Character designs at last!

Though I siad I'd upload these over the course of the week I ended up waiting untill I finished a few so that I could talk about all of them in one post. So I'll get right to the point.

Prince Lonyo

Prince Lonyo In'tomnda Laspanour The Second For The Hadron Gateway

This is Prince Lonyo In'tomnda Laspanour the Second. He's a redesign of the character on the far right of the original design sheet 2. On the original he has a blue Jacket, and although I think it looks better in blue I chose red for the regal look. There were a lot of experiments with the brightness and hue and I eventually settled for a red that didn’t fight the yellow for attention. With this design I really struggled with the colour of his boots. I tried a thousand combinations until I finally settled on black and gold and If I'm honest I still don't think its quite right. Aside from the problems with colour I think I really captured his smart but camp personality in the face without going overboard. I felt that the face on the original design was too effeminate and not strong enough for the character he needs to be. I also wanted to give him a little substance because he is very much the group’s central pillar in Laythan's path so he had to look dependable. I did worry that I would find Lonyo particularly difficult but I think I've really done him justice. I think he holds together very well and will fit nicely into the illustrations.

Jen Vidaya

Jen Vidaya For The Hadron Gateway

This is Jen Vidaya who corresponds to the first character on design sheet 2. As you can see I've kept the colour palette but made some changes to the clothes, face and build. She has a very small waist, muscled arms an average chest and big feet. I wanted her to be a tomboy so I had to change the skirt for trousers (aside from that, it would be little impractical for her to fight in a miniskirt). I went for a tattoo that would be easier to draw from all angles and I changed her face to look a lot less delicate. I wanted the viewer to be in no doubt that Jen's the type that would enjoy a messy brawl. Thankfully choosing the colour for her shoes was quick and painless unlike Lonyo's.

Myatt D'gana

Myatt D'gana For The Hadron Gateway

Myatt D'gana (who is the redesign of the third character on design sheet 1) was good fun to draw. I changed he body shape so that she is not curvy, not slender, but scrawny and childish. She's the tallest of all the girls yet she looks the youngest. Her outfit has stayed the same with the exception of her glove and her leggings. As with Jen, it would be silly if she tried fighting in a tiny dress and long socks. As Laythan's love interest I wanted her to look approachable and I took care to avoid the cliché of making her a curvy hottie. Plain was the way forward with this one as far as looks go. I think her charming face along with her tall scrawny build and approachable looking nature made her a successful design for me.

Leeya Nalani

Leeya Nalani For The Hadron Gateway

Leeya Nalani (who corresponds to the second character of design sheet 2) was also great fun to design. First and foremost I changed her skin colour because in the original designs everyone appears to be white. Given that they come from different places in different words I felt that it would be highly unlikely for them to all be the same colour. As for her body shape, I made her average in terms of curves and short legged in terms of height. Leeya is very petite and is actually the smallest of all the characters. As for her face I went for beauty and concentrated on making sure she would suit her role of crafty web weaver. Since Leeya doesn’t do any running around or fighting I stuck with the skirt and only made a few small changes to the outfit. I changed her sleeves and I gave her a more suitable belt for the role she plays. I would have made her shoes heels but I decided to go with flats to emphasise her shortness.


That’s plenty to be getting along with for now. Next to be uploaded should be Rylie followed by Myatt and Leeya in their evening dresses. Until then let me know what you think of the redesigns!

New Character Re-designs

Though I had aimed to get the script finished I've ended up doing more artwork for it instead. I've been on a role this weekend and managed to redesign Myatt, Leeya and Rylie plus I've also designed one of the outfit changes for both Myatt and Leeya. I'm also in the middle of doing an upright image for Laythan so he can stand in the character line up, because at the moment all I have for him is an action shot. So there will be plenty of artwork coming this way over the next week!

The Last Scenes

I've been writing up the first of the three ending scenes and I've found that it’s the hardest part of the entire script so far. When there are 106000 words all leading up to one moment there's so much pressure to make it beyond perfect. I feel like I can’t quite convey the tension and emotion without loosing the action and vice versa. Another thing I have to think about is making sure I'm not patronising the audience by over stating the obvious - a habit I've gotten into recently. I have a feeling it’s going to take two or three shots to get this right. 

I would have liked to have finished it by now but with all the overtime at work I did over the last few weeks, it just hasn’t happened. I've been in the mood to get more done today but as it’s my birthday I can’t just sit at a laptop all day. My kind guinea pig, who has agreed to read the whole thing through, has been informed that the script should be finished in the next two weeks. If there are any problems raised I will make sure they are fixed and then it’s on to either the artwork or onto Rheeven's path (or maybe a bit of both).

