Info
A Touch of Tentacle wasn’t always like this. Far from it! This is maybe its fourth or fifth attempt. Some of them were really bad and their images will never see the light of day. Yet others still contain jokes which may be used in the future of the comic (oh noes! joke recycling!) and will thus appear in these pages when those comics go up.
The beginnings of a WAR comic
I knew a long time ago that I’d like to do a Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning comic. My first was actually back in January, with a little gag comic about the different Tiers, and from that I had the design for my first character, Darkin, down. Since then, his name has shifted to something more recognisable, less fantasy-based: Derek. I knew I needed eyes to convey expression though, and a helmet just wouldn’t do that for me. Of course, the solution was to stick the eyes straight onto the helmet. It limited design somewhat, but helped move the comic forward in development immensely.
Character Design
Originally the comic was going to be 9 panels long, a story comic with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour. It would revolve around four chaos characters (one of each class) and their crazy, not-so-evil adventures. I wanted to put across the lighter side of the dark lord of ravens. I tentatively named the comic ‘WAR Misfits’, because that’s what they were: misfits of chaos.
Darkin was my who I’d planned the comic to revolve around. He was the one everyone could relate to: the mildly competant player in amongst a gang of buffoons. With no real skill drawing fingers, I drew circle hands (which have remained), and blobby eyes. Leon (the original name of Zack) was just as obsessive about ravens, but in more of a scary serial killer way than a cute way like he is now. His tattoos have become a bit more prominent in the new version. I also knew straight up that Tod/Charlie the Marauder would have a really bad mutation. Originally it was just meant to be a sock puppet. It wasn’t until later the sock puppet became a character of its own: Chesterfield. And lastly, Josie/Angela looked very similar to what she does now.
The comics I made for this are kept sacred until I can find a way to reuse the jokes. >_< I made two of them, one of which will be in an upcomic comic.
A Touch of Tentacle Begins
I did the first comic under the name of A Touch of Tentacle just after Paul Barnett released his idea of what the ‘mega awesome MMO game’ would be like for him. Some people were confused by his choices. Really, Bubble Bobble and Advanced Wars? That would make a very interesting MMO.
I tried to incorporate aspects of the other games into WAR, but in the end figured it was easier just to incorporate WAR into the other games. The Hellcannon picture is still one of my favorites.
A Change of Character
Here’s where the comic really started to take form. I had a go at a new drawing style: faster than before, more comical, and more expression. Admittedly, I was influenced by Rich Burlew’s Order of the Stick heavily with the expressions. I do love that comic. I finally tried redrawing my original four characters with this new style.
By this point, Leon/Aaron/Zack, had shifted place to the mainly used character of the comic. I liked his cute, ignorant attitude, and he’s also a lot of fun to draw! And here I am now, writing up an Info page for the comic, almost a year in the making. 