Flight of the Living Dead series 2

ScottEwen

Quick recap:

Flight of the Living Dead is my zombie-themed graphic novel/webcomic. It is not affiliated with the movie of the same name (my comic came first). If you want to read it, it's at www.sigmaairlines.com and www.serializer.net. If you just want to critique some pages, please have at it.

This is page four of series two. Pages one-three aren't done yet, but I felt like drawing a plane.

Prospicience

:O crashed in the water?! Exciting man, can't wait to read it.

Charmy

Er, just to be completely clear, by "Series 2" you ARE referring to it picking it up where it left off, correct?

I've enjoyed it a lot so far, and can't wait to see some new material.

NakedZergling

is it flying or floating on water? cause it kinda looks like it's in water, but the clouds would make me thing it's in the air.

Crowleston

Didn't you know that zombies have the ability to seamlessly land airplanes in the ocean!? Duhh... it comes with the virus.

ScottEwen

Yeah, it picks up where I left off before.

It is floating in the water. There are thunder clouds off in the distance that will be causing problems later in the story.

TimTheSloth

The wings aren't even attached to the plane how could it be flying?

I think if either the bottom of the clouds or the horizon was more clearly defined it might help the sky ground situation.

The perspective is really good. The only possible issue I see in with the sun (moon?) reflection... I'm not sure exactly how it should occur but my mind tells me it should be either be a different size or location, it seems oddly close to the viewer but it could be my mind playing tricks on me.

Also with a sunset at that angle (sunrise? moonrise?) I would expect some harder shadows.

Looks great though, I really enjoyed the first set... looking forward to the next.

ScottEwen

Thanks for the critique. It is a moon, the rest of the story (until the last chapter) takes place at night. A lot of the shading I'll be doing in gray tones, so hopefully it makes more sense when you see the finished page.

Oh, and the plane has crashed in the water. One of the wings broke off, I'm going to add more debris to make that clearer.

ScottEwen

Inked

ScottEwen

Thoughts? Let me know if the zip-a-tone stuff doesn't work, or if it needs tweaking.

Hythloth

I really love the sky and the water. The "tree-like" clouds in the background I find confusing, however.

Crowleston

I find the contrast of the painterly looking backgrounds and water do not go well with the texture of the plane. The plane doesn't look like it belongs with the rest of the image.

Iruka

yeah, the storm clouds look like trees, especially with the with that second layer of clouds back there. I would try to overlap them/foreshorten them, they look like a flat line of trees around a lake.

ScottEwen

ScottEwen

So I'm thinking from the critiques of page four I've gotten so far here and at Penciljack that I need to decide whether to do this series entirely in flat gray tones OR zip-a-tone, but mixing and matching them doesn't work. Any thoughts?

TimTheSloth

I personally like the flats more. I'm not sure you need a lot of shading added, I would just go with white black and some very subtle grays. The shading looks a little heavy on the plane for example (even if it were flats). For instance in page one that you just posted the only page I think shading would add a marginal amount is the last panel (to separate the girl from the background a little).

I think the page 4 clouds could use a little less solid looks, like maybe have a puff or two that's not attacked to the big clump or have a hole in them or something.

Horizon line looks a lot better.

Page one looks awesome. Great perspective ideas and the texture/grittiness is perfect, not over or under done at all.

TehSpectre

Scott, the comic is great so far, keep it up man.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

I've never really been a fan of zip-a-ton stuff. I say tone it by hand, or use the flats or what have you.

ScottEwen

TehSpectre

This is better.

anable

Good stuff Scott. As usual, I'm looking forward to the next hour.

For some reason the plane doesn't look damaged enough to me. I've been trying to explain why for the last five minutes but it just looks too "placed" I guess is the best word I can think of. The damage to the fuselage doesn't look like what would happen if a plane actually crashed in the water. Obviously you can't have it completely tore up as it would imply everyone is dead inside (haha pun!).

Something more like (but not as extreme as) this:

ScottEwen

Right. I realize it's not as busted up as it could be, but I couldn't completely demolish the plane since the story continues to take place on it. The inside of the plane is all busted up, though. You can see it a little in page one, but pages two and three show how awful the crash was to the inside of the plane.

ScottEwen

TimTheSloth

What's going on in panel 2?

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

realization of a broken limb, I'd imagine, but it is slightly awkward looking...

ScottEwen

TimTheSloth wrote: »

What's going on in panel 2?

Continuity.

Red_Arremer

The only thing that was kind of wierd to me was that they said "fuck" way too much to strangers in the first issue. But once the zombie stuff happens, I realize they're gonna say it alot more. Otherwise it's interesting. I wonder how the story is going to unfold in such a confined space.

anable

Red_Arremer wrote: »

The only thing that was kind of wierd to me was that they said "fuck" way too much to strangers in the first issue. But once the zombie stuff happens, I realize they're gonna say it alot more. Otherwise it's interesting. I wonder how the story is going to unfold in such a confined space.

I'm guessing it will involve a shrinking potion/ray.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

Congrats Scott, you've made it onto Wikipedia!

I have to say, the plots are not identical and whoever wrote this write up is a pillow biter.

I'm watching the movie (and this cut, as it were, has the PLANE DEAD title) and it's just bad. Plane Bad, if you will.

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

Wow, that was not a good movie. Like, at all.

It's almost 40 goddamn minutes into the movie before a zombie even shows up, then another 20 before they actually start doing anything.

ScottEwen

Should I be glad to hear the movie is terrible? I kind of knew it would be, but if people are associating that movie with my name, it kind of damages my career before it's even really started.

ScottEwen

I just got an email from ComiXPress that my proof copy of FoLD #1 has been sent. This is months after I sent the files to them, and I had to send an email asking them to hurry up or refund my money before they sent me the proof.

So, hopefully if this comic looks the way it's supposed to, it could be up for sale by the end of the week. And hopefully it doesn't take months for customers to get their copies.

ScottEwen

EDIT: Crisis averted. Someone sent me the font I needed.

ScottEwen

And now for some art critiques. This is the final version of hour four, page one.

ManonvonSuperock

why the change of color?

ScottEwen

Too much? I wanted a hint of color for the pages, but not too much that it's noticeable. I realized that the color versions of my pages, when they get scanned in, have a warmth that gets lost when I convert them to grayscale. I want to try to keep that.

Also, look what showed up in the mail today:

RusticCreature

The color is a nice touch

Stupid Mr Whoopsie Name

You ever get that font recoverd, Scott?

ScottEwen

Mars Balderdash wrote: »

You ever get that font recoverd, Scott?

Yes sir, I did.

Here's a new page I did today. This is for an anthology called FAT CHUNK being put out by Slave Labor Graphics. There's one about robots (coming out May 08) and one about zombies (coming out November 08), but I decided to do the robots one because I'm forever drawing zombies. And I'm putting it in this thread because it's only two pages and doesn't really need a new thread. Chances are very good that I will greytone this page, so it's a work in progress. Second page coming soon!

anable

It's only five panels, but I want so much more.

You have zombie comics. Robot comics. If you post something about ninjas, I will swear that you were destined to draw for me personally.

ScottEwen

anable wrote: »

It's only five panels, but I want so much more.

You have zombie comics. Robot comics. If you post something about ninjas, I will swear that you were destined to draw for me personally.

I think I'd like to do something with ninjas eventually. I came up with a character a few years ago named Ninjew: The Jewish Ninja that I never did anything with. He threw ninja stars of David.

Or pirates. I wrote an eight page pirate script a couple years ago I'd like to eventually make, but it's a musical, so I think I'd rather have someone animate it for me.