Another example of using color as a concepting tool. In this case, the leader of the wolf pack has gray stripes while the others don’t. This sort of thing is a bit subtle for my tastes and not something I would use a lot. I prefer to have the differences more apparent since I’m a big believer in the “silhouette test.” Not sure if I covered that concept elsewhere, but basically it states that with a good design, you should be able to tell one character from another just by silhouette. In this case, I decided the subtlety was acceptable since it really isn’t THAT important that you can tell one wolf-alien from the next. If you pick up on the difference and can single out the leader from the rest of the pack, that’s fine. But it’s not crucial to the storytelling in any way.
runnersuniverse.com
For all things related to Runners, the sci-fi comic by Sean Wang
Seems Bocce was adopted by a new pack to run with.
(Finally that nice Index is virgin no more. Not that it was that many pages back, but I forgot the action context. Fangs… should have seen that one coming. :-D)
Like the Robot Chicken version of Mr. M. Night Shyamalan would say: What a twist!
😀
Love the alian look of the wolves, but I have a feeling that you could have made it a little more alien lik. Such as an extra pair of eyes, or maybe two tail. But looking at the look of them right here, I still think they are pretty cool!
Two tails doesn’t make that much sense, since the simplest tail is our own continuation of the spine. (In our case, not visible.) In principle a bi-symmetric animal can have parallel spines, but it would be messy.
The analogous bud growth to legs and arms is between our legs, using part of the same Hox gene complex. That is, I believe, why for example snakes can have two penises. Of course, US comic animals outside humans aren’t allowed a sex. It was erased by some political act long since, wasn’t it, and still persisting by the same type of bigotry as I understand it (nothing personal to RU). I hear even the cows are an udder failure.
I just got done reading through all of the past pages. I really appreciate that in your comic, Humans are, so far, a minority. Even counting Sky as a “Near-Human,” they are not making up like 70% of the population of everywhere like in most universes and a good portion of the aliens having radically non-human forms, or at least proportions, goes a long way towards setting this apart from the pack.
Yeah, the human-to-alien ratio always bugged me in sci-fi. I can understand the necessity in properties like Star Trek and Star Wars, where you’re actually dealing with human actors. But for comics, I found the heavy emphasis on humans in space unnecessary and a waste of the medium’s potential. Of course, if you’re doing a comic with the hopes of getting it optioned and turned into a movie or TV series, I could see the logic. But for me, the comic itself always came first and the story I wanted to tell was far more important than the ability to get it optioned. So that’s why I stuck with a mostly-alien cast.
That, and I can now get away with poorly-drawn anatomy. If any proportions are off, I can just use “alien anatomy!” as an excuse. 🙂
That, and you can use “alien perspective!” for odd “comic camera (or not) views”.
[It would be interesting to look out from Cember’s head. For example, a running story over 360 degrees with him as “observer”.
… it would be frightening to look _into_ Cember’s head though. Ouch! :-o]
I like how the movie K-Pax addresses the “mostly-human” issue. The doctor in the movie asks the alien, Prot, why he looks human. Prot replies with the question, “why is a soap bubble round?”. He explains his comment by observing that it is the most efficient form based on conservation of energy.
Interesting. Never did see K-Pax, but I do love Kevin Spacey. But then I remember it not getting great reviews, so maybe I’ll just watch The Ref again. 🙂