STAR WARS: The Elites

Isotope Studios

2011-06-10T22:15:00.027-04:00

As this current project starts to take shape, Elijah and I have been able to figure out how all of the different designs, models, and functional elements of the game will fit together. Now there is only one last real hurdle to get past: making a fully animated artificial intelligence (AI) driven character. Now we are well on our way to getting past this obstacle and we have decided on a name for the studio that we are currently (occasionally unwittingly and slowly) forming.

Because the game takes place after years of a nuclear winter brought on by all out nuclear war, we decided to go with a name that speaks of radiation and/or nuclear weapons in general. The name that we have decided on: Isotope Studios (for those of you that don't know each element that is radioactive has different Isotopes). Kind of has a nice ring to it right?

One of the other major leaps that we have made is the completion of the mesh, rigging, and animating of the model that I have been working on for the past two weeks. This means that we are one step closer in achieving a working AI character.

Demo Coming Soon!

2011-05-09T14:38:00.019-04:00

Ever have that day where you just can't concentrate on school work? You have such a good idea, and you have to get it down on paper, or just do whatever it is. I hate it when that happens, its makes you very conflicted, one part of you wants to finish up school while the other half wants to work on something you enjoy doing. OK, so i decided to start working on a Unity scene, which will become a demo for our game. Basically this is like a practice run for me in Unity mechanics and physics.(sorry people following me on Buzz, you'll have to see this one again....)

After finishing the controller, the objects and other pieces of the scene, i realized it was 4:00, two hours after i had started. "OH CRAP!!" I still had Math and Latin left to do. Man, I CANNOT wait for summer.

One Big Freaking Update

2011-05-05T10:20:00.036-04:00

As I stated in one of my previous posts, I have started to use 11" x 17" Bristol Board for the next issue (which is currently on hold due to a video game project). Unfortunately, there is only one problem, my scanner is too small (%@$@!!!)! So, i have no way to fix this at the moment. Maybe over the summer I can work on it.

Update on the Game (still un-named): The first level is finally in production, with the terrain in creation, i have to start all of the modelling in blender. Including armatures and other elements of a model. I have also figured out how to make a menu, using about ten lines of C# (Right).

I have also figured out composition nodes in blender (finally!). I wanted to fix the color in the picture and add a blur (which is barely noticeable)(below) (Maybe I'll make a tutorial for this soon).

As you can see, it has warmer colors than the previous image.

Tests Stink.... (Except These)

2011-03-31T19:15:00.000-04:00

For the last two and a half weeks Elijah and I have been working on the (still unamed) video game, er, ok maybe not the actual video game. We have more been concentrating on functionality and getting the look right. We have decided that the game will center around a post apocalyptic world, with the world thrown into a nuclear winter. So far we have come up with around five test scenes, with only two of them looking (somewhat) like a finished video game.

This test scene I made this morning to just figure out how to make destroyable buildings. and make a good looking game....

.... and this scene was made to prove that I could texture a post apoc game, while figuring out functionality (exploding crates, machinegun animation, chainguns, sentry guns, etc.).

I hope to get a beta out for the game by the end of this year, and possibly a finished game by spring 2012....

Bump This Post!

2011-03-13T21:11:00.000-04:00


An ice texture that looks transparent but really isn't. It's messing with your mind!!

Whenever you look at something computer generated, whether it be in a movie or in a video game, the color, the dents in the armor, and even the reflection in the shiny metal, all contribute to the realness of the model. Usually, CG models in movies are much more detailed in the mesh that is modeled to begin with than those that are in video games. The models that are used in video games that are built with programs like Blender or Unity by amateurs (like Eli and I, even though it doesn't look like it *wink *wink *nudge *nudge) are called "low poly" models. This means that the models have fewer vertices or faces in them. To make these low poly models look realistic, the developer makes a texture. To fake detail, a developer uses something called "bump mapping". This means it takes all the dark areas of an image and make them look like they are pitted and takes the light areas and makes them look raised.

The texture above (and to the right) is made with different shaders and cube maps, so many in fact I just cant remember how many. For the second texture, I used a texture from CG textures.com. When I saw it I though "OH! this thing is just what I was looking for!!!!!"

Well, That Went Fast

2011-03-03T09:23:00.003-05:00

Now that Elijah and I have started to work in Unity to start developing a video game, we haven't had much time to put thought into the blog and comic book. But, since I have a little time before I have to start school, I just thought I would turn on some Alice In Chains (NOT Bieber!!! Or Katy Perry, or any artist from that crappy genre.) and start writing about how we will be posting the last part of Resurrection....

Wait a minute?!!! did I just say last part? Yup, I did. With this post I will be concluding the first part of the Nihilus trilogy..... In which Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Nihilus wreaks havoc on the known universe. For those of you Star Wars fan, I am sure that some of the characters and vehicles do'nt look like the normal characters and vehicle and movies. You are RIGHT!!!!

In this art, our commandos begin a mission that will send them deep into the core of the galaxy, and Darth Nihilus will start to built an elite army to wrest the control of the galaxy from the hands of the Jedi and the Seperatists.

Star Wars: The Elite pt 4

Developing a Video Game----- For Free!

