Notes on Chapter One

As noted on the About page, the story of Helix Industries began life as a novel. The book was never completed, and the story, though not forgotten, definitely experienced a haitus. When I drew the first few pages of chapter one, it was a fun excercise, but I wasn't seriously considering posting it.

A few months later I looked over the pages again, and drew some more. It was around this time I began to think of posting them. I scanned and coloured the first five pages, then began posting them at a rate of two per week, scanning and colouring more when needed. A few late updates and two weeks away from my keyboard in August not withstanding, I managed to stick to that two a week schedual over the four months that it took me to post chapter one, even when my 'buffer' of completed strips ran out and I could not finish enough pages to replace it.

The drawing of the final page of chapter one was completed in mid-august, while I was on holiday in Scotland, though it would be another two months before it was posted. Because of the large time gap between starting chapter one and finishing it, my art style has changed somewhat over the course of the chapter. Nothing huge, but there have been improvements here and there in the way I draw things, and (especially in the first few pages) the character designs are not always 100% consistant. For example, until page 4, Essence's hair was drawn with the black felt tip that I use for large areas. On page 4, I needed to show it flaring out when she used her powers, so I drew the strands with a fineliner pen and filled the gaps with dark blue when I coloured it.

The gap between drawing the pages and scanning them has its advantages, namely that it allows a page to be 50% complete well before it needs to be posted, but there is one major disadvantage. I often write the dialogue on the page in pencil, but it is erased before I scan and only added permanently after colouring the page. By the time I get to this stage, though, I have sometimes forgotten what I had in mind when I drew the page, which makes for a drop in writing quality. I am considering noting down the dialog in a notebook or computer document in future.
Of course, some times it's not possible to keep the dialog the same even if I can remember it. The placement and size of the speech bubbles is restricted, since I don't want to block the image in the panel.

I use closeups focusing on only a part of a character's face--usually the eyes--quite frequently, as well as shots of characters' hands. I think this adds to the dramatic impact of some scenes as it allows the reader to have a more intimate connection with the characters. Certain colours come up a lot, too, specifically the combination of bright green and pink (Blair's shirt, some of the signs in Whitelit) and the combination of black and various shades of blue (Essence's costume design, the bar, and even this website).

The design of this website was based around the Helix Industries logo (top left of this page) and is supposed to look like part of the corporation's computer database.

I enjoyed creating the costume designs for the extras in the bar. The idea was that they should look very unique, and not be too close to what most people would wear now days. On the whole, I have a problem with making Anika look futuristic enough, considering that it's supposed to be almost 200 years in the future. I much prefer the urban decay, "20 minutes in the future" look to the whole jet packs and flying cars thing. My excuse is that the world in my comic is basically post apocalyptic. Although we don't see much of it, outside the cities it's pretty much unlivable desert--the results of global warming, I think. It's not unreasonable to assume that there's been some technological setbacks.

One thing I haven't figured out about the setting is where on earth Anika is located. It's very much based on Tokyo, and a fair percentage of the population (particularly among the upper classes) is of Japanese descent; but there's a large white population as well, most of whom have Irish or otherwise celtic ancestry. (Other ethnic groups aren't uncommon either, it's fairly multicultural.) I plan to think about this as I continue the comic.

In typical fashion for me, the cover was one of the last parts of the comic I did. My previous attempt at an online comic happened like that as well. I think it's because I find it easier to draw a cover once I have some idea of the story it's for. The cover was coloured in photoshop rather than paint shop pro, which is my usual program, and I plan to colour the pages of chapter two the same way. The cover also encorporated photography--the background consists of edited photographs of the tax offices in near where I live.

I look forward to continuing with this comic. Chapter two will update at a slower pace, in order to give me some time to do other things and perhaps create a buffer, but it will be completed eventually.