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Author Topic: The Eye of Light [Prototype]  (Read 15600 times)

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Offline Suuper-san

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The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« on: December 12, 2021, 04:23:04 AM »
This is a team project with my writer friend, the same one that I was working on the other story with, but got stalled. I suggested we make a throwaway story for practice, both writing for him and art for me, but also teamwork practice for producing a manga. I don't intend on always having a writer, but it's a decent interim while I focus purely on raising my art quality.

As said by the title, this manga is in prototype format, meaning that minimal effort has been spent to produce the pages, and really is just to present the concept of the idea rather than draw it at high quality. The story itself is also in a lower quality format, and uses more obvious tropes and cliches to make the writing side easier.

Unlike my normal posting I wont be talking much about the manga, just posting it. That's partly because I'm busy with art and stuff, but also because I don't have too much to say since it's only half my project.
Chapters are being produced every 2 weeks, but I dont know if I'll post that frequently. We're aiming at around 10 chapters and then we'll see if we want to continue, since this is just a practice project it can stop whenever no problem.

The Eye of Light

The all-powerful wish granting item "The Eye of Light" has been inactive for 100 years. But now it has reactivated and its location has been revealed. Who will find it first and change the world? The Order of Light, who will stop at nothing to enforce their warped justice on the world, or The Forge, a breakaway faction which has had enough of the senseless killing and wants to forge a path of peace for the future. The race is on to reach the artefact.

Chapters

READS LEFT TO RIGHT THIS TIME!!!!!

Chapter 1 - Onward to the Valley of Bones













































Chapter 2 - The Journey to the Valley









































Chapter 3 - The Valley of Bones













































Chapter 4 - The Aftermath







































Chapter 5 - Onwards to the Void







































Chapter 6 - Enter the Void















































Chapter 7 - Escape the Labyrinth




































Chapter 8 - The Memories from the Eye












































Chapter 9 - Converging on the Eye of Light













































« Last Edit: March 01, 2024, 05:11:16 PM by Suuper-san »
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2021, 04:30:59 AM »
READS LEFT TO RIGHT THIS TIME!!!!!

Chapter 1 - Onward to the Valley of Bones

Spoiler














































Chapter 2 - The Journey to the Valley

Spoiler









































« Last Edit: December 12, 2021, 04:54:10 AM by Suuper-san »
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #2 on: January 18, 2022, 02:35:50 PM »
READS LEFT TO RIGHT

Chapter 3 - The Valley of Bones

Spoiler















































Plenty of things to nitpick about the plot since we're working on just churning out content. Plenty of stuff I even noticed in the draft I left unmentioned otherwise my writer will get caught in revision hell.

Couple of decent shots, mostly the ones where I coloured them or added effects.

Also we're behind on our schedule we both had a case of the blues and have extended deadlines by 1 week twice now. Still sticking to deadlines even if we move them kinda thing. So not too bad for a team project so far.

And thankfully not too many skeletons left to draw cos that was manic :P
« Last Edit: January 18, 2022, 02:40:38 PM by Suuper-san »
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Offline Coryn

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2022, 12:11:45 PM »
Yo Suuper! I started reading through this (got through chapter one), before it occurred to me to ask. Are y'all looking for much feedback on this thing since as you say, you're mostly concentrating on producing it at a running pace? I'm obviously not much of an art critic, but I don't want to bog you down with story critiques if that's not what you're writer is looking for.

Who is your writer by the way? And why aren't they here?!   :read::read:

Will review stories upon request. My latest arc: http://goo.gl/KYgsfF

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2022, 01:49:48 PM »
Thanks for giving it a read :)
No worries on the art side, but we would be interested in general feedback for both the art and the writing, but just bear in mind it's nowhere near a polished work so try and focus more on major things than minor things, if you get me.

Ahahaha my writer is my friend irl, as for why he isn't here despite me inviting him, he's a bit forum shy since he's not had too great experiences in the past. I'll get him on here eventually :P
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Offline Coryn

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2022, 01:01:59 PM »
No worries. Tighten the vice slowly  :devil:

Breaking down chapter 1 a bit, here are my thoughts:

The concept itself is sound. I got no complaints there. But the major issue I'm finding is with the dialogue. Without getting too into it because I think it will be fairly obvious once I say it, the characters spend a lot of time stating the obvious, repeating themselves, and acting very stiffly.

For a few examples, they repeat the phrase "elven village", three times in the first three pages. In the first panel they say "village of bones" twice in a row. It feels very awkward to say out loud. You wouldn't go around real life saying "It is now time to go to The Wal-Mart Super Store", with you're friend responding with "Will you buy me some chips at The Wal-Mart Super Store?"

So much up word use, have them actually name the village. If they know so much about it they should learn the name.

Similar thing later on when they rescue the scout. Y'all spend most of a page on them making long speeches about how they're in the forge and not the order. If you're a dude who's been imprisoned and is presumably looking forward to summary execution at worst and rotting in jail at best, you're not going to worry about who's breaking you out. The secret code is a nice touch, but chop it down.

Speaking of stiff, our new orc friend's introduction doesn't make much sense. If someone slams me in the head with a hammer, I'm not going to come to the conclusion that "these guys aren't out to kill me." Since you're not focusing on the art of the combat very much, this scene would be better handled by getting to their conversation earlier. If the orc initially assumes their baddies, why not have him attack first, only for the pair to talk him down? The roles are oddly reversed.

And speaking of the combat, you remind us several times that the forge members don't kill, but they barely seem to remember that themselves. It's great that this is a splinter group trying to change its ways, but you're telling and not showing. Maybe have the characters stop themselves rather than being told to stop. You could give us the same information more effectively by having someone stop themselves in the middle of the killing blow. We could learn the rules they're playing by without a line of dialogue, which is always a good writing technique. At the very least, you could cut out the paragraphs of exposition.

Finally, you leave open a major question, especially since you call it an "elven village" ad nauseam. The characters entering the village are elves, so why make such a big deal about them breaking in? They could just walk through the front door. So what if the village doesn't like outsiders? We don't actually know for certain that the scout is in there, so why not try recon first?

You do make a point of saying they only let pure elves in, but so how did the scout (not an elf), make a report FROM that village? Are the elf characters we see not pure-bred elves? It's not said.


Well, as not to bury you in negatives, I want to list out what I liked best, lol. For starters, having the two factions being two sides of a schism is really good, and leaves open a lot of room for interesting character relationships. Although to do it the best you can, it would be better if one side isn't just purely evil as it seems they are. The little romantic goodbye was also quite nice. It's a touch of actual character and realism that is always welcome in a fantasy setting. As I've said for years, if you concentrate first on writing human feeling characters (fantasy race aside), then the actual story around them will fall into place.

So good job for what it is, and I hope to see y'all continue to improve it!

Will review stories upon request. My latest arc: http://goo.gl/KYgsfF

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2022, 03:39:58 PM »
Thanks for the detailed feedback!
Some of your observations I had noticed myself, such as the repetition or dragging out, but that's some good points regarding the elves that I hadn't thought about. Like the village name lol that was a slip up XD

Quote
having someone stop themselves in the middle of the killing blow.
I super like this idea actually.
I think partly we didn't even think of this because the backstory is basically not written at all, so it's just a vague concept of "it's two factions" without thinking how they split or what the characters were doing before. That's partly my fault for encouraging my writer to wing it, otherwise his perfectionism will strike and nothing will get written :(

A couple of your observations do have a sort of explanation (=excuse), such as the reason they attacked the orc first is because orcs are normally massively aggressive and dangerous, and viewed more as monsters than people. But we really haven't made things like that clear.

For sneaking in the village, the village is suspicious of everyone, including elves that aren't from their village I think. Not just whether they are purebred or not.

I think perhaps the scout made a report from just outside the village like "I'm entering the XYZ village to see what I can find" but idk lol maybe on being caught he had a way of sending an SOS.

Quote
it would be better if one side isn't just purely evil
Yeah for the most part we're sticking with a generic bad guy organization vibes, but the main antagonist (Farvel, in chapter 3), is actually a complex enough character with a lot of good points. I'm not actually sure in that chapter that he even comes across as the villain, which my writer assures me he is XD

Quote
I hope to see y'all continue to improve it!
ehehehe I can't say we'll be doing a revision of it tbh but we'll try and apply the points moving forward.
our strategy is to limit the number of revisions of the script to just 1. A draft, and then a revised final script based off of my suggestions. I'm limiting the amount of suggestions I make because last time the previous story ended up getting rewritten from scratch like twice because I noticed so many things and now it is still pending a final rewrite :hmm:

If you have the time and the inclination, I would appreciate similar feedback on my 4 "prototype" manga stories I did a while back, especially Whispering Magic. (You commented on Eclipse, but not the others)
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2022, 02:34:40 PM »
READS LEFT TO RIGHT

Chapter 4 - The Aftermath
Spoiler








































Starting to catch up on the backlog of work for this project, having just a 2 weekly release means there's a lot of time to catch up lost work, but equally a lot of time to not get things done, because you think you have a lot of time XD
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Offline Coryn

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2022, 11:37:58 AM »
Ahaa... I'll take a gander when I can. So much to review, so little time.

Will review stories upon request. My latest arc: http://goo.gl/KYgsfF

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2022, 07:01:32 AM »
I can relate, I still have to get around to reading the Canon :/
I've been thinking about the VN and Game as well, that's collecting a bit too much dust @_@
Might have to have a spring clean for old pending stuff.
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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2022, 12:33:03 PM »
100%. I want the VN off our plates as much as anyone. Even though there had to be major cuts.

Maybe once it's done, we should try again on a more reasonable scale. Shoot to create a half hour experience, let's say.

Will review stories upon request. My latest arc: http://goo.gl/KYgsfF

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2022, 12:30:33 AM »
Exactly, and with more minor branching to save writing lots of chapters that might never get seen by the player :P
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2022, 01:31:36 PM »
No new chapter yet but it's drafted at least.
the script is always a couple of chapters ahead roughly as well so that there's no delay when it comes to the art side. Similar to the cascading method I used in my previous projects.

Thought I'd share the character sheets we've done so far. They're the most detailed sheets I've ever done, and I went higher in quality deliberately to get a feel for what it was like rather than out of necessity, since the art in this manga is scrappy to say the least, I almost never get the details in that we've designed.
Overall they're also the best outfits I've ever designed, but I'm annoyed that 3 have hair tied up, although it makes sense if you're fighting to tie up long hair.
2nd from the top is a dwarf and probably my favourite character, possibly because she is the most cutest tbh :P









« Last Edit: February 16, 2022, 01:33:23 PM by Suuper-san »
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2022, 05:43:49 PM »
READS LEFT TO RIGHT

Chapter 5 - Onwards to the Void
Spoiler








































Finally getting back in gear for this and churning the pages out again.
I sort of had a mini mental breakdown the last two months for whatever reason but it ended as suddenly as it came, so probably just seasonal adjustment or whatever XD

Our target is 10 chapters and then we're calling it a day. It's been a pretty big challenge working as a team to produce even something as rough as this.
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Re: The Eye of Light [Prototype]
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2022, 04:09:22 PM »
READS LEFT TO RIGHT

Chapter 6 - Enter the Void
Spoiler
















































After a couple of delays we're back in business again.
6/10 chapters done fully now.
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