Going Live!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but we're finally ready to announce that Beyond the Western Deep will be going live in webcomic form this Sunday (1-1-12)!

On Sunday, we will be posting the first five pages of the story, with one new page uploaded every Saturday thereafter. Rachel and I have been working on this story for a very long time, and we're both very happy to finally be able to share it with everyone.

Now that we have an official website, this blog will fall by the wayside in lieu of weekly posts that will go along with the page updates. We'll be keeping this blog up, but new material will be posted on the website proper from now on.

Thanks to our followers who have stuck with us for so long - we both hope you enjoy the comic as much as we've enjoyed creating it!

www.westerndeep.net

Website Progress

When making a webcomic, you need two things that are spelled out rather plainly in the name itself: a comic, and a website. As followers of this blog will know, we've been working pretty hard on the comic part for quite some time, but rarely has any mention of the "web" part been made.

Well, I'm here to tell you that yes, the "web" of our webcomic is coming along quite nicely! A lot of progress has been made in the last couple weeks on the layout and content sides of things, and we're excited to get the site off the ground - something that should be happening in the coming weeks.

In addition to the banners and navigational doodads, we're also planning a few extras right off the bat, like a characters page for the main cast. Regular followers will know these guys already, but here's some new art for that section of the website:

Next time we update, I'll have more to show from the website itself. Perhaps even the website itself! Stay tuned!

And We're Back!

Sorry for the massive wait-time, folks - in addition to getting a sizable chunk of Beyond the Western Deep pages ready for our backlog, we've also been hit pretty hard with work via our day jobs. That said, I'm hoping now that we're starting to get a proper backlog of pages together and are finally piecing together what the webcomic's website will entail, we'll be able to eventually migrate this blog with the new site to keep everything in one place and make updating folks on the progress of the comic an easier endeavor.

That said, how about some in-progress page work to make up for the long silence?

As you might remember from a few posts ago, Rachel put together a fine-looking Felis script. The first use of this in the comic itself was a simple banner in a market square in the first page of chapter one. Almost immediately afterward though, a new idea emerged: what if instead of just adding a few lines of Felis script into the opening "history" sequence, we added the actual Felis art as well?

Rachel quickly pieced together a style loosely based on the Bayeux tapestry that fast-became one of my favorite elements of the newly-redone introductory sequence. These simplified representations of the races, juxtaposed with their "real" forms in Rachel's normal style, really help make the historical events on display look and feel more authentic.

Now that we're buckling down to get the website and page backlog squared away, the blog updates will be a bit sporadic - but it's my hope we can keep a somewhere consistent presence here while we get BWD's new home finalized.

Thanks for hanging in there!

Eisner Win!

Last night, Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard won the Eisner Award for Best Anthology - turning what was already an incredible thing into something far beyond anything I'd ever hoped for. David Petersen pulled together a veritable dream team of creators for Legends, and I am humbled beyond description to be able to share in this accomplishment.

Three years ago, I met David Petersen in person for the first time, two years ago I introduced him to my friend Sean Rubin, and less than one year ago Sean and I were at the Archaia booth in New York Comic Con signing copies of Legends of the Guard along with several of the other creators. I am truly honored to have been a part of the Legends experience, and I'm confident that Legends: Volume 2 will be just as incredible, if not better, than the original Legends.

In addition to this Eisner news, I figured I would share a little bit of "BWD" stuff with you! A couple posts ago, I brought up our intention to create languages for the different races. Well, Rachel went and actually created a script for the Felis race that we can use in the introduction of the story and beyond. 

It's a pretty simple letter-swap, but it looks very cool! There will be a couple minor tweaks to the appearances of certain characters, but for the most part this is pretty accurate to what we'll be using in the comic's pages.

Sunsgrove Sports

Happy Fourth of July, folks! We've got a handful of pages in the bucket now, and things are starting to fall into a nice groove. Instead of tossing up an in-progress page, I figured I'd show a fun series of sketches that Rachel put together that show some experimentation with Dakkan's design, as well as some notes about a possible Lutren/Tamian sport that resembles baseball.

This is the sort of stuff I love to brainstorm - Rachel will just crank out one of these sketches of her own accord and we'll start imagining the rules for a game like this, how it would've been played, who invented it, or whether it's a sport for kids or adults or both!

