100 ARAW ng KOMIKS: Knight of Grey (aka My First Attempt at making Komiks)

In commemoration of the “100 Araw ng Komiks”, I’ve decided to share to everybody my very first attempt at making a komiks.
(NOTE: This article is a pretty long read and contains a lot of large images and may take awhile to load, so read at your own risk. Thank you!)
I’m an avid fan of pinoy komiks, growing up reading Funny Komiks and Bata-Batuta Komiks. I was weaned by local heroes made by local artists that opened my eyes to the world of komiks. So, being an ambitious young kid, I told myself that I’d one day make a komiks too (aside from my dreams of making videogames, but that’s for another story…)
1996, I was still in highschool back then, I made my first 10 page komiks entitled “pH2: The Psychic Police”. Here’s a sample art:

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is an updated version of the original art that I did back in college I believe. I lost all artworks I ever made back in highschool because I had no scanner or PCs back then)
Basically the plot was my take on X-Men/Psychic Force 2012, and as to how “psychics” (my version of mutants) formed a taskforce to help find and arrest evil psychics that abuse their powers. It is because of this story, that I met my long-time friends Jon Infante, along with Ria Lu, and the three of us started dreaming of making our mark in the local komiks industry forming what would later become “Komikasi Enterprise”. Technically, “pH2: The Psychic Police” is my “first” attempt at making komiks, but considering that it wasn’t made available publicly and that only my 2 friends had the chance to read it, I decided to give that honor to my first published komiks that was actually distributed and read by other people…

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was the first banner for my komiks which was put online)
Fast forward to 2008, I was a graduate of Fine Arts Majoring in Advertising, but I ended up taking calls at a well-known call center company. Feeling frustrated that I haven’t had the chance to fulfill my childhood dreams and losing a sense of direction in my life (because that’s what working at call centers can do to you… suck the fucking life out of you in exchange of huge amounts of money) I got a call from my friends who asked me if I’m available to go on a meeting with them at SM Bicutan (and by defintion, the word “meeting” is another way for me and 2 other friends of saying “we’re hanging out”).
So I arrived at SM Bicutan, and met up with Ria and Jon at Tokyo Tokyo. There Ria laid out her plan of releasing a komiks for Komikon that year. Considering that all 3 of us were busy with our respective work lives, we decided to do a 1-page komiks, that we will then compile and distribute it for free on Komikon. At the time, to my knowledge, most komiks at Komikon were for sale and only a few artists allow people to see glimpses of their work. For me, giving away free sampler komiks would be a real nice way to introduce most people who are apprehensive on paying for komiks and ease them into being komiks fans themselves. So I went home with renewed hope and started thinking of what kind of story I’ll be working on…
After much deliberation, I ended up working on a medieval themed story, with a vampire hunter as the lead. This choice in story simply reflected my love and passion for a particular game series…

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This fanart is my own drawing around circa 2005)
Yes, I’m a huge Castlevania fan.
And since I’m so inspired and in-love with the series, I decided to base off my story from this game, along with other anime/movies I watched at the time as inspiration for my komiks. And the result was “Knight of Grey”.

The title came about when I wanted a title that would suit a story for a vampire hunter that is also born a half-human, half-vampire or a “dhampir”. I had an idea that since he’s half-good (white) and half-evil (black), he would be somewhere in-between (grey). Thus I ended up choosing that as my title for my komiks. Along with my 2 other friends who also made their own komiks series:


Mars Mag (Ria Lu) & Para Xi (Jon Infante), we decided to take the plunge and went ahead to Komikon bringing along our very first printed komiks. Our game plan was to give away the teaser komiks to people which will in-turn entice them to go to the komikasi website where we will be continuing the series releasing them 1-page per week. Here’s what the site looked like back then:

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is what’s left of the site as it was already taken down. This is an offline version of the site stored on a PC.)
Komikon came along and we finally released our teaser komiks to people. I helped along by distributing the komiks to any passerby who visited our booth as well as distributing fliers at the entrance to let them know they can get free komiks at our booth. It was a very interesting and memorable experience for me, as I kinda felt the feeling of how most komiks creators went thru in going out of their way to make their works known and the amount of work they put into their komiks, even if mine was a pathetic 1-page teaser. I had a deeper appreciation of what a komik artist goes thru each time they go to