New Scene - Cakes, Counts and Code-Spawn

Finally a day to myself! I've decided to add the new scene in before editing out the paragraphs of extra information since I'm really in the mood for it. I hope to get the scene mostly finished by the end of tomorrow providing I don’t get called in to cover more shifts at work. I started it last night and I'm already having fun with it which is always a good sign. 
If I had to give it a name it would be Cakes, Counts and Code-Spawn, though I doubt that will give you a great deal of insight into what the scene is about. I have a feeling you'll enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it. It's going to be a touch suspenseful, action packed and peppered with light hearted character interaction for a little comedy relief. I'll be introducing the Code-Spawn into Laythan's path for the first time. He will have to deal with this first ever terrifying encounter with a Code-Spawn while trying to figure out what brought them to such an encounter in the first place. You'll be as intrigued as Laythan is...

I'm guessing most of you are at a loss as to what a Code-Spawn actually is. It seems like an important detail to miss out seeing as Rheeven's path revolves around them almost entirely. I've only mentioned them very briefly so I'll go into a bit more detail. But before I do, have a listen to Equinox, since its the right mood with a similarly creepy monster to get you in the right mind frame.

A very advanced race called Code-Kind (a slang nickname that stuck) from a place known in infamy as the Kingdom of Codes, created the Code-Spawn completely by accident - And not a happy accident either. Like our own world they began to dabble with mechanical limbs for those who were unfortunate enough to have lost their own. It was a science that they perfected. Such was their ability to create mechanical parts for humans that "upgrades" soon became a thing of fashion. It prolonged life, strengthened all aspects of them, augmented their natural abilities. They learned how to grow bio-mechanic human parts that were a mixture of organic and machine and within a few hundred years, it wrote itself into their DNA like a forced evolutionary cycle - an unexpected side affect. But it was too late by then. Their physical appearance, though humanoid, was forever altered from the norm. 

The original rough Code-Spawn concept that inspired most of Rheeven's path.

This was not a problem on the grand scale of things, infact it had made the Code-Kind one of the hardiest races in human history. Veins of blood and oil, hearts like engines and brains crossed with circuits were not something to be looked down upon. The problem arrived in the form of a disease.
It was the first in human history to be both a human disease and a computer virus, affecting all aspects of their make-up. The epidemic took them quicker than the plague and was several times more contagious, transferable by all bodily fluids. It did not kill them but altered them irreversibly. The most notable and terrifying thing about the disease was that once it had a hold on its victim, it would claim it under a hive-mind (shared consciousness). No one knew where the hive mind originated or if it was some kind of morphic resonance. It was intelligent and destroyed its victims own consciousness completely. 

The result was millions of humanoid creatures with one mind all bent on the same thing, earning the nickname Code-Spawn. In some ways it acted as the ultimate upgrade. From the moment the disease entered their system their bodies adapted to a form that was strengthened, toughened and very difficult to kill. Their gender was all but lost, arriving at a strange middle-ground, for the sole reason that they no longer saw that type of reproduction as the most effective way of continued existence. The Code-Spawn condition was passed by infecting others and that, mixed with the insatiable human desire to reproduce, created an army of creatures all desperate to infect others, with the intelligence to do so.
Some argued that this was not a terrible disease and loss of humanity, but simply the next stage of evolution. However, when they started being used as a weapon against other worlds, all sympathy was lost.

So if Laythan has to face down a creature that can infect him as easily as spitting in his eye, you can imagine he's not going to enjoy the experience...
He must fight it off, yet if he’s not careful it could end in the loss of his own humanity and the downfall of the world he calls home. And still the question must be asked - why on earth, in a clean uninfected world, has he had to fight one in the first place?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Code-Spawn and their design. What do you think it is? A disease or an evolutionary cycle?

Intensive Editing Week Needed!

I need an intensive week of editing but since I'm doing overtime for the next two weeks I can’t see it happening. It turns out there’s a little bug in the script that I want to fix sooner rather than later. But rather than summing it up I'll let you see the feedback I was given that led me to this obvious conclusion.
(I pasted this straight in with only colour edits just for that authentic msn touch, so excuse the rambling and spelling errors etc.) 

Harlin says:

by the way i wanted to ask

Harlin says:

what did you think of what you read last night?

Zoe says:

its iiiinteresting ill tell you why

you know how i said you write really dramatic scenes and keep me on edge

Harlin says:

yeah

Zoe says:

and then you said you where worried that you rambed on and where boring or something..