2011-02-11T11:46:00.002-05:00

With the three programs shown above, you can make your own video game..... for FREE! The only catch is that you have to learn how. But that's not much of a problem, because all three programs have excellent support available online. First, you would need GIMP which is available for free at www.gimp.org, we are using GIMP to make all of our textures. Then you will need to download Unity which is also available for free at www.unity3d.com/unity. Unity is what's called a game engine, you use it to control the physics as well as all the objects in the game. Last, you need to download blender, which, like I have said before, is available for free at www.blender.org (BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD 2.56 Beta!!). We use Blender to model all our objects, as well as texturing and animation.

While these tools take some getting used to, are amazing. For instance, in Blender, you can make riging for the character's animation. One more tool that you would find helpful is Makehuman. Makehuman is a program that automatically makes human 3D models that can be imported into Blender or Unity. Oh and I forgot to mention, all these programs are compatible with each other! Makehuman is available at www.makehuman.org.

Now that Elijah and I are going to start developing a video game, we will be using these tools A LOT! And if you ever decide to make a video game, these programs are a must!

Game Design Concept

2011-02-05T15:57:00.000-05:00

Now that Elijah and i have started to begin a video game, I have been trying to think of concepts for enemies and main characters. So far I only have one concept completely finished. When you first take a look at this, It looks pretty hard to do. But that is really not the case, I downloaded a script base program called "Makehuman" This program allows me to make humans with just a few steps. The gasmask and armor won't be too hard because they can be converted into an angular kind of mesh easily.

You can download Makehuman at www.makehuman.org

The State of the Blog

2011-01-29T15:06:00.003-05:00

About this time every year the President of the US gives a speech on what the country is like and how it has changed over the past year. For those who are all wondering why I am saying this, here is your answer: This blog post is something like the equivalent of the State of the Union Address for this blog.

Actually, it was one year ago today that we started this blog, since then we have grown somewhat. When we started the blog, we were still working on the second issue and hadn't done much else yet. Now, we have finished our third issue and have started working on the 4th issue which will be called "Crossroads". Not to mention, I have started painting almost all digitally. We also have been working in Blender and Unity quite a lot. We are thinking about developing a video game using these tools after we finish the comic book. Believe me, this video game is in the earliest stages of conceptualization, right now we are just trying to figure out how to make the textures and the animations that we want.

Well, I got to tell you, this blog is doing pretty well. And in the next year, we will have a lot more content coming, such as the end of the Resurrection trilogy.

Again Demo?

2011-01-18T17:40:00.002-05:00

Demo always seems to be getting into trouble. First he was shot using an exoskeleton and now he nearly blew himself up. We gotta stop picking on him...... But seriously, the turn of events in the next few parts will shape our commando's fate.
Of course now is the start of the looooong process of making the art of Issue #4..... it's so early in the process that we don't even know what we are going to call it yet.

pt. 4

Issue #4 Lift Off!

2011-01-17T17:57:00.000-05:00

This past week, Elijah just finished, for the most part, the final script for the 4th issue. And I have finally started drawing the pencils for this issue. I will be coloring this Issue in Corel Painter, which I used for part of Resurrection. I think that it looks better with the watercolor texture than it does with GIMPS textures. Also, I got Adobe Photoshop Elements for Christmas, so I thought I would experiment with it....

I know that I have been raving about how great GIMP is.... but the truth is that it IS an amazing program. Unfortunately I have found that Elements is a better way to get the grittiness that I want. I dunno what you guys will think.... let me know... should I stick with GIMP or move over to Elements. Post what you think in the comments.

3D Awesomness

2011-01-08T13:19:00.001-05:00

A couple posts ago, I introduced you guys to Blender. Lately I have been experimenting with this neat program. There are so many great tutorials out there for Blender, these were a tremendous help! From some tutorial off of Youtube, I was able to figure out Smoke and cloth simulations in Blender, right now, I cant find the smoke animation but I do have the cloth ones. Unfortunately, these are around 1230-150 MB so they are too big for putting on blogger. However, I have been working with another tutorial on creating a puddle scene. I am planning to animate this scene with bits of water and maybe making a street scene. The tutorial is available if you click Here. Blender is available for download Here.
There is so much that you can do with this program, and now with the release of Blender 2.56 Beta it is a lot easier to use.
Anyhoo, here is the finished image:

End of the (2) Year

2010-12-30T13:22:00.000-05:00

It was two years ago that I first came to Elijah and asked him if he wanted to write a comic book for me...... and now two years later we have completed 3 long issues. To sum it all up in a nutshell, we have moved from completely traditional to the digital relm. We have gone from B&W to full color and have made our issues longer and the story more developed. We have also been careful to have no continuity errors...... check it, there are none!

What's coming up next: We plan to have even longer issues, as well as better art utilizing 3d models. Bigger pages, we will be using 17" x 11" paper, which is a huge page. We plan to add more characters and giving our existing characters some depth, such as if they have a family and other factors.

