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  • WaterFront Chapter 1  (30)
  • WaterFront Chapter 2  (14)
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From the blog

  • Working on it… July 16, 2018
  • Art things June 2, 2018
  • Breaking Good News, Breaking Bad News! April 27, 2018
  • Behind the Scenes (11) – A brief update, Donnie December 22, 2017
  • Season’s Greetings! December 20, 2017

Behind the Scenes (10) – Ventro, Florence

by Richard Jonkman on December 20, 2017 at 12:30 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Now, in the draft for today’s post, we initially wanted to bring up Donnie and one other character – but we couldn’t, at least not without going into spoiler-territory. I think it might be fair to give Donnie a post of his own, and I intend to do so later today tomorrow!

First off, let’s take a closer look at the people who both literally and figuratively run the show aboard La Palazza, both of whom are so tied together that we wanted to include them in one single post:

 

VENTRO

Ventro Remington servers as the ringmaster and, at least on paper, the owner of La Palazza – which is also why the actual circus-tent is named after him; “Remington’s Big Top”. In our first drafts, we wanted a stark division between Ventro’s part of the ship (the “Marvels”) and Florence’s (the “Merrows”), there would have been a significant amount of in-fighting, distrust and petty rivalry between these two sub-factions. Ventro’s design would have reflected this – shifty, rail-thin, pointy, angular – like Dick Dastardly, Snape, Waluigi. Those were all references we threw around when Rudy and I first discussed Ventro and his part in the story.

 

When we moved the conflict elsewhere, this opened up a whole new dynamic about the ship. Instead of focusing on division, we could celebrate diversity and use the ship as a platform for misfits of all kinds, Marvels and Merrows, to find a place to call their own – even if it would only be temporary. Ventro, as a result, got to mellow out and lose a great deal of his hard edges – which we then moved to another character, but we’ll get to that in a future post.

Ventro, for whatever reason, is still reluctant to take centre-stage. He’s a leader by default, not by choice – but he goes along with it, as best as he can. He would genuinely prefer to be left to his own devices, but he’s aware of his responsibilities towards the people aboard the ship. He’s cunning, but also defeatist – in some ways, his manners and mindset are much the same as Riley’s.

 

FLORENCE

Florence Russo’s initial design was cut from the same cloth of Ventro’s. For her first design, we considered the stereotypical ex-ballet primadonna, who would hold her pupils to draconic standards. She would have been ruthlessly calculating, showing warmth – such as it was – only to the Merrows, then still named the “Painted Angels”. To everyone else, she’d basically just be the meanest step-mother your storybooks warned you about.

By removing the in-fighting aboard La Palazza, we were free to advance Florence’s character in a different direction – while still a powerful figure aboard the ship, Florence would instead become a dangerously savvy matriarch to the entire crew, exuding genuine warmth and care, but most definitely not above using tough love. We also changed her appearance accordingly – instead of tall, rail-thin and pinch-faced (like Ventro’s initial design), we made her shorter and more rounded with a wider, open face.

Perhaps most satisfying about the change in direction was that it also allowed us to change the dynamic between Florence and Ventro. Instead of solely being defined as Ventro’s rival, she instead would become his friend, muse and motivating force, unwilling to go accept his lack of ambitition and unafraid to call him on his crap. We decided that, instead of warring faction-leaders, they should instead span decades as on-again, off-again lovers – but life-long friends, confidants and co-conspirators, either way.

Though warm, open and matronly, Florence is nobody’s fool. She’s focused and calculating, and refuses to put up with mutiny, intolerance or excuses. She is, in many ways, the Ella to Ventro’s Riley. And let’s be honest, who do you think really calls the shots on the ship?

 

–Richard

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Behind the Scenes (9) – Riley, Ella

by Richard Jonkman on December 9, 2017 at 3:38 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Now then, let’s talk characters! Let’s start with our current leading ladies, and see where we go from there.

 

RILEY

Riley Sawyer is chronologically not the first important character we’ve introduced to you (and perhaps not even the second), but throughout act one, she remains the focus of our attention. Though subjected to much of the activity, she’s not a real action-hero by any means (is “reaction-hero” a thing?) at this point. When we set off to design Riley, we were going for a timid, disenfranchised urchin in the vein of Oliver Twist with a hint of Tom Sawyer (though far less than her surname would suggest).

In her very first iterations, Riley was intended to be a boy – but as she came along, we figured that story-wise it shouldn’t have to matter either way. And so, we decided to switch the design to female to see if we could remain true to that thought, but we kept much of her appearance the same. Because Rudy and I tenaciously tried to stick to “show, don’t tell”, we started using gender-neutral terms even when our friends brought up “that little thief-boy” in casual conversation.

ELLA

Ella Davis, like Riley, also underwent a gender-swap during her design-phase – but moreso, she also underwent a series of genetic mutations. Where Riley is an outsider, Ella is and has always been a resident of La Palazza, because we needed a powerful motivator and co-conspirator who was at home to the surroundings. Before we settled on what is colloquially (and perhaps cruelly) known as a “lobster/crab-person”, or a variation thereof, we explored several other possible carnival-mainstays. As such, instead of Ella, we could have chosen a variation of Jojo the Dog-Faced Boy, there was talk of a boy with two small vestigial arms, and my design-notes seem to include the name “Bobo Bonobo, the Counting Chimp”, which is wrong on several levels.

