I've actually decided that the best way to get a collab going for this thing would be to create some fake instruction manual with prologue and character descripts and controls and explanations... you get the gist of it.

I've stalled on this long enough so, without further ado, the prologue.

Let me know what you think, and if it sounds at least somewhat prologue-y, y'know... like the kind of thing you'd actually expect to read in an instruction manual.

Hopefully this also sheds some light on some of the things I've said in this thread also about characters and concepts and whatnot. Or maybe it won't. Who knows.

It's said that, long ago, we lived in an age of prosperity, blessed with relative peace and plentiful ressources... Until an elemental storm rocked the entire world, nearly destroying it.
Billions died... few survived.
When the dust settled, nothing remained of our former civilization. Those who'd stayed hidden in underground cities, the Earthians, were the first to return to the surface and witness the devastation. Gifted with tremendous strength, they braved the arid deserts and barren wastelands, rebuilding where they could, struggling to survive-- but crops wouldn't grow and even women couldn't bear children. Humanity seemed to have reached its final hour until the Orbitters, who had sought shelter from the storm in space, fell from the heavens on their massive ship.
Like a breath of fresh air, they traveled to the colonies and used their new-found control over the elements to create rivers, grow forests and even bring new life into the world...
But the Earthians quickly grew wary of the Orbitters. Convinced the former would abuse their powers to dominate the latter, they accused the Orbitters of being the cause for the planet's infertility. The Orbitters were eventually exiled out of spite and, with nowhere else to go, they returned to their former space colony and turned into a massive city.
Now, the Earthians now purchase the Orbitter's services, well aware that they can't survive without their powers. Focused on their petty differences, the two resent each other and fail to see the threat encroaching upon them, for soon a young Orbitter and Earthian working together will be the only thing standing between humanity's salvation-- and its utter destruction.

So yeah. Post-cataclysmic world :D
Expect awesomeness.
And plenty of action.

Oh, and just because these art the art forums, and not the writing forums, here's a few Maika sketches :D
Maika is an Orbitter who specializes in mending wounds and treating illnesses. She comes from a colony mainly known for its abundant amounts of construction wood, and also happens to be one of the few colonies where Earthians and Orbitters still live in relative harmony. She accompanies travelling merchants as they go from town to town, selling their lumber, making sure no one loses their lives :D

She's really happy-go-lucky, naive to a fault and brimming with energy. Maika always looks at the bright side of things and is extremely empathetic, going out of her way to helping people. Very impulsive, always cheery. Loves spiders... for some reason. Finds them adorable.

I can see you've progressed quite a bit here in this thread! I'm liking the last character design. :D The angle of her face in the top-most expression is peculiar, but it looks great. :D Keep it up yo!

Is this an upcoming game? Sounds promising! And oh the girls ear on the top left is tiny! Not that it really matters because it's only a sketch, I just wanted to get on something. Oh and the plot is a little over used but which plots arent! (plot or setting one of them(idk). But all in all great stuff, keep it up :D.

At 9/14/11 03:17 AM, Rhunyc wrote: I can see you've progressed quite a bit here in this thread! I'm liking the last character design. :D The angle of her face in the top-most expression is peculiar, but it looks great. :D Keep it up yo!

Ugh, I know. God knows I erased her face so many times, yet there was always something off. I tried to make it look like she was tilting her head to the left to get some practice with angled shots, but it was more-or-less a success... thanks though! :D

At 9/14/11 05:32 AM, Ramatsu wrote: Is this an upcoming game? Sounds promising! And oh the girls ear on the top left is tiny! Not that it really matters because it's only a sketch, I just wanted to get on something. Oh and the plot is a little over used but which plots arent! (plot or setting one of them(idk). But all in all great stuff, keep it up :D.

I'm definitely aiming to be a game, but it's extremely ambitious and I'm spending waaaay too much time on concept work. The plot does seem generic for now, I will admit, but I'll do my best to make it stand out nonetheless. The devil is in the details! :o

Another concept piece for maika.
Really pleased with the outfit soooo... it'll probably stay that way :D

At 9/15/11 01:52 AM, Kumakun4 wrote: Another concept piece for maika.
Really pleased with the outfit soooo... it'll probably stay that way :D

Yeah it pleases my tastes as well, more concepts?! Lol what am I talking about I got so many character concepts going on for my comic (haha). To be honest I'm just tryna hold off til I can get my hands on a tablet. But yeah I strayed off topic, but she is the protagonist? Or one of them?