While the sport doesn't have a name (yet!) we've got some variations on the rules depending on who plays - either Tamian or Lutren. Being a bit more acrobatic, the Tamian variation involves a batter, a home base, and a series of five "bases" located throughout a series of trees. Think of it as a kind of 3-D baseball or cricket - where the Tamian batter hits a ball with a bat and has to make their way to home base by leaping across the trees as quickly as possible avoiding the 11 strategically-situated defenders. However, unlike baseball, the Tamian batter is able to run to any base they want in any order, so long as they don't get tagged out by a defender carrying the ball.

No batter can occupy the same base at once, but they can run to any base they want as soon as the ball is in the air. This means you could feasibly have five Tamian on base at once. So, why not just immediately go for the home base? The strategy here is how scores are made and counted - the at-bat team gets additional points when they get multiple runs to home base on a single hit.

Stacking the bases, then, proves a risky but potentially useful strategy in grabbing extra points per run. A single run on a single hit nets 1 point, two runs at once nets 3 points, three runs in a single hit gets 5 points, four runs gets 7 points, and getting a full five runs in a single hit offers 10 points.

If a batter is unable to hit the ball after three pitches, the batter is out. When an at-bat player is deemed to be out, either by striking out or by getting tagged, they are permanently out until the teams switch. To switch the in-field and at-bat positions, the in-field team must tag out the entire 11 person at-bat team. Games have 3 innings that can stretch into overtime if necessary.

Similar to cricket, there are no foul balls in the game, however. There are numerous optional field positions that the team captain can deploy their defenders to use to catch balls flying far left, right, even up and behind the batter. If the ball is hit with the bat, it's in play 100% of the time.

This sport probably won't show up in the comic, at least not the story we're going to be starting with, but it could always show up in other stories!

Languages

This isn't really in keeping with the schedule I'd tried to set for the blog updates, but I figure that with my zany schedule, any time I can stick something cool up, I'd better take advantage of the situation!

In the first page of the comic, we see a busy market near the Spire District of Gair. Originally, a vendor on this page was selling pottery, and there was text on the table letting us know that's what was being sold. However, looking at this, it was decided that the Felis of Gair (and all races of the land) would probably have their own language and written script they would use in their own cities.

And so this began a discussion as to how the different races' languages would look and sound. For the most part, the written languages were meant to mirror the races they were based on. The Tamian, for example, write with a very thin, vertical, tree-like script, with tense, formality, and even variations on the same word being communicated via "branches" on a core letter.

The Felis, on the other hand, have a script that's more rounded and "scratchy", inspired by more Oriental-style writing, with some added arcs that fit right into the Felis architectural motifs of Gair.

As the comic progresses and more of the races' languages are fleshed out, we might put up another one of these kinds of posts, but until then, stay tuned for various comic updates as they occur!

Quin and Crim

Work continues on the comic as always, though we weren't able to quite throw together a post thanks to professional obligations on both our parts. Still, I don't like leaving you folks hanging for too long without some stuff, so here are some new sketches detailing protagonist Quinlan and the combat trainer, Crim. We'll start with Quinlan (and a bit of Janik):

Quin and Crim have a bit of history that isn't detailed in the comic, which makes it fairly good fodder for the blog!

When he was young Quinlan showed great promise in the Tamian martial art known as Tesque. He wasn't spectacular by any means, but the trainers saw potential in him and helped to mold him into one of the best Tesque practitioners in Sunsgrove.

Crim, however, with his heftier frame and altogether nasty disposition, was passed over for advancement many times. He grew to hate Quinlan, resorting to bullying tactics and altogether striving to make his life miserable.

When Quinlan tried to personally see to it that Crim was given a fair shake by their instructors, Crim was so enraged at the gesture that he nearly knocked Quinlan unconscious during a sparring match, refusing to let up his offense until their instructors physically separated the two.

Many years later, and finally matured, the two Tamian came to tolerate each other's presence as best they could. Crim is now fighting at the Tesque Master level, and considers himself to be the finest warrior in the Tamian Kingdom, and also thought he was a shoo-in for Captain of the Royal Guard when the position opened up.

However, history has a bizarre tendency to repeat itself, and Quinlan was hastily promoted to the position when his grandfather, the former captain, passed away suddenly. In response to the news, Crim vowed that he would publicly embarrass the new captain, proving to all the Tamian people that he was the best fit for the position.

