Our Comic Lab in the Playground: An experimentation class

[MethosH]

Originally Posted by BRC

Hey, my guys destroyed their world because their Nanobots were too stupid. The Quarians lost their homeworld because their big robots were too smart.

Not saying its a bad idea. I kind of like it. I'm just saying it feels familiar

[BRC]

Originally Posted by MethosHazara

Not saying its a bad idea. I kind of like it. I'm just saying it feels familiar

"Robots turning against their creators" is so old it's origional.

[Mad Mask]

I was just wondering, what will happen to the people whose faction doesn't make it into the final vote? Will they have to stay away from this project? If they don't, they'll have much less influence than the 6 people who own a civilisation.

[MethosH]

Originally Posted by Mad Mask

I was just wondering, what will happen to the people whose faction doesn't make it into the final vote? Will they have to stay away from this project? If they don't, they'll have much less influence than the 6 people who own a civilisation.

No, they won't have to stay away from the project and nobody "own" a civilization. The idea is for us to create this together. If someone feels touchy about a civilization because he/she had the original idea that person should say should say so. If this is the case we will remove that idea from the vote and from the universe so it stays untouched like the so called creator wants it.

I really don't want to listen to anyone crying things like "Oh yeah?! But I had the original idea and I don't like where this is going to I'm pulling out and take MY idea with me".

We all will get equal rights to everything that its created here. If the majority wants to change something it will be changed.

EDIT:

By the way... In my mind you are cyclops in real life.

EDIT 2:

I also want to add that any civilization that get cut out in the first vote may have a chance in a later stage if we feel there is enough room for another faction. So save your ideas.

[Darklord Bright]

Originally Posted by MethosHazara

I really don't want to listen to anyone crying things like "Oh yeah?! But I had the original idea and I don't like where this is going to I'm pulling out and take MY idea with me".

Hm, I recall having heard near exactly that from someone we've both had dealings with before... In other words: I see what you did there!

I will say, just as a reference point to others who may want to think up ideas for the Zodohaani, that my inspiration was, on a basic level, Orzhammar from Dragon Age, only if it were mixed with Coruscant from Star Wars.

Of course, it has also got my own ideas, like the race itself, and the mining operations and such. There's a network of tunnels beneath the city to work with, after all...

Edit: I might also mention that I would totally love the Police-type warriors to have combine voice distorters. Just sayin'

[MethosH]

Originally Posted by Darklord Bright

Hm, I recall having heard near exactly that from someone we've both had dealings with before... In other words: I see what you did there!

Living and learning, my friend... Living and learning. I really want to avoid fights, so every decision that end up stuck will be solved by vote. We all have seen what "nah... Lets just argue. We are civilized, I'm sure we can find a middle ground" brings.

[Dvandemon]

Hello i'm a little confused. What is the length of a rod compared to a wand and staff? What is the length of a shortspear compared to Lien's longspear?

[Keveak]

Originally Posted by Dvandemon

Hello i'm a little confused. What is the length of a rod compared to a wand and staff? What is the length of a shortspear compared to Lien's longspear?

What does that have to do with anything?

[Keris]

Originally Posted by Dvandemon

Hello i'm a little confused. What is the length of a rod compared to a wand and staff? What is the length of a shortspear compared to Lien's longspear?

Rods are somewhere between wands and staffs in length, with wands being 6-12 inches long, rods 2-3 feet, and staffs 4-7 feet.
I see an OotS style wand being a line about the length of the character's foot, a rod being thicker and around the length of his arm, and a staff being anything from the length of his leg to a head taller than him.

A shortspear would be, well, shorter than a longspear. It can be held one handed, can only strike adjacent foes (while a longspear can strike foes up to 10 feet away, as Lien demonstrates), and can be thrown easily. While the longspear is longer than a character is tall (although it should be longer, but it would be difficult to draw into the panels then), a shortspear would be something from the height of the character down to the height of his body (a head smaller). It would be much thinner if it is meant to be thrown.

I might try to sketch up some examples of each quickly, or might forget.

Originally Posted by Keveak

What does that have to do with anything?

Despite still being currently overtaken with "Let's make a Sci-Fi setting", this is still the Comic Lab.

[Keveak]

Originally Posted by Keris Rain

Despite still being currently overtaken with "Let's make a Sci-Fi setting", this is still the Comic Lab.

I meant, 'What does he need that for? A comic?'

