-out.

http://youtu.be/65ipi5oQOl8

If you want to see what my work looks like at the storyboard stage, here's another thread I made for a project I've put on hold: http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/12656/Fanmade-storyboards-based-off-Sadamotos-manga

[ONIAgent150]

I have never read this before, but thank you for sharing. It's quite a read. Anyway, I wish you the best of luck on your efforts!

[Angel of Will]

Ok; the video of my commentary on my dirty-thumbnails is up. Just check out the now working link in my first post if you're interested.

[GunmetalSnail429]

I am actually very interested in this.... I read the original story a while back and absolutely loved it. I will be keeping up with this project as you continue.

[Seele00TextOnly]

...

[esselfortium]

Looks like a great start. I'm really interested in seeing where you go with this project. :)

It might be worth simplifying Asuka's flashback in the opening, using just a few powerful images to convey the prelude in quick, emotive snapshots, to avoid letting the pace get too bogged down in the intro.

[Henry Spencer]

Oh my god, I loved this story. I look forward to seeing your finished work.

I'm kind of curious as to see how you're going to adapt the characters sort-of-going-nuts period towards the middle of the story.

[Angel of Will]

Thanks for the complements and comments, guys!

@Seele00TextOnly
The fanfic tells two different versions leading up to and following Shinji's strangling of Asuka, so I figured I needed to pan that out so that I could show it in one simple sequence instead of two.

The problem was that while OtS described Asuka's leap from running from Instrumentality and her waking up on the beach, it (and EoE) never went over Shinji's experience of finding Asuka, other than his mentioning it to her later. (That works in prose, but not so well in visual story-telling). All in all, I just wanted a straightforward series of events that followed one another, so I added the scene with the markers to bridge the gap and take advantage of a couple other things that were kind of glossed over.


@esselfortium
That was the first thing on my mind as soon as I had been done with Asuka's sequence. The way I had approached the raw planning of the scene was in the spirit of Evangelion's fast-cut clips- doing so initially is easier, since I'm drawing from what I'm familiar with when watching it. However, yes. Such an overload of closely-timed imagery is not appropriate in graphic novels, where the reader takes it for granted that he needs to at least look at the image for a few seconds to register what's going on (while in cinema, the director plans for a specific sequence to have its impact more subconsciously, and edits it so that the viewer only has one second to register several images).

When comparing the anime to Sadamoto's manga, it's clear that he took this into account, because a scene that had that kind of quick montage in the show was treated alternatively in the manga- for example, in both the volume where Shinji was trapped in Unit-01, and pre-instrumentality in the most recent chapters, those rapid dream-like experiences were depicted in a slower, close-cut fashion- a single, literal dream with a sense of time- events going on, and conversations between tangible characters being had, instead of a mosaic of raw images and ideas that build a message.

So yes; when I go from this step to my compositional thumbnails, I'll be filtering my raw frames to consider that kind of pacing, since it's the step when I think about which image will be comfortable on which page with what other panels, and the like. I will definitely look for ways to communicate these things in fewer, larger, more telling frames.


@HenrySpencer
Asuka's madness is pretty much just her taking her anger out on everything she crosses, so that's simple enough, but Shinji's madness is more psychological. I was thinking of rendering the 'imaginary orchestra' as people that he knew from the series. Maybe his classmates, or the familiar cast of the series. It also crossed my mind to put a self-insert as an easter egg, or maybe some Rebuild characters. I could even have some fun and make them people I know IRL, and to the readership, they'll just be random kids. High school year-books can make handy facial-dictionaries for an illustrator.

[Angel of Will]

Drudging through the existing frames from EoE's final scene. I'll do the last one tomorrow, then I can continue with the new stuff. (Because I'm drawing these from reference, my finicky habit of over-working them has kicked in, and they look more like storyboards than thumbnails, and hence, take longer.)

Also, I'm giving my own secondary titles to each chapter, kind of like how Eva's episodes had. Chapter 1's is "Unfamiliar Sky", and will be shown en lieu of EoE's END title card. Any chapter titles I come up with will be referential to phrases from the original series, with the intention of echoing its themes, which I think in some ways emerge more blatantly in OtS (which is expected of a good epilogue-fic).

*Update May 31: I'm into post-Finale Chapter 1, and it's going well. I got some inspired shots, and I think I can make this look good... When I'm done ugly-thumbing it, or a significant enough portion to share and analyse, I'll make another vlog.

**Update, June 2: Having fun with this stuff. I'm getting into the feel of reminiscent calm of the whole thing. Still thinking up cool visual representations of instrumentality for flash-backs. Heheh the mind-screw variety.

[KingXanaduu]

I can definitely say that I'm looking forward to this. Good Luck with it Angel of Will. Can't wait for it. :)

[Redaye]

Go figure I said so in another thread somewhere prior to finding this one, but I love the story also. Something in the continuity gave me pause for thought, though only on technical terms (yeh, I'm an technifag). So, much of the following might earn me a blowtorch of a flame, but here goes.

Other images and threads gave me the idea. Not really knowing after an afternoon's search, I'm curious as to what beach they might have actually washed up on; for whatever reason it spurred me to create these images:

http://redayetx.deviantart.com/gallery/37488095

so I'm guessing it would be from Odawara to Atami somewhere. Maybe I'm just drinking too much coffee, but just looking at the rough land mass involvement I'm wondering where things like the UN gun trucks would need to be to survive, since the parenthetical east edge of crater would lie only about 1 km from shore.

My guess is, it's too much coffee.

EDIT: (fresh jave in-hand) Also, their scavenging would therefore likely need be on Odawara as well, world it not?

