P.O.W.! Challenge 57 (A-B-C) Cthulhu and the Greeks

[donalfall]

THERE HAVE BEEN MAJOR CHANGES MADE, SO READ THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY!

All future POW! Challenges will roughly follow the format below, unless otherwise noted for a special event.

In all cases, you can interpret the art any way you wish, and the more creatively, the better. Any media. B&W or Color, unless we specifically point out otherwise.

Topic 57A: "Anything with Cthulhu is fine with me..."

Time for a Mythos-related POW! If you want to do some hideous squishy squamous sexual encounters with Deep Ones like Alan Moore is dabbling in recently, or something with hideous monsters and humorous Mythos, make Lovecraft proud of your panels. Awesome if you have Cthulhu in it, but extra points on an arbitary scale of points if you include more obscure creatures from the shared universe of weird tales and cosmic horror.

Topic 57B: The Greek Heroic Age

Take your favourite (or least favourite) tale of the Greek Heroic Age and illustrate a couple of pages on the topic. This period includes the Argonauts and the Trojan War, so there's a *lot* of material to draw on. It'll be perfectly acceptable to make a Greek Heroic Styled piece. The thrust of a Heroic Age story is that the characters aren't the Gods - they've left for pastures more heavenly - but they *are* Superhuman and larger than life.

Topic 57C: Character Design Sheets for A/B

Present one or more character design sheet for the challenges above. One character to the page, at least one full body pose. You can include a turn around if you like, or an alternative angle. Expressions, head angles and ornamentation/weaponry/gear sketches can all be included on the page. This doesn't have to be a polished "final" piece - although I think you'll probably get more votes that way - sketchy work is perfectly acceptable. Just mark any post in the thread with "Design Sheet for Poll" or something similar. I'll be pretty liberal on what goes in, let me tell you.

One or All-Deadline: Sunday, February 19th, 2012, 11:59 pm anywhere in the world.

You can present your solution as a minimum of THREE to any practical maximum you wish which adhere to standard comic specs as below...and, yes, you can have the first or last (or both) as a splash page if you want--just don't get TOO extreme on page counts. REMEMBER: You don't have to have a complete comic to qualify for polling--if you realize you're running out of time, try to get at least THREE pages finished by the deadline. That's all you need to qualify for polling..

Standard Comic Book Size:

--Trim size: 6 5/8" x 10 1/4"
--Live art area: 6" x 9"
--Bleed size before trimming: 6 7/8" x 10 1/2" (1/8" in all directions)

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Good luck.

A little note here for all of you who have supported the P.O.W.! Challenges...thankyewthankyewthankyew...

Just a reminder--those of you who didn't get a chance to finish exactly the way you wanted to, or ran into deadline problems, remember there is a sticky section where you can post your stuff when you do get it up to speed.

[Kjesta]

If I find the time I might tackle the Greek one... I studied Latin for five years and this is the closest I get in a comic, I suppose :p Not sure but perhaps I'll do a new take on the story of Atlanta, the ending always bothered me. Distracted by a golden apple and beaten? Pshah! Not my heroine!

[NicoleWG]

I want to do the Greek one. I'm already working out the battle between Perseus and Medusa.

[j.s. sabastian]

here's my cthulhu sketch from my new (old) tablet!!!! dude i love this thing...although it is another learning process that will take a few months

[donalfall]

Kjesta Latin for 5 years? Cool! Never rule out the possibility of a Latin based POW! when I run out of other topics. If you have a good topic that centres around Latin Languages, Roman History, Roman Myth etc, PM me or post it in the Topic Suggestion Thread up top and I'll put it under consideration.

NicoleWG Medusa is my favourite Greek Monster! Looking forwarding to what you do with it.

j.s. sabastian That is one awesome Cthulhu dude. Looks like you're taking to the tablet really well!

[Kjesta]

Kjesta Latin for 5 years? Cool! Never rule out the possibility of a Latin based POW! when I run out of other topics. If you have a good topic that centres around Latin Languages, Roman History, Roman Myth etc, PM me or post it in the Topic Suggestion Thread up top and I'll put it under consideration.

In German gymnasium (the most academic of the high school forms) you study English as a first foreign language and have to choose a second (and possible third and fourth) later on. The second language is traditionally either French or Latin Tough stuff but really interesting. Think I might have to dig up my old textbooks again to get some inspiration.

That said, I'm not sure at all now I'll take part. My rabbit has been diagnosed with a possibly-fatal tumor today and I have to get her to eat now and possibly decide if she'll have to be put to sleep in the near future... Hard enough with getting my portfolio done, I think another P.O.W. would be too much stress now. Good luck to everyone, though!

[NicoleWG]

In German gymnasium (the most academic of the high school forms) you study English as a first foreign language and have to choose a second (and possible third and fourth) later on. The second language is traditionally either French or Latin Tough stuff but really interesting. Think I might have to dig up my old textbooks again to get some inspiration.

That said, I'm not sure at all now I'll take part. My rabbit has been diagnosed with a possibly-fatal tumor today and I have to get her to eat now and possibly decide if she'll have to be put to sleep in the near future... Hard enough with getting my portfolio done, I think another P.O.W. would be too much stress now. Good luck to everyone, though!

You are so lucky to get to take all those languages in high school. I only took a year of Spanish. I wanted to learn Latin but Spanish is useful in North Carolina. Languages only got pushed in college and now I have to learn German on my own. And sorry about your rabbit, poor little guy =( .

[ex-machina]

Probably gonna try the first one...i have never read a h.p lovecraft story, so printed out two of them and already love the first one!!
the greek thing i've already did about 7 or 8 years ago in school. Of course there would be a huge amount of stories, but i can already hear Cthulhu inmy dreams.....
j.s: Great start! maybe a bit less humanoid would do it?

[donalfall]

ex-machina there's a great podcast that discusses Lovecraft too, they can kind of bridge you in to the themes and ideas gently - http://hppodcraft.com/ - Lovecraft is a great author to get into.

[NicoleWG]

So far, I have some Medusa concepts, Perseus' body type, and the roughs of a 4 page fight scene.

[GRLILLO-GROD!]

dumb joke i know but it made me laugh. I just let the call go to my voicemail.

gonna try and get in on this challenge as my workload is starting to clear up a little. exciting challenge! you guys rocked it last time around!

[Barefoot]

It'd be my first PoW, but I like the sound of the Greek one. I'll definitely do something, whether I submit it or even put it in the WIP thread remains to be seen, it really depends if I like it enough.

Nice topics though BTW

[Barefoot]

dumb joke i know but it made me laugh. I just let the call go to my voicemail.

gonna try and get in on this challenge as my workload is starting to clear up a little. exciting challenge! you guys rocked it last time around!

I'm so wrapped around my phone's little finger, I tried to slide it (

[donalfall]

It'd be my first PoW, but I like the sound of the Greek one. I'll definitely do something, whether I submit it or even put it in the WIP thread remains to be seen, it really depends if I like it enough.

Nice topics though BTW

Exciting! Always great to see new faces... new hands? in the PoW! I've been aiming to please with the topics. I'm hard at work on a Cthulhu one now, basing it on (probably) my favourite Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror.

[Barefoot]

Exciting! Always great to see new faces... new hands? in the PoW! I've been aiming to please with the topics. I'm hard at work on a Cthulhu one now, basing it on (probably) my favourite Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror.

Thanks for the warm welcome!
ATM I'm just practicing comic-booky styles of working, (love using an inking pen ) its really different to how I'm used to working, but I really like it. Glad I found PoW.

[j.s. sabastian]

[AdrianNagorski]

Just a start.

[NicoleWG]

More stuff, this is getting fun. I'll upload the comic when I get more done. I drew it too small and had to re-sketch larger than comic size.

[donalfall]

NicoleWG great designs! Your Medusa looks great, always my favourite Greek monster. Did I say that already?

Everyone else I'm trying my best not to get fanboy on you guys. I've been reading Lovecraft for the last 23 years... D: ... so it gets hard for me not to get weird. However, everyone's stuff looks great so far.

In other notes, there are some cool adaptations of Cthulhu by INJ Culbard that I really like... you can find his art and some of his musings on his blog.

[Kmadden2004]

Just when I thought it'd be nice to come back to the P.O.W. forums, these topics turn up...

How can I resist now?

[vineris]

[donalfall]

1 week and 1 day left, peoples. I have 2 pages completely finished and probably 3 more to ink. I shall scan a little for tomorrow night/monday day time.

I also was at a 24 hour/24 page comic draw which I also may have made Lovecraftian. I only got 14 pages done over 24 hours, but I'll probably post them here as well for funsies.

[NicoleWG]

All this time feels like a luxury, even with real life shenanigans. I just need to shade and I think I'll be done.

[donalfall]

NicoleWG yeah, I think one of POW's main problems has always been the struggle between too much time and too little time. But Panels of the Month makes for a crappy acronym.

[AdrianNagorski]

donalfall:

1.Should be able to pump a couple more pages in this week, also going back to
university this week so its going to be tight, i think because there is much time people leave,
it till the last minute then get overwhelmed, maybe adding one page per week rule, for four weeks,
might bear better fruit.

2. Must i post all my pages together in one post? or drips and drabs okey?

[donalfall]

AdrianNagorski - hmm, "show a page or part of a page per week" might be a fun rule, actually. Just enough to keep people on track. If you label each page clearly, I'll find them. POW doesn't tend to be more than a few pages on the forum, so I would be remiss if I managed to mess that up. Post them in dribs and drabs if you like, or keep going back and editing a post to add in more pages as you go, whichever suits you.

[donalfall]

As much as possible from now on I'm also going to post my plan for the next topic a week in advance or thereabouts in the Topic Suggestion Thread, where I would welcome any and all pre-game feedback.

[j.s. sabastian]

that's cool.........but??????? you know what but! i haven't seen any re-count yet.

[donalfall]

From the previous challenge? Still working on it. I'm just updating the "Winners and Topics" threads up in the stickies, I'll have it fixed loooooong before I get to POW! 56, and (hopefully) get it fixed for the end of this week.

[donalfall]

You reckon? I hope not, that would be the worst possible outcome.