Top 10 things that have happened since then:
10. We published our first issue
9. We went digital! This gave us a lot of flexibility....
8. We started the blog. This gave us a great way to get our comic out to the public.
7. Finally finishing the third issue. This took us 9 months to complete and was a relief that it was finally done.
6. We discovered GIMP. GIMP was a lifesaver for us, out of multiple crashes and software failures, GIMP was always there and ready to be used.
5. Elijah found multiple sites that were free and had great use for us, one such site is du share. This site is a P2P transfer site. That we have used on numerous occasions....
4. I got a tablet. This tablet combined with GIMP really helped us make our third issue look great.
3. Finishing our second issue. This was actually a real ground breaker for us. Not only had we used color, but we used a different kind of method for the art and lettering.
2. Getting a laptop. Actually, I just got a laptop for Christmas. I am still getting over the shock.
1. Going to NYCC. Comic Con was great! It was awesome that Elijah could dress up in costume, as Nihilus no less! I met so many helpful artists that gave me pointers on where I should go from here, as well as one artist who was just a #$@&. But all in all it was a great experience, and I think my Mom enjoyed herself. Sadly, my Dad was not able to go with me I think that he would have really enjoyed it.


GIMP gave us the opportunity to make art with whatever we want.

Lastly we have some thanks to give out: Special thanks to the Blease and Bolluyt families for the use of computers, money, space etc. as well as their support and encouragement. Thanks also Youtube for hundreds of hours of entertaining music, as well as du share and join.me for making collaboration easier. So from Elijah and Ben at EB Comics, we thank you for reading this blog and we hope that you will continue to read this blog and its contents.

Bring on the BFD (Big Freakin Droid)!!!!!!

2010-12-30T11:31:00.001-05:00

When we first started this issue, it had just snowed and Elijah and I were on the phone throwing around ideas. It amazes me that the amount of snow did not take away from our concentration (ever try to get someone to concentrate when there is a foot and a half of snow out there?). Then, suddenly, I thought, what if we had a really HUGE droid in this issue. And Elijah's response to that was "Um, yeah, sure, why not?" So, this next part of the epic tale of our commandos centers on one thing a BIG FREAKING DROID!! Copywrite 2010 by EB comics. This dude may not be used in any other comic without the consent of the governed, in other words the consent of Ben Blease and Elijah Bolluyt. Any person that steals a peice of our comic will get a wack on the head from the "Mallet O' Understanding". Copywrite 2009 Pearls Before Swine Inc.

Star Wars: The Elite Part 3

FREE TIME! (or something resembling it)

2010-12-28T16:31:00.000-05:00

Now that I have a week before school starts, I got some time to do what I want. This means that one day I will sled nonstop for 6 hours and the other days I will have a couple snowball fights while there is still snow on the ground. Today, I have been working in blender and drawing for the whole day. I just finished a terminator painting as well as a Master Chief painting. The terminator one was originally a pencil sketch that was later colored in GIMP. The Master Chief was just painted in GIMP. I am still not happy with the background, but I guess it works. I just hope that people who have actually seen "The Terminator" don't come to me and say "YOU %#$@$ THATS NOT HOW THE TERMINATOR LOOKS!!!"

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-26T12:14:00.000-05:00

This Christmas, like every artist would, I drew some of my gifts. Mostly, I draw my gifts for my mom. This year, I decided to draw a poster with Lilly pads.I finished the painting and emailed it to my dad. I emailed it to him so he could take it to a printer and have it printed onto a poster. Dad suggested that i should have it printed on a mug or something like that. I agreed and had dad print it, needless to say that mom loved the mug. Also, this year I got a high end laptop with 4 GB of RAM and 500 GB of HDD space. This is going to be perfect to draw on!

Blend It!

2010-12-23T18:00:00.000-05:00


The mannequin itself.

It is amazing how much we have improved over the course of this project. The art, the characters, the story, EVERYTHING! After every issue we ask ourselves: "How can we improve on this?" With Resurrection I did the pencils in a sketchbook on a thinner paper, as well as only drawing on one side. Not only did I do this, but I decided to take my time on each panel and think it through, as well as roughing out my shapes before the final sketch. This time around, we will be using paper that will make our pages a whopping 11" x 17" and I will be using a 3D mannequin. The mannequin that I have been using up until now is very small and has worked in the past. But with with bigger pages comes a bigger mannequin. This was a mannequin that I downloaded off of the web and is posed in blender.

Blender is like the Gimp of 3D programs and is completely free! This mannequin will allow me to draw better proportions on the page itself. Blender is available for download here. Once you download it, start playing around with it and watching tutorials. Trust me, this is the only way to learn to use it! I have only been working with it for around two days and I am just starting to get the hang of it, all thanks to the great tutorials at the blender homepage and other sources such as blender nation.

"Afraid to Get Wet?!"

2010-12-21T16:23:00.000-05:00

Davy Jones will take your soul.... well, that's the theory anyway. Davy Jones has got to be one of the coolest looking among the crew of the Flying Dutchman. I thought I would paint him because he looks so darn COOL! Plus as a bonus, this is the first day of Christmas vacation for me, so I had time to spare.

I think I am going to color a drawing I did of a Mando Warrior next. I think I am going to try it in PS elements with just a mouse.

Resurrection! pt 2!

2010-12-19T16:22:00.000-05:00

Here is the second part of Resurrection, this is where the fighting really starts.

pt 2

SPARTANS are colored! (and a color study.)

2010-12-19T16:08:00.000-05:00

Do you remember that post with the pencil drawing of the SPARTANS? I recently colored it and tried a new technique with how I separate the black from the white. SPARTANS rule!

A looooooong time ago, I drew a color study of Geonosian architecture. Probably the most interesting architecture in the Star Wars universe. This color study is a lamp that can by found in the Geonosian Catacombs.

