Topics

1

Members Workshops / Let's Make a Magical Girl

« on: January 31, 2020, 01:45:25 AM »

Just like the name says. Y'all take turns replying with the appropriate prompts, and I'll draw the end result.

If all goes well, there's a more in-depth version I'd love to take a shot at.

2

Manga Writer workshop / NaNoRenMo 2017

« on: February 28, 2017, 08:43:26 PM »

March starts tomorrow, and that also signals the start of National Visual Novel Writing Month. Any of you fine folks going to be participating? Take a look at the Ren'Py website for details.

I'm not gonna be doing any thing with my main VN for the time being. I just wanna see if I can burn through something new and fast in the span of a month.

3

Manga Writer workshop / Gone, But Not Forgotten

« on: November 18, 2015, 10:44:06 PM »

Not every story is a winner, and not every project gets beyond the concept stage. We're all still figuring things out, and sometimes you just have to leave behind your ideas and move on in the name of progress. As we continue ever onward, take a moment to reflect and recall.

In this topic, feel free to reminisce on your abandoned ideas and plans for the "next big thing." Everyone here is bound to have a few of these orphaned ideas that linger in the mind. I thought it would be interesting and maybe a little therapeutic to show the world that the intent was there at some point. Write a short postmortem analysis of what might have been, and what made you walk away. Who knows? Maybe you might get around to it someday, maybe, perhaps.



I'll begin:
"Knight Laureate" was meant to be the project that combined my love of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and freestyle rap battles. A bit like a combination of "8 Mile" and "Game of Thrones," it was set into a world of numerous, stereotypically-themed city-state kingdoms. On the day of their coronation, every ruler would have had a chosen a warrior-poet to be their Knight Laureate, who serve as a combination bodygaurd, advisor, and public representative for their monarch. The story would have started out with the young protagonist (a novice bard-barian) entering a big tournament full of wacky and varied characters to become a new king's knight laureate.

The problem here is that I had a series of fun fights and opponents planned out, but no concrete idea what to do afterwards with the plot. It was meant to be either drawn as a comic or written out as a story, but I really wanted the musical aspect to come across in the final product. That would NOT work outside of a video series or podcast. Since I don't have the musical proficiency to program new beats every few days, or the money to pay performers, this project fell by the wayside. Someday when we're all billionaires, I look forward to reviving this project as an over-produced webseries or something. For now, I just want to raise a glass to an idea that has to be put on an indefinite hold.

4

MR Pub / Rough Draft: A Crash Course in Visual Novels

« on: October 07, 2015, 02:44:26 PM »

A mad scientist vows to destroy his brother's killer. Fortunately for society, that means a promise to cure cancer. Unfortunately for you, [Your Name Here], you've been forcibly recruited into helping this supervillain achieve his goals, and old habits die hard...

Rough Draft

Okay, so what is this?

Well, I've been planning out a few other visual novels with a friend of mine and we've made quite a bit of progress so far. Sadly, he's gone back to school for his master's degree and lacks the free time to meet up and write as regularly as we'd like. In the meantime, I'm going to learn the VN software that we're using on a short VN of my own until the semester comes to a close. This page will show my progress as I figure out through trial and error exactly what I need to do to put together the art, story, and computer wizardry together into a cohesive whole.

Q: So can I help write/draw?
A: Sorry, pal. This is something I've got to do solo. Feel free to toss out suggestions, though.

Q: When will the project be done?
A: Eventually-ish. I'm shooting to just have a short demo as a proof-of-concept finished by the end of November this year. The full version may never come to be, so let's temper our expectations for now.

Q: is this your first time making a visual novel?
A: not exactly. Just the first time making anything substantial.

Q: How often will you make progress updates?
A: As progress becomes available. Depending on work schedules in the holiday season, it could be sparse for a while. I'm making this public in the hopes that I will be inspired to finish what I start, though.

Q: Will there be any adult content?
A: Nope. There will be female characters to court, as is the way of these things, but everything remains PG-13 at it's most saucy.

Q: Will I be able to play it as it's made?
A: Sure. Once I get the assets up and running, I'll post a link to the newest version of my game.

Q: But Nairbons, you're art is terrible.
A: that's not a question

Q: But Nairbons, you're art is terrible?
A: I know, amigo. I'm working on it, especially as I try to get reacquainted with digital drawing. I typically don't like posting my art online out of guilt, trying to make my sad pictures worthy of taking up other peoples time. I've gotten better, and hopefully posting the process of making this VN will be be enough of an impetus to get me consistently motivated. We're all in this together.

5

break Room / Manga Raiders 2013 Secret Santa Art Trade!

« on: November 21, 2013, 11:33:02 PM »

It's getting close to that time of year again, and I thought it might be fun to celebrate the Holiday season with a forum-wide anonymous art trade.

Just post below if you'd like to participate. I'll probably set the cut-off date around Dec. 1st. Once everybody's involved, send me a private message that describes a simple character or scene that you'd like to have drawn. Once everybody's entered, I'll randomly assign requests to other requestees anonymously. You'll draw whatever's asked of you (as best as you can), and on the chosen day that we can determine later, everybody posts their assigned artworks.

If everything goes smoothly, everybody gives and gets a swanky new piece of art and we all share the warm and fuzzy glow of togetherness. Everybody wins!

Happy Holidays, Manga Raiders! 

6

Manga Writer workshop / It's the haiku board. Japan invented haikus. Post your own right here

« on: September 19, 2013, 02:38:31 AM »

Has this been done yet?
I am too lazy to check.
Here's a Haiku board.

Feel free to join in!
Just count out your syllables:
"Five, seven, then five"

I will start things off
With a poem of my own
(Try not to hate me!)

"Dragon Ball logic:
Yelling will make you stronger
Over Nine Thousand!"

7

Manga Art Gallery / And then Nairbons had a Gallery

« on: May 30, 2013, 01:03:56 PM »

Ugh.

I've been relatively silent recently, and I wanted to apologize for that. I wanted to finally start my MR art gallery with my 100th post, and have a big ol' wiz-bang piece of art-stuff to start it off. But then summer school and work started up again and the free time disappeared. I still plan on posting here soon, but I mostly wanted to start the darn gallery as post 100 so I could get back to chattin' on the regular boards

TL;DR: "Art coming soon"

8

CosPlay / MR Member Cosplay Gallery + Convention Photos

« on: May 14, 2013, 01:35:05 AM »

As finals are coming to a close and other raiders are being identified as cosplayers, I remembered one of my more successful 30-minute costumes from a pizza party at my university dorm way back at the end of Freshman year.

Pizza boxes, paper plates, boxes of Capri Sun, and a whole lotta duct tape. Imagine if Tony Stark had escaped from a frat party rather than a terrorist camp. I think the result would look something like this.



I still look at this cardboard abomination with pride. Almost as much as the Big Daddy costume I made for Bioshock. I still need to find pics o' that one. Hoo, boy.

9

Manga Writer workshop / One-liner wonderland

« on: March 02, 2013, 11:20:02 PM »

While working on my contribution to the anthology, I had a great time coming up with Lawyer-related puns and other topical quips for the single instance of a snappy one-liner. James Bond has had some great ones, Every episode of CSI: Miami starts with one before the title sequence, and nearly every action scene can be improved (or at least made a bit more light-hearted and ridiculous) by them.

My point is: what one-liners have you made up, what context do they work in, and what are some of your favorites that you've heard?

for reference, the TVTropes page(s): http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneLiner

10

General Manga writer discussions / Who knows about Chinese culture? Like, the early '90s?

« on: November 01, 2012, 02:20:30 AM »

Okay, I need some help. It's National Novel Writing Month, and I need a bit of background for the setting of the story that's brewing. It sort of got started when I took a two-week student exchange trip to China just before the 2008 Summer Olympics (just enough firsthand experience to write a book?). One of the big things I noticed was the freaky ways that Western culture was being presented there. Mickey Mouse looked different, Garfield was used to sell cigarettes, and Winnie the Pooh was a bit... off.

If there's a theme to this book, it's the way that pop culture can be completely misunderstood depending on your background. Don't worry about the serious tone. It'll get silly fast. It's set right after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and I'm wondering if anybody knows what was popular/prevalent in Chinese culture around 1991. Help?

SOME BACKGROUND:
"It's 1991. The Soviet Union has dissolved, and China is the only remaining world power operating under a communist regime. Fearing a similar revolution from the population, Chinese borders are tightened  to prevent the influx foreign influences, propaganda, and culture.

This is when the werewolf attacks start.

While the Chinese government is perfectly capable of dispatching supernatural threats of their own native variety, the Wolves of the West are different. No amount of silver bullets will kill these beasts. One by one, towns fall to the silent revolution without any conceivable means of fighting back. The fate of the nation just might fall onto the shoulders of a very confused group of foreign exchange students."

11

Comics and other Gallery / I'll draw requested characters in a non-manga style

« on: August 26, 2012, 07:37:30 PM »

Howdy, everybody!

I'm just not that good with imitating the manga-esque style of drawing just yet. It's definitely one of my interests, but at the moment, I'm still trying to develop an overall style/technique of my own. Therefore, I'm giving an open call for anyone interested. Here's how it'll work.

1)You give me a brief description of somebody you want illustrated.

2) I'll give it a whirl, probably in a number of different styles.

3) I get some valuable practice in, figuring out my strengths and weaknesses.

4) You get a few different perspectives of your character.

5) Everybody gives high-fives to one another.

12

Welcome Center / Greetings and salutations

« on: August 20, 2012, 01:42:14 PM »

Hello all. A friend of mine got me interested in the site, so I thought I'd give registration a whirl. I can honestly say that I have no idea how I'll contribute, or even if I can use my remaining scraps of free time to to create anything. I'll probably end up on the written end of the creative spectrum, because photoshop is prone to murdering my computer. I never had cable TV, so the list of anime I've actually seen is rather slim, but Netflix is doing its darndest to get me caught up. Yup.