Ken Penders wrote:@Luger:
First off, I want to thank you for that great post, as it was really appreciated. I had wanted to respond sooner, but as I've explained, it's all I can do to stay on top of everything I need to, and I didn't want this to receive less than the attention it deserves.
I'd like to address the issue of the CG renders as compared to the art seen in the preview of Page 1 from the Geoffrey-Remington story, as I believe there are a number of issues not being considered when properly evaluating the work. Could those renders be better? Yes, absolutely, but I am happy with what has been accomplished so far. Are those the final versions? No, for a number of reasons. TL-SC is a multi-media project taking shape in a variety of formats, the first of which is the story in print and digital format. At the same time, the story, art and character designs are providing the blueprint for the bigger projects that will be pitched in the not-too-distant future. The non-fans, including industry professionals, have responded much more positive than the fans, and the industry professionals recognize the limitations with which I - and Kevin - have had to work with.
This is not really a good way to start things when addressing criticism directed towards your work, talking about 'behind the scenes' issues and 'not considering the limitations', ESPECIALLY when by this point it has practically become your default method for brushing aside any and all criticism of your work. The moment you decide to put out a piece of work, the discussion will become about the work itself. While people can sympathize with personal problems, they do not excuse or negate valid criticism of a piece. Further, nobody has called out the limitations of what you have been working with; first and foremost the designs themselves have been criticized, and whats more, if these were not meant to be the finals... why then did you not make that clear when you posted them in the first place? If you thought the renders could be better, why then did you simply accept them as they are? This just makes you look lazy and willing to knowingly present inferior work. This doesn't help your case, it just makes you look even more worse. Like you're backpedaling and creating lame excuses.
Also, you really need to stop talking about this as a 'multi-media' project when you don't even have a book out. You did this during The Lost Ones, talking about things like television and film even before your book was released and before it could be seen whether The Lost Ones was popular or successful enough for such a thing to feasible. You haven't got your book out, and the other 'tie-in' products you are trying to sell on Ebay remain untouched. You should focus your efforts on getting your product out and seeing if it can sell well or be received well before you even CONSIDER anything along the lines of 'other projects'.
And once more... stop with the 'invisible fandom' stuff. The only un-ironically positive response I've seen to your works anywhere on the internet has been in this forum, and even that has been underwhelming. If anybody was at all curious in a positive way or anticipating the release of LSC for reasons other than mockery, then there would at least be people discussing it somewhere. Not even here, the one place that should be a gathering area for such individuals, is there much of anything toward that end... you could even create a private forum for these 'accepting non-fans' if you were so concerned about them being harassed over their preference, but the fact is, on the internet there is no such thing as a silent fandom that never, ever intervenes when they see something they like being belittled or insulted.
As to those 'industry professionals', who are they, then, that are totally understanding of you putting forth work you yourself didn't consider up to snuff?
Could Kevin do a better job? Given the conditions he works under, he's doing a fantastic job and getting better all the time. The bigger obstacles, however, are due to the limitations of both the hardware and software. Just rendering one frame alone can take an inordinate amount of time, depending on the level of detail in the finished rendering. There's a reason you see am army of talent working on heavy CGI-FX film, but as I don't have the budget or resources a studio does to get everything done, I have to make do and build from there. So I neither apologize or look for sympathy. I just press on and am extremely grateful I have Kevin and Patrick on my team. (I should probably include Adamis at this point, but it's really early in our relationship and I don't want him to feel I'm taking him for granted.)
While it's a good thing that you are seeking help in areas that you yourself are not particularly proficient in, the fact remains that you yourself did not think the material was up to par, and yet you submitted them anyway. In a professional venue, the instant you put a product out there it becomes subjected to criticsm and scrutiny, and you have only yourself to blame for that. You do not peddle something of inferior quality and then cry 'BUT YOU'RE NOT CONSIDERING THE LIMITATIONS'. This is just another way for you deflect critcism away from the issues plaguing what you've released. There is no gold star for effort in the world of for-profit works, as well you should know.
With regards to the proportions and poses, blame me and not anyone else, as they are working off of my designs. And if the poses don't seem as natural in the CG rendering as they do in the drawings, that's more a learning curve I'm having to undergo making the adjustment, as what looks good in one format may not result in the best finished product in another format. Kevin has certainly done yeoman work offering me different proportions from which to work with, but the truth of the matter is I'm still working it out what seems to be the best direction to take everything in. I've been wrestling with the proportions for a variety of reasons, some of which dealt with trying to preserve the best of what I created without straying too far that the characters were totally unrecognizable.
Nobody has blamed Kevin; they have blamed you precisely for the fact that your designs and their proportions do not translate well to 3D, and the fact that you have continued to insist upon Kevin's work despite the fact that you yourself have admitted problems. Given that he his a far better landscape worker than he is a character maker, maybe you should pay him for what he HAS made and consider him for use in making backgrounds. Nobody ever demanded that you give them Pixar quality work, and you should stop acting as if that is what was ever expected from you or this project.