This painting was done in Corel Painter Essentials 4. Got to say, before I started painting on the computer, I didn't really like painting at all. Then I did some research and found a great digital painting tutorial on Youtube. After that, I just kept painting and painting. In fact, the "Lava Flow" painting was the very first digital painting I did.

OBEY VADER!

2010-12-13T15:25:00.000-05:00

A while ago, I was searching through art blogs, I came across a blog that had a post about an online graffiti tool. I though to myself "what if i tried to do this in GIMP?". You can view the original post here.
Thought it would be cool to do this with Vader.

Resurrection!

2010-12-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

The third issue is finally here! This is the first part of a three-part arc that pits our commandos against the Dark Lord Darth Nihilus!
pt. 1

Bring on the Wiki!

2010-12-10T13:06:00.000-05:00

We have just started the wiki! We just have to write a lot more articles, so far we have just finished Demo, Smog, and CRT-227 Sniper droid. My goal at least is to reach one hundred articles at some point in time. Click here to go to the Wiki itself.

A few months ago, I drew a very cool pencil sketch of master chief and a few other SPARTANS. I am about to color it with GIMP. But, I need to resize it. My Pentium II laptop can't handle 1 MB pictures. Unfortunately, this highly limits the resolution of my paintings. But just to show you what the drawing looks like before it is painted I am going to post the picture right about.......................................... here.

2010-12-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

This year, I had to write a research paper on a career of my choice. I (of course) chose to do a comic artist. You can read the essay here.

Also in the news: We will be creating a wiki! It will be called EB comics wiki and will have descriptions on every single character from our comic book. From background characters to the four commandos themselves. There will also be explanations of where our characters came from and who they are exactly.

Concept: Sniper Droid

2010-12-03T11:24:00.000-05:00

Issue three is done. Well not quite. All the art is done but we are having trouble converting it to PDF form. So as Elijah is struggling to convert it, I have been painting some concept art. As our issues go on, we will be getting more and more characters and vehicles inside the comics themselves. The following painting is of a concept that I drew a few months ago, but I wanted to get it in full color and context. More concepts coming soon!

... All With a Cat on my Lap

2010-11-21T17:14:00.000-05:00

While I was lying around watching TV, I just thought to myself: "You know, I wonder if anyone made a painting with the bat singnal in it. I went upstairs and booted up my old laptop. I started out with making the clouds with a soft bush setted on pretty high opacity. Then I just tinted it yellow, imposed to bat sign and blurred around it. Then I drew the building in the foreground. Finished it up by drawing the city spread out in the background. All in all a great painting I think. It is now Elijah's wallpaper on his ipod. I did almost all of this with a cat purring and sitting on my lap.

"That's What You Get When You Mess With a Spartan!"

2010-11-11T16:56:00.000-05:00

With the release of Halo: Reach there were a lot of new and cool MJOLNIR armor designs. One of the coolest SPARTAN ever was Emile-A239. He has a neat graphic that is on his wierd looking helmet. He was one of the more agressive SPARTANS and was later killed by an Elite.

I started the painting by just making the basic form with a large brush set on medium opacity. Then I used a smaller brush to make an outline aroung it. This was all created in GIMP. The magic wand was the easiest to use for the background holding down the "Shift" key in order to select multiple areas. Took me around 2-3 hours for me to paint. I really wish I could get the Shotgun to look better.

"I'm not Wearing Hockey Pants!"

2010-11-06T20:41:00.001-04:00

Even though I have never seen Batman: the Dark Knight, I still know that line. It's Eli's favourite line to recite. However, I have seen Batman Begins. Which, I think is the best Batman movie of all time. I decided to do a painting of Batman on the computer, however I am still getting used to using a pen tablet with GIMP and an old laptop. Instead of drawing it from scratch, I just outlined a poster from Batman begins. So this painting is not technically owned by me, I just did it for practice, but I am still really proud of it and I want to share it with you guys.

New Book(ish thing)

2010-10-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

We now have only four pages to color before I am completely done with the comic book's art. I have now been using GIMP with all my colored pages scince my last computer died. Scince we are so close to completion, I will have a little time to relax and work on something that I have been wanting to do for a long time.

I am going to make a ten or so page booklet about how to color, make effects and other things in GIMP. It will not include the tutorials that I wrote in the tutorials section. These will be more advanced than those. The kind of art I'll show you how to color looks something like this drawing.

I am going to post this on our Scrib.com profile, so check it out in about 10 days or so.

What the Heck is That Guy Saying!? Mando'a 101

2010-10-14T16:38:00.003-04:00

Ke nu jurkad sha Mando'ade, burc'ya!

The phrase above means "don't cross swords with Mandos mate!"

Before I get started with what mandalorian is, I have to give you a little background, Jango Fett's parents were killed by the Mandalorian Death Watch, a splinter group that was in conflict with the original Mandalorian warriors, when Jango was rescued by the True Mandalorians, he was given a choice, stay here and die, or come with them. As Jango learned the ways of the Mandalorians he began to embrace their culture.

The Mandalorians ressurected by Boba Fett as Manda'lore.

When the Kaminoans came to him about using his genetic template for a new army of clones, he was no longer a Mandalorian, but a bounty hunter masquerading in Mandalorian armor. He helped design the clones armor and weapons. After Jango was killed on Geonosis, The GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) hired the Mandalorian Mercenary named Kal Skirata.

