Legacy LD5

Hi everyone, RipRoarRex finally back with some more art!!




Thank goodness my degree dissertation is out of the way. Ever since I completed and submitted it on the 27th March, I've been turning my attention largely to getting a new comic out as soon as possible. It was a pretty ambitious project and circumstances haven't always been favourable, hence it has taken a while. However, I now finally have some new work for you all!


Some people may have noticed, in my recent forum posts, MSN chats or whatever, that I have been working on a Wargreymon comic. A Wargreymon stompy comic, to be more precise. I never used to see the appeal in Wargreymon... until I started seeing him in stomp-lusty poses! With Diablo creating a Wargreymon crushing game, various Wargreymon pictures being posted in recent threads on various forums, and other artists taking up the same character simultaneously, I felt as though everything was encouraging me to draw him for the first time! This is not exactly a violent stomp comic - no visible blood or anything - but Wargrey is pretty brutal, and the subject is live. More specifically, it is once again the ever-so-lucky Mike.


Several things I should say about this comic - which is not so much a comic as a series of 4 (perhaps 5) images:

1. WARGREYMON IS AN ABSOLUTE BASTARD TO DRAW. Particularly if you are attempting to draw him in the curious poses and awkward angles that I have been. Such a complex character design means that each image featuring anything much of his body takes a long time. Not only that, but for anyone who has actually tried to draw him in such a variety of poses and angles, you'll probably soon have found that his design is infuriatingly vague. His leg armour for example - if we are to assume it is constructed largely around a solid metal framework - appears in the cartoon and various references images to be bizarrely flexible. People do not seem too sure about the shape of his belt either; I've seen a fair variety of forms in my reference picture hunting. Seems Wargreymon is a character you draw by interpretation, and as someone who has never watched Digimon or tried to draw him before, this was the best I could do. This did require many, many, MANY wasted pieces of A4 and A3 paper in attempts to sketch him out - Page 1 took 5 attempts, Page 2 required a highly frustrating 8 attempts, Page 3 took 2 attempts and Page 4 took 3 attempts. Each one on a new page. This is why I tell people I am inherently a pretty poor artist - I don't use guidelines or anything to construct form properly, and I can't just draw things right first time like some of you might be under the illusion I can. I usually wear the rubber down pretty fast if I'm working on something like this, and I get through a lot of paper. Still, the important thing is that it gets done, and that hopefully it looks good too.

2. You'll notice that I have been selective with Wargreymon's details. No wings, for example. I've removed all the armour around his torso, and hence I've basically attached his shoulder armour to his arms in the same way as his leg armour is strapped on. I just couldn't resist having that big chest showing. I also wanted his mouth to be free and visible, so that I could do my usual expressions...



3. Artistically, I'm very pleased with this. I still love my scanner, and this would have been largely impossible without it. I'm also very pleased with the background. But I did once again go quite mad on colouring depth here - it's not quite the lineless uber-realistic style that I occasionally do, but it's only one step removed. In sum, this is probably the single most technically ambitious series of pictures I have attempted, and for that reason, I'm very happy with the way it has come out.


Anyway, enough blabbering. Don't necessarily expect anything again from me too soon - I still have essays to write in the remaining 3 weeks of my Easter Holiday, and this series has knocked the stuffing out of me a bit in the last couple of weeks. Still, I have lots of ideas in the pipeline, so you never know. And yes, that does include another page of 'Rexar & Mike - First Time'.




I've written a short story introduction to set the scene for this piece, so indulge in it if you so desire. It's a little corny, but you might like it. Enjoy the pictures, and here's wishing everyone a Happy Easter weekend!




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Mike had deeply angered the tribe. They were extremely hostile to intrusions by outsiders, and the foolish dog would now be dealt a grave punishment. Captured, stripped and bound, Mike was carried aloft out into a desolate open plain stretching for miles between the mountains. The cold wind swept down from the peaks and swirled wildly across the barren landscape, rushing a sharp chill through Mike's naked fur. Looking down over his feet, he could see something strange, a dark shape jutting above the flat earth. A huge stone tablet raised five feet above the ground, like an altar of rock in the centre of the wilderness. Its appearance gave Mike a deep sense of foreboding, contemplating its purpose with dread.

Arriving at its edge, the tribe heaved him onto the tablet and pinned him down onto its cold surface. Climbing up around him, they tied Mike's limbs with rough cords cutting into his wrists and ankles, and strapped the loose ends firmly around four gold rings punched into the rock, leaving Mike's body spread flat across the plate. Then, clambering down from the surface, they turned and walked away. Mike felt the panic rising in his body as their voices and footsteps became more and more distant, until they eventually faded out into the whirling rumble of the wind, leaving Mike helpless and alone out in the open.

The dog was powerless, the tight cords stretching his muscles out beyond his own ability to control them. He could not escape, or even move. He struggled for several minutes, shifting his head against the rock as he wildly darted his gaze across the plain, looking for any sign of what awaited him. With his muscles beginning to ache with the tension and the grip of the cords burning as they pinched the flesh to his bones, his heart sank as he started to come to terms with his hopeless position. Cold, fearful and exposed, he brought his futile struggle to a stop. The sky was turning dark above him, the black clouds drawing towards the sun, the chill in the air growing as a storm wind began to swell over the mountains from the West, like a dark omen warning him of impending danger. Mike could do nothing but lie there, pondering his fate. He knew not when, or even if, the tribe would return. Perhaps this was a cruel means of holding him hostage for their future will. Maybe he would simply be left there on the cold stone to freeze or starve to death. Or most terrifying of all, lying on this rock altar, maybe he was to serve as a tribal sacrifice, an offering to appease the anger of god or terrible beast unknown...