[Angel of Will]

I'll be doing my research before I do the third draft- If I want to worry about being faithful to miniscule geography (which isn't so important given that this is a post-double-apocalyptic setting) then I think I'd do that during the second.

First draft is simply the raw things going on, second draft is composition in the panels and on the page (everything is still generic, but where things are two-dimensionally on the page is set), third draft is a faithful rough- so of course, I'll be looking up Tokyo-III specs, and real life information where the fiction is lacking to know what the buildings look like, what cars in Japan would look like etc. So a car-like blob or generic car in the second draft will be replaced by a car that should be there.

Update, June 6: I'm past a point where there was exploration and confusion, which I've since gotten a hold of and organized onto a clear direction for the scene I'm working with. Second vlog incoming.

[Redaye]

I'll be doing my research before I do the third draft- If I want to worry about being faithful to miniscule geography (which isn't so important given that this is a post-double-apocalyptic setting) then I think I'd do that during the second.

First draft is simply the raw things going on, second draft is composition in the panels and on the page (everything is still generic, but where things are two-dimensionally on the page is set), third draft is a faithful rough- so of course, I'll be looking up Tokyo-III specs, and real life information where the fiction is lacking to know what the buildings look like, what cars in Japan would look like etc. So a car-like blob or generic car in the second draft will be replaced by a car that should be there.

Right on, I figured as much. It's a helluva story regardless. Don't get derailed... I'm lovin' it just like it is!

[Angel of Will]

And here it is: my second video update for Chapter 1. This goes from where I left off at the beginning of End of Evangelion's FINAL scene and goes up to when Asuka's staring at the waves thinking of Third Impact. I also go into a bit of what stuff I'll have in my third vlog, which isn't a long wait away.

Enjoy; and please comment if you have enough thoughts on it!

http://youtu.be/J5lNdYvgIP0

[ONIAgent150]

Exciting! Keep on rolling. Still love the original and cannot wait to see how you interpret it.

[Angel of Will]

Sorry if the link didn't work- I accidentally set the video to private. It should work now.

[NemZ]

One of the few Asuka/Shinji post-3I stories I don't hate.

[Angel of Will]

Third video update out of a projected four for Chapter 1's first draft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr8P4BjbNdc

This is starting from Asuka's flashback going to the start of Shinji's segment, when Asuka tells him she's thirsty.


*Update, June 18: Halfway through my last Chapter 1 segment. I'm putting more care into these ones, facial expressions being prime, as they're carrying much of the content of these scenes. So the quality is a notch up from the previous thumbs. They're more like roughs now.

Update, June 21: Finally done thumbnailing Chapter 1! Will record update vlog and have it posted tonight.

[Angel of Will]

And behold: the 4th and final vlog update for Chapter 1's thumbnails, which have been completed today! In total, I count a surprising 280-some frames drawn. This means even after editing down, the final chapter will have over 250 (one of Sadamoto's chapters has around 90, just to give you an idea of how their lengths will compare). Originally, I though I was only around 100- was I wrong!!! I remember us Illustration students going crazy when our teacher made us do up to a hundred thumbs for one project (though that was for a single-image project, and he was turning each of them down until a couple struck his fancy).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvWsStpK2eU&feature=youtube_gdata

The next step will be considering what to cut, and how to frame each panel on pages- so of course, when that's done, I'll have a number-of-pages for you guys. Though for now, my updates will be fewer and farther between, because of the uncreative, editorial nature of the 2nd draft.

[Angel of Will]

I just started the second draft, and with it, I've vlogged a mini-update; so here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWh9p8e83iw

I'm thinking about dividing Chapter 1 up into three manga-length chapters- which will mean completing each before the next one, instead of having a larger release way down the line. Of course, I still need to do Chapter 1's second draft altogether, since otherwise, I wouldn't have an idea of how many pages there were in the first place.

That said, you may notice that my first page is numbered 2- that's simply because 1 would be the chapter's title page.

Maybe I should name the fanfic chapters Volumes, and my own manga-length divisions Chapters? I'm not a fan of 'Stages'; where'd that term come from, anyway?

What I am sure of, is that I'm making a colour cover art for the entire fanfic itself, and that I want to give each Chapter title-page art. If I release it in Volumes divided into Chapters, each Volume would have a coloured cover, and the Chapters inside would have B+W or Greyscale Chapter art.

Then comes the issue of naming these smaller Chapters. I guess I could resort to keeping the original titles for Volumes (ex: Larghetto), and my own English Eva-inspired titles for the Chapters.

But much of this stuff is superficial speculation at this stage. The real thing for me to be concentrating on is the draft editing and artwork. Those other things will fall into place in the meanwhile.


I also notice that volume bindings require a wee bit of the 5x7.5 page to go blank- and that when I see scans online, two-page spreads might have a noticeable white bar down the middle because of that. But that's not with every scan release- so I'm wondering if mangakas do their work in full page dimension, then get it cropped afterwords.

*Schooling kicks in with a brain-fart*

Oh yeah- they must work with a bleed, doing artwork not only for 5x7.5, but a 1/8-inch greater than that to make sure no white borders end up in the printing process for pages that don't get cut perfectly.

But since the 1/8 inch of white is invisible when reading, (since it's all together, really) I think I should work in a smaller dimension than 5x7.5, that way if ever someone wants to print it, nothing gets cut out on the spine, and two-page spreads aren't missing content at the middle.

On the same note of cautious exactitude, I'm going to ask both here and in a thread of its own what the dimensions are of the original publication of Evangelion in its serial magazine, and if there is a spine, and how much page it obscures, (and if there is simple white, or if the printing extends to the spine.)