Kal Skirata saved two young ARC troopers that were about to be terminated by the Kminoan scientists, as they were deemed too "unstable" Kal later adopted them and some of the other commandos as his sons. Because of the background of Jango Fett, Skirata thought it would be important for the clones to learn about the Mandalorians. Thus Mando'a became the language of the troopers.

First, Greatings, the Mandalorians are not usually polite, and even though Mandos are not real, you could still talk to your friends in Mando'a, and you could use it when you are reading Star Wars material (especially ours). Basic greatings are, Su'cuy! or So, your still alive!, and thats about it.

Mandalorians speak wisely, and straight to the point, as Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya means "train your sons to be strong, but your daughters stronger.

A mandalorian wedding.

As the grammer of Mando'a is not extensive I'll list some basics here:
There are no Genders in the language as Mando's believe in equality.
Infinitive virbs end in -ir, -ar, -ur, -or, or -er and all that you need to do to find the stem is to subtract the r.
The apostraphe or beten in Mando'a is to seperate the second part of the word and marks the pause that all Mandalorians have in their accents.
Instead of saying "It's good" they would say jate which just means good. They do this mostly to save time.
Mandalorians use prefixes for helping verbs such as "don't" as Nu'ni juri kad means I don't carry a saber, Nu is the prefix for don't, if a Mando were asking you a question they would use the prefix tion so tion'gar verorad'ni means "are you hiring me?" while "you are hiring me." means Gar verord'ni.
If a gender was needed to be specified then the adjectives jagyc or dalyc meaning male or female. While the word buir means both mother and father, the words jagyc buir means father and dalyc buir means mother.
There is no "f" "x" or "z" in mandalorian and the "s" is pronounced as "z", "d" is pronounced kind of like "t"
Syntax is just like English, Subject, Verb, DO

Mando'a is mostly spoken in the home and not to outsiders. A classic phrase is Aliit ori'shya tal'din which means "family is more than bloodline" Where as Alliit= family and ori'shya= more than and tal'din=bloodline

For the full Mando'a dictionary go to this site.

So to translate "Ni Jetiise sa ner jugyc'buir!" we don't need to change the order. This means "I'm a Jedi, like my father!" And the term "mirci't am teh tayler solus solus ehn sh'ehn" means "prisoner change from hold 1138" because Mando'a doesn't have a word for "cell block" or "transfer", I had to use "hold" and "change". So in basic it means "Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138".

"Ret'urcye tsikador ori bat cuun ramikad verde!" (Get ready for more on our commando soldiers!)

Comic Con (and Wookiees!)

2010-10-14T11:03:00.001-04:00

Well I know that it has been around a month and a half since I last posted, three reasons, my computer crashed, been buried by homework and I went to Comic Con New York. Let's look at the last one, we only live around an hour and a half away from New York City so it was pretty easy for us to hop on a bus to Manhattan. And let me tell you, Comic Con was AWESOME! There were so many people dressed up in costume there, and I got a picture with a wookiee and a stormtrooper, not to mention there was a guy in front of the 20th century dressed in a really cool Robo Cop costume. I met artists that were kind enough to review my portfolio and give me pointers and tips on what I can improve on, I also got an autograph from an artist that works at lucasfilm. So check out some of the pictures that we took.

At 6'4" I am almost as tall as a wookie, and the guy in the suit was on stilts!

Elijah made a mask of our main character (3rd issue).

Not a real stormtrooper but still cool.

They had some great Lego sculptures there as well as....

a chalk artist

Robocop!

Concept Art Galore!

2010-08-28T18:11:00.000-04:00

Star Wars the Elite: Resurrection still has a while to go before it is ready to publish. It will be the best art that I have done yet and has a more intricate story than ever. If you missed any part of the last issue, then check out my Scribd profile where I will be posting our second issue in parts, just like on this blog. The only difference between Scribd and the blog is that you get art tutorials, a gallery, plot summaries, comic book reviews and original concept art.

Because Resurrection still has a lot of work to do, I will mostly be posting on my Concept Art page
There I will post original concept art and talk about the ideas behind them. And of course I will update all my other pages as I usually do, especially the Gallery page. So keep checking back, we will definately have more content for you.

Things Change

2010-08-13T13:44:00.000-04:00

Now that we have finished issue #2, we are changing the complete appearance of our blog. Plus, we are adding an additional page to our list. The page will be all about comic book review, not just Star Wars comic books but other great books as well. And of course we will have all our regular posting. If you ever get curious as to how I make the headers at the top and the bottom of the page, I will soon show you just how I did it. Buckle up, because in the next few months it will be a wild ride for our commandos, and for you.

We Have You Surrounded! This is a Double Post!

2010-07-31T13:06:00.001-04:00

Post #1: Stuff I Like, Colored Pencils

You may have noticed that most of my hand drawings (comic book or otherwise) are colored using colored pencils. The quality of your work sometimes depends on the quality of your colored pencils. At first I didn't want to color the second issue at all. But my mom gave me some cheap Roseart pencils. I colored a few pages with these until Christmas came around, on Christmas morning I opened two packs of Artist's Loft colored pencils. One pack was regular colors while the other pack was metallic (very handy at coloring ships and vehicles). These colored pencils work great, I have been using them ever since Christmas on the comic book and just about everything else that needs coloring. Pros: Great colors and lots of them , long lasting. Cons: Can't erase! (most colored pencils can't)

Post #2: Concept, Droid Frigate

Every navy needs support ships, right? A while ago, I realized that I was so caught up in the republic ships that I entirely forgot CIS ships. I wanted to mimic the curves of the ships from Episode III, the Recusant-class destroyer, and the munificent-class frigate (shown below).