At 9/15/11 01:52 AM, Kumakun4 wrote: Another concept piece for maika.
Really pleased with the outfit soooo... it'll probably stay that way :D

your character designs are really good, I'd like to see them with some backgrounds! :D

People are just something I can't draw, but you seem to be pretty good at it! You improved.

At 9/15/11 02:16 AM, Ramatsu wrote: Yeah it pleases my tastes as well, more concepts?! Lol what am I talking about I got so many character concepts going on for my comic (haha). To be honest I'm just tryna hold off til I can get my hands on a tablet. But yeah I strayed off topic, but she is the protagonist? Or one of them?

I mean, I don't want to imply that tablets instantly make you a better artist, because you could very well do good without em, but it makes coloring much easier. For me, anyway.
As far as the character is concerned, she'll be part of a group of five, and play the role of the hero. She's sort of a support character to make the two main characters stand out.

At 9/15/11 03:02 PM, jeeshwa123 wrote: your character designs are really good, I'd like to see them with some backgrounds! :D

These are mostly just sketches and concepts, backgrounds will be another thing entirely... though I'm not afraid to admit I'm really lacking in that department >.>
We'll see what I manage to churn out.

At 9/15/11 03:04 PM, AJtheRipper wrote: People are just something I can't draw, but you seem to be pretty good at it! You improved.

Thank you sir :D
I'm still a ways off from where I'd like to be though, experience-wise.

Sketches :D
I really messed up Maika's left leg, it starts off a bit too high on her... pelvis area, and it just makes the leg seem much longer than the other one, which it shouldn't be. It'll hopefully be easily fixed on the final version :D

The other dude is Mathis, the rogue of the group. He's an Earthian and he's incredibly agile, but nowhere near as strong as Elysse. He's quite pig-headed and his stubborness reflects in everything he does, especially training. He's also incredibly shy, which means he's often abrupt or rude since he doesn't really know what to say to strangers. A bit of a Tsundere if you will, but as a guy...?

Anyway, here's the concept sketch :D

I'm very jelly of your humans. attire has always been difficult for me.

Progress on Maika :D
Hopefully I'll have her shaded soon.
Toyed around with the tree spell thing. For kicks :3

At 10/9/11 12:51 AM, Kumakun4 wrote: Progress on Maika :D
Hopefully I'll have her shaded soon.
Toyed around with the tree spell thing. For kicks :3

She's a medic mage, right?

What does the tree spell do?

I have no idea what it does.
She's indeed a healymage, so a glowing energy tree thing seemed appropriate :D

At 10/9/11 12:55 AM, Felis wrote: What does the tree spell do?

Makes a tree burst out of an enemies chest (straight up like something from Aliens).

At 10/1/11 01:19 PM, Kumakun4 wrote: ... but nowhere near as strong as Elyse.

BAM SUCKAS

I was hoping to get HamsterCake to make a custom soundtrack for Renascentia once I'd gotten conception further down the line, but it seems someone brought up the possibility that one of his songs was stolen.

The fact that a video containing "Sky High" was submitted on youtube one year prior to Hcake's track submission, along with the fact that Hcake implied in the song description that it was made following a previous submission of his made in april 2011, seemed really suspicious.

Hcake was called to explain himself, but never did, and by the time the original track for "Sky High" was discovered (a song named "Almese" by a certain "Rumberos de Hoy"), Hcake had already vanished without a word or trace, along with all of his audio submissions...

A sad day indeed :c

At 10/9/11 12:51 AM, Kumakun4 wrote: Progress on Maika :D
Hopefully I'll have her shaded soon.
Toyed around with the tree spell thing. For kicks :3

Her face looks a little like that of an axolotl.

Another shot at making a landscape/cityscape sketch, this time from seagullseye view :D
I think I did better with this one.