Whether or not he succeeds in doing so is a story left to the pages of the comic!

The Generals

Hi everyone! Because we missed our post two weeks ago, I'll try to get in two posts this weekend.

Let's start with what the post two weeks ago was supposed to be - character reveals of two of the highest-ranked Canid Generals, the brothers Clovis and Tosch.

Most Canid are conscripted at the age of 18 for a mandatory ten year period, after which they can choose to be released from duty or continue to climb the ranks of the Canid army. Clovis, however, was conscripted into the military at the age of 12 after displaying a certain unnatural aptitude regarding the art of war.

While the young Canid easily impressed his many mentors as a child, as he grew older they became increasingly terrified of his skills (and maniacal tendencies). The Canid officers tried to keep him on a proverbial leash, but Clovis was simply too brilliant a tactician to contain.

When tribes of Ermehn exiles began to step up attacks against the Canid, the military, in a word, "unleashed" Clovis and his brother, Tosch onto the battlefield.

The Ermehn were routed, degraded, and pushed to the verge of outright extinction. Meanwhile, for doing his part to stem the attacks, Clovis and his brother were both promoted to Master General, the highest rank in the military.

Despite Clovis' overt military brilliance, many Canid officers believe that it is his younger brother, the quiet and reserved Tosch, who is the smarter of the pair. While Clovis was busy impressing his superiors and going out of his way to ascend the ranks of the military, Tosch kept himself occupied with study and battlefield theory, honing his technique and letting his brother take all the attention.

Tosch was not conscripted at the age of 12 as his older brother was - though he still managed to impress his elders and join the military at the age of 15.  His position alongside his brother at the head of the Canid military was assured when he successfully defended Deltrada Garrison from a horde of Ermehn warriors despite having no supplies, few soldiers, and no chance of reinforcements.

What do these Canid generals have in store for our heroes? You'll just have to wait and see in the comic!

Coloring - and Eisner Stuff!

Apologies for the delay in posting this one up - I try to get one up every other weekend, but this specific weekend/week combination has been especially hectic. So, without further ado!

As I mentioned a while ago, Sean Rubin and I did a story that appeared in Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard. Our story, "Potential", centered around a lone guard trying to stop a bear from attacking a small settlement near the edge of the Territories. Being able to contribute to David Petersen's incredible world was a tremendous honor in and of itself, but I was completely unprepared for the events that followed, such as signing copies of the hardcover at New York ComicCon, seeing the collection on the New York Times Best Seller List, and being able to meet and correspond with several of the other creators (all absolutely brilliant people). And now Legends of the Guard Volume 1 has been nominated for the "Best Anthology" Eisner Award! David himself picked up a nomination for his cover work on the Legends series - and those were some incredible covers!

Rachel and I are, as always, continuing work on Beyond the Western Deep as well! During this crucial phase of development, Rachel is experimenting with various color techniques to try and match the tone of the story and the concept, as well as not being too time-consuming to generate.

The images below are process pieces of various coloring experiments - neither of which are entirely representative of our "final" direction, but were important steps in trying to weed out problem areas in the various styles. Things like the emphasis on white colors in the top-left and an overall subdued emphasis on the center character have also been addressed in more recent color passes.

The coloring shown here has already been rendered mostly moot by follow-up color passes as Rachel tweaks and experiments with the palette, style, and overall detail. Hopefully by the time the next blog comes up, I'll be able to share a more finalized look at the colors of Beyond the Western Deep.

Progress Report

We're cranking on the page layouts for the webcomic, trying to get a good backlog of pages in the bag before we get to the eventual online posting. These initial days of production are also fairly important in determining how often the comic will be updated when it hits. One thing Rachel and I are adamant about is making sure that when we say the comic will hit, it hits like clockwork.

Ink test for an in-progress panel (click to enlarge)

Given the nature of the comic, we're planning on dropping one completed page per update when we do finally get our backlog in the right shape and a website up and running. How long it will take between pages is still TBD based on the next couple weeks of work, but we're confident that once we get a few pages done, we'll have a good idea of what to expect down the line - as these early pages are some of the most complex in the comic and will give us a good estimate for the whole "sketch, iterate, finalize, ink, color, post" process.