Recusant-class light destroyer

Munificent class frigate

I took the curves from both ships and kind of altered them to look really cool.

Took me about an hour to get them to look just right. I am glad I was able to!

Last Part (Whoo hoo!)

2010-07-30T18:53:00.001-04:00

This is the last part of our second issue, in which you will discover the fate of the other commandos. I am going to experiment with this PDF format, I think that it will save me time in the next comic book. plus, it's bigger. All that you need to do is click on "fullscreen" then scroll down to read. So sit back and enjoy the read.

Don't be a Blob!!

2010-07-16T16:18:00.000-04:00

A while ago, Elijah, my brother Max and I all tried to make a movie, it was going to be a stop motion lego movie. We were basicly getting nothing done but we did make a pretty good short movie with Indiana Jones. Soon after, we sold our house that was down the street from Eli's and moved about ten miles north to the country. This basicly ruined our movie and we had to call it off. That January I called Elijah up and asked, "Hey Eli, I have been really, really board lately, I was thinking it would be cool if we could make a comic book." And of course Elijah said, "um OK." From the experience with the movie I know how hard it is to make a stop motion short (let alone a movie), these two studios have both done an amazing job with their stop motion. Leftfield studios and Blob studios have both made amazing shorts and movies. Check 'em out, you'll probably think they are both really good.

Tripped Again

2010-07-08T13:36:00.000-04:00

We were on our way to the movies. and I had to go close the garage doors. So I walked outside and of course I wasn't looking where I was going (again) so I didn't notice the garden hose across lying across the sidewalk. And of course I tripped over it, before I knew it I was on the ground with my kneecap dislocated. So I started yelling: "^#@^%$#*&^%*%*##!!#@$#@%$^^%$^%^#$*&%(*)(**_)&(*(%^%!" My Mom called 911 and the ambulance took me to the hospital. Now I am just in the house, its a hundred degrees outside and I have to keep my foot up all day. Right before I tripped I drew a pretty awesome piece of artwork. I dunno, maybe I needed to get it out of me before I couldn't go to my desk anymore. Once again I say, Cool huh?

Boredom, It'sthe Stuff of Legends

2010-06-26T21:41:00.000-04:00

Ok, so it was a hot Saturday afternoon, and I was bored, nothing on TV, nothing to do on the computer, I decided to do what I usually resort to, drawing. I went up to the little building that we have by the pool, this is the place where I usually draw in, cranked up the music and just started doodling. After around five minutes of drawing and looking through comic books, I started to figure out what I wanted to do. I think that this is definitely the best Imperial Star destroyer that I have drawn to date, and the nebula give it a really neat effect,

I just scanned it in with my EPSON Perfection V350 Photo, opened it in Gimp and followed the steps that I showed you in Tutorial #3 in my Instructions for Digital Tools and Art page. I think it came out pretty well, if you have a comment, about how I could make it better or complements, just click on the comments link bellow.

Because I do most of my work in GIMP, I find that it does have some certain limitations, so this leads me to lesson number one of my philosophy.

Lesson #1

Use a bunch of free stuff all at the same time, it will save you money, believe me.

With that said I think I will end this post with a probably overused but still good ending, Keep on drawing!

Conceptualizing! (but having a hard time)

2010-06-25T18:25:00.001-04:00

Some days, ideas just don't come. Maybe they are asleep, on vacation, who knows, but some days they just don't come. The best thing to do is crack a can of root beer, listen to some music, and read a book. But other days, ideas hit when you are just falling asleep, in church, or at school. On these days, I just hold the idea until after school, church, or I wake up. This concept came to me when I was standing in church. I thought, "hey, every army should have a boarding ship, right?" So, I came up with this design, the teeth in the front boar through a ship's hull and vehicle pour out the boarding tube.

Comceptualize, Conceptualize

2010-06-20T10:28:00.000-04:00

Nearly every major project that is grounded in visuals has a concept artist creating new designs for the universe they are building, in the case of our next issue, Star Wars: The Elites Resurrection, we had to create our own vehicles (you'll see why). When ever I design a vehicle for our galaxy far, far away, I have to think of the basics, an army needs a small land vehicle, heavy land vehicle, an air vehicle, and in the case of Star Wars, a space vehicle. Now, these are only the minimum amount of vehicles an army can have, there are probably other vehicles inside these classes. For the next few posts, I will be posting concept art for vehicles and troops that may (or may not) end up in the Resurrection story arc. So, I give you the first in a series of concept art.

The AT-CP or All-Terrain Clone Platform

Moving Along

2010-06-15T18:51:00.000-04:00

When I first took up this project, I wasn't a very good artist. But after a year and a half of drawing, I have drastically gotten better, and what I was so proud of then, I think doesn't look as good as it could. That is the problem with working on a very long running art project, you move along to fast in your abilities, so just a word to those of you who are thinking about drawing a comic book-- get good first, then draw the comic. Soon I will have concept drawings that I can show you for our next comic book, Star Wars: the Elites #3 Resurrection. These concepts will show you what the future of Star Wars vehicles (but it may not be the future you are thinking of).

