Okay, I've got pretty much the whole story mapped out now. It's a flash forward in time from my previous three stories, which were set in 2002. This is one is set on Cybertron, 2006, in the aftermath of the Unicron attack.

I've mapped out all the events, and I've pretty much got what i call the emotional core of the story planned out. I'm currently thumbnailing the tale. First three pages are sequenced and written.

Like most of my stories, this one is pretty light on Decepticons so far. I don't know why. I guess Autobots have more depth to write for. This story will have two interconnected plots, focusing on two teams of Autobots. The first team, led by Ultra Magnus, currently features Hound, Red Alert, Quartz and everyone's favourite happy little arsonist SolFire. The second team at the moment is led by Rodimus Prime, Kup, Sentinus, and umm.... not sure who else really. This is where you can start saying to me "OOO! Use my character! Oo! OoO!". It could be Ti, it could be Spectrawave, any G1 Autobot really... who knows!

The villain of the piece is certainly an odd choice. It surprised me too - I'd narrowed it down to a few suspects (Shockwave was top of the list, but I used him in Courage), but I let the story dictate who it needed to be and when he stepped out of the shadows in my mind I went "Bwah...?!?!". And it's not freakin' Nemesis Wheelie... or is it really?

No, it's not. He doesn't even have an "e" in his name.

Expect to see Rodimus being a good leader, but having his trademark self-doubt. Expect to see Quartz and Ultra Magnus having a domestic. Expect to see SolFire blowing up jive on a GRAND scale. Expect Sentinus to use that big hug-off axe of his. Expect Kup to piss and moan.

I'll have some art for this scanned soon. I've no set deadline for this one. I'm hoping to have part one finished probably before August. I'm really going to try and up the ante with the art on this one. I'm shooting for better layouts, more details, and generally a more professional sheen to the whole endeavour. I'm hoping to tag more of your beautiful people for colouring and inking assists (I'm looking at you Jake and -VP-!)

Right now, it's looking to be following my standard format, 8 pages per part, in two parts. And how cool is title? It was a toss-up between "The Best Defence..." and "Stuff Explodes"!

Anyway, I need to try and better my last three. Wish me luck.

Can't wait, can't wait!!!

Comon no Headline!?! I thought she and Quartz would be like the reacurring characters threw out your fan-comic. Oh boy, both Quartz and Ultra Magnus in the same place at the same time in a team no dout. Seeing that she's the only one who clams Quartz down whenever he's angry, and that she's gone I'm sure Quartz will loose his temper once Ultra Magnus gives him a word. I'm suprise to see how quickly you cooked up a story; about a week ago you told me you never had any plans for anything after OOT.


I find it quite interesting that you decided to jump to our present; sort of. Seeing that this is after the Unicron attack... Then I'm sure we'll see his ultimate herald in future fan-comics. NEMESIS WHEELIE!!! Better yet, Star Scream's ghost....


Well other then that, I have a couple of choices. I'd say Ken's Jetleg and Sam's Spectre Wave needs some fan-art-luvin. I see the two teams are fembot lacking. Even though I feel it's unfair to give another of my fanbots, but if she's best qualified for the story, then by all means you can use Electric. Or how about San's Gizmometer.

A suggestion on your Fan-comic. By anychance could you use the Titanium Rodimus design? I never liked the design he was given. His G1 design never struck me as a design befitting the Leader of the Autobots.

Waaaah? Not cool. :<

Yeah! There's HEAPS of depth to explore with Decepticons. Just no-one ever does.

Get out of my head. I was thinking the same thing. Both about Headline, and the choices for other cast members.

This next story sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. Can't wait!

Simmer down, boys, Headline needs a break. Didn't ya see what happened to her face?

Personally I'm quite pleased to see some Sentinus love. I've been trying to write a Sentinus background piece, and perhaps seeing him in action will give me the inspiration I need to get it going again.

I'm excited about seeing Sentinus in action. A lot of people seem to like the character I created even though he hasn't actually appeared that often. He's got a lot of potential as a character: he's conflicted..wise and respected yet fights a war he never wanted to fight..He's always been the voice of reason and rational thought, but inside he harbors an obsession with revenge against Megatron..he knows his God is real but harbors distrust in his grand design. Plus, he carries a bad ass axe and that rocks

And of course I'll lend a hand on the coloring. I might would even pencil a cover for it later on.

Yes "Teddy" mind reading is one of many powers the Council of Nine have given me. By the way... "I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO SAY THAT." XD

After reading this my thought was "Two old farts on the same team. One whines and the other has an axe. This should be fun."

And don't worry about me bugging you to get my chars in. My only G1 ish chars are an early maxi and a bot deep undercover who I don't even have a name for yet.

That's a fan-TAS-tic suggestion.... consider it done!