I was curious

[Emperor Ing]

Comic concept continued:
Ok, so for this metroid sprite comic, i've been coming up with a few ideas. One thing I wanna try to do is to have the comic focus on one single character instead of 5 as is the case in WTwU. There will be other characters and storylines going on in the background but you will only know what the main character knows.

Here's the pilot comic I made that'll probably fit into the prologue.

Spoiler

Questions? Comments? Critique?

[Dvandemon]

Originally Posted by Keveak

I meant, 'What does he need that for? A comic?'

I was curious

Why yes I do actually

Well Rand, I may have never played the old Metroid games ('cept on Super Smash Bros. Brawl) that looks good but the border color made the whole thing a little confusing for me

[Keris]

Originally Posted by Keris Rain

I might try to sketch up some examples of each quickly, or might forget.

Here we go:

Wand		Rod		Staff
Long Spear			Short Spear

Originally Posted by The Randomizer

Questions? Comments? Critique?

I'd suggest using a font with the same pixel size as the sprites, or swapping to a more comic-y typeface. You might also want to consider changing to a 2x3 format instead of 3x2, so you don't cause screen stretching.
Also, you made a couple of typos. "Your welcome" should be "You're welcome", and "skrew" should be "screw".

[Darklord Bright]

I was going to see if I could work on a design for a Zodohaani vehicle (Originally, I was going for a sort of "Harvester"-style thing that collected resources from other planets and asteroids) but I ended up making something awesome. I just need to find a way of tying it into something now

Spoiler

[Silverraptor]

Alright, I though I would contribute to this thread for more than just a contest. For those of you who want to make a 3D tunnel opening, here's how I did it in Idiosyncrasy #13.

First, we start with a blank background like so.


Then we take the mouth of the opening and place it where we want the opening to be on the panel.


Finally, make the ground above the opening and move the nodes so that they fit onto the opening like so.

Tip: Make sure you slant the ground like that and to provide a straight path on the top exiting the opening while being connected to the other part of the path. You may need to practice with this somewhat.

I hope this helps some people in the future.

[Herpestidae]

Okay, I need this for a story, sort of. Would one of you sciencey types know any conceivable way to make a refrigerator work in a Steam Punk setting?

[Maximum Zersk]

Lots of Ice?

[Silverraptor]

Originally Posted by Herpestidae

Okay, I need this for a story, sort of. Would one of you sciencey types know any conceivable way to make a refrigerator work in a Steam Punk setting?

How a refridgerator would work? Well in my imagination, there are no refridgerators in the future, just machines that preserves anything in time inside it. A special field is needed to keep everything in.

[Herpestidae]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

How a refridgerator would work? Well in my imagination, there are no refridgerators in the future, just machines that preserves anything in time inside it. A special field is needed to keep everything in.

Someone seems to be misunderstanding The concept of Steam Punk. Tvtropes to the rescue, as usual:

Retro-style Speculative Fiction set in periods where steam power is king. Very often this will be in an Alternate Universe where the internal combustion engine never displaced the steam engine, and as a result all manner of cool steam-driven technologies have emerged, ranging from the plausible to Magitek with a Hollywood Science Hand Wave. Largely, Steampunk runs on Rule Of Cool. Sometimes combined with the work of Charles Babbage on mechanical computers to produce a kind of retro Cyber Punk set entirely in the Victorian era or a close analogue, minus the exploitation.


So basically, I want to figure out how one could conceivably make a steam-powered fridge, or at the very least, I need some quality, sciencey-sounding bull****t

[BRC]

Steam Driven Fans keep the food cool. Technobabble driven "Thermal Coils" draw heat away.

[Silverraptor]

Uggg... TvTropes.

[Keris]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Finally, make the ground above the opening and move the nodes so that they fit onto the opening like so.

I strongly suggest adding a couple more stages here. There is no clear indication of what "the ground above the opening" consists of, nor what "like so" indicates.
I would draw an additional panel about changing the angle of the wall, then one about adding the ground (maybe using a different colour to distinguish it), and finally move the nodes, displaying the finished tunnel.

Originally Posted by Herpestidae

Okay, I need this for a story, sort of. Would one of you sciencey types know any conceivable way to make a refrigerator work in a Steam Punk setting?

Simple answer: Draw a machine with lots of pipes, spinning wheels, little chimneys, maybe a steam whistle, and a door on the front. Tell the reader that this is a refrigerator. Done.