So here are the next pages of our comic book (and now you don't have to click on any links, just click on the pictures to view the page.):

Preview of Issue #3

2010-06-08T16:18:00.000-04:00

This is just a preview for all of you who may be wondering what our comic book will look like digitally inked and painted. Let me just say it looks REALLY COOL, don't you think? <<<< Spoiler Warning>>>>!!! (This won't give away any of the story since the are no words, and its just a battle scene)

Comics.... the Other Kind

2010-05-29T18:09:00.000-04:00

This blog has many different topics, it is a Star Wars blog, it is a blog that we get to show of our projects, it is an art blog, and it is a comic blog, just to name a few.

Comics take on a lot of different forms, they can be the graphic novels, small issues of 20-40 pages, or the can be comic strips, one of my favorite comic strips is Pearls Before Swine. This strip definately has a wide range of characters, a sentimental pig, a zebra being chased constantly by the croc neigbors, a rude rat, and a smart goat.
This has got to be one of the funniest strips around, most of the humor comes from stupid crocidiles who can barely speak (Huuuuuuulooooooooo Zeeba neighba!). Here is one of the more recent Pearls Before Swine strips: (for some reason, I can't import the image, so you will need to click on the URL below to view it)

Pearls Before Swine, 5/25/10

To quote Rat, "This my friend is comedy!"

Ahhhhh..... Summer....

2010-05-27T18:17:00.001-04:00

Summer is here! This means that you can lay around, watch TV, play video games or just have fun. But what my brother, Max, and I do over summer is crazy things that are fun, but you ordinarily wouldn't think of them. We do these mostly because we are board. And on most of these things that we do, Elijah helps out. So here is a list of things that you HAVE to try this summer:

1. Get dragged down a hill with a rope. Fear factor: 2 (out of ten) This is so fun when you have to hold on to dear life and get a mouthful of grass in the process. Wear junky clothes!!!

2. Grass sledding. Fear factor: 7 This is really crazy when you are getting dragged down a hill at top speed on a sled, but there is no snow to cushion you if you fall, also the path that you take is entirely up to the person pulling you.

3. Rolling down a hill. Fear factor: 5 This is a really great way to kill some time, try rolling down with a camera strapped to your head.

4. Simulating an acorn rain scene. Fear factor: 1 We did this just for fun we had a lot of acorns laying around so we thought, "hey, what the heck, lets try it." We gathered up a whole lot of acorns and put them in a bag, then max stood underneath an overhang with an umbrella while i dumped acorns on his head. Here is the video of us doing this stunt...

5. Imitate an add. Fear factor: 0 Again we just thought: "hey, what the heck, lets try it." Here is Elijah imitating Billy Mays... and my brother cracking up...

These have got to be the most fun things we did this past summer. What will you do this summer? Post a comment to this post and tell me your ideas, we just might try them.

We hold NO responsibility to injuries that happen while doing these activities.

Like the Universe, Our Blog is Expanding

2010-05-17T16:08:00.000-04:00

Okay guys,

Elijah and I have been working hard and have come up with three new pages. Are you just starting to read this blog and don't feel like going to the very beginning? Then check out the Plot Summaries page, this has all that happened up until our last post. Ever want to do a little digital work by yourself? If so, then check out how to use some digital tools and create some pretty good art, in the Instructions for Digital Tools and Art. And do you have no idea what we are talking about half the time? Then check out our dictionary page. I'm sure you will find something that you like.

Hey guys, Eli here

2010-05-15T14:32:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, it's Eli. You might have seen my name around the edges of some of the posts; I'm the guy who writes the story. As Ben can confirm, I have next to no spare time; Ben's been doing all the posting so far (and I have to say, he's done a great job fixing up the place. You should definately check out his tutorials on electronic drawing; the link's at the top of the page.) So, if anyone's to blame for the long delays, it's me, not Ben.

Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself and thank everyone who follows our saga. Stay tuned guys; things are gonna get interesting pretty soon. I can't give anything away just yet, but I can tell you that our commandos will soon be thrown into a battle that not only spans a galaxy, but an alternate reality as well. Like I said, things are gonna get pretty strange, pretty fast.

The Force will be with you, always.
Eli

Fancy Fonts

2010-05-14T10:25:00.002-04:00

No word processor or image program has a good font for comics. The only font that it does have is Sans Comic MS. Even this font doesn't look to good. So Elijah and I went to 1001 fonts. This web page has 1001 free fonts.We downloaded a font called comic book commando, this is the font that you see in our comic book that we are currently working on. I have to say that I do like comic book commando, it has a nice comic texture to it. So here are the next five pages of issue number 2,

page17

page 18

page 19

page 20

page 21

Even More GIMP is Good

2010-04-19T18:14:00.000-04:00

Programs like Corel Painter are pretty good, especially with what I am doing with our comic books. But too make some really cool illustrations, you gotta use GIMP, in my last post, I showed you a lava flow that I painted in Gimp, I could have done that in Corel Painter, but this illustration I really only could do in GIMP, and it looks pretty good.