And again, maybe you should in fact consider that moving away from the source would benefit you in a number of ways. One of the biggest criticisms that has been levelled towards you is that you haven't done enough to remove this work from its origins save for a stylistic change that does not hide the fact that they are still designs based off of SEGA Echidna. The fact that you have dubbed them a species called the 'echyd'nya' doesn't help matters; it just makes you look like you're putting as little effort as possible in actually making this it's own thing. Several artists have taken a crack at redesigning your characters to look less Sonic, and have even been showcased here in this site.
Cylent-nite's rendition of Lien-Da is terrific and I well understand why a lot of people would love it. The artist certainly has talent and I'd love to see more. However, as much as I love the drawing, and I DO love it, there are points I would make to the artist that I would like to see incorporated if this person - or anyone else - were actually submitting for consideration to work on the project. (Before anyone takes that to mean I'm interested in looking at submissions at this time, there are a number of factors that prevent me from doing so, including and most especially the lack of that most precious commodity time itself.)
Why not, though? Why not hire this cylent-nite person if they clearly have the skill to make your works appealing to others? Why do you not have the time for this, when you have time to argue with people on twitter, go to conventions , and even conduct hour-long interviews? Particularly when you have never given indications of having a job that could eat up your time? Taking care of sick relatives and friends can be time consuming, but not THAT much.
I am certainly not adverse to discovering the next Dawn Best or Kevin Knowles, and I eventually hope to do so. With a planned seven books in a the series, I know at some point I'm going to need some assistance at the very least somewhere down the road. If the multi-media projects actually do take off at some point, new talent to take over will certainly be required. However, and this is an aspect longtime Sonic fans have not really considered, at least not that I've noticed, and that is having to do with the non-fans who are only now discovering what I'm doing. Their acceptance of the designs that longtime fans have criticized points to the juggling act I've found myself having to perform.
Finish the book, then talk about what comes next. You need to stop acting like the success of this thing is so certain that there being seven books is a sure thing. You need to stop talking about the potential for branching out as a franchise when you don't even have the first book out or know if it is viable as a product, particularly when all the materials you have released do not actually speak of how complete this product even is at this stage.
And again with these 'new fans are utterly accepting of my work' narrative. Using that as a means of shielding yourself from the actual nature of the criticisms leveled at you by longtime Sonic fans is making things too easy for you. It's a dangerously complacent way to look at things, nor does it invalidate what has been said about your work connected to the LSC or to your actions during and since the trial.
At this stage of their existence, even were I still working on Archie's SONIC series, I'd be leading the charge to incorporate redesigns of a number of major elements, if only to keep up with the times. In fact, I was already incorporating character redesigns in the art years ago I submitted to Sega when Larry and I were pitching our SONIC film project, most of which Sega was receptive to, including the very minor tweaking we did to Sonic himself.
You DO realize that one of the most consistent criticisms leveled towards your redesigns is that the aesthetic you've chosen for them is out of date, when the design elements themselves are not clashing horribly? Brownie's uniform looks like it was lifted from Star Trek, and your Dimitri redesign looks like it was rejected from the Masters of the Universe toyline. And then there is the Praetorian's design... why does a culture whose males dress in loinclothes produce a hat that is virtually identical to a hat found in a certain culture on earth with its developments rooted in another culture still? You've insisted this is a 'hard' science fiction story, but so far your decisions seem more rooted in arbitrarily throwing out whatever 'science fiction'-y thing that you can and calling it a day, with no thought to actual needs or cultural developments upon the world the Echyd'nya live upon.
Also.. really, what relevance does your unmade Sonic film have to this? Your redesigns barely tweaked anything as it was, and given that SEGA was receptive to Sonic Boom's much more extensive redesigns, this doesn't come off as profoundly as you are trying to make it sound.
I've been paying close attention to everyone that has commented to me one way or another, whether the comment was positive or negative. In the end, I learned I myself above all others had to be happy with the end results, as I would have to live with the consequence of those decisions. Which brings me to THE STORM.
" In the end, I learned I myself above all others had to be happy with the end results, as I would have to live with the consequence of those decisions"? That's a really, really wishy-washy approach to handling for-profit work. I cannot imagine any school of business on the planet that would advise this to anyone, given that works for profit are all about how happy the customer is, not you.
As I was working on the final section of the script for THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES: SHATTERED TOMORROWS, I kept getting questions asking what happened to this character or that, especially about Geoffrey and Remington, as I wasn't really talking about them. So an idea popped into my head, percolated awhile, and thus became a story that occurs as Lara-Su is heading to the Forbidden Zone in SONIC #144 and leaves off at a point near the beginning of TL-SC, thus forming both a bridge between the two stories while introducing the world as it will be going forward. At least that was the plan as I began writing it. But as I began drawing it, a new thought occurred. This thought was so encompassing that it embraced the concept that all versions are canon. There was no need to debate whether this story or that was valid, because they all were. But how? Well, THE STORM begins laying the groundwork to show this. Will it be controversial? I don't believe we need a debate on that, but at least I can state "Yes, the story in SONIC #180 through #184 took place and it doesn't conflict with anything I'm doing" and be honest when saying so.