This is going to be one of the cities in-game, a coastal region known as Elendal. People here pretty much just live off of their daily catch, the central circle place being the marketplace where they sell a wide variety of seafood and sea creatures. The houses are all mostly made of stone and clay which is taken from the cliffs on either side of the city, the metals being mostly kept for the construction and maintenance of the myriad of vessels and ships belonging to the Elendian sailors and fishermen.

Bigger resolution can be found HERE, though it's just a roughly-colored sketch :D

At 10/17/11 11:10 PM, Kumakun4 wrote: Another shot at making a landscape/cityscape sketch, this time from seagullseye view :D
I think I did better with this one.

This is going to be one of the cities in-game, a coastal region known as Elendal. People here pretty much just live off of their daily catch, the central circle place being the marketplace where they sell a wide variety of seafood and sea creatures. The houses are all mostly made of stone and clay which is taken from the cliffs on either side of the city, the metals being mostly kept for the construction and maintenance of the myriad of vessels and ships belonging to the Elendian sailors and fishermen.

Bigger resolution can be found HERE, though it's just a roughly-colored sketch :D

Hmm, I see I like this concept, but wouldn't the market place where they sell the fish and such be better off closer to the water rather than right before exit/entrance? Easier to thief and get out of the city! :) also the walls around the city are they to keep for example bandits and natural disasters from devastating the city and folk? It's the only thing I can think of. Though it's a rough sketch it's pretty darn epic.

At 10/17/11 11:10 PM, Kumakun4 wrote: Another shot at making a landscape/cityscape sketch, this time from seagullseye view :D
I think I did better with this one.

I side with ramatsu on the placement of the market; organic growth of a city would usually mean it starts with a port and market; and poeple build house around those. the walls seem more logical to me if they were to go into the mountains instead of going all the way down to the sea.

At 10/18/11 04:32 AM, J-qb wrote: I side with ramatsu on the placement of the market; organic growth of a city would usually mean it starts with a port and market; and poeple build house around those. the walls seem more logical to me if they were to go into the mountains instead of going all the way down to the sea.

I agree with you in a sense, which is why I'd made that kind of greyish cement structure near the docks at first and wanted to flank the houses at either side, but I figure since there's going to be a lot of traffic and trading going on, you'd want the visitors and traders to just stay near the city entrance where access is quick and simple, and not actually make them walk through the entire town every time to get their business done. When you go into a town, all of the stores and markets are right there as you enter the city, on the main roads, not hidden deep inside residential areas, but yeah. granted I could change the configuration of the city to have say, the market on the right side and the houses occupying a hefty chunk of the left side of the beach. I dunno, I still thought this configuration was plausible.

As for why the walls don't climb to the mountains, well, it seems wasted since it's nothing but cliffs and vegetation, they'd be walling in a whole lot of nothing, not to mention beasts could just go around the wall through means of scaling the cliffs facing the sea.

I don't mean to argue or anything, you guys bring up valid points, just none that I don't see as unrefutable ._.

At 10/18/11 03:54 PM, Kumakun4 wrote: I don't mean to argue or anything, you guys bring up valid points, just none that I don't see as unrefutable ._.

Reading this part over, I realize how arrogant this sounds, which really wasn't my intention D:
I appreciate the feedback, mates. I might restructure the city, I'll admit I hadn't thought of it as something that actually grew and developped, and rather just saw it as something that needed to be structured and organized properly, with everything in a strategic location.

I guess it's back to the drawing board :o

I haven't posted anything here in soooooo long.
All this talk about figure studies had me doing quite a bit today, trying to get back into the swing of things.
Used posemaniacs for most it, I can't wait to try all of the other links that were posted on Dragonpunch's thread. They won't be lost on me :D

Not drawing in a while feels kind of odd though.
I mean, I don't think I've really forgotten anything that I've learned, so much as I feel I've lost the ease of execution I used to have. I now need to start over parts of my drawing two of three times before I'm satisfied with it, whereas they were parts I used to pull off on the first try a year ago.

I guess it's just... getting back into the habit of things, letting the pencil strokes become instinctive again, so to speak.
But yeah... you know you've done too many figure studies in sucession when you start to... err a bit.