Animorphs:The Graphic Novel

[Terenia]

Those sketches are amazing! Great job! I like the Tobias one you were happy with too. The only bit of advice I have is that when you are drawing the male characters (specifically Jake and Marco) they look older than their age when the jaw is squared off so much. Some of the face on sketches they could have been in their late teens early twenties.

I love the Rachel morphing crocodile sketch and the Yeerk Pool sketch. The Controller one is my favorite though. You just need Eva/Visser One in it.

[zaprowsdower]

How the heck do I get into the album??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ???

[wolfev]

could you please just post the pictures in the forum. Anyone who can get in?

[Tiana]

the password is the Hork bajir word for Andalite right?

You can find that in book #13 and make sure you capitalize the first letter

[wolfev]

I just saw the prints. yea the Tobias on the top right is perfect. The first cover model design is too buff. I have to say those scans are perfect though. Just wondering, how many books are we doing? Oh I'm not sure if color is necessary, unless we can find someone who can do anything. I have to say those are just perfect. Are we doing a pilot chapter to test out? You know we do the first few chapters of the book to test it out. venemousspiderwooki ee just tell me when and I'll send the script. Have we gotten a board yet?

[zaprowsdower]

No, we still need to establish when we're starting and what our deadline is.

[Liz]

the password is the Hork bajir word for Andalite right?

You can find that in book #13 and make sure you capitalize the first letter

Ah, so that's why it wouldn't work for me.  I wasn't capitalizing it. xD

About color, I don't think it is essential.  There's a few comics pages I found on dA that I've admired very much. They are from #26 The Attack and I love the style of the artist, as well as the sparse use of color.

pg. 1
pg. 2
pg. 3

So this is just my personal opinion, but I would love to see the graphic novel using a style like this.  I guess it all depends on what feel you are going for.  Gafrash's sketches are very well drawn (I especially liked the morph sequence and the Yeerk pool) and they definitely are a great style for a superhero comic book, which is very appropriate for Animorphs.  The more minimalistic style of the above pages could work equally well.

Sorry, I don't really have a point to all this rambling, I just wanted to share those pages cause I've always thought they were awesome. xDDD

[Tiana]

Mirienne, I see what you're saying about the color. Those sketches look very interesting, kinda reminds me of Sin City where you have splashes of color here and there.

venemousspiderwooki ee, have all the roles been assigned yet? Thx

[Gafrash]

Heheheh! You guys, sorry for the minor detail. But hey, KA also taught us reading and language via her books! It's literature! Capital letters for names and places, eh...
I was trying to limit my scans to only us of the community here. Thought I was being smart by figuring only tru-Anifans would know the word. But if there is a RAF special space for it, Dameg, I might actually have to take you up on your offer. But the address you posted for your site seems to be blocked.

"Fellana, dear Tiana," for the heads up for the crew.

Hey crew,
Check out some new scans I've loaded up... http://s349.photobucket.com/albums/q369/Gafrash/
Look for the Album: Concepts for AniGraphicNovel
EVERYONE from here will be able to view them by entering the Hork-Bajir word for 'Andalite'!

ANYONE who is willing is welcome to grab any image and colour them on in. Would be cool to see how my drawings could look!

Cheers!

I forgot to add here that for anyone willing to colourwork the images, I would have to send it to their email...
The resolution on the scans for the Photobucket pages were set for web and its rather poor and small for us to work on. I could send anyone the proper file.
Mr.Larry wanna have a go?

Gafrash, I love it. However, the picture of Visser three when he is ordering his minions to pursue the 'andalite bandits', he looks a bit to young, more like Aximili. Try making him look a bit older. but other then that, it looks great, especially the weapon design.

