The regular color WIP collection is here once again! I had a bunch to catch up on so... that's why it's been kind of weekly lately. These are panels from the last pages of Gregg's timeline in Chapter 1. Most of them from the scary car ride with John.

Personally I really like the last WIP image, haha! Oh, Gregg~

WIP/preview collection number 7! And the last batch of coloring the prologue. I am so happy I am finished with the prologue, phew!

Hello everyone!

So, as promised, here's a blog post about Gregg's part of the old Chapter 1. As mentioned in the update on Monday, I posted the rest of it in the extra section to compensate with the slightly empty update-page this week.

I posted the first half of it last year in September. Here's my post about that, in case you want to read up. I wrote about the old format of the comic when I first started to draw it, how I printed it and why I decided to redraw Chapter 1 based on how the old one looked.

 

 So, the second part of the old Chapter 1 is actually the old Chapter 2 as well. Why, you might ask? To make you even more confused?

You see, what was earlier told in two chapters, have been crammed together into one - Chapter 1. The reasons for that are written in the info section and in the previous blog post I just mentioned. In short: it was to give the reader a bit faster dive into the main characters and the story, and less of the side stuff that wouldn't matter in a few chapters.

I tell you a bit about the big changes!

Two characters were completely removed, since they only appear once in the comic: Emelie and Matilda.

Emelie was someone Sigsten is dating only in this chapter, which is really boring and not a very interesting female character. I can't justify that in a good way.

Matilda is a younger girl curious about flying, but Gregg thinks she's just in the way. I really like the idea of Gregg being so into his flying-dreams that he's a bit annoying towards those who don't catch on to what he's talking about. But here, I think he was just mean and not very likable. Since Matilda wasn't even invited to the kite flying, she felt soul less, so I removed her from the initial crew.

Both of these characters were based on old friends of mine that meant a lot to me, so it's really sad I had to remove them. Luckily, Elsa is still a very important character - and she is also based on a childhood friend.

Big change number two: John and the misshapens' first appearance!

John's first appearance was changed. In the old Chapter, he's on lunch meeting with Frank. We also had the first encounter with the misshapen here. I liked this scenario, but I didn't like how the shop keeper seemed just as homicidal as John.  Also, all the adults around seem like ignorant bastards. Sure, Frank is ignorant in his way of being silent in the new Chapter 1, but he clearly shows his side in body language. But here, in the old one, he openly agrees John is right. In public! Sure, he could have his reasons for that but... no. Not OK, Frank.

What I do regret removing from the new Chapter 1 is some of the more joyful and funny moments I had in the old one. Such as Gregg making a kite out of Sigsten's underwear and Elsa giving Gregg a smooch on the cheek. Sure, it's all a bit childish, but they are kids, right?

I was so focused on keeping what was important to the plot that I left out a lot of much needed comic relief in the new Chapter 1. I think Delta-v even pointed this out at one point in the comments. Reading the old pages made me realize how emotionally heavy the story is in the beginning right now. Hopefully Lorentz' part will balance it out a bit!

That's some of the biggest changes I made! Of course most of it is changed and look completely different now, but it basically ends with the same thing: Gregg being pissed about John & then airplanes re-enter the skies.

Go here to read all of Gregg's part of the old Chapter 1

(If you already read what I posted in September, you need to scroll down half the page!)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment here or on Tumblr if you have any questions. :)

An other batch of more high res color WIPs! It's been a while, huh? Here are some WIPs/previews from back when I colored the prologue. I like how you can sum up the Big Assault by just reading one panel from some of the pages in a sequence. Something I strive for when improving as a comic artist: that you can read the story without words. I still have a lot to learn, but seeing this makes me happy. :)

Some fun "cameos" in these panels. A good friend of mine's name is on the registration-plate on the car (SWÖ). The sign IMA is short for the last project I took part of before graduating University 2009. I was only part of the very pre-stage in the project, though.

 

I totally forgot to upload these last colored pages of the Prologue. Sorry! I wrapped them up during my last days off work during the holidays, actually. Just never got around to save and replace.

So, here's the last 5 colored pages of the Prologue, and I'm all caught up! Feels great! I can now say that my comic is 100% in color... exceeeept for that weird transition page at the end, I have no idea how I'll keep down the size of that thing in full color. Maybe I'll keep it in flat-colors-style!

Page 16: old b/w & new colored

Page 17: old b/w & new colored

Page 18: old b/w & new colored

Page 19: old b/w & new colored

Page 20: old b/w & new colored

Enjoy!

An other tumblr ask came in before the holidays. Here's the question and my answer. :)

"What happened at the Keane Massacre? Who were the victims? I feel lik I sort of know the perpetrators. When is this going to be explained?"

Hello!

Great question! This is going to be explained later in the comic as Gregg discovers the history about it. Until then, there are and will be hints about who the victims were, why it happened and which province that was responsible for the Keane Massacre.

Thanks for reading and stopping by! <3

Prologue page number 5 has been replaced with a colored one. Wohoo!

I almost managed to finish the colors on all prologue pages before the new year. However, holidays and chores happened. I'm aaaalmost there, though. Got a great amount of color work done during the holidays when I had time off my day-time-job, so I'm hoping to wrap the prologue pages up real soon!

Page 5: old b/w & new colored

This is the holiday card I sent out this year. :)





I love sending out cards! I think my record is about 75 cards a few years ago...

This is Tova! She is going to be introduced in the comic pretty soon.

Happy Holidays! <3

An other question came in a few weeks ago on my tumblr! I'll post this one here as well. :) Feel free to ask me more questions here or on tumblr! If you don't want me to post it here, let me know. If you ask something anonymously I'll probably post it here regardless. :)

"Hey, so whats the deal with the people with claws and unibrows? are they sick? or has the din turned them into another species? is this going to be explained?"

Hello!

Good questions, all of them!

The Prologue indeed hints that these traits started to appear after the din. Why and how this came to be will be explained more properly later in the story.

This is what have been hinted so far:

- After the din, people are vaguely referring to it as a sickness, but still don’t know what it is or how to control it.
- As seen in recent pages, the people of the West calls these people the Misshapen.
- Their nails and hair grows abnormally fast and need to be taken care of often. Some have other/additional abnormalities such as deformed ears or abnormal height/posture.

Hope that answers your questions, without spoiling anything. :) It will be properly explained later, since it has a big impact on the story.

Thanks for reading!

Color WIP batch time!  Haven't posted one of these batches in a while. :)

This time from the Prologue, which I am catching up on colors on while working on future pages. It's still really weird (but somewhat rewarding?) to color these old pages. I won't allow myself to fix too much in them, since I need to move on in the story, but I get a chance to see what I have improved throughout the years. Which is nice.
(I do want to fix most of the vehicles in the Prologue, though. Sometime. They are hilarious...)

Anyway, for your information, I keep posting these as I make progress on colors over at my twitter. :) The reason why I post them here in batches is I like to share a bit higher res versions of my WIPs somewhere.

Over and out! <3 I wish you all an awesome weekend!