RRRex

Oh!I love this Wargreymon so much He's so awful!!!!!!

I completely understand and respect your decision of choosing consistency over accuracy. That armor really is a bugger to get right, especially when it comes to the sharp degrees of perspective you have employed!

Honestly, I wasn't expecting for Wargreymon to have such a MANLY PHYSIQUE under that armor. I guess it's bound to happen when said armor is already molded into a six-pack.

Lol - like a plastic moulding machine!





Thanks, Sprotchy. And to you, Thaifurphile.

Nice series. Though I think his right foot came out a lot more juicy than his left in the first pic, despite perspective, and the claws look more like fingernails occassionally.
Otherwise... *goes and sticks stickers on his nipples* Very nice and impressive.

Did you mean right foot as in his right, or right foot as in the one that is raised? And what did you feel was wrong with it exactly?

I meant "his right" as in his right. The toes on the raised one appear longer and thinner, and the outermost claw looks rather thin and off.
But who am I to comment on ?

Well, first of all, RRR...amazing work, and so great to see you posting it again! It's wonderful to see you using your talents to show off big stompy anthro clawfeets.

I appreciate your description of all you had to go through to get it to where you were satisfied with it, and I like to hear about the creation process you go through. The story featurette that leads into the sequence of pictures, although not really stompy or macro on its own, does at least provide a setup for the events.

Page one: I think the highlight of this is Mike's inset! If I didn't know otherwise, I'd think he was rendered in 3D he looks so well done. However, I will say that it's not exactly a bad kind of shock he seems to be emoting. It's more a generic "holy shit!" with no positive or negative connotations, which I suppose could leave the observer to fill in how he should be feeling. A change in the eyebrows would make him look more worried. As for WG himself, I don't mind the loss of some of his usual armor at all. In fact, another idea would be to have him actually removing his armor in full view of Mike before he stomps him, but that would mean additional pictures of course, and you were working hard enough on these four as it is! Or, alternately, I don't see a rulebook where he has to be wearing his 'official' armor anywhere...since Mike did piss of a tribe, I think a loincloth look and maybe a more native headmask with just a few leathery bits around wrists and ankles would be awesome as well. I think the amount of armor you chose to keep showed off his physique nicely and is more than enough to identify who the smexy saurian is. As for the toes, I've seen this skinnying/fattening effect in many of your other pictures, and don't just chalk it up to your style, but also what motions and physics are conveyed. You draw landing toes as overly pudgy, as if to emphasize the downward crush and outward thrust of the flesh, and the toes in motion in air skinnier and more sinewy to emphasize what they're doing as well. It's only in pictures where there's very little motion that you draw 'the natural' foot, as in...

Page two: Mmmm, yes, the natural foot, looming and sexy! Definitely my favorite shot of the four. The sticky bits between the toes are to die for. Can I rent some real estate there? Think he'd notice or mind?

Page three: Crunch! Once again, flattened, overly elongated toes to emphasize the movement. It's as if you're actually taking stills from your animations, is how I see it. It's like you've done the key frames and are leaving it up to another animator to do all the inbetweening for you. Am I right in how I see it, the reasons for the change in toe shapes?

Page four: And I think you particularly enjoy and like to show the victory in the faces of those doing the crushing...that's another trademark of yours. And another hint of sticky toes...damn. I need to find out where his bedroom, and slippers, are...

So overall, simply amazing, my friend! I'm glad to hear you're in good spirits despite your workload, and hope to see you around soon!

Hmm. I've since mirrored this picture to spot the errors better, and I think really the outermost toe itself is not long enough in comparison to the other two, and that is the main problem rather than the claw in my view. Had I shifted it slightly further to the left (or Wargreymon's right), it might have looked better. I actually think his left foot suffers from the same problem. Hope it doesn't spoil it for anyone anyway.






Well thank you very much for taking the time to provide such a lengthy reply, Dino! Always very much appreciated!



If you're interested in the process, I've actually posted something on FA since yesterday that you might enjoy - it's a photograph of all the progressive sketches I did for this comic:


Click Here



In response to some of the things you've said about each page:

Page 1 - heh; amusingly, the inset of Mike was a bit of a rushed job in comparison to the rest of it. The sketch took about 15 minutes and the colouring about an hour, in comparison to the several hours of drawing and 6+ hours of colouring for most of the other panels. Glad you think it turned out nicely though. And yes, you are correct in viewing the way I draw toes; I'm a total slut for visible weight-bearing, and I deliberately over-emphasise it on some level both with shape and colour. I like to make toes that are applying pressure look as though the flesh is swelling against the floor as they spread the weight, perhaps wrinkling a little (and, in many other images, paling a little too). For those that are raised, I draw them differently. Nice to know that someone noticed it!


Page 2 - your favourite, and it seems the favourite based on pretty much every site I've posted this comic on. Hang around with the tribe and I'm sure you'll be given the opportunity to set up home in his toe-crotch at some point...




Page 3 - replied to your question about toes and such in the section about Page 1. To some extent, I do like to create the sense of a freeze frame of motion, but I think I could have done it better with this one.


Page 4 - victory is important! Savour the crunch! The squish! The contrast between the soothing coolness of the stone and the warm moisture of the squashed doggy sinking into his steamy pads...

...I'm thinking about this too much, aren't I?


Lol!!


Again, thanks very much, Dino. Nice to know you enjoyed it.