About Visser 3, I can't see your drawing, but remember that his host is a strong Andalite, like 40 years old for a Human, not very tall, but strong. And even his host wasn't a "good and soft" guy ^_^'

Thanks JSF16-dude! The Visser's Andalite host there does look small to me, too, think I got too caught on trying to portray him with a sort of a 'Hitler' moustache to his face. Don't know if my 'tryhard' statement worked. Notice the tight nostrils!?
Dameg, the Alloran in me mind is as such too, but also, when drawing an Andalite, we need to picture an Andalite's delicate and 'weaker' upper-body. (in comparison to a human) (heck, in comparison with their lower bodies, even). Not sure if those are the exact words used to describe their bodies in the series, but I keep in mind how their arms are meant to be weaker than a human's... and a human's is meant to be weaker to a gorilla's... and so on.
It's a just description of Andalites that I can't forget.
Therefore, I think, an Andalite's average physical upper-body sculpt, should be somewhat significantly smaller and leaner, than our human ones.
I also woudn't draw an average human's arms equal to an average gorilla's arms.

The weapons design is something we've only scraped here. I've seen blueprints for the various spacecrafts somewhere, I can't recall. But even if I had them, we are still going on imagination on what a Dracon Beam, a bio-filter device, a dropshaft, a Kandrona and etc look like! I've been pondering about these things. I lack the skills to make alien technology believable... know what I mean?!
PS: I JUST DON'T WANT THOSE CORNY TORCHES THE TV SERIES HAD!!! NO TORCHES!!!!

Those sketches are amazing! Great job! I like the Tobias one you were happy with too. The only bit of advice I have is that when you are drawing the male characters (specifically Jake and Marco) they look older than their age when the jaw is squared off so much. Some of the face on sketches they could have been in their late teens early twenties.
I love the Rachel morphing crocodile sketch and the Yeerk Pool sketch. The Controller one is my favorite though. You just need Eva/Visser One in it.

Busted! It's the one thing I can't help, is making them look like actual average teenage kids. Can you imagine how much this frustrates me???!!!
I keep in mind 'teenage kids, teenage kids, draw them like teenage kids'... And then I draw a cheek bone and "NGHARRRRGH!!" Can't helpt it! I am going to persist though! Hehehehe!
Thanks for the compliments though!

AND the heads up on Eva!
THERE ARE SOOOOO MANY CHARACTERS TO DESIGN AND WORK WITH IN THIS SERIES!!!! WHERE do we start??? HEHEHEHE!

I just saw the prints. yea the Tobias on the top right is perfect. The first cover model design is too buff. I have to say those scans are perfect though. Just wondering, how many books are we doing? Oh I'm not sure if color is necessary, unless we can find someone who can do anything. I have to say those are just perfect. Are we doing a pilot chapter to test out? You know we do the first few chapters of the book to test it out. venemousspiderwooki ee just tell me when and I'll send the script. Have we gotten a board yet?

Cheers also, Wolfev. Tobias is turning out to be more tricky than I thought he would be. Fortunately, his human self is significantly minor to the series. For it is in his red-tailed hawk form that he is The protagonist hero we all love and think he rules!!!! Hehehehe!
And this is also something I have to work on. Did you see how bad my hawk drawings were?!

I agree with you on the topic of colour to the point of us finding a cool colourist! I'd love to work with someone real passionate about colours, in setting and mood and comics. I do think colour is a key element that adds to a visual storytelling.
I think we should take on a sample/pilot chapter of minimal pages to test how we go.
Am I the only one who's never done a thing such as this in cyberspace before?

Ah, so that's why it wouldn't work for me.  I wasn't capitalizing it. xD

About color, I don't think it is essential. There's a few comics pages I found on dA that I've admired very much. They are from #26 The Attack and I love the style of the artist, as well as the sparse use of color.

pg. 1
pg. 2
pg. 3

So this is just my personal opinion, but I would love to see the graphic novel using a style like this.  I guess it all depends on what feel you are going for.  Gafrash's sketches are very well drawn (I especially liked the morph sequence and the Yeerk pool) and they definitely are a great style for a superhero comic book, which is very appropriate for Animorphs.  The more minimalistic style of the above pages could work equally well.

Sorry, I don't really have a point to all this rambling, I just wanted to share those pages cause I've always thought they were awesome. xDDD

Oh Em Gee! Mirienne, thanks for posting that! That is the first time I've seen how a chapter of Animorphs could work in comic form, and I think the fan there did a real cool job with the extract of the book, too!! She definately captured the mood of the situation and she would not have needed to write what section of book it was! You can tell with her style!
One can do so much tones with pencil, but I've only been using a black artliner so far. I reckon for the animals, I just might do them in pencil now! It could really work! Thanks!
IT'S SOMETHING LIKE THIS WE SHOULD BE PUSHING FOR!

