So Work is sucking up all my time right now as I am approaching a fairly large deadline. Gotta muscle through it before I can use my free time to keep up on Veal. But worry not! More Veal updates VERY soon!
On what is going to be a recurring theme in the Veal story – females have a strong element to play in the setup of the universe I am building. In fact – most of the alien species that you’ll see in Veal that HAVE a gender will be predominantly female. In fact – in all but a very few cases (like the Jenaki) – the homeworlds these aliens come from will be matriarchies. That’s right, females rule the universe. In addition – on many of these worlds, men are not as common – typically having a 100-1 or worse ratio between the two genders.
The fun part about this – is I get to make all these fun female aliens and primarily focus on what they would appear like – as a female. Versus showing a male then “girlifying” it. The first of these species is a very humanoid looking race called the Tiviet (that’s tiv-e-eht in case you’re curious). The idea behind them was fairly simple. Because I love comics, movies and pretty much all things in entertainment – I thought some homage would be in order. As a kid – I was always fascinated by the design of the mutant Nightcrawler from marvel comics. So when I started designing my first humanoid species – I thought it would be a kick to give them a tail and pointy ears like one of my favorite lil mutants. From there though – it just went kinda crazy.
The Tiviet is actually an all female species that lost their male race to a war long ago. Over the many centuries since then, the Tiviet have experimented with cloning, regenerating male DNA or crossbreeding with other suitable alien species. None of which has resulted in anything substantial. After realizing this was the case the Tiviet – a long lived species to begin with – began messing with the merging of machine. The result are hybrid cyborgs that look mostly human.
From the abdomen down their bodies have been – in some cases – completely removed and made into machine. Since most of their vital organs are here and they have no need for reproduction – it was considered the easiest way to incorporate all the tech needed to prolong their already lengthy lifespan. Many Tiviet keep their tails though as their culture had risen around the it.
When away from their homeworld, the Tiviet like to accentuate their humanoid bits since cybernetics, while available is typically frowned upon as machines are considered a slave race. As such they wear revealing tops and long skirts that cover their less fleshy parts. Keep in mind in this design – i made the skirt longer and gave her some exaggerated legs for effect.
So – since posting the preliminary image of the Hadlock – I’ve been wrestling with the idea that they look too “Macy’s Day Parade” and not near enough like an alien in a compression suit. I’ve since been pouring over the design, trying bigger bodies like the Jenaki, smaller bodies, and even going back to some older designs that look like walking Iron Maidens.
So far – none of it is hitting a chord. Perhaps if I share the various designs – I might get some feedback that can spurn me in a new direction. Thoughts – as always are appreciated. And if anyone pushes for what my personal favorite is. The last one with the two exaggerated body types seems to appeal to me.
So as you may or may not have guessed by now – there are aliens in my story. In fact the majority of the characters you’ll get to know as the webstrip begins will almost ALL be of an alien species. And as fun as that sounds – there are downsides for me.
#1 - make a multitude of alien species that I can use without risk of copyright infringement.
#2 – making a multitude of alien species I think are interesting and can draw week after week.
#3 – trying to do something other than the classic “bumpy forehead” aliens or something similar where everyone looks humanoid for no real reason (other than actors with latex appliances on their faces).
So I sat down and started to ponder quite a few of the races I wanted to use and sure enough - a lot of them look very humanoid. I started thinking outside of the box, wondering where I could go that might prove to be interesting. Then one night – I’m watching Hellboy 2 and I noticed the character of Kraus. A german chracter who is made up of some whispy looking smoke.
I thought to myself – wow – that’s a wild idea. An intelligent cloud of gas…it sounds funny but also just weird enough that it could work. I mean – really – who’s to say there aren’t self aware clouds out there right?
Set on my task – I started to come up with ideas for how they could look, and I came up with the idea that the species (known as the Hadlock) would come from a planet with an atmosphere that can widely vary depending on the location. One unified link would connect them all though – because the atmosphere is generally too dense – the Hadlock had to move between the gases and in fact had to BE gas in order to survive in these extreme conditions.
As they evolved and left their world – they needed suits that could allow them to survive in atmospheres far less dense than their own but could adjust as needed since they were so sensitive to the external pressures of various planets. The end result is a very baggy hyper redundant self locking suit that can inflate and deflate as to the Hadlock’s needs. In low atmospheres – the suit would expand – adding pressue to keep the Hadlock comfortable and in high pressure atmospheres it would be extremley baggy – almost to the point of silly.
While finishing this idea – I also though that it would be neat that when the Hadlock do wander around in their natural hard atmosphere gas states – that they would use what we percieve as arms as a second set of legs. While they can walk around and almost be completely solid to our standards, they find the use of an extra set of limbs for moving around very freeing. As such they typically have very long arms that can touch the ground. Take a look – and let me know what you think!
- Shaun
So – one of the new races that I’ve worked out to the end is a species called the Jenaki. I named them after a friend of mine from college who just had one of those names that made me go – what a nifty sounding name. So when it came time to name my first species – Jenaki came up.
I can’t say too much about them except that they work for the Grey’s, they have no hair obviously. And their brains aren’t as large as most developed cultures (no reflection on the actual Jenaki). Here’s a sketch.
A fairly decent idea of the Jenaki body type.
So for the next few days I’m going to finish putting up all of the alien and mechanical races in my story. At least one of each. Some don’t have names yet – but that’ll change. Thoughts are always welcome.
