EVA-303: Chapter 22 ONLINE NOW!

[GrummanCat]

Thanks, Chowwow! This doujin seems to have its own momentum. The motivation kinda feeds off itself. I started the actual drawing in late February and have been working on it almost every day. Between wife and kids I get a good 2-3 hours per day to work on it, but the art is simple and makes for some pretty quick work as opposed to, say, a 'professional' comic style of art.

I'm just plain having fun doing it and the best most fun parts are yet to come, so if I'm having fun now, I'm sure I'll really be enjoying it by the end. (knock on wood)

Regarding the mixture of language, it's hard to like anything EXCEPT "Anta Baka" (not a fan of dubs). In Re-Take it was "What are you, stupid?" which I can't quite warm up to.

On the other hand, you're right about mixing the language, so I may have a solution.

I think "you some kind of idiot?" sounds more like Asuka's personality. I think I'll use that in place of "Anta Baka?"

What you all think?

I also felt that the -kun and -san suffixes are getting pretty cumbersome and I'm doing away with them as well.

[JimmyWolk]

Personally I don't mind "Baka" and even some other Japanese bits here and there as long as it doesn't get too excessive. If I can still understand what's being said, it's fine with me. :P

[GrummanCat]

How bout this;

Pretty much every Eva fan on the planet (even the dub fans) knows what Anta Baka means. Maybe I just limit the Japanese to that (which pretty much was my plan anyway).

On the German note, Asuka has a scene coming up where she drops an F bomb in German, so I'm keeping that part of her vocabulary as well.

[tehprognoob]

On the other hand, you're right about mixing the language, so I may have a solution.

I think "you some kind of idiot?" sounds more like Asuka's personality. I think I'll use that in place of "Anta Baka?"

What you all think?

NO.
That sounds more like Touji; too street-ish for Asuka. "What are you, stupid?" is fine and Anta(or "Anka") Baka is a classic.

[GrummanCat]

OK, I think (with apologies to Chowwow) I'm settling on "Anta baka". Again, only in that circumstance. As I said, pretty much every Eva fan knows what that means.

For those keeping track (insert cricket chirping here), I am finishing up line art for the 4th scene (of 7) in chapter 3. Should have some more nice teaser pages ready to share by next weekend.

[GrummanCat]

Still forging my way through Chapter 3. The chapter that wouldn't end. I would have cut the last scene out and put it in ch.4, but I've teased my Deviant watchers WAY too much with the great love scene to delay it another month or 2.

So far, I really like this chapter much more than Chapter 2. a lot more scenes and a lot of character development. I like the dialogue too.

I even wound up with a brief little HIKARI fan service which Eva fans don't get enough of. Happily, the scene fit nicely into what I was trying to say.

Arranging the whole Shinji X Asuka love scene took a lot of explanation and that means dialogue. Trying to get these 2 characters -who seem not to like each other- together without sounding like a bad fanfiction.

Anyway, the big scene is finally being drawn and that will mark the end of Chapter 3 at last! Then I can share it with you guys. For now, here are a spattering of pages I have done for Chapter 3 since my last posting.

This time I have added page numbers at the top of each page so you can tell them apart. Hope it's worth glancing.

[Tabasco]

Is it wrong of me to chuckle at Shinji's tshirt?

The next chapter looks promising.

[GrummanCat]

LOL Yeah, somehow Shinji's shirts in this chapter became a outlet for cult fandom. It's easier to dismiss a T-shirt than a line of dialogue. For example, if Shinji were to talk about MST3K, people'd be like "How the heck does he know about MST3K?!"

But it's somehow more plausible that a T-shirt is meaningless to him. At any rate, I had fun with his shirts in this chapter. His shirt in the first scene featured the Monarch from Venture Brothers.

I confess I went a step further. In the same scene as page 42, we can see he was watching MST3K on his laptop. Sorry, couldn't resist...

[Chowwow]

OK, I think (with apologies to Chowwow) I'm settling on "Anta baka". Again, only in that circumstance. As I said, pretty much every Eva fan knows what that means.

Fair enough.

Another thing, about your use of thrust vectoring in your F-14 Tomcats (Evas), the thrust vectoring feature is integrated with the plane's controls like the control surfaces of the wings; there is no button on the console that says "Thrust Vectoring Go!", as this guy attests.

Part of me really wants you to just use a navalized version of the F-22 Raptor, as there used to be a consideration for that, but I digress.

All of this is looking really cool. I really have to ask, how do you manage the work for all of this? Do you have a staff to keep your work in check?