I can see guys that we all got lots of talent and potential here, and can make something big. But to this make work we all got to get organized. Now, I PMed Richard and he was intrigued, but he also wanted to know if and when we had a time plan for it-when we were starting, when we planned to finish, etc. Now to do that, we gotta get organized. Wolfev, I appreciate you trying to take charge and get some order earlier, but I did start this so I should probably be in charge. Gafrash, thanks and I admire your efforts. So we need to start getting organized- wolfev and Estelore can be the head writers and Dameg and Gafrash can be head artists.
Now, when should we start and when should our deadline be?

Personally, the words Dead and Line sound really off putting. I am not looking at this as a work or comission of some sort. I am doing this because I enjoy the series and enjoy drawing as my hobby and enjoy comics and enjoy working with others. But I, like any individual, am going to be committed with other priorities through my everyday life. My next semester of uni starts soon and I'm househunting as we speak, to state a bit about me. Nevertheless, I will continue drawing Animorphs on my spare times. And would love for us to materialize something! Whatever time it takes!
venemousspiderwookiee, as much as I want to do this as a collective with all of us here in the Virtual World, I don't see us doing too good meeting deadlines and such... At the moment I do not have a set constant access to the internet, I am not even using my own internet right now.
So I fear it will be hard for me to do this on a daily basis. And at the same time I want to be really involved in this project!
What I am saying is: A timetable would be practicle for this, but should not be a fixed thing we should count on.
Not before we do a mock run with some sample, either!


Lastly, a totally random question: Could someone tell me what ebooks and audiobooks are... are they like a combination of images and voice overs done for the web???

Cheers, y'all!

[Dameg]

I was trying to limit my scans to only us of the community here. Thought I was being smart by figuring only tru-Anifans would know the word. But if there is a RAF special space for it, Dameg, I might actually have to take you up on your offer. But the address you posted for your site seems to be blocked.

About Visser 3, I can't see your drawing, but remember that his host is a strong Andalite, like 40 years old for a Human, not very tall, but strong. And even his host wasn't a "good and soft" guy ^_^'

Thanks JSF16-dude! The Visser's Andalite host there does look small to me, too, think I got too caught on trying to portray him with a sort of a 'Hitler' moustache to his face. Don't know if my 'tryhard' statement worked. Notice the tight nostrils!?
Dameg, the Alloran in me mind is as such too, but also, when drawing an Andalite, we need to picture an Andalite's delicate and 'weaker' upper-body. (in comparison to a human) (heck, in comparison with their lower bodies, even). Not sure if those are the exact words used to describe their bodies in the series, but I keep in mind how their arms are meant to be weaker than a human's... and a human's is meant to be weaker to a gorilla's... and so on.
It's a just description of Andalites that I can't forget.
Therefore, I think, an Andalite's average physical upper-body sculpt, should be somewhat significantly smaller and leaner, than our human ones.
I also woudn't draw an average human's arms equal to an average gorilla's arms.

The weapons design is something we've only scraped here. I've seen blueprints for the various spacecrafts somewhere, I can't recall. But even if I had them, we are still going on imagination on what a Dracon Beam, a bio-filter device, a dropshaft, a Kandrona and etc look like! I've been pondering about these things. I lack the skills to make alien technology believable... know what I mean?!
PS: I JUST DON'T WANT THOSE CORNY TORCHES THE TV SERIES HAD!!! NO TORCHES!!!!

I found the password!! ^_^' Thanks!

So, about my website, it's here: http://damegdl.free.fr, if you go "English flag" then to "BDs" then "The BDs" (sorry, this website is one of my first, very old, and I didn't modifie it for long, so it isn't a good one), you'll arrive on the link I gave last time. And you can't enter without a password. It was the only thing I wanted to show you ^_^ You can make a website, where you want, and block the entrance with a login and a password. If we wanna do a website about the Graphic Novel, we can do that.

