“Striking Sparks” — Page Forty-Six
As Max roars off to Crisis Strike HQ, we re-establish the imminent jeopardy of the victims!
This page was a lot of work from both Max-The-Artist and myself, but personally I think it turned out pretty well and we both hope you like it! Got to try some new effects techniques, which is always fun. And Max not only created the initial art but also took all the effects I loaded into the rough and artistically melded the whole thing into what I feel is a pretty striking final page.
What can we say? We get a chance to set City Hall on fire, we try to do it right.
More below!
Bobservations
Fully Involved
My handy list of firefighting lingo indicates the above term refers to a structure in which fire is so widespread that firefighters can barely handle it. I’m not saying this page was necessarily all that difficult for Max and myself; it just became that way because I wanted to “help.” There’s no question that Max could have simply freehanded the entire thing himself in Illustrator. But I liked the challenges indicated in the roughs, and I wanted to do them “real” where I could. So that meant coming up with heavy-duty window fires and water dropping from a helicopter.
I actually had some window fire I was planning to use, but it was not quite as awesome as I would have liked. However, I got unexpectedly lucky there. I had been testing some individual resin-based miniature effects and hadn’t been pleased with the results, so I decided to just get rid of the remainder by piling it all in a heavy crucible and setting it on fire.
Since the sky was blue that day, at the last minute I decided that what the hell, I’d set up the camera for the burn. Because although the crap had been pretty feeble in testing, you never know.
Well. As it turned out, piling several lumps in a crucible caused them to burn hotter, and the crucible itself restricted the access to atmospheric oxygen. The result was a most delightful column of fire and black smoke, filmed in hi-rez. Took a day to clean and render (hi-rez takes forever) but the result is what you’re now seeing in the windows above.
For the cascade of water — well, I couldn’t actually use water. Water is one of the biggest headaches for miniature work; it just never scales properly, even if you add detergents and alcohol to reduce the surface tension. Slow motion helps a little, but not a whole lot. Really, the only way to make a splash of water look big is to make a big splash of water.
But for certain effects — like a cascade — you don’t necessarily have to use water. You can use a fine, free-flowing powder to get a similar effect, especially if you set up a pouring mechanism and some fans. Well, I could rig those.
As for the powder – I’d heard of people using fine sugar, and other people using fine salt. Both would work, but I was concerned about cleanup. There would be residue, certainly, and sugar would attract ants. I have enough ants. Salt would kill all the plants in the vicinity, especially if I hosed off the area as I planned.
Fortunately, there is a free-flowing powder called micronized creatine monohydrate. It’s a popular bodybuilding supplement, and it is actually pretty cheap if you buy it in bulk. Which I do. It also dissolves instantly in water and won’t harm plants, so it can be hosed away into the plant beds.
And here we have a “cascade of water” effect. Put several of them together for the water-dropping helicopter. Cleanup was easy too.
The only problem is, there’s a chance I may soon have the biggest, baddest, most ass-kicking ants in the neighborhood. World domination starts here.
— Bob out
You may indeed end up with pumped up ants. However, you also have years of experience dealing with explosives and incindiaries, a flamethrower (don’t tell me you don’t have one.), and Max.
I’m going to want to watch that video afterwards.
By the way, the “water” effect looks really good.
I’m actually insulted that you think I have A flamethrower.
I have three flamethrowers. And only one is the wussy propane kind that regular movie FX guys use. The other two are full-fledged kerosene-hosing hellfire spewers that generate so much heat I feel my eyebrows smoking every time I use them. Actually, some of their work is pictured in the lower building flames.
They are also good remedies for crabgrass.
And thanks for the comment about the water! I’m actually really excited about that and plan to shoot lots more for my own use.
Do they have anything metal in the vicinity they can put on the end of the table in contact with the window to make a glass-breaking point? Any piece of metal would do as long as it’s sharp on opposite ends and can be driven in wood.
God DAMN intelligent readers! I do know that an FX guy of my acquaintance once used a sharpened roofing nail driven into a two-by-four and positioned just offscreen to shatter a pane of tempered glass just as an actor was being thrown through it. (Tempered glass shatters beautifully once it cracks, but an actor will just bounce off it unless you give it a start. Usually they use tiny squibs of lead azide glued on, but you need a special license for those and sometimes it’s easier and cheaper to improvise.)
That said, ballistic glass is considerably tougher. However, both you and Paul have good comments regarding pointy metal with mass and momentum behind it being a better choice. Let’s assume it wouldn’t work on this glass though, because we have other plans!
I think that a heavily loaded metal file cabinet would have a better chance of breaking the window than a wood table.
Max-the-artist is truly a specatular artist, and some of the fire effects that he has created in this comic are wonders to behold. But Bob, I think that the real-world effects that you add in really give the comic a visceral edge, which fits very well with the plot and tone of the story.
But when the giant ants take over the world, we’ll know who to blame.
You may be right, especially if they can angle it corner-first. However, check out the response to Crestlinger above; I’ve included you there!
You’re worried about ants?
What about those plants? You’re practically MAINLINING the stuff to them.
Day Of The Triffids here we come!
ahhh… you know!!!!
WTH.
Doesn’t everyone have lockpicks, centerpunches and thermite in their workdesk?
What kind of amateur towering inferno BS is this? I tell you I wonder sometimes…
What’s that? Normal people really don’t keep that stuff generally?
Wow, they ARE screwed.
This could easily be the best water effect I have seen.
The fire is also good although with such good graphics added in the rest now looks substandard. 👹
On the ‘BPGlass’, If it’s bullet resistant poly carbonate hitting it in the middle is about the least effective thing that you can do, it’s most flexible there. In city Hall, I’d pick a filing cabinet, not the lateral kind. The advantage of the filing cabinet over the table is mass. I wouldn’t worry about trying to ‘break’ the glass, but you may be able to dislodge the pane by hitting it along the bottom edge and working your way up. Once you have a gap, wedge something in and hit it again.
If I had to do this, I’d take out a couple of lower drawers and lay it on the side. then get the two biggest people to slide it across the floor into the window. You could even put one of the drawers up against the window to give you a lower smaller contact area and use the cabinet like a hammer to its nail.
The other issue I can’t see flinging water sideways out of a chopper to be very effective. What I would see as a good possibility is to ventilate the roof and pour water down the top of the structure. If you can get flow going down the center stair you might have a chance getting people to a roof EVAC that way. Even with the internal plumbing damaged, they should be sending water in via the standpipe forcing water out anywhere around the fire should help cool the area and provide survivability.
Interesting facts:
Any pump can only suck water up about 30′ but it can push it up higher because water doesn’t compress. How much higher depends on the pump type and how well it is sealed.
A pumper truck contains about 1500 gallons. A portion of which is dropped though the pump to prime it. Running Full on, the pump in a pumper can drain its internal tank in less than 2 minutes.
100ft of 5in hose holds about 100 Gallons and filled weighs 800 lbs. When pressurized it can jump 1-3 feet in the air.
I’m surprised no one got your Doc Savage reference