Well, as you probably know, the secret to good writing isn't making everything make sense, it's just making everything make sense for your characters. So it doesn't really matter what you throw in and don't explain as long as it doesn't affect character development in a bad way. I hope you understand what I mean: if your character takes something for granted, it is likely that the readers will take it for granted, no matter how foreign or incredible it is at the time. As long as it doesn't turn out to be a deus ex machina, because that will just make your character turn into complete bullshit. To develop believable characters, you will eventually be forced to fit everything properly into the story, so I really don't think it matters what it is. I mean, Xenomorphs have dicks instead of heads, and look how many people even question that. We love xenomorphs not because of how believable they are, but because the human characters in the Alien franchise made them feel real, so we don't question all of their incredible and ridiculous features.


So in the end, whatever the non-human things do to each other, it doesn't matter unless it somehow affects the human characters, because the reader will ONLY relate to human characters, regardless if they want to identify with aliens, preds or whatnot.

Comments like that are exactly what I need. It's why I made thread - not to show off, but to have you guys help me turn this into... something. And telling me this kind of stuff is gonna help me make it be something.

If it DOES end up bad, then at least I'll have gone down trying.

"So in the end, whatever the non-human things do to each other, it doesn't matter unless it somehow affects the human characters, because the reader will ONLY relate to human characters, regardless if they want to identify with aliens, preds or whatnot."

This is actually why I've spent more than half the year developing the humans while pretty much neglecting everything else. It resulted in less art updates for you guys, yeah, but this is really important to me.

While, for the most part, I want to create a story filled with fast-paced action and tongue-in-cheek writing, I also wanted even more to tell a story that can help people. I don't know why, but my family as well as my friends have been involved in a lot of things whether it be suicide, drug/alcohol abuse, marital/relationship problems, child abandonment, abortion, loneliness, finding purpose in life, etc. And they've always inspired me to write about these things - to keep their memory alive. So, in a way, this is personal.

With Jim, the former low-life dropout gangster, I want to tell people they can turn their life around and do something worthwhile. Even with everyone telling you you're a good-for-nothing deadbeat, you can still be something. His loud and outgoing behavior is an act, and he actually hates himself more than anyone else could hate him. His destiny is linked with the Predators, and he ends up leading humanity from their control.

Many of my friends in real life have been here or still are, and while there isn't an easy way to find purpose, showing that someone like Jim can do it might hopefully inspire some of them to do the same.

Sarah, Jim's daughter (and the main character), probably has it the worst. She's the main character because, despite everything that's happened to her (which I'm afraid to even post here since it's so brutal), she's still alive because she represents the will to live on. Like her father, she has to put on an act to hide her true feelings because she believes she's worthless. Her destiny is linked with the Aliens (which, in hindsight, is really goddamn cruel of me).

My bestfriend in real life has contemplated suicide numerous times and has been clinically depressed. In the end, though, she'll always confront her fears and problems head-on, and that quality of hers inspires me to be a better person. I hope to make other people feel the same when they read about Sarah.

With Nancy, Sarah's twin sister, she deals with parental neglect and physical abuse. Her mother, one of the major villains of the story, forces her to act like a ruthless rule-enforcer to "properly deal with even the slightest insubordination," but in reality, she's a sweet girl. If she doesn't follow her mother's every command, she'll get beaten as well as insulted. Her mother has always called her things like "worthless slut" and "half-breed," and as a result, she began "sleeping around," thinking that sex could replace the love she's never felt. She starts out as one of the major villains. Eventually, she becomes one of the good guys. I want people to see that you DO NOT have be loyal to your family or parents if they're genuinely bad people, and that having sex isn't something you should be ashamed of.

The friend mentioned above also has problems with her own mother, which used to be a LOT worse than they are now. She's not the only one - I've known many people who had strained relationships with their parents, and it's something that absolutely sickens me. "Why do some people bother having children?" is a question I'll never stop asking myself.

Some of my relatives and my friends' parents have beaten their children before. I've helped some of them deal with the pain (some of them even moved in with other friends/family, which is great), but I'm afraid I don't know where others are at this point in our lives. It's just something that's out of my control. Hopefully, with Nancy, I can inspire people to just look forward to the point in their lives where they don't have to see their abusive parents anymore - they might even be able to control when and how that happens.

Vera deals with some very sensitive topics. She was born male, but is a transgender female who received a completely female body (albeit Synthetic) through the work of an in-story thing called Medical Mechanica. She was alive DURING The Invasion, and in that time, people were still uncomfortable with the LGBTQA community. During the era in which the present story takes place, no one really cares. Compare this to the attitude toward African-Americans during the '50s and the '00s. Yet she's still scared to point out the fact that she's transgender. The fact that she was born male is a significant plot point because it's related to Medical Mechanica.

I've known a few people over the internet who are afraid of coming out as transgender (or anything else). And I've had friends and family who were/are scared of coming out as gay. There's not much I can say about this - homophobia is just stupid, plain and simple. It's as dumb as, if not more than, racism.