In addition to the in-progress inked panel above, another concept pic from Rachel of a Felis soldier:

As you might recall from a few posts ago, the Felis armor needed some type of layering in order to make it more visually interesting. To fix this, Rachel removed the red and gold cloth sleeves and instead brought that out to the top layer as a tunic, along with adding the red shawl. The Felis soldiers don't appear in the comic until a ways into the story, but we're both pretty happy with this design.

Thumbnail Update and some Fiddling

A short progress update and a bit of artwork from Rachel today:

Thumbnails are progressing on the opening pages currently - originally the introduction called for a relatively short jaunt through the Kisharian city of Gair and into a massive spire structure, where scholarly-looking Felis welcomed an unknown newcomer to their ranks and begin the work of chronicling the stories of Quinlan and Hardin.

A set of in-progress thumbnail sketches for the middle half of the introduction. Obviously these are very rough and incredibly subject to change

In the new layouts, we're trying not to rush this introduction - after all, this is the reader's very first glimpse into the world of the comic, and first impressions are everything. Because of that, we're giving this unknown character some time to walk to her destination, giving several pages of cityscape and interior architecture as she travels to her destination that will ultimately offer clues to the world and the races living within.

And here's a little bonus art!

Ever since I started working on integrating the Dakkan character into the story, I've had this belief that he played the fiddle. It always seemed a fairly obvious thing for a freewheeling devil-may-care type like Dakkan to know, and I believe that fitting his skills with the instrument into the story could potentially give more insight into his character.

Updated Race Designs: Polcan and Canid

This post is a bit late, so I have to apologize about that - it's been a rather hectic two weeks, with a business trip to LA and then a holiday in Ireland. There will no doubt be a lot of work at the office for the next couple weeks as I play catch-up, so I figured I’d better put this post up before work starts anew tomorrow.

Concluding this series on the updated webcomic race designs, we’ve got the pirate-race of the Polcan and the military-obsessed Canid.

A mob of Polcan hunt down a Lutren soldier

The Polcan don’t have much of a role in the webcomic’s tale, but they do show up in crowd scenes and play a part in the introduction, which necessitates us knowing how the Polcan will look. In the prequel story we were working on, the Polcan actually played a much larger role, giving us ample opportunity to work on their background and what differentiates their society from the others in the Four Kingdoms.

After terrible drought and constant warfare, the Polcan were forced to flee their home of Rochas’Ve across the Western Seas in search of new land. History isn’t clear about what happened when the first Polcan ships ran into Lutren fishing vessels, but it is very clear that the situation did not end well.

To differentiate the Polcan from the other races of the Four Kingdoms, given their foreigner status, Rachel came up with the idea of giving them bronze armor instead of the standard iron and steel. Their color scheme became bronze and purple – though their actual clothing design is meant to be ragged and slapped together, altogether signifying their race’s fall from grace.

As in the original version of the story, the Canid play a major part in the webcomic tale. However, because Canid society only appeared in a single panel in the original first “issue” of the story, their armor designs were never really fleshed out. All we knew was that of all the races, the Canid would have the heaviest and most resilient armor.

This meant giving them large chest plates, flowing capes, and emphasizing “pieces” of armor connecting together in numerous joints. While they may not benefit from the layered clothing designs of the other races, the Canid armor still needed to look visually interesting, hence the current direction.

Another concept Rachel toyed with was the idea of giving the Canid (and a few of the other races of the kingdoms) pet birds. While the owls pictured here may not reflect the final designs, I liked the concept and think the addition of birds into the various societies open up some great opportunities, logistical, visual, and story-wise.

Updated Race Designs: Tamian and Ermehn

Continuing the theme from the last production update, I thought I'd share a little bit about more the updates we're pursuing for the various races of the Four Kingdoms.

Of all the races in the comic, the Tamian have probably experienced the fewest number of changes since the original pitch went out. Instead of altering their look, we focused more on creating a cohesiveness to protagonist Quinlan's attire and trying to expand that out to other Tamian scouts. This character on the right, Miren, was meant to appear in our prequel tale as a precursor to Quinlan.

