23/03/2017

Ballads of War 1x16 & 1x17

The story keeps on moving. Two quite different pages today.



 Now after the chase we need the dust to settle and... what's that? New characters? A new secondary plot? Oh my! Who... who may that one be? Is he wearing... a power armour? If so, it looks like an old model... Hmmm. He's secretive, he has a deep, powerful voice (that's what the reverse coloured letters try to represent!), wears a daaaark armour... You got a clue of who he may be? ;)
He's currently getting a lot of attention in the new fluff books, but a dozen years ago he was kind of a forgotten character with a lot of potential. I'll talk more about him when we get to spot him again...

About the second page, I felt I had to explain some WH40K concepts to anyone approaching this universe for the first time. As a storyteller using someone else's stuff, I thought I couldn't give for granted that everyone had read 40K stuff before.
I gave this a deep thought. You can firstly assume that people showing interest in this comic have already for sure heard of this universe, and that I could move faster not having to explain certain things.
But on the other hand, I think it's storytelling 101, you have to produce a complete system. Anyone coming to this piece of work for the first time really deserve to understand everything without making them look for external references to get the basic stuff. You can have a look at WH40K novels, rulebooks, codexes or whatever, and you'll get a deep insight of this universe, but I shouldn't force you to do so in order to simply understand what's happening here.

So here's one (another!) of the challenges I wanted to face as a storyteller, to develop a comic that was enjoyable both for the novice and the expert. The newcomer would get a glimpse of WH40K and (if I do it right) understand everything, and the veteran would rejoice in the details and inside references. We'll have plenty of that in the following pages!
Stay tuned!

All the prevoius stuff can be found HERE. ;)

16 comments:

  1. menudo monton de curro tio,
    y enhorabuena porque el resultado está quedando muy bien! :)

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    1. ¡Gracias! Ahora empieza la trama de verdad, jeje.

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  2. Replies
    1. Thank you! It was quite a lovely path to tread, I'm happy that somebody else is enjoying it!

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  3. I love it, Suber. The story is getting more and more mysterious. Fantastic work!

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  4. This has been very enjoyable to follow!
    Can't wait for the next episode

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    1. Thanks, there's still plenty of stuff to be seen, hehe

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  5. Brilliant again mate - I'm assuming that the stranger is Deathwatch?

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    1. I'm afraid not! He's a much darker individual character. In the fluff it was said he didn't speak much, but when he did, his deep voice would ease his followers, and that he was extremely convincing. In the subsequent 13th Black Crusade events someone fitting his description was praised as the Voice of the Emperor... Wink, wink.
      If you still don't have a clue, I'm afraid I'll keep the rest for a few pages ahead, when some explanation must be offered about his presence here and his involvement in the plot...

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  6. Nice representation of darks in the bottom two rows of the first page. :)

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    1. Thanks! The paper got quite a lot of black paint there, which is an issue when using acrylics on both pages, hehehe. Logistics here is an issue!!

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  7. Nice work on setting the mood right!

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    1. Thank you! The only way to see if your ideas work is letting them incorporate to the storytelling and hoping you get the right balance. Quite an adventure!

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