“Striking Sparks” — Page Fifty-Two
As our hero’s Deadvision kicks in, a scene shrouded in deadly smoke takes on an even more ominous aspect, reminding him that even heroes can’t save everyone.
But they can damn sure try!
Upvotes appreciated! And if you’re interested in the creation process for this particular page, you’ll find that below!
Bobservations
Ominous Smoke
“You know, I was thinking for the Deadvision scene — if you give me a bunch of smoke crawling across the ceiling, I’m pretty sure I can turn it into eerie screaming faces and stuff.” — Max
Challenge: accepted! I didn’t know exactly what he was planning to do, but I was sure as hell willing to give it a try on my end.
But when he sent over his “rough,” with all the layers and the perspective lines indicated, I immediately realized I was going to have to step up my game.
I didn’t have smoke that would work for this. Yet.
Generally when one shoots smoke footage, it’s against a flat backdrop, and is more or less hanging in the air. I needed smoke that had a more three-dimensional quality; smoke that would obviously be hugging the ceiling. I first tried just photographing a cloudy sky, but unless you have access to an airplane and can shoot downward against something like a dark sea, the clouds are shaped wrong. Clouds in the sky are flat on the bottom, and billowy on the top. Flipping the image doesn’t work because the perspective will be going the wrong way. So instead I decided to throw together a smoke-staging area, and use an improvised smoke cooler to give the smoke a ground effect before it warmed enough to rise into useful wisps and curls.
This smoke could then be flipped over to appear to be moving along the ceiling.
Once the smoke images had been keyed I began laying them in, starting with the main panel and following the perspective lines Max had indicated.
Distortion tools are your friend!
By layering and shifting the various smoke images I was able to create the “smoke to the horizon” effect Max had requested. Then came the easier but still intricate layers of smoke inside the other panels; trying not to obscure important details (like faces.) I also added the dialogue and word balloons at this point, but these layers have been hidden for this writeup.
Done on my end! The whole thing bundled up and shipped back to Max.
Max wanted to be able to talk about his own work here, but found himself buried under other work and Pre-Holiday Social Commitments. I’ll do my best with the images he sent over. To start with, he did a whole bunch of cleaning, color-correction, and work with lighting and shading to give the dark, ominous feel.
I think he has this button he just presses that says “Make More Awesome”
Then comes all the little nuances; the lighting of the cellphone on the young lady’s face, finalizing details — oh yeah, and somehow, somehow, he turned the smoke clouds into screaming faces and skulls. I have no idea how. Probably Dark Magic known only to Adobe Acolytes. Let there be ectoplasm!
If you want to see a larger version just click the image.
Some of the eerie imagery gets trimmed by the border in the final comic post (all our pages are created oversized so they will have “bleed room” when it comes to book layout pages.) But here you can see all the work he put in on the page. Then the dialogue and word balloons are unhidden and finalized, resulting in the comic post at the top of this page!
Enjoy it? Consider a donation to the artist! And thanks for reading!
— Bob out
Gaah, people that are so stupid that they keep videoing even when they are in serious danger of dying.
I remember seeing a video of the Mount St. Helens eruption. Guy knew he was going to die, and there was no way out for him. He keeps the camera on the volcano, recording everything as the smoke and ash swallow him. You can hear the panic in his voice as he prays. It’s quite emotional, but also rational: it’s either that, or curl up into a ball.
I love that you guys do real effects to layer in. and the faces are FREAKY awesome.
Took me three viewing to notice the faces in the smoke…
Damn! I didn’t notice until just now!! O_O
That’s clever, cooling the smoke so it hugs the ground. I’d have just said nuts to it and rigged a bedsheet or something over the smoke source. Have you ever thought of using a glycerine based fog generator for doing really dense smoke effects?
Oh yes, that’s my little glycerine fogger in the photo. It has served me well for years!
Oh man, those faces. That’s got to be my favorite effect in the comic so far.
Also, seriously lady???? She better not be trying to record him in the middle of an EFFING FIRE!
Thanks everyone! Had fun on this page.