Complex answer:

Spoiler

Use an absorption cooler. You only need heat to power it, and it works somewhat like this:
Start with pure liquid ammonia. You'll need to compress the ammonia to get it into liquid form (so use a steam powered pump, 'waste cold' from the fridge and constricting pipes), and distil it to get rid of any water. You can use the distillation to get it to the top of your cooler, which is useful as it can then flow down. Of course, you'll need to compress it again to get back to liquid form when distilling it, but eh. Such is life.
You introduce the anhydrous^{water free} liquid ammonia to a hydrogen rich atmosphere, at lower than room pressure. It then begins to boil, and will draw heat from the surroundings to do so. Make sure this part of the machine has a lot of surface area (long thin pipes, radiator fins, that sort of thing), as it's the bit that cools.
The ammonia vapour should continue to sink through the machine, and you can reintroduce it just before the distiller, into a reservoir of liquid ammonia. The ammonia vapour will be absorbed into the liquid ammonia, and your hydrogen can rise up a separate pipe to be reused. To remove any last bits of ammonia from the hydrogen, you can pipe across the run-off from your distiller, which will be diluted ammonia and should absorb and carry the remaining ammonia vapour to the bottom with it.

In summary, a machine with lots of pipes, a chimney and maybe a set of wheels.

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Uggg... TvTropes.

Fine, Wikipedia to the rescue instead.
"Steampunk [...] denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England — but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date."

[Herpestidae]

While I just barely understood that, Thank you very much, Keris. At first, I only needed it for a technobabble gag, but then I remembered that the show I'm basing the story off of actually has steampunk refrigerators that they use as torture devices, and I was genuinely curious as to how that would work.

What do you think about a steam-powered jet ski? Could that work?

[Keris]

Originally Posted by Herpestidae

While I just barely understood that, Thank you very much, Keris.

Yer welcome. If there's any bit you want me to explain in greater detail, or go into the physics behind, I'll do my best.

Originally Posted by Herpestidae

What do you think about a steam-powered jet ski? Could that work?

Not realistically. Steam engines are pretty heavy, and would need a decent sized boat to carry them. You need a fuel source, furnace, boiler and motor unit. In addition, while the first thing to truly resemble the modern propeller was developed in the 19th century, the pump-jet engine used in Jet-skis and the like wasn't built until over 100 years later.
You could possibly have a reservoir of high pressure superheated steam used to propel the vessel, giving it a limited range and the potential to explode and kill the riders, but I can't see it being very efficient.
Best to handwave this one. Draw water from the river/lake/ocean/swimming pool, heat it with some kind of phlebotinum, and use the pressure difference between water and steam (water is about 1600 times as dense as steam) to drive the craft with a jet of water.

[Herpestidae]

Just out of curiosity, what would you say about a Giant Steampunk Drill?
(second link is a size comparison. those are people on that thing).

[Keris]

Originally Posted by Herpestidae

Just out of curiosity, what would you say about a Giant Steampunk Drill?
(second link is a size comparison. those are people on that thing).

"Fund it"?

It is far from realistic. The largest of modern tunnel boring machines (or 'mole machines', which is a far better name) can only just get up 15m (≈50′) in diameter. But that doesn't prevent it from being awesome, so rule of cool takes over.

[Keveak]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Uggg... TvTropes.

You yukked the Tvtropes! Curse you, you son of a raging, unworthy *dissolves into incoherent mumbling while people in white cloaks tries to stop me*

Originally Posted by Keris Rain

"Fund it"?

It is far from realistic. The largest of modern tunnel boring machines (or 'mole machines', which is a far better name) can only just get up 15m (≈50′) in diameter. But that doesn't prevent it from being awesome, so rule of cool takes over.

Why would that do any difference? The fire nation just had bigger ambitions than us no-benders

[Silverraptor]

Thanks Kerris. I'll put in the extra step as soon as possible.

And yes, I yukked TvTropes. I just don't see the big screaming deal with it except the uncanny ability of getting other people addicted for some reason.

[Darklord Bright]

Originally Posted by Silverraptor

Thanks Kerris. I'll put in the extra step as soon as possible.

And yes, I yukked TvTropes. I just don't see the big screaming deal with it except the uncanny ability of getting other people addicted for some reason.

It's useful, entertaining, and knowledgeable. It's kinda like you're saying "I don't like it because other people do."

[Keveak]

Originally Posted by Darklord Bright

It's useful, entertaining, and knowledgeable. It's kinda like you're saying "I don't like it because other people do."

I second this and add 'expands your horizon' to the list.