GIMP and Other Free Programs are so Darn Good (Seriously)

2010-04-14T15:06:00.000-04:00

I guess I have to say why there has been a long wait for the next pages. I am inking and coloring the next one digitally. This is definitely no easy task. This, combined with the lettering of our last issue has made me very busy.And you may ask, "Why the heck are you drawing this if it makes you so busy?" My answer to that is: because it is very fun. And honestly I have too much time on my hands.
Before I was given the Wacom Bamboo Fun pen and touch tablet, I downloaded a free program called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). I was able to do a pretty good digital painting using a tutorial on youtube. He was using a tablet and I only had a regular mouse, still, it turned out pretty well. Just let me know what you think. -Ben

Length of Time is too Long

2010-03-31T11:49:00.003-04:00

You know, professional comic illustrators and comic writers spend all day at a desk and get one issue done in less than a month. I really don't have that kind of time. And believe me, neither does Elijah. I draw whenever I can or when I want. And Elijah really only writes when he is able to. That's why it takes us six months to do one issue. And on top of that, we do most of our work in the summer. No school, no work, just hot muggy days that are good drawing days. So here are the next six pages (my Dad scanned six instead of five).

Oh and by the way, we try to post it every week so check back regularly.

page11

page 12

page 13

page 14

page 15

page 16

Steps to Drawing a Graphic Novel

2010-03-24T15:07:00.000-04:00

There are really five steps to creating a comic book.This does not include writing the script. Elijah will have to post an entry on that. Since Elijah has not written the dialog into the next five pages, you can read about the steps to draw one.

STEPS TO ORGANIZING A COMIC BOOK PAGE

1. LOOK AT THE SCRIPT, FIGURE OUT HOW TO DRAW EACH PANEL.

2. REMEMBER, THE EYE FLOWS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT UP TO DOWN.

3. USING A RULER, DRAW OUT EACH PANEL VERY CAREFULLY.

4. FIGURE OUT THE ANGLE THAT YOU WILL BE VIEWING YOUR CHARACTER,

THEN LIGHTLY SKETCH IT OUT ON A PAGE.

5. FLESH OUT YOUR CHARACTERS AND ADD MORE DETAIL. AFTER THIS

STEP, YOUR PENCILS ARE COMPLETED. NOW ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PEN,

COLOR, SCAN, AND PUT WORDS IN THEM.

The second part of the second issue

2010-03-12T10:46:00.001-05:00

The next five pages of the second issue are here. In this part, things start to go badly for the squad near the end of the 10th page.

So here you go!

page 6

page 7

page 8

page 9

page 10

Issue #2

2010-03-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

Finally!! It's here! All that hard work has finally paid off! This issue has got to be my favorite one that I have done. Enjoy the first five pages!

cover

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

page 5

Award #1

2010-02-26T18:12:00.001-05:00

Well, our comic book won its first award. It won the "Best of Art" at a science fair. This award was won by our second issue, not the first. But before you read the last two pages of our first issue here is a list of things you need in order to make a comic book or graphic novel:

To draw a graphic novel you have to: be able to draw. Practice makes perfect, it took me a long time to get to where I am today.

To draw a graphic novel you have to: be able to tell a good story. Instead of me writing my comic book, I have Elijah do it.

To draw a graphic novel you have to: be able to understand how the eye flows. Your eye moves up and down and left to right. Keep this in mind when you are laying out pages.

To draw a graphic novel you have to: have good materials. without good materials then you can't draw effectively. I use Fabre-Castell PITT artist pens. I also use Artist's Loft fundamentals colored pencils.

page 16

page 17

Least favorite?

2010-02-19T14:34:00.001-05:00

I think that my least favorite part of drawing one of these comic books is the penning. It's basically just redrawing the pencils all over again. But what I do like is the coloring, the most recent issue that we put together is in color so it is new to me. I noticed that, over time my art has gotten much better, and I still think this issue should have been drawn better. Rest assured though, the second issue has much better art.

This issue is a bit short, so there may be a bit of a wait until I post the first five pages of the second issue. I may post some concept art or something like that. Enjoy the next five pages.

Oh, and Elijah might do the next post.
-Ben

Page 11

page 12

page 13

page 14

page 15

Done, Finally!

2010-02-15T16:10:00.001-05:00

Well, after six months of drawing, I have finally finished the thirty-two pages of art for the second issue of our comic books. Now, in order for us to publish the pages on this blog, Elijah has to add the speech bubbles. The only thing that you need to add speech bubbles is a word processor. The big companies, like Darkhorse comics, use people who hand-write the words onto the original art. I don't know about you, but I don't have handwriting that good! So here are the next five pages.
-Ben
page 6

page 7

page 8

page 9

page 10

Welcome!

2010-01-29T17:59:00.001-05:00

Hi! Welcome to our blog. We love Star Wars! For the longest time I can remember, I have been drawing the ships, vehicles, creatures, and lightsaber-toting Jedi from a galaxy far, far, away. About a year ago we were making a movie about Star Wars. Well, that didn't work out. Then one day I called Elijah and asked, "How about we make a Star Wars comic book?" and he answered, "Sure." So after about four months of drawing, writing, and brainstorming, we came up with an amazing storyline with a group of clone commandos called "Zeta Squad."

So here is the first five pages of our first issue. *Note*: our second issue will be in color.
page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

page 5