Before we venture into Chapter One, I thought it would be fun to look back and meet the unnamed characters of the prologue. First, I’d like you to meet Zeke Hainey, the old timer who ends up face to face with a UFO.

The final model of Zeke Hainey and his dog.

Originally, I saw Zeke as a Jed Clampett type of character with the tattered hat and clothes; more of a back woods type. But the sequence eventually merged with a previous project of mine—an 8mm film I made in High School called They Say There’s Something Out There— a kind of Twilight Zone/Creep Show story about an old man who discovers something strange in the woods after his truck breaks down on the road (sound familiar?). So, once the character was a little more solid in my mind, I needed to “cast” the role by looking for the perfect visual personality for the character. In the short film, I dressed myself as the character ( I fired the original actor. Sorry Darrin!), complete with old age make-up and Ben Nye gray in my hair. So the perfect casting this time around just might be someone related to the original actor—my father.

A reference sheet of my inspiration for Zeke Hainey.

I wasn’t sure how my dad would take being cast in my story, but since I was using his truck as well—a 1964 Ford F100 (more on that some other time)—there was a chance he just might go for it. I made up a few reference sheets from recent photos of my dad and started to work out some rough ideas for Zeke. I eventually nailed the final model right before production on the pages by bringing the design a little more in line with the style of Red’s character.

Here are a few sketches and roughs of the character in progress.

Some expressions for an earlier model of Zeke.

Sketchbook and roughs for the red's Planet prologue pages.

I’ve been experimenting recently with USTREAM, the live video streaming site, and made a test broadcast late Friday evening as I worked on a teaser poster/cover of Chapter One. I was joined in the chat room by my friend, editorial cartoonist, Rob Smith Jr., as well as Matt Forcum of Robot Beach and Paul Westover of Woody After Hours . Granted, I talk more than I draw, but it’s a little glimpse into my process as well as the answer of what I keep in my desk drawer.

Here’s the Ustream broadcast from Sunday night with a glimpse at the coloring process on the Chapter One teaser.

Since I’m posting this weeks page in stages, I’ll archive the images here as I replace them in the comic area to show you my process. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the images.

The first stage is thumbnails (which obviously, I didn’t post since no one but I can decipher it). This part can be extremely rough (like it is here) or detail depending on how much I have to work out visually.

The next stage is a layout stage, where I work out my staging and poses. This is done digitally and often times I will incorporate CG sets that I have created in Google Sketchup. This stage is created digitally using Sketchbook Pro and Photoshop.

I print out my layout and trace it off in light blue Col-erase pencil onto a piece of 2-ply Strathmore Bristol. At this point I am paying special attention to putting the characters on model and adding character to the environment.

I ink the art mainly with a Windsor Newton Series 7 #2 brush with a little bit of Rapidiograph and various dip pens.

After I scan my inks as 1200 dpi line art, I “flat” the colors in Photoshop by selecting and filling areas with the lasso tool. Here is the image without the line art.

Last I add shadows, highlights, a few textures, salt and pepper, and it’s good to go.

A Special Announcement:

Red’s Planet will be returning to this screen on May 2 with the conclusion of Chapter Two!

What happens when Red awakes to find herself on a giant space ship millions of miles from home?  Will she be discovered? And who the heck are the mysterious Aquilari?  And what’s up with this buying spree they’re on?

Find the answers to these questions (well, maybe not all of them) in just two weeks, when Red’s Planet returns with new pages updating twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays!

A Personal Note to Fans:

Thanks everyone for the support and encouragement over the past few months. Though my time away has been much longer than I anticipated, I’ve made some slow but steady progress on Red’s Planet and I’m very ready to jump back in full force with the exciting conclusion to Chapter Two.

I also thought some of you might like an little creative update on the from the behind the scenes.

Over the past weeks, not only have I been scripting and designing the rest of the current chapter, but even more important, I have been writing the entire story. I can now say that the first draft of Red’s Planet is nearly finished — with only two or three scenes left to complete.

Since my influence and area of study is film, I like to write in screenplay form as it’s easier for me to visualize the story and the story structure. From that point, I adapt the script for comic pages. For a movie script, it is still a little long at 127 pages, but after a rewrite, I think it will balance out at 120 pages — perfect screenplay length.  Now the first act of the story (roughly chapters One through Four), have been locked for some time. It was the remainder of the story that I needed to tie-down and really know where we are going.

Following the rewrite, my plan is to find some trusted individuals — hopefully  colleagues of mine in the film and animation industry — to read it and give me honest feedback.

And for those who are curious  — if you were watching Red’s Planet the movie, chapter Two begins somewhere around 15 minutes into the film and ends near the 30 minute mark.

Just sayin’.

I know many of you love to read about process and, as you probably know, I have no fear of being transparent about how I create.  So after pulling a George Lucas and reworking a few pages in Chapter Three, I thought some readers might be interested in an exhilarating behind the scenes story.

One of the things that I like most about posting a weekly comic is the immediacy of the feedback and commentary that I receive — an experience in complete contrast to majority of cartooning history. In the golden days of comic books, it would be months after deadline before letters from readers began to pour in and the comic strip artists of the same era were usually months into the next story arc before a strip landed in the funny pages.

I’ve often imagined that doing a weekly webcomic is as close to the experience of performing for a live audience that a cartoonist will ever have. Having done a little bit of stand-up back when my hair was fuller and less gray, I can tell you it can be either exhilarating or demoralizing depending on — well, let’s just say it’s the luck of the draw. I find that stage experience isn’t much different from waiting for the first readers comments to come rolling in, but without the shaky knees and sweaty palms.

I like to call Red’s Planet a “graphic novel-in-progress” and for a long-form comic, it’s been invaluable to be able to judge how my audience is perceiving the story as it goes along; are the characters ringing true, is the plot point clear, am I revealing too much in a subplot that won’t payoff until act three, etc. And, occasionally, I find out that the way I set up a scene or gag isn’t playing at all. And that’s when it’s time to figure out how to fix it.

Working as a writer and story artist in animation, my scenes are constantly deluged by notes from the producer, director, or even an executive. It’s my job to take their concerns, fix the story, hopefully plus it, then pitch again in a week or two. At which point, more notes come in and we do it all over again until someone dies or they run out of money.

The great thing about notes are, in most cases, the story becomes stronger. With Red’s Planet, I think of my online readership as playing a key role in that note process.  And when a scene doesn’t “play” and there’s a bit of a hint in the comment section, that’s a pretty good indication that I might need to step back, reassess, and maybe go back to the drawing board.

When comments started coming in on Chapter Three page 37, I began to realize that my concept of a large metal box with pre-dented edges that just happen to fall around Red’s legs without dismembering her, really wasn’t working. Not only did it become

a distraction for many readers, it drew attention away from the most important thing: the story.

So after, a little brainstorming (usually while taking a shower), I decided to rework pages 35 thru 37. The reworked pages not only make more story sense by replacing the metal monolithic box with a teetering pile of junk, but they are much more visually interesting as well. I’ve replaced the pages in the story, but I’ve included the original pages here for comparison.

Making changes is just part of the process. The story can always be stronger, and you should never be afraid to change something. Unless you’re George Lucas. Then, of course, you should just leave well enough alone.