And Kiira, well... she's actually supposed to be a sort-of Author Avatar. No, I'm not transgender - the reason she's a girl is to fit in with the all-girl cast. I originally envisioned her as a man, but I thought it'd be interesting to present her romantic relationship with Sarah as if it were just a relationship - not a gay couple, just a couple - in other words, I'm "fixing" the issue by not making it one. Anyway, she's in between the person I am and the person I want to be.

She's supposed to deal with everyday problems as opposed to the heavy shit of the rest of the characters. She feels loneliness, sadness, anger... but she bottles it all up and puts on a "bubbly genius" facade because she thinks her problems can't ever compare to those of her teammates. With Kiira, I want to let people know that their problems are still problems, no matter how small. Everyone matters - the fact that there are starving children on a different continent doesn't negate the fact that you have feelings and that you're human.

Aa for Saya, she's kind of just there at first. She has problems, but she's really just an energetic girl. I guess she's the heart of the group, and its most charismatic person. She's often the voice and face of the group. She inspires others to stay together, and she's really outgoing. Because of her, Beta Team is the most popular with the public, and she really enjoys the fame. I don't want to say she's a Mary Sue, though. She'll have plenty of angst to work with later on.

There's also another girl, Corazon, who gets introduced a little later than everyone else. She's Nancy's handpicked 16-year-old prodigy Mission Control, who ends up having to go on her own adventure involving a zombie outbreak and a deformed serial rapist in a giant mansion. She turns out to be one of The Doctor's Companion Synthetics, destined to give her life for something she never wanted to be a part of.

I know all of these things can use some work, but the urge to share these stories is too much for me to quit now.

I feel like you'd like Ryuu Murakami. He has a great manner of making you fall in love with the deranged and the psychotic. I recommend "Piercing".

That actually sounds really interesting. I'm gonna have to look into getting a copy.

Edit: Full body portraits are being completely redone into a single group shot that'll take less time and have less static poses. They'll also feature slightly updated designs and more characters.

So there's gonna be a group drawing with everyone or separate ones with each group of people/things?

Yeah, each group is gonna be separate. One drawing will have just Alpha Draconis, another with the Elders, etc.

Hey Bloo, check this out: https://iversity.org/courses/the-future-of-storytelling

I didn't read the text on the page, but I enrolled anyway, because it sounds like something I'd like to learn. Just like I did with real life college.

Wow, a useful-sounding class that's also free? I wish real-life college was like that. I might as well check it out - can't hurt.

Anyway, I guess this is a good excuse to post more updates (no art yet, sorry):


- Black Water has officially been changed to Miracle Matter to both reflect its opposite, Medical Mechanica, and reference Kirby 64 + Majora's Mask (the latter of which is, yes, more important than may seem right now).
- Consequently, BWC (Black Water Creature) will also be changed. I'm considering Miracle Monster, but that sounds really dumb.
- If I didn't mention it already, Shelbea Nguyen is now Vera Tran.
- The Engineer job has been changed to the Operator job.
- The addition of Hot Key Vocal Commands has been added. Basically it's a valid and non-cheesy way of my characters "calling their attacks." The only people who have to worry about Hot Keys are Pilots and Operators (or anyone who directs a complex system). That's because Operating Systems often need the user to recite long chains of smaller commands to actually get the OS to do something.

Reducing long chains of commands to "Hot Keys" makes piloting MUCH more efficient. However, mundane phrases like "shoot the gun" and "lift the crate" are made up of words that are WAY to common, so accidental misfires have been solved two ways: 1) the Pilot/Operator HAS to say "Initiate" before reciting a Hot Key. 2) the Hot Key has to be intentionally ridiculous (or, at the very least, made up of uncommon words) so that it's not accidentally said, should the pilot ever have to say the word "initiate" without wanting to misfire. Thus, phrases like "Initiate: Bird, Go!" and "Initiate: Mega Flare" (hopefully) becomes less ridiculous.

Obviously Hot Keys are geared more toward specific attacks, but they can be used for even the most basic task - one character uses "Initiate: Ampora Wizardry" to cut the brightness of her computer's screen to 50%.

Hot Keys also have the disadvantage of being the exact same every time. Anything more than a minor tweak might as well be a different command. Making different Hot Keys for command variations is good preparation.

Of course, there are also manual controls, so making a Hot Key to lift a crate rather than manually controlling the vehicle to lift it yourself would be more trouble than it's worth. Most combat is also done manually; Hot Keys are for special attacks. One character has Initiate: Shining Finger, which does exactly what you expect it to. In fact, it was the first Hot Key I came up with and is the reason why I decided to make Called Attacks.

Sorry, this is long, but I need to justify Called Attacks in an AVP-related work.

I just looked through all my old drawings, and I feel really embarrassed to have posted them.

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but I feel like my drawing's improved a hell of a lot since that last major update. I hope you'll all feel the same, especially when it comes to my humans. I decided to not care about the anime-ness of it all and just go for it. What I'm aiming for is to have these designs look like they came straight from a high-quality animation, so hopefully I'm going in the right direction.

For next time, you can definitely expect Xeuss, Peterson, TDN, DD, Doc/PV2/CH, and Jim. The Predators have had sketches for almost two months now, and the humans are currently in the process of being colored. Group shots are still in the sketch stage.