As you can see, her outfit really isn't that dissimilar to Quinlan's. The layered tunic design remains, along with the hood (which Quinlan hasn't worn up yet, but Miren does). Miren's addition to the Tamian scout uniform is the chest piece. The one here is mostly ceremonial, as a scout would not rely on it over their natural agility when it comes to defense. The chest piece would primarily be fashioned from Treewalker chitin - a symbol of that scout's first kill. Many greenhorn scouts would be shown the ropes at once, and the carapace of a giant Treewalker would be enough to fashion ceremonical chestplates for all scouts in the party.

The other race I'll show off today is the Ermehn. After losing their homeland to the Canid many years prior, the Ermehn have been relocated to the hostile Northern Wastes, forced to scavenge for food and shelter daily.

Their lifestyle and surroundings don't really allow for heavy armor or ceremonial garb, so they make do with what cloth scraps they can muster up. Instead of focusing on ornamental armor to denote their respective clans, the Ermehn rely on tattoos and paint applied to their fur, with patterns ranging from simple to complex. In most cases, the application of these marks is considered permanent. If an Ermehn is disowned by their clan, it can result in the forceful removal of these marks, which can be painful, if not deadly for the victim.

The Ermehn clothing style is similar to the one Rachel and I used in the original pitch, though the addition of heavier cloth, various wrappings, and winter cloaks all became more prominent in the recent designs. The Ermehn travel across some positively brutal terrain in the Northern Wastes, so making sure they had proper protection - even with their familiarity with cold lands - was essential this time around.

Next time I'll wrap up our tour of the comic's race updates by covering the Polcan and Canid races.

Brian Jacques - 1939-2011

It's not very often when somebody creates a world so imaginative, so influential, that generations of creators call on it as their inspiration. This past weekend, the creative world lost a giant - a man who crafted a world of woodland creatures living in an Abbey in the middle of Mossflower Wood, and created a community of fans and admirers that I sincerely hope will continue to be influenced by his incredible body of work for years to come.

In a world that changes on the whims of focus groups and sales charts, here was a man who honestly did not care about any of those things. The Redwall series transcended reviews and bestseller lists. The Redwall series simply was - and every year, almost like clockwork, another book came out that you could read, each one offering a simple guarantee that for a short amount of time, you would be whisked away to the world you'd been reading of since childhood, and it would always be the same, always safe, always familiar, no matter how dark or dreary the real world became.

Despite the fact that my one personal meeting with Mr. Jacques did not go very well (it involved a Redwall video game pitch back in 2004, and interviews have since proven that this was not an idea he was very keen on), I owe him so very much. To thank him for the Redwall series itself seems insignificant - instead, I look beyond it to see that Rachel and I would probably not know each other if there was no Redwall series, and this comic tale, this world, these characters - they simply would not exist without the Redwall series as a guiding light in our early years.

My long-standing and irreplaceable friendship with Sean Rubin began with that Redwall video game pitch - and other friendships I cherish (Kristen, Vero, Zach, everyone - too many to list) began with a common interest in the Redwall series. My work on David Petersen's Mouse Guard series would not have come to pass either, without the series' incredible impression on both his work, my work, Sean's work, and our friendship. Truth be told, most of my personal creative endeavors are due to Brian Jacques and the fantasy series he created.

I don't know what the future holds for the Redwall series now - but I know that regardless of what happens with the series proper, that it will continue to evolve and improve in the hearts and minds of the creators it inspired. Redwall was more than a book series to me - it was and always will be an idea; a creative spark that, as long as we continue to hold it with us, will never die.

Updated Race Designs: Vulpin and Felis

It's been almost two weeks, time for another update!

After spending some time updating the Lutren clothing and armor and making it look more cohesive with Lutren culture, Rachel and I set about defining new looks for the other major races of the Four Kingdoms. While some things are still being tweaked, I thought I'd share some of the in-progress designs Rachel and I are examining.

For the desert-dwelling Vulpin, Rachel's first order of business was to do away with the concept of a "woodland" fox as the basis for their design, instead drawing more inspiration from the kit fox and other desert-dwelling species. The newer design sports a wider face, with eyes, nose, and mouth being relatively close together in the center, and larger ears set high up on their heads.

The end result, I think, makes them look less like a caricature of the usual fox-type characters you see these days, and helps to establish them as their own race free of the usual stereotypes one normally associates with a "fox" character.