I totally would record him during a fire. Hell, in my last moments before I suffocate, I’d totally hit record and give one last testimonial to my loved ones.
Well, ok. I’ll give you that if we’re talking a last moments,
all is lost” fire, that a last testimonial wouldn’t be out of order. 🙂
Bob, thanks for the link on the previous page to the great article about vector forces.
The artistry that goes into these pages continues to amaze. And I really appreciate how the smoke is being dragged along after her arm as she moves in the last panel. Small details like that add so much to the realism.
I was actually thinking after the previous comic about Max being in the smoke and not coughing. His body is getting oxygen from the injected ozone, but he must be moving air in and out to be able to speak. Even if his lungs aren’t doing the normal gas exchange, they would still react to the irritants. But maybe he doesn’t have to draw it in deeply enough for the smoke to reach his lungs.
And by the way fellas, this isn’t nit-picking. In the same way that Star Trek fans (I am one) try to come up with explanations for how phasers and transporters can work, it’s out of love for the story that fans try to find ways to “make it” real.
Oh, believe me, Paul, I enjoy the same things (within limits.) Like wondering how the really skeletal zombies in zombie shows move around or get energy.
As for our hero, my postulate is that things just don’t bother him as much when he’s dead. As Sharma stated earlier, he’s “not actually breathing.” He feels things less, he doesn’t bleed, he probably doesn’t have hormonal reactions, etc. He’s probably aware of the smoke irritation but it isn’t interfering with his functioning at the moment so he ignores it.
Like in the Judge Dredd comic where Mega-City One was infested with super-fleas and everyone was scratching themselves to death except Dredd. He had fleas too – he was just so tough he refused to scratch. 🙂
And thanks for noticing that arm-smoke! I was scrolling through my smokes and and spotted that wisp and made sure to grab that frame just for the panel. My job is nothing compared to Max’s artwork, but I do try to keep up my end of the contribution.
These are some great lines being delivered by our hero. I’m curious though: even though he doesn’t need to breathe, he’d still need to breathe in to speak, yeah? So… shouldn’t he still be coughing?
He’s not wasting time, talking is a free action.
That last comment wasn’t suppose to be a reply oh well.
…But on the topic of breathing, how are his body and brain functioning without oxygen? He should be tired and collapsing and dizzy by now.
Muscles work just fine anaerobically, especially for short bursts of highly intense activity, such as fighting. As for his brain — that’s what the blue juice injection he gets before he teleports is for.
Gray, I have a response just above your post, actually. The postulate is that being dead has a certain… insulating quality. For instance, in the previous episode even though he was shot through the lung, he didn’t start coughing blood until he was back at Crisis Strike HQ and alive again.
He is ex military and will have done the chemical warfare drills. He will be used to nonlethal irritants and needing to function normaly. Speaking requires little breathing and most people can hold their breath for 3 min if neseccary, and while dead to him breathing is not neseccary. No heart pumping to move the blood to aid the gas exchange in and out the blood.
I love all of the thought put into the construction of this work, Bob & Max. though I am perfectly happy to “just be entertained”, when you have greater depths to the characters, story, or anything else, it helps cement it into your memory and give you more to think about. In my opinion, take it for what it is, that quality is what separates “good” from “great” storytelling, whether it is in a comic, a book, a game or a movie. Being able to do this as a collaborative effort makes it even more impressive.
On a side note, all of the above is one of the reasons why I enjoy reading Tolkien’s work. Maintaining internal consistency on such a grand scale is an impressive feat of organization, memory, and creativity. (My favorite sci-fi authors are good at those things as well, particularly Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Gordon R. Dickson, James P. Hogan, Jeffrey Carver and Roger MacBride Allen, to name a few.) Nothing is quicker to kick me out of a story than when the artist, author, developer, actor/director, or what have you, ignores what has already established as “the norm” and proceeds to confuse or insult you with something that is not properly explained.
So, anyway, great job, Bob & Max-The-Artist! I also really enjoy the comments from the readers, because I learn so much about interesting things without having to do all the work. 😉
Thank you! We really do try.