Really now. So it's all good now. Despite you insulting Ian Flynn for his creative decisions and for that arc in particular, it's all just fine now? Locke dying to save his son from being Enerjak after realizing his mistakes as a father, which you criticized most harshly, that's okay now? As is the expanded lore for Enerjak? Despite the fact you've claimed to have never read any of Flynn's works and thus possess no real insight as to what really happened or how to actually not contradict any of it?
You're not going to reel in more customers doing this; all it looks like you are doing is that you are trying to pass off your work as a 'legtimate' continuation of a continuity that no longer holds any relevance, a continuity YOUR actions helped to torpedoe. It looks like you are unable and unwilling to move on from the point where you worked for the book, and is only going to make people think you are trying to leech off of Sonic in order to boost your own book. You'd be better off just working with the material you presented in Knuckles and re-working it so that it is its own thing. You have no right to use those stories, and you know it.
Initially, I thought THE STORM was going to be only 8 pages, but it's probably going to end up being 10 or 12, maybe longer, depending on how the story is visually paced. The main point in doing this beyond serving as an introduction was to provide Patrick with the necessary material to construct the full Lara-Su Chronicle App. Not only is Patrick working on the presentation of the story and art in digital format, but also working to allow for multiple language translations as well as audio and possibly even a limited form of animation.
Again; you don't have a book out. Get the book out before talking apps. Why would you even want an app made of a prequel comic that you are going to release for free anyway for an unreleased graphic novel? You're getting ahead of yourself, doing this.
Most important, I think THE STORM also gives a good idea that these characters are not dependent on Sonic and/or Knuckles to draw the readers in and make them care.
Is that why the first page you've released features an image of Knuckles the Echidna directly lifted from the comic? No, it doesn't matter that you drew it; that is Knuckles, not the Praetorian, and you have no right to use it.
THE STORM will initially be made available free of charge digitally when completed. Depending on the response, I may do similar stories with other characters and collect them all in print after an initial digital release, providing for a companion volume that augments TL-SC.
You. Do. Not. Have. A. Single. Book. Out. Focus on *releasing* your product before you talk about tie-ins or spinoffs or anything and everything else EXCEPT the book. You don't even know it will sell well, so why waste time and resources trying to make a compilation to go with it?
In the meantime, I've been fascinated to see most of the comments regarding THE STORM directed at two specific items, one important - the French translation - and one trivial - the re-use of my own original art, but virtually zero comment on the actual art of the page itself until I read your comments. Nor have I seen any comments on the character of Ensign Brownie or story elements being introduced on the page. Granted, some may say there's not much to go on, but I daresay once I show the next three panels, tongues will definitely be wagging as the story begins to shift into high gear. Not every story element is conveyed just in the dialogue. Visual cues are also going to relay a lot of information along the way.
In the meantime, I once again want to express my appreciation for the well wishes. I will try to respond when I can, and apologize in advance if it's not as quick as you'd like. Thank you.
You know... I really do wonder where you live. Where do you live where people calling you out over your theft of an image from Archie Comics for your work, of a character you do not own, is somehow trivial and implicitly indicate that otherwise people were just hunky dory about everything else to do with the page? If you have honestly been observing the reaction to that image both on your twitter and elsewhere, then frankly, you have no real excuse to ignore the fact that the image itself HAS been criticized beyond your using of Knuckles; from the poor coloring, the stylistic inconsistency between Geoffrey and Brownie, the anatomy and shading issues, the use of vector graphics for the background, the fact that Geoffrey's HEAD looks like it was copy-pasted from another source, it has all been discussed... you have no excuse to pretend that the image itself hasn't been criticized, and less excuse to tell yourself that people focusing on the stolen image were otherwise just peachy with everything else.
And let's talk about your use of Knuckles. Yes, Knuckles. That is Knuckles. Not your redesign. It was taken directly from the comics, and is a representation of SEGA's character. You don't own any of it, and you couldn't even be bothered to credit Jensen for his inking of that image, though, given your very LOW opinion of where inkers and colorists rank in the grand scheme of things, THAT part probably shouldn't come as a surprise. And really, that alone was bad enough, but it didn't end there; those images, much like your backgrounds, were lifted directly from a google image search. Not only is it lazy, but you didn't make any of it, nor have you asked permission or credited the people who did make it. It's rather rich that you do this while screaming about 'creator's rights' in order to justify your actions, while having the gall to claim that Flynn was living off of your work and to then accuse him of stealing your ideas.
That you dismiss the matter as 'trivial' is both horribly telling and disgraceful. I can only hope that for your sake you clean up your act before it's go time, because otherwise? You're setting yourself up for a major league fall.
