XTIN: The Dragon's Dreamworld (comic)

[mozchops]

I really like the last few pages, - you should submit this to Heavy Metal, its definitely their style

[Jack the R]

I'm planning on it. I want to get through the 2nd issue first.

[StrikeCommando]

I love the art and style. Some of the imagery is just amazing and complicated.

[Jack the R]

Now you can understand the first few pages of issue 1, where it looks like Taonui is both a willing sacrifice and being tortured against her will. Pain doesn't bother her. Rau needed a servant that he could knock around and have come crawling back for more, so he made Taonui an extreme masochist. She enjoys torture, if it comes from Rau. Being tortured by monkeys is humiliating.

Pretty awful, but there are people like that. There's a guy in Germany who's being tried for consensual murder and cannibalism. He hooked up with another guy who wanted to be killed and eaten, via the internet, and they did it.

This isn't what I had in mind for Taonui when the story began. I wasn't happy to change Tao's character, but this fits the story better, so there it is.

Please vote!



StrikeCommando - Thanks! The art seems to be improving, slowly but surely.

[Jack the R]

Back to the future!

[Kohler]

I like it.

[Jack the R]

Mature warning page for the SmackJeeves site. XTIN has tanked hard since I moved to SJ and the comic got put behind a wall of mature warning label text. I'm hoping that unillustrated wall of text is the cause of all my woes. I can't think of anything else that would explain it. If this doesn't get people to click on through, I don't know what will.

Kohler - Thanks. I enjoyed your gallery on CGHub.

I thought all the game stuff had moved out of Austin.

[Kohler]

Far from it. EA is building a new studio here to go along with Bioware, which is already here.

[Jack the R]

Got any painting advice? I have a lot of trouble getting the colors to blend without dieing. I've tried painting in various color modes, which sometimes helps. I see a lot of young artists who can barely draw getting better colors than me, so I wonder if I'm missing out on a basic computer technique.

[zerdron]

whoa, this is so brutal but i like it. i assume you're using manga studio to draw this?

[Jack the R]

GIMP. Everything about the comic is open source, even the font.

[Kohler]

Got any painting advice? I have a lot of trouble getting the colors to blend without dieing. I've tried painting in various color modes, which sometimes helps. I see a lot of young artists who can barely draw getting better colors than me, so I wonder if I'm missing out on a basic computer technique.

I don't think you need advice on how to paint from me (your stuff looks great) but the best results I've had is when I check my brain out and go on instinct. There's a lot of 'how to' stuff out there and I try to ignore most of it.

Drawing sequential art, like you're doing, that's hard!

[Jack the R]

New vote incentive - a bunch of Star Trek ship designs.



I've started painting again. I'll finish TDDW as line art for consistency, but I'm going to work on painting more so maybe the next GN (if it happens) doesn't have to be line art.

I've been looking at black and white photographs, and I'm going to try to shoot for that as a painting style. Extreme realism in black and white, maybe with a light colorization. Painting in greyscale, it might be possible . . . At the rate this comic is going I've got plenty of time to work on it.

Kohler - Hah, well it seems we have the same approach to art. Check the brain out and go on instinct? Yeah, I wrote the same thing on another forum, years ago, and got into a long flame war over it. Apparently that is WRONG. And yet you seem to paint as well as anyone. Hmmm . . .

[Jack the R]

I'm considering moving to a painterly style for the next GN, if it happens. I've been looking at black and white photos, and that style might work if I can get the time down and the quality up. Greyscale painting is definitely not as hard as color.

This little painting took a few hours. It's from a photo, but it's not a paint over.

BTW, although the media tag may say Photoshop, I work in GIMP. For some reason GIMP isn't an option.

[Jack the R]

[Velocity Kendall]

as usual it makes no sense at all to me and looks absolutely amazing

[Jack the R]

Uh oh, two pages this week! I'm going to try to swing Monday and Thursday next week too, and see if I can keep it up. I was comfortably able to get this page done in 3 days, and I had to redraw the last panel after realizing I'd worked in an unnecessary camera angle change.

I believe I could get up to three pages a week, if XTIN was a paying job and I could hire professionals to fix all the stuff I've been having to do myself. I'd say I easily lost enough time for another page to drywall this week.

This page begins the last scene of issue 2. I think it's going to be long, maybe another 20 pages. You're going to learn a lot in this scene, and things will start to make sense. If you're having doubts about how well this hangs together, this scene should end them.

I'm eager to have it finished. When it's done I can start shopping the book around, do fun things on Kickstarter . . .

I think I may change the way this is collected, and instead of having Issues 1,2,3,4, as planned, have a volumes 1 and 2. If this goes 20 more pages, than I've probably got enough concept art to fill it out to 100 pages. That's a pretty decent size book. Nearly as big as I thought the whole GN would be.

I am so looking forward to having that first volume in my hands!

Velocity Kendall - What's confusing?

[Velocity Kendall]

"Velocity Kendall - What's confusing? "

ive read them all and I dont have any idea whats going on. its hard to know where things are taking place, and locations and characters seem to come and go without warning or explanation. what seem like time jumps or flashbacks similarly come and go unannounced. It often feels like Im reading pages that have been randomly shuffled. Various people get tortured while having conversations with their torturers about pain and suffering. Pain seems to be to the characters what pleasure is to us. A dragon sometimes appears and talks about feeling old and dying. He is attracted to human suffering. I dont know why.
I have trouble following the dialogue. There are a lot of nonsense words scattered through the text: mahpsk, xxepps#

None of this matters really though because I think its totally amazing. Taken on their own many of the panels are really impactful and original, frightening and excitingly strange. The dragon is an incredible piece of work for starters. Every page is stylistically comsistent, artfully composed and astonishingly well drawn. From your comments you are bemused and perplexed that people dont understand whats happening, which is fascinating. Everyones confused.
So i dont really mind the repetitive tortury bits or not understanding why people have just exploded, Im just happy to get carried along with the brilliantly wierd, incredibly well drawn groove of it. 5*

[Jack the R]

Yeah, I get bunches of people who don't understand it, but I also get bunches who do (or at least think they do, but I asked one guy to explain it back to me and he was able to).