Zoe says:

i cant remember exactly?

Harlin says:

worried that i ramble and drag it out in a really unexciting boring way

i remember saying that

Zoe says:

yeah. drag out.  well some scenes, where i dont know what is going to happpen, like the execution, thats where its super intense and heart racey

Zoe says:

and all dialoge is great.

Zoe says:

but when someone starts monoologuing a plan, or over explaining the sotry or whats going on and whats happened as we where with the l.joe gang, that can drag on a bit, but its not too bad with explainations like that,

Zoe says:

but when i already know the plan.. like say i know laythans going to walk through the sewers, has to get to a cetain place.. has to avoid ths that and the other of getting caught

Zoe says:

there is a lot, and i meen a lot, of scenes like that.  indevidual tasks and missions that they go on.  becuase its all so complex , the story

Zoe says:

and its fun when the characters are interacting and theres good dialogue and jokes and inventive stuff like rock slop  and the desciption of the sewers was great. really came alive.. i remember when i read that part ages ago you said bo felt sick from it

Zoe says:

so sometimes it really works

but other times it can be a bit same old same old when its laythen telling us what hes doing, where hes going and why hes doing it.

Zoe says:

so really, its show and not tell that needs to be embraced

Harlin says:

yeah thats what i was worried was happening

Zoe says:

it ups your word count. and it tells us things we dont know and explains things we might not be 100% sure of, and its all well written. great sentence structure. flows really well. theres nothing uncomfortable or tricky about the way you write...

Zoe says:

but it isnt neccessary for the story

Harlin says:

but its not as fun to read as the rest?

Zoe says:

i want to cut to the action action action characters characters

Zoe says:

yes.

Zoe says:

its like the scenes in a film they would cut in the edditing room

Harlin says:

yeah

Zoe says:

laythan thinks like you.  weve said before

and its very level headed,

and constantly analysing and processing whats happening in a methodical way

Zoe says:

it reminded me a lot of the 3rd book in the hunger games

thats all about a group of rebbels with a project to incite a rebeliion and bring down the Capitol (its even called capitol like yours is the capital. sorrryyy) 

Zoe says:

and it has cool invetive weapons like your world has

Harlin says:

arrrrrrrrrrrgh

wish these proffessionals would stop stealing my ideas lol

Zoe says:

and different armies and weird mutant creachers (like magnus bull apes) chasing them etc AND theres a lot of escaping/ambushing though the sewer system.

Harlin says:

argh what?!?!?

thats not fair!

Zoe says:

but its done very very well. and i really think youd benefit from reading it, to see how the action is paced out and what is put between the scenes to ballance it.

Zoe says:

 i know. im sorry. 

So...

It looks like I should read the Hunger Games. I've been avoiding those books since I started reading the first and hated the main character. She’s a bit too whiny and weak for my liking, personally. I like women to be machines and leave the boys to be the sensitive creatures with feelings. I know its backwards but that’s just what sits right with me. So I might give it a miss and see if I can work it out my own way.


I think Zoe is right about some of the scenes not cutting to the action quick enough and going into too much description. Much of the place description will be edited out once the artwork is completed anyway so I'll loose a good few thousand words right away. But that won’t change the fact that I've gotten into the habit of over explaining the characters situation and stating the obvious. I think I got in to the mindset that my audience are idiots... I don’t know how it happened but it’s not good! So I'll have to purge the scripts of these paragraphs of unnecessary explanation because they aren’t increasing the quality and it would be better to have character interaction in place. I also think that I need to stop having Laythan explaining a plan and just let it unfold so the reader finds out as he goes.


But if that’s the only criticism for the script then I'm doing great! After all, it’s not difficult to fix, it’s just a bit time consuming because of the amount of words I'll have to read through. I'm really excited about fine-combing it into something resembling perfection because that means it’s nearly done! Just need to finish writing the peak and after that Laythan's path is complete!


(P.S. Anyone curious about this dubious "Zoe" character can see her amazing artwork www.zoecox.tumblr.com because she’s wonderful!)

The Journey You Sadly Missed

Well contrary to yesterday’s hopes, I never coloured Lonyo. I got on with some of the writing for Laythan's path. Its amazing to think that all I’ve got left of it is a few thousand words. And its weird to think no one here has been along for the journey. It won’t be al that long till I start on the illustration and concept art for it!
But writing the peak of a story takes time and a lot of care so it’s still going to take some time. At this stage on 93713 words I think it’s fair to predict that Laythan's path is going to be 100000 words give or take a thousand, providing I don’t add any more scenes. Then will come the lengthy process of editing and fine tuning...