The clothing and armor for the Vulpin pulled inspiration from a number of sources, from your prototypical Saracen warrior to the Ottomans. A number of these elements came together to form the basis of the Vulpin "look".



The other race I'll show today is the Felis - the cat-like race that hails from the kingdom of Kishar on the eastern coasts. While the Felis are celebrated explorers, scientists and navigators (natural curiosity, you see), they also have a rather impressive army, and that required some imposing armor detailing.

One thing Rachel did here that I really like is emphasize the eyes - feline eyes are very striking, and creating a helmet design that isolates them from the rest of the face makes for a very unsettling look that would strike fear into any opponent.



The armor designs take some pages from Viking designs, and have hints of the Roman Centurians as well. These will be updated to include some more interesting visual layers on the torso/legs so it's not dominated by a single texture, but overall I'm quite pleased with the first stages of this armor update.

The original Felis scholars wore robes that would have seemed at home in the Roman Senate, but the plain white just wasn't very interesting - so Rachel took a stab at a new design - one that hinted at self-importance and vanity, as these scholars think quite highly of themselves. The new design uses the Felis color scheme as well.





For reference, these are the other color schemes for the races in "Beyond the Western Deep":

Each one has their own dominant colors, so even if you don't see anything but a little blob of colors, you'll know which kingdom that blob of colors belongs to.

These new race designs are quite important right off the bat, as the comic opens on a massive cityscape, showing many races milling about the Felis city of Gair. This requires core outfit design for the various races to be solidified so we can make sure their representations in the first few panels match their appearances later on in the comic as well.

In our next couple posts, we'll go into more of the updated character designs, including those for the Tamian, Ermehn, Polcan, and Canid races.

We're Back!

Wow, it's been a long time since October, hasn't it? Actually, it's been a long time since any update on The Four Kingdoms - so I guess it's about time for some new news! Despite some definite interest in the comic pitch at NYCC last October, there haven't been any bites as of yet.

These past five or so months have been dedicated to a few different projects, ranging from a new one-sheet pitch of the comic to a possible webcomic prequel detailing the first days of the Four Kingdoms War.

After some helpful suggestions from fellow comic creators, Rachel and I have decided to begin producing our story as a webcomic series. Instead of being a prequel, however, we will be telling the story that was originally pitched, and the one that we've been detailing in this blog since the very first post. While things are still a little ways off before we can start posting material, we plan to keep what followers we have up to date on how the comic is coming along as we put the webcomic and its respective site together.

Again, sorry it's been so long since our last post - now that we're back to producing the comic, you can expect more frequent updates here - we'll shoot for one new update every 1-2 weeks with in-progress material to show off, and some in-depth stuff regarding all the changes we've made to the story over the last few months.

Click for Full-Size

What exactly are those changes, you might ask? Well, for starters, we've abandoned the 17 x 26 cm page size. For those not into the metric system, those dimensions hash out to the much more convoluted 6.625 x 10.25 inches - also known as the current "standard" American comic book size. Funny thing about standards is that people like to buck them!

After some experimentation, we've decided that the up-and-coming SQUARE format will be our modus operandi going forward. David Petersen has been a vocal proponent of the format he pioneered with Mouse Guard, and with good reason - square pages are easier to block out, easier to panel, and easier to read. And should one decide to print them out, you'll find they're easier to hold as well.

Other changes are more story-related. The script and story outline have both undergone considerable edits, though I am quite sure they are for the better. Even the characters themselves, as you can see from the concept art, have undergone some aesthetic changes based on further experimentation with the various races and their cultures.

To help illustrate just one of the more noticeable character design changes, Rachel put together this fantastic "before and after" piece to explain our creative process here:

Click for Full-Size

Perhaps the most obvious change thus far is the name. "The Four Kingdoms", while still adequately describing the continent that the story takes place in, will no longer be the name of this tale. While the name holds a special place in my heart, since it was the original name for long, it was never a particularly good name. There are simply too many "Kingdom" stories out there, and finding a good name for the comic became a long and arduous challenge. Finally, we settled on a name - one that calls up the forest that surrounds Quinlan's home city of Terria.

The new name of this story is to be "Beyond the Western Deep".

Rachel and I are very excited to be working on new content for this tale, and we hope you'll stick around for the ride as we commence full production on this new webcomic venture.