I’ve been struggling with some ideas as far as style. I think I’m getting close – but now I’m worried Veal’s face wont translate right. Can’t live in fear though. So I churned out some quick body sketches to get an idea about proportion and how a multitude of male bodies might look like. Enjoy!
Some Quick Body Studies Cleaned Up.
Some test ideas on what a Grey might look like.
So today – I thought I’d start off with the sample image. The subject of the past few days/week has been what a “Grey” might look like. Yes – we’re aliens’ territory now. The simple fact is – I’ve always been fascinated and terrified of these lil Grey guys since I was a small kid. Nothing to keep me up at nights like some – but still, grey men with big black lidless eyes. Creepy.
So when it came time to start pondering what sort of aliens would populate this story – I immediately knew I would be inserting the Greys and their wacky association with abductions, area 51 and all the mythos I could find. And sure enough – it works thematically. But then came the tricky part. What would they look like that makes them a lil interesting?
One of the big changes I made is to address their gender: they don’t have one. In fact they see gender as a disease. Another change was the way their bodies look. While they might strike us as a humanoid shape – I wanted to give them a fluidity and malleability that will come in later – allowing them to squeeze in tight spots and more or less be a real intrusive headache. So at major joints I worked up some loose flesh and did a quick sketch of how any bone in their skeleton could detach and rearrange itself if needed.
But as for now I’m stuck on the above 4 designs. They are all pretty similar except some torso, head shapes. Take a look and let me know what you think! Most votes will be heavily considered!
So far it seems pretty much like the standard Roswell Grey. But trust me – by the end – you won’t even see them coming…
So I spent some of this afternoon going over what Veal’s body should look like. Build type, scars etc… but he keeps coming out a lil too thin. Waif-like even. When I envision him, he looks thin, but not sickly and when working in a cartoon/comic medium an artist tends to exaggerate in order to sell the concept behind the characters. In this case, Veal starts off very much in his prime but not overly muscled; quite literally a prime piece of Veal meat.
Finding that balance though, between thin and what would appear succulent and something beefy or all even worse, altogether too skinny is proving to be a bit of a challenge. In some cases, it almost feels like a female body. Which is fine but not quite what I was looking for. I would put up the sketches, but I want to tackle this a bit more before asking for feedback…
But on the other hand, if I don’t – I can’t get any feedback. Begrudgingly…some very 5 minute sketches. And please keep in mind this is just body typing, so while he may be technically naked – he won’t end up that way.
Trying to get a feel for Veal's Proportions. Not feeling it yet.
Hi all and welcome to VealBlog!
Since this is my first post, I thought I’d take some time to explain the purpose of this website and give you a smidge of insight as to what VealBlog actually is. The VealBlog is a way of keeping track of my creation process, from the very beginning all the way through to the release of the first page of my webcomic “Veal”. I figure that it was an excellent way of organizing my thoughts, sharing them with the world and preparing me to keep an online publication of my work. On that note I will should be making posts here 4-5 times a week. It’s also a place where; I hope, to get feedback from various peoples interested in the idea of my webcomic or perhaps want to share in the creative experience.
After all – no one creates in a vacuum, certainly not me. So in order to fully realize this idea, I want to get feedback and test ideas. So who better than the entire world right? As this Blog goes on, I will post tidbits of information about creating various characters, peoples, looks, etc… Basically everything from the ground up. While you won’t know how it exactly fits together till I release the webcomic itself, you’ll have a god idea of what to expect. In theory.
Now as to “Veal” the webcomic; about two years ago, I came up with this weird idea of a talking cow walking around and more less scaring the tar out of folks and giving everyone a good laugh. This was on the heels of me making the decision that my next project I would work on – would be something completely my own. So while washing dishes – the inkling of this idea came to me. What if Cows could talk? Or specifically one cow – all of a sudden, and just started acting like anyone else. How would we handle that?
It seemed like a strong idea, but I didn’t want to have this anthropomorphized cow running. It just didn’t feel like me. So I started to ponder the various ideas of how I could make the idea more “me”. I like to try and turn things on its ear to see it from a different perspective so I went at making the cow something more relatable for us. And then it hit me. What if humans were the cows? What if people ate us? What if we were killed by the thousands daily? And the idea started to come together. It went from this very lighthearted story to a funny, but darker tale that will (I hope) turn the mirror on ourselves which is what all great fiction tries to do usually.
So yes, Veal is about a young man who is part of a herd of humans who are about to be harvested. Of course though – the twist is when our main character actually escapes and when asked what his name is – he tells them the only thing he has ever been identified by: Veal.
So as you can see – it’s a bit different, but has some very interesting merit. And since this is also the place where I will share some of my very fledgling ideas, let’s start with Veal himself. I have been working on this idea for so long, that it’s come time to start laying out what Veal looks like exactly. I know he will start off Bald (to be explained later) and that he will be fairly attractive for a human. I also know that he will be of an ethnicity that is not strictly white. We see so many heroes today in sci-fi and fiction in general that I figured it’s time to give the Asians, Hispanics, Indian, Native Americans, and Africans a shot at being the awesome guy.
Below are some quick red pencil sketches of Veal in a “Disney” style. I’m still hashing out the exact style this will be drawn in – but I figured you have to start somewhere and I really enjoyed the design work from Atlantis the Lost Empire. So you may notice a similar motif with the faces. I also did some color tests as well to see what might look best for Veal. Let me know what you think!
A Study of what Veal's features may look like.