I think since none of you were really invited to be a part of this path its only fair that I say a few things about it that you wouldn’t know.

Firstly, I should say that all of my stories seem to revolve around the value of human lives and this one is no different. In fact I'd say it really becomes one of the main themes. After all it’s not an easy question; imagine if you had to determine its worth? 
The other main theme is also common to all my stories and is, somewhat predictably, friendship. It's difficult to take on establishment or make a big difference with no support so all the characters in this visual novel and all my other fiction keep their friends close like family. I think D'rosk is going to be the only semi-exception because he is, by and large, a loner. 
Even the music I listened to during the writing of this path suited the friendship theme. Many of you will have heard of With You Friends by Skrillex (if not, go have a gander). It’s been somewhat like a theme song throughout because it has no distracting lyrics, is mellow enough to write to and has the nostalgic feeling that comes with lifelong friendship. It hasn’t been inspirational as such but it’s been apt.

On the subject of music, this path was the very first story I ever worked on that wasn’t inspired by a vast array of music. In the past I have listened to opera, metal, rock, dance, Spanish rnb and all sorts to inspire plots, characters and character relationships. Artists such as P.O.D, Josh Groban, Soilwork, Within Temptation, and Hans Zimmer have so far been the driving force behind all my work until this one. Because I was put on the spot to come up with something, it was created through the age old process of spending too long thinking in the shower. It took all of 20 minutes to come up with the basic idea. Unlike a lot of writers I don’t come up the solution to a story first. I play it out as if I was the reader and look for the loopholes I've left behind.
Anyway, rather than music inspiring a story I found the story was driving me to find new songs that would suit it. That way I could listen to them while I wrote and stay in the right mindset. The previous song is the first example. Another two (rather embarrassing) examples would be Power and Warrior by a newly debuted kpop band called B.A.P. Ignoring the desperate attempts to sound cool and the dodgy dancing, I think its obvious why both of these felt right to listen to. Power in particular has some nice futuristic sets which fits quite nicely. Out of all the things I listened to, When They Come for Me by Linkin Park was the best fitting. It helped me visualise the characters and some of the action scenes more clearly, and not just for Laythan's path but for all of them.

So apart from themes and music there’s more that you've missed. I did a few biro scribbles on an old school book I found under my bed and it sort of helped things along a bit so I thought I would share one with you.

This one was a quick squiggle I did when I was thinking about Laythan and what I was going to do with his design. I was picturing him wondering around the festering streets, blending in and keeping a sharp eye out for useful contacts with his hood up and his face hidden. It’s nothing special but it did sort of give me a kick up the backside about getting his design sorted out once and for all. (His design can be found on the character page). There were a few more of these (if you look carefully you can actually see the faint marks of one that the scanner picked up on the other side of the paper). And one of them actually helped me to figure out a solution to a specific predicament the characters faced. So for any artists reading this - never underestimate the importance of a 2 minute biro scribble!

Anyway, onto the next subject - While I was making this path I had a bit of a dilemma. I kept realising I wanted to add more and more scenes (and I still do) however, I wasn’t sure how many was too many. For now it's looking to be roughly the same length as the 3rd Harry potter book, which to me seems a good length, but after putting a lot of thought into the matter I decided I simply couldn’t care less. What matters is that the story flows and each scene is high quality and enjoyable. Any writers out there should remember it’s not the word count that makes a great story.

As to the Visual Novel itself, I think Laythan's path is my favourite. However I think I'm biased because it’s the only one that’s near completion. There’s a high chance Rheeven's could surpass it. And that doesn’t count for anything because D'rosk’s is still hazy and could turn out to be the king of all stories... who knows? So ignoring my biased views on the matter I think this story was nothing more than a shell when I first began writing it. It was just terrible. It lacked any emotion, real setting, and good characters and there was nothing to make you really care what happens. But I really started to get involved it and suddenly I really cared for the characters and the dilemmas they faced. I started writing in some tension and atmosphere, though only a little because that’s what the art is for. Still, I think it really made all the difference. Now I can really believe in the worlds they live in and the people they meet and I feel like I'm involved in their journey.

So those are a few things you might not have known. There was a lot more but I won’t bore you with the whole thing!

Just an update

Just a quick update to say I've redesigned Lonyo (who corresponds to the character on the far right of image 2 on the original design sheets) and I’ve done the line work too. I'm aiming to get the colour done tomorrow so I can get it uploaded on here so keep an eye out!