[GrummanCat]

Thanks, Chowow! I confess to being an F-14 fan and back when I conceived this story, the F-14 was still in service

But a line of dialogue in Chapter 4 establishes that the F-14 airframe was chosen because it has mach 2.5 capacity, very heavy lift capacity (compared to the F-18) and longer range, all in one airplane. Typically among government projects, an existing airframe was chosen to save money but really doesn't save anything in the end.

Yes, I have a staff, and your employee ID# is 25881.

Really, the best 'help' I can get is people with advice. I'm not always able to use the advice, but I always listen and there have been many positive changes to my doujin as a result of constructive criticism.

I may have said this here, but I get 2-3 hours to work on it almost every day. With photoshop shading, that's enough so far. Actually, I wish things could go faster... Right now, I estimate that it could take the rest of 2010 to finish the first 'book' of this doujin. Then maybe most of 2011 to do the second. Sometimes I feel like a movie director. It takes a couple of years to finish the project... Drawing emotions is like getting the actors to act... Lots of editing work...

Thanks again for your kind words.

[tehprognoob]

GODDAMMIT! THERE GOES ASUKA_LOSING_SYNCH_AND_GOING EMO
AGAIN! :(
But the story still sounds awesome.
And I personally want...uh maybe some kind of Macrossy thing-Battroid-GERWALK-Fighter thing. Variable fighters, you know, to make this more mechy.

[GrummanCat]

GODDAMMIT! THERE GOES ASUKA_LOSING_SYNCH_AND_GOING EMO
AGAIN! :(
But the story still sounds awesome.
And I personally want...uh maybe some kind of Macrossy thing-Battroid-GERWALK-Fighter thing. Variable fighters, you know, to make this more mechy.

Dude- have you seen my DeviantArt page lately? I posted some sweet Asuka win from Chapter 3 there.

I was afraid I might have lost you for even considering the tatoo thing LOL

[tehprognoob]

I saw it-was afraid I'd be caught.
But no worries; I'm a picky fan, but I still appreciate good effort.

[GrummanCat]

Thanks, Prog. I hope eva fans don't mind, but I'm letting Asuka keep her pubes. (working on the NSFW scene now.) Also giving her some meat on her bones unlike the Sadamoto stick figures. Still can't figure out where they put their kidneys in the manga...

This image here is a bit ecchi for this forum, but I've been given the OK to share it with NSFW spoiler tags. It's a shot of Asuka from the final scene of chapter 3.

WARNING: NSFW

SPOILER: Show

http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y335/ashitaka222/0877.jpg

[GrummanCat]

OK! I'm ready to predict that Chapter 3 will be ready for release by next Friday, May 28. Stay tuned...

[GrummanCat]

Chapter 3 got done and distributed to my test audience but I decided that many important scenes felt way too rushed, so I'm working on re-doing them and I've even added a whole new scene between Ritsuko and Gendo.

In the meantime, here is a new, rare COLOR fan pic of Asuka from the comic. I hope you enjoy!

[JimmyWolk]

Colors look good, but if you need lines at the shadow-borders for orientation, better erase them afterwards. It looks a bit like the suit is mulit-colored rather than shadows in some places. ;)

Looking forward to that chappy.

[GrummanCat]

Colors look good, but if you need lines at the shadow-borders for orientation, better erase them afterwards. It looks a bit like the suit is mulit-colored rather than shadows in some places. ;)

Looking forward to that chappy.

Thanks! In fact, I've already improved the technique. Due to a shortage of characters, I had to borrow from another series, so here is a special guest star who appears in chapter 5.

Before you cry "where's Mari"? First, I don't know her well enough to write for her and second, I have plans for her later on in the doujin. What can I say? I think I draw this character pretty well and I like her lol.



Regarding chapter 3, I was going to wait until chapter 1 is done before proliferating the links, but since everyone already knows what happens in Chapter 1, I'll let you guys decide if you wanna read chapter 3 right now.

In my opinion, this is much better than chapter 2. I hope some of you agree.

*****WARNING- PORTIONS OF THIS CHAPTER ARE NSFW.******

http://rapidshare.com/files/395047568/EVA_303_Ch._3.zip

[Chowwow]

Really impressive work, I really appreciate your efforts in this. This is a lot of talent that you've showcased here!

[GrummanCat]

Thanks, Chowow! I appreciate your appreciation! I'm taking a breather this week before going back and re-doing chapter 1 from next week.