hey everyone... Just finished the very first page of my first graphic novel, not so fancifully-called Life in Nauru. I'm not too proud of the results, but resources got the best of... I'm on an old celeron with only 128 RAM, renders take HOURS... so the first frame turned out real bad.. I originally intended importing poser scenes into vue d' esprit, but I couldn't do it, so i was relegated to the method of making the backgrounds in vue and then using the background image in poser... hafff... it was not that great, but at least it's a beginning... special thanks to Sams3d for the house, riddokun for the great DOAeyes and to whoever gave me constructive feedback when i just introduced this characters along others. I'm on my way to make the next pages... I'll have them on my website, coming soon (they'll be sliced jpgs, so it's easier to download) Max.

nice! maybe some Photoshop postwork, kinda maxpayne style or something, cool nonetheless (or how the monkey you wright that...)

Don't be so hard on yourself, sounds like you're your own worst critic...lol I like the way it's set up, I'm not a real comic fan but it would catch my attention. Marque

looks nice.. i am eager to see the plot... i too am planning/working on an illustrate story but i wont do comics as i could not spare time to make so many pictures, but rather some written story with poser illustrations throughout... yet you seems motivated and it sure looks promising. Keep on goin (i am working on my eyes after your thread.... found new ways to improve them but i stillhave hard time merging all the parts.. it will take time if i want it to be good)

thanks for all the feedback... well, probably I AM my own worst critic, but I really wanna do something good, and when, to my judgement, something doesn't turn that good, then I'm a little hard on myself so i can make the next thing better. but, hey dr-b, you're right! I was wondering how I could get rid of that "plastic looking" texturing, specially on the first frame, and yeah, I can put some layer with some noise and graininess in photoshop to make it look a bit different... I'll do this change before I publish it on the web. riddokun, I had also thought of an illustrated story before, and actually, i think I'm gonna mix them... like in the Elfquest saga (don't know if you know about it)... they had so many different artists writing the story, that at some point some of them used different story telling methods... and once, when one of the chiefs was ousted, that whole chapter afterward was done in illustrated story mode... kinda cool, it kind of was telling you "this even is so important we even tell it in a different way"... so probably I'll use this idea whem some plot twists occur.. thanks for your interest... the Path 1 in the story was not even in the original plot... but, the other paths begin in the middle of the mountains with a whole city in the background, the other with a full blown band rehearsal room and other in a strip bar... and all those locations are kind of hard to prepare, so i went with something easy at least to get started... but well, it can only get better from here, so I'm really motivated. thanks again Max PS: riddokun, thanks for keeping on working on your doaeyes, I'm sure a lot of people like me appreciate it.

I would say you are off to a good start, and remember a good strong, interesting story-line will make up for some shortcomings in the art.

geez id never give up my sattelite for cable... looking good kayarnad (:

the only "bad" thing is that the ground is too flat outside the hous eon cell 1.. with some magnets and a better grass/groudn texture, you could have made some little slopes or something... or had postowrked the whole cell with some sepia + aquarel effet for a nice look.. may you try (but gee if you are on a celeron with 128 it is not courage, it is rage ! good luck)

It's looking good. I've been wanting to do a graphic story for ages but haven't got up the courage to start yet. Your lettering positioning is good and I think the style of the frames and composition is very fitting for an opening scene. Maybe in the first scene, instead of the house being on grass, put it on concrete instead? Grass is very very hard to get right in Poser because you need a high polycount for realism, which is not feasible on your machine. The darker grass on the left rear looks fine, it's just the stuff closer up which spoils the effect. Good luck with it, I will be looking forward to seeing more!

thanks again to everyone for your feedback!! I actually thought of a way of improving that first frame, so I'll do the changes before I web publish. and about the satellite tv stuff... I did it out of necessity... as you can see, there are no posts of any kind next to the house... so, sure, you can still get electricity out of a generator, but cable tv? you'd at least need one post somewhere where to connect the undergound cable... Nauru is an island, and this character lives in a very isolated part of it, a small city... so he doesn't even get local tv, only satellite tv, nothing else... and since he's kind of poor (you'll realize this more in the next pages, meaning that he spent most of his money getting that house and was left with little for furniture or anything else), his satellite package doesn't even include movie channels... hence his gripe. thanks again for "focus grouping" my first page... I'll probably preview a few more pages before I publish them. Max

woops, I just realized something... I made this character unadvertedly left-handed! gosh, and he was just about to play guitar! I'll have to invert the position of his guitars now! oh well, just more work to be done :) Max

you know i am right handed but i often use knife and fork like a left handed guy, and i can use the remote control with either hand.. dont stress yourself with that !

what? my last post got lost? here's the next page of the story: www.sandmarine.com