My inking tablet is at your command sir!

looking forward to this, as i did with the others. tis all good stuff

feel free to use anything of mine for whatever and whenever, s'all good

I have to agree with the man.

I like the Ti Idea. And you already have permission to use him since I've created an IG universe version of Quartz.

Titanium Rodimus + fancomic =

Took a pretty major step today... bought some 11x17 Bristol Board...

Oooooooohhhh. Niiiice. Good luck with it, man!

Okay, here's a panel from from page 1. Drawn using 2H and 6B pencils, on 11x17 Bristol Board. A bit of a departure from me, but a neccesary one if I'm to evolve as an artist. It's really weird trying to scale up my drawing style to fit the larger canvas, but the upshot should be more detailed and a more finely crafted layout.



I think the next evolutionary step is to start using a bloody ruler... Also, this is going to be a bitch to scan. I'll have to piece it together in Photshop from 2 or 3 scannings.

From a story perspective, I've got the first four or five pages set in stone now. It's the build up to the story, and I've got it totally nailed. It's incredibly satisfying to craft the beginning and have it fit your plans. There's not a shred of unneccesary story detail there, but it's delivered in such a way that upon first reading, you don't realize you've been given the info. I was seriously pleased with that. The ending is mapped out. I have certain story points I need to hit before I get there, but that'll evolve naturally as I write it up with the thumbnails. I know at this point it's safe to start drawing the first few pages.

As I'm working on a larger format now, I can't really do this at my desk at work... as such this'll take longer to draw than Out Of Time. Pity really, as I want to get these things bashed out ASAP... I'm an attention whore, what can I say?

here's a trick i do in order to save time in scanning something as big as a 11x17 peice. i go out and look for a good copy machine (Kinkos is one I know of) and make reduced copies that're large enough to fit on your scanner. when scanning, i set it to scan the peice with 600dpi resolution; it makes for a more therow scan. when done i shrink the image down to a 300 dpi resolution. i learned that trouble shooting trick from a comic company i wanted to work for.

As usual, my little tradition, posting the first complete page... actually, it's not a bad little teaser!



More as and when it happens.

Oh. Fa. RAG.

Hoooo! You did that bad boy faaaaast.

Didja scan it in parts? 'Cause if you did, I can't tell.

And let me be the first to comment that it's starting off with a bang.

*Rimshot*

I swear I didn't do it.

OOOOOH, pretty.

Indeed! And yes, this was scanned in parts and assembled in Photoshop. First time I've ever used 11x17 as a page size... it's enormous!!

Ah man... Sweet.

Do the rest now.

Sweet.

Your colors continue to look stunning on these, Kris.

The only critque I have is that your colors on Rodimus are WRONG!


Change them NOW or feel my angry fanbot wrath!!!

Hehe, that'd be Marvel UK Hot Rod!

WOW. Battle-Damaged Cybertron and... ooooooooh... splodey... yeah, that's a teaser if I ever saw one.

Oh-o-o-o-o!, I cant wait!

Slow going.... I've been working on a few other non-TF projects of late, trying to broaden the whole portfolio...

So anyway, finally got to penciling page 2... again, really trying to snazz up my pencils... they are definitely cleaner at least.

Magnus, Quartz, Hound and Red Alert gather in.... Exposition Central!!


Quartz hates auto-pilot.



More soon!

There's already a color for that, you know what it is?..... Pink.




Yeah, this looks really rocking. Really, I mean, for serious.
I'm really excited to see some more.

oooooh. Bots yapping, I can't wait to find out what they're actually saying. ^_^

all looking good so far (as usual!), as for Roddy's colours, I would certainly prefer more red than pink. i always hated how they made him that sickly pinkish red colour.

a more solid red = good

Well, he ain't pink in my comics, that's for sure. Red all the way.

Ooooh, yay for Hound and Red!

And Rob, Titanium Rodimus is reeeeeed.



See?

woohoo for red

fixed.

Foiled again for the first time! XD

Remember Shum: Rodimus is the same color as Leiger.

Currently colouring up page 2. Real life and non-TF art projects have delayed this comic a little bit, but it's getting there. Here's a colour WIP...



More soon! And Rodimus is red! Not pink!

Yes more of Drivaar's space shots!!

quite you!!!

Yes, I am "quite" right.

On topic: I like seeing the space in your style again Driv.

Ah blame Josh. I completely ripped off his space background, unoriginal wench that I am.

I've been in a creative funk of late, doing bloody nothing... finally finished up inks for another page today, although colouring has taken a back seat. Hopefully get to more pencilling soon.



Magnus is probably wondering how to deal with Solfire.

More soon, hopefully!

Ruh-roh.

You make Sol look good, Kris.

*wonders*

looks like sol lost his fire.