The basic synopsis so far is that the big dragon (Rau) is dying. He's got all these people working on his after life. The three-eyed Queens and priestesses are there to serve the people and keep them meditating, using the Naguil, which at this point you can think of as a body-oriented magic.

Rau keeps the Queens obedient and dutiful with frequent torture. He also feeds off the pain.

This system lasted for three generations of Queens. At the beginning of the reign of Sina IV, the same people had been meditating for over 3 million years, and not found samadhi.

For reasons that will soon be explained, the 4th generation of Queens were exceptionally evil.

Sina IV hasn't performed any of her sacrifices, and over the course of her 432,000 year reign, tortured and killed all of the original people. During the last half of her reign, she was also in a constant state of war with the other Queens.

At the end of 432,000 years, Rau showed up wanting all of his sacrifices at once. Sina blew his head off. At the current point in the story, Sina is bringing Rau's emissary, Taonui, into her throne room/torture chamber for more torture. Sina also feeds on pain.

Pain seems to be to the characters what pleasure is to us.

Only Taonui feels pain as pleasure. The rest hurt like hell.

A dragon sometimes appears and talks about feeling old and dying. He is attracted to human suffering. I dont know why.

He appears for his sacrifices, to get the suffering he needs. Why he needs suffering - I guess it wouldn't hurt to say that it's a sense that evolved, like hunger or taste. If you see a chocolate bar you don't care much about what chemicals are in it, or how they're transformed into nutrients. You get a pleasurable sense from eating it, so you do. Rau's hunger for other's suffering, and the pleasure he gets from it, are beyond human comprehension. Even Sina can't fathom it.

I have trouble following the dialogue. There are a lot of nonsense words scattered through the text: mahpsk, xxepps#

Those are just the unintelligible mouthy noises the jawless high priestess makes, before her translator/prosthetic voice kicks in.

not understanding why people have just exploded

What happened to the HP on ish 2 pg 39 is the same thing that happened to the slave driver on ish 2 pgs 3 and 4. Sina used the naguil to make their bodies explode.

[Jack the R]

And that's enough comic pages for three 22 page issues. It's not significant in terms of webcomics, but it still feels like a milestone.

New vote incentive - more of those dang ad designs. There's one I like this time.

I'm going to try for a M W F update schedule this week. The next page is about halfway done, I should be able to do it.

[Velocity Kendall]

Now that youve explained it makes a lot more sense.
Ive a few other questions
("The big dragon (Rau) is dying" Why?
"He's got all these people working on his after life." How?
"At the beginning of the reign of Sina IV, the same people had been meditating for over 3 million years, and not found samadhi." what is samadhi? how did they live so long? What happened to everything else?
"Rau keeps the Queens obedient and dutiful with frequent torture." How? Why didnt they rebel before SinaIV? I thought he'd been away for 432000 years? How do they not bleed to death? What is Rau. Where's he from? Is this the future, or an alternate dimension? What are the high priestesses? How did this world come to exist? )

But I like not really knowing, its like tripping. Amazing new panels btw.

[Jack the R]

Most of the next issue will be Rau's origin story, it'll answer almost all of your questions.

Samadhi is a part of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. There are a few different ideas on what it is, for XTIN I've defined it as "a transcendental state of consciousness beyond the limits of reality." In the next issue I'll explain why samadhi is important to Rau.

The people were able to live over 3 million years through the healing power of the naguil.

In the past, Rau used the O'keepa to ensure he only got Queens that would serve him.

[Dusty]

Mature warning page for the SmackJeeves site. XTIN has tanked hard since I moved to SJ and the comic got put behind a wall of mature warning label text. I'm hoping that unillustrated wall of text is the cause of all my woes. I can't think of anything else that would explain it. If this doesn't get people to click on through, I don't know what will.

Kohler - Thanks. I enjoyed your gallery on CGHub.

I thought all the game stuff had moved out of Austin.

Liked the comic a lot, but this looks great. I wouldn't tear yourself down so much with the painted stuff. Keep at it!

[Jack the R]

Please vote!

I wouldn't tear yourself down so much with the painted stuff.

If I keep hearing that from pro level artists I'm gonna start to believe it. My head will stop global warming with the shadow it casts

[Jack the R]

Please vote!

[Jack the R]

Please vote!



Pg 43 - ten panels folks. I drew seven yesterday, while taking time for other things. It helps that these panels are small. There's more perspective to set up, and more composition, but the inking is less work and that's where most of the time goes. But still, seven panels in one day, with lettering. I may manage to get on a daily schedule with my current equipment (if it survives).

The next two pages could be a bit on the painful side - try to make it through to next week. Don't bail until after next week.

Oh yeah, it's nice to see the 170s again! Can we make the 160s?

[Jack the R]

44 is up at XTIN.NET. It's too adult to be posted here, so if you want to see it and you're over 18, come by the site.

[Velocity Kendall]

I am going to kill you.. to death!
Read it from the start. Mad. Bad. Baffling. Love it.

You might like this, its my (other) favourite web comic.
http://www.alessonislearned.com/index.php?comic=36

[Jack the R]

It's getting closer and closer to the un-baflle-ization point.

You'll want to be here next week!

[Sascha Thau]

I'm speechless. This is really incredible. You are really a Force to be reckoned with when it's about writing and drawing a gripping story.