Instead, Ella became Ella, a character neither crippled nor limited by her mutations, intended to become fully functional. I’m incredibly pleased with Rudy’s decision to make Ella’s choice in wardrobe increasingly ecclectic, based on a simple misunderstanding – when I wrote a line for Riley as a comment on Ella’s fused fingers, I used “mitts” as a phrase for “hands”. Rudy took it literally, and gave Ella bright yellow mittens, after which the rest of her clothing-style started clashing more and more. Personally, I love that; it also helped to make her character a lot louder and more outspoken, especially in contrast to Riley. Ella does not hide her hands – she’s acutely and proudly aware of what and who she is; her hands are just sensitive. Plus, she likes the gloves.

Despite being one of the youngest residents of La Palazza, Ella’s DNA has “big sister” written all over it. When we started fleshing out Donnie, Ella instantly became tied to him as a fierce and dedicated caretaker, we would not dream of having it any other way.

That’s it for now – in the next post, we’ll take on some of the other characters and the critical (or arbitrary) decisions we’ve made while designing them. Check back soon!

 

–Richard

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Behind the scenes (8)

by Richard Jonkman on December 9, 2017 at 3:09 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Welcome back to another peek behind the scenes! Please be warned that, now that our first act has ended, we may freely speak about the characters, the setting and the events of chapter one. In other words – new readers, there will be so very many spoilers ahead! We would advise you to read the first chapter in its entirety (and leave a few comments, perhaps?), but we will leave this up to you.

Where to begin, where to begin? Normally, we’d start by telling you about the world, zooming in as needed, but we’ve dedicated the Waterlogged-posts specifically for world-building, not so much event-handling. Maybe we could tell you a little bit more about how the comic came to be, and then move on to the characters, the very actors, the people who put the events in motion?

Rudy and I go back a long way; we were classmates and ended up sharing a house for some time during college. Initially, we both set out to become concept-artists, but where I discovered a love of 3D-modeling and gamedesign Rudy powered through in the fields of traditional and 2D digital art. This effort pays off in the comic you read right here, as well as in his personal work (and to give my friend a plug here: you can hire him for freelance work at www.rudyfaber.com)

We kept in touch, every now and then discussing how cool it might be if we could collaborate on a project; in those cases I mainly imagined modeling a setting or a set of characters, with Rudy providing modelsheets and/or textures. Some time last year, we once again shared a workspace where we started spitballing on settings, characters and events, and that weekend we’d started working out the designs. Before long, we were building a setting that really wanted to be set, we were creating characters that wanted to be created. We decided to see where this could end up – and here we are!

Though chapter one has ended, we still have a long way to go both in terms of creating the comic, but also at being comic-creators, which is a new field for us. Personally, I like where the comic is going – but it’s compounded by the fact that I get to fulfill this old wish I had of working alongside an old friend.

Apologies, I did not mean to wax nostalgic! It’s time to get back to the here and now, or at the very least, the “there and then” of the comic. I feel it’s only fair that I start a new post specifically for our characters. Engage… the post-snipper!

*snip*

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Waterlogged: Supplemental

by Richard Jonkman on October 31, 2017 at 1:32 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

In these posts, we’d like to go a little more in-depth on the daily life and the setting of the comic, rather than in-depth plot details. While we carefully guard our secrets under the adage “show, don’t tell”, you are free to read these posts as a supplemental – or, you can ignore them altogether! We leave this to your wisdom and discretion.

 

The world of the Waterfront is one much like our own during the experimental heights of the nineteenth century, with one major, world-spanning difference: the water-level on this world is much, much higher than our own, and has been for centuries. As a result, land, especially fertile land, is at a premium – and given that life on land is now only for the extremely wealthy, the very bulk of humanity has adapted to the rugged life on the free seas, by means of rafts, houseboats, and makeshift, here-today, gone-tomorrow flotilla-cities. Now a true seafaring species, humans have uncovered other regions of the world far earlier than anticipated, and trade on the seas has flourished accordingly.

Unfortunately, the relation between land and sea is frayed at best. While the people who own and work the land (or those who simply own the workers) have a relative abundance of natural resources, they don’t have the same access to the trade-routes unless they employ smugglers – which bitterly cuts into the land’s desire for orderly conduct. At the same time, while the seadwellers seem to manage things on their own just fine, they are bereft of the comforts and exciting innovations that the landdwellers freely enjoy, which leads to further jealousy and strife.

This is a world where mankind had to learn to farm on salt water, and where fruit might be more valuable than gold.

Welcome!

 

–Richard

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Step right up, step right up!

by Richard Jonkman on July 1, 2017 at 10:14 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

WATERFRONT – ALIVE!

Hello and finally welcome to the actual comic! We greatly enjoyed brewing up the “behind the scenes”-posts, but now we get put on our fanciest outfits and bid you welcome, welcome, welcome! Step right up and enjoy the show! Prepare for shock, oohs, aahs and awe! Please keep your hands outside the bars at all times and don’t try any of this at home!

From this point onwards, we’ll most likely start to integrate short text-updates on the actual comic-pages themselves, leaving the actual blog for more factual updates and what-have-you. It’s been a real treat to keep you updated this way, but fear not – we’ll still be around! Remember, we are your hosts, and though you are free to walk around unattended, you can easily call for us in the comment-section!

Now go click that big header, and enjoy!

 

–Richard

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