In the meantime, here's a few teasers: Two of the four major monsters + the six main characters. In order:

1. Sarah, Nancy
2. Kiira, Corazon
3. Vera, Saya
4. Chiropteran
5. Dragon








I'll probably look at these in 6 months and think they're terrible, but right now, I like them.

Edit: Kiira's (the blonde) ear is pretty fucked up, which I've been meaning to fix, but she's actually my favorite one right now.

Holy sweet tits on a spaceship, you have gotten better at drawing and those monsters look like they are the perfect candidates to go up against the Aliens and Predators. I like how the Dragon looks almost like a Xenomorph but it isn't quite one.

There's a reason, actually. The Dragons and Chiropterans are the peak results of two experiments run by unnofficial Red Shield labs. Both experiments, while separate, are trying to create "loyal Xenomorphs." The last time a Xeno was seen in-story was 800 years before the beginning of the story, and that one was the Empress called Saligia (or, as you know her, Red).

Both of them are made from kidnapped humans. In the first planned story arc, the antagonists will be the two men responsible for the experiments: Upton Julius (Dragons) and Amshel Goldsmith (Chiropterans). Julius is borrowed from an old game called Impossible Creatures, and Amshel is borrowed from the Chiros' parent series, Blood+ (of which Saya is also from).

Gradually, the Predators also become more and more important because they're trying to assassinate them.

Wait.

Are all the girls Chinese?

Nah, but all of them except the blonde are Asian:

First one is an albino Japanese/African-American, second one is her non-albino twin, forth is Chinese/Filipino, fifth is Vietnamese, sixth is Japanese.

Other characters aren't drawn the same way, I just tried to make these ones look more Asian. As for the blonde, she's supposed to be Swedish/German, but I like drawing her with the same sort of face as the others.

Well, they all look Chinese to me, except for the Chinese one, who looks kinda Japanese I guess. But I'm no facial facial features recognition expert.

EDIT: Actually the Swede looks kinda Japanese too.

EDIT: I need to look at more Asian faces now, damnit.

As soon as I read the name Upton Julius I had a wave of nostalgia because I used to be obsessed with that game.

It's lucky that I've been getting into a lot of Attack on Titan lately because the anime style is bothering me less and less. It's looking great.

Yeah, I dunno what it is about anime, but if you're not into it, you automatically assume it's just bad. So many people think so lowly of it, but it's a very legitimate storytelling medium. That's why I was initially so adamant about proclaiming my style isn't anime-ish even though it obviously is. I remember one time, Predatoress dismissed and even insulted anime while saying she doesn't watch any at all because of the big eyes and all that, but that's basically what the Disney style is.

And yeah, Attack on Titan might have some of the biggest eyes ever, but it's a great show.

@DW: It's never a bad idea to look at Asian girls.

Seriously though, you'd be surprised how many of the different Asians look alike, especially the most well known ones like Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, etc. I know there are differences, but even some Filipinos, who are generally known to be dark, can be really pale. Half my family is an example, which is why the blue-haired Filipino up there is really pale.

Edit: Wait, it might not be surprising at all, considering how many people mistake one for the other.

I have to admit I was iffy about the anime style, but actually, I think the look of the humans will work well to contrast the hideousness of the creatures. These are going to be static images, so having lots of expression in the eyes will work well.

It's probably the eyes that make me see them as Chinese. I see this type of eye orientation as typical of Chinese people, as opposed to Japanese or Korean. I've met some Vietnamese people too, but I wasn't really paying attention. I hope you understand that this is not a critique of the drawing style, just some obsessive-compulsive behavior of mine.

Nah, you're all good. It's understandable - in the the end, they were supposed to look more Asian in general, and I'm glad you got that at the very least.

@DD: I agree. I COULD have gone with something more realistic, or something more "Western," but to me personally, I think I've see some of the most aesthetically pleasing designs from Japan in terms of higher quality animation. That's not to fault Pixar or anyone else at all, but there's just something about some anime that really impresses me. That's not to say anime is better - a lot of it is run-of-the-mill garbage.

If any of you care to know which works in particular inspired me the most (and how):

- Blood: The Last Vampire (HUGE influence on every aspect of this project)
- Cowboy Bebop (influence on atmosphere)
- Death Note (HUGE influence on the way I color)
- Rebuild of Evangelion (big influence on story + coloring)
- Paprika (influence on story + design)
- Gurren Lagann (big influence on story)
- Ergo Proxy (big influence on every aspect of this project)

With the exception of Gurren Lagann, every one of these is, in my opinion, some of the most aesthetically pleasing things I've seen. Any one of these would be a good "gateway" into anime, especially Cowboy Bebop.

However, if you want an idea as to what my OWN project will feel like, the ones to Google/watch would be Blood, Death Note, and Evangelion 1.11. My aim is get to the point where my work looks just as good as these, because they've got the kind of feel that would be perfect for an animated Alien or Predator.

Are we going to be seeing emotion from the non humans, If so how do you plan on portraying emotion through things like masks/non human faces.