About Alloran, I understand what you mean, because I feel the same, and it's why I told you that.
I think you should draw Elfangor as you imagine the Andalites. Aximili is younger, so he should be more little, less strong than Elfangor. Alloran must be a little less tall than Elfangor, but taller than Aximili, and stronger than Elfangor. I think you should begin by Elfangor, and modifie the drawing to arrive to Alloran ^_^
but... GOOD LUCK!! ^_^'

About the weapon, I agree, don't do like the torches we see in the TV show. I think the Dracon beams are more little than torches, about the size of a Hork-Bajir's hand (just a little more long). And quite simple outside (then people couldn't understand that it's weapon if they don't see them shouting and dizintegrate things ^_^'). I'm not sure to be clear ^_^' I'd be better for explanations in French... sorry.

PS: about your question: Ebooks are just the books scanned and written in a PDF file. It's like to read the true books, but on computer. Download them if you want! Why not? You'll see with your own eyes. You can download few ebooks if you clic on my siggy ^_^
Audiobooks: I can't say about them, I'm like you, I wait to listen them ^_^

[Dameg]

Well, I had time to see your new drawings.
So, Gafrash, your Hork-Bajirs are perfect!! I have nothing to say about them. About Alloran, you also should make him older. Older than Elfangor... with the face of a warrior, a soldier who did the war, how IS the war ^_^' He should have the face of an army general, the face of the guy that, when you see him, you understand you shouldn't say anything wrong... Hard to do, I know, but Visser 3 is like that...
About Taxxons, in fact, I don't really like the concept we see on the books. Did you do with those examples? I imagined them with shorter legs, with bigger corpses, wide and who lag, and who can explode like a watermelon  if you give a big hit in it... I imagined the Taxxons walking and crawling in the same time...
But it's a good job ^_^ and the characters seem a little younger now... even if they still seem more than 13...

[Gumby]

About the Dracon beams, there should be different sizes, for Humans and Hork-Bajir. Also, They where described as being pistol like. Another thing, you can get the spacecraft schematics on the Hirac Delest website. Here's the link.

http://hirac-delest.issamshahid.com/status.htm

[Estelore]

Okay, folks, I'm making an announcement-of-sorts:

My life is VERY, VERY busy. RAF is a fairly high priority for my free time, but I always have something that I COULD be doing elsewhere. (The 'pedia AND real life)

Thus, I'm not going to be terribly active on this thread until we have something concrete that I can use in a story-board.
(In other words, I'm going to leave all the nit-picking-over-how-the-characters-should-look to you guys, and you can PM me when you're REALLY ready to get this moving.)

If you need anything (like animal images, sincere opinions, et cetera), you are welcome to PM me for it. In the mean time, I'll be RAFing it up as I normally do, leaving all the visual aspects of this to the artists.


Last thing: Don't set anything resembling a final deadline. It simply won't work out if you do. Set a VARIABLE timeline for the individual segments/books, to follow loosely as we go along.

When we ARE ready to story-board and draw, we should reserve a space in the Fan-Art board, where I can type up a basic 'road map' for the layout. John and the other writers would look over it for suggestions, which should be posted IN THIS THREAD and NOT on the actual story-board thread, for purposes of saving time and space. Once it has been checked for content, the artists can go over it and decide where to take it from there.

Of course, I'm not the boss here, but this is my suggestion for making this run smoothly. Let's NOT start that thread until we are READY for it, capisce?

[Gumby]

Capisce.

[Terenia]

And this is also something I have to work on. Did you see how bad my hawk drawings were?!

Um, excuse me? Those hawk drawings were PHENOMENAL! Especially the one of Tobias in mid-flight. I could tell from the sketches that you were kind of teaching yourself to draw the hawk form as you went, and you did an excellent job of it.


Um...as far as my participation in this project goes....I can't draw, I don't know how to color from blank in photoshop (although I am very familiar with photoshop in general due to my photography). I can beta read or help with story boards if you need it. Consider me as being 'on-call', I guess. So you know...let me know if I can help.