#ocarinarevised

[ocarinarevised]

Blighted Beginnings - 1

Finally! We're into true comic territory! This page has now set in stone the techniques I planned to use for this series. I don't wanna talk too deep about them so early on, so I'll just say that I'm glad it came out so well.

The black-and-white pages are rendered using only four colors in total (black, white, and two greys) and this has already led to some problems; I'm having a really hard time getting Navi to look good in black and white and the filter I'm using doesn't like transparency very well, so currently I'm drawing a grey border under her. Coincidentally, this also makes her stand out better without outlines, which I do *not* want to give her, so this has worked out well.

This is the end of narration, at least for this chapter... Well, not entirely? There is an instance where a character talks off-camera with text boxes like this, but it is the end of narrators, anyway.

Any stylistic choices I've published are set in stone, at least until the end of the chapter, but if you have any suggestions notes are open. For example, I'm happy with this font but if anybody has an idea of a better font for this let me know. I might still not use it, who knows? I don't know. UNO!

[ocarinarevised]

Blighted Beginnings - 4

OK so it's finally time to talk about the biggest stylistic choice of this comic! And it's relevant to this comic in specifically because there was a forced change due to an error with the process!

Every background you see in this comic is traced from a screenshot of a 3d model, either by yours truly in blender or taken from noclip.website, which allows users to fly through various locations from many video games (and even user-provided models) using the built-in freecam. So far it's been about 50/50 from each... well, until now!

I built a 3d model of Link's bedroom, and I put in the script that it should be "mostly accurate" to the original game because I always intended to create a model for this scene.

However, I have discovered a new bug with my computer in which opening blender forces my windows key permanently down in software, disallowing use of keyboard shortcuts due to every shortcut I try now including the windows key! So when I hit ctrl+s to save, it opened the start menu instead of saving. And then I closed blender by mistake, which deleted all the work on my model. So here we are!

That being said, with every new somic I draw I get more and more comfortable with the idea of using noclip for most of the shots and only whipping out blender when I can't get the shot I want with the original models. So the bootleg lost woods is here to stay, but link's house will probably always be like this. Well, that is, until the cow comes home. Can't wait 'till the cow comes home.

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[ocarinarevised]

Blighted Beginnings - 3

"Hey! Look at that, color! But it looks a little off... and there's still dithering? This wasn't how you colored the cover! What is the meaning of this!" Yeah, I meant to have pages like this since I figured out the dithering.

I've taken the base greyscale panel and colored it! I call this "pseudo-color" because it is in color, but the image it's made from is still black and white. I've done this because I wanna keep the visuals of the comic limited to four shades for stylistic reasons, but there are situations where color is important or visually interesting enough to warrant it, even in this black-and-white comic. This is one where the color is important. What ever could it mean? We'll find out later I suppose.

Now for the details of the comic itself... GODS! I'm gonna start with the story. So I've actually written a good portion of the first chapter before I let myself start drawing for the comic so that I won't run into any stray plot details that I only notice while inking. (i've heard that becomes a problem at a certain point)

Well I've already hit the first snag. The detail actually has to do with the... color? DAMMIT! I said I was moving on from that... Anyway, for reasons that I'm not gonna get into right now due to the specter of OUT OF CHAPTER SPOILERS, the flash in the last panel had to be changed to blue from green... It might not seem a huge detail, but trust me, it is.

I do like "KRAK-A-THOOM!" as a sound effect for very loud thunder... I don't know where I got it from, but I know I did get it from somewhere... Maybe it was egs? It was probably egs... I'm gonna read egs after posting this! Thanks for that wonderful idea, reader.

[ocarinarevised]

Blighted Beginnings - 2

AAAARRGH! I have come to know, with excruciating detail, the exact facial structure of this tree! (he kinda looks like my grandpa... huh)

I wanted to give the Deku Tree a more articulate mouth, seeing how in the games I guess he just... thinks? at you? But then he opens up his mouth as the entrance for the dungeon? So, like, he has a mouth but it's mostly just for decoration! It 100% makes sense for the hardware of the time, but it's really kinda weird if you think about it.

This would be the first time in my entire life I've gotten far enough into webcomic production to have to create text bubbles in a digital program. It's been an adventure... No more than any of the other things seen here, as I'm only new to these techniques as well...

Can't wait for Monday when I'll be back to what I'm used to, drawing humans in front of abstract backgrounds... See, I told you there would be spoilers in these! Shoulda listened to me the first time.

I realized way past the point where I can go back and fix it that I forgot to add background trees in panels 3 and 4... Hopefully it's not too bad, I mean I didn't notice it... but then again, it is 5 AM... Further testing yet to be conducted.

[ocarinarevised]

Blighted Beginnings - 5

Here we return again to my own twisted little version of the lost woods! You can't really tell from this angle, but that dark blob behind Mido is a log for people to sit on! It's not gonna come up again in this storyline so I just wanted to point it out. Maybe it'll make an appearance when we revisit the forest next, but that's a ways away...

Anyone else ever find out the hard way how hard it is to get Mido to look good? And it's not because I've never drawn him, because I've also never drawn Saria! Mido is just not that visibly appealing to me, and I wanted to tweak his design until I could stand to draw him for 10 weeks worth of comics. This is what I've come up with.

With such limited colors, it's hard to get foreground characters to stand out from overlapping objects closer to the camera. For this reason, I've added a thin outline to the fence. I think it looks alright.

If you're reading this the week of the 15th, I'm taking a week off from the comic! Updates will resume as normal January 22nd.

[ocarinarevised]

Cover

Hey all! I'm really excited for you all to get to see this story I've created! I've been working on this since July of last year, and I've been dreading the day I needed to start uploading... Well, here it is!

Down here is where I'm putting the commentaries for the comic, but I do wanna stress that the commentaries are not a vital part of the comic reading experience and that I don't recommend reading these the first time you read a chapter. I won't be spoiling anything outside of the chapter, but I can't guarantee that promise can be kept for events within the chapter so be warned!

The cover isn't as relevant for the whole story as it is for the first chapter, but that's because I plan on making full-color covers per chapter and having two covers within the first week of the comic would be ridiculously redundant. (it can't have anything to do with the fact that I'd rather wait until I get better at the art of it to do anything more complex. nothing at all.)

I'm really proud of the lighting as well as the background for this one. It took me a few hours to get the shapes of the highlights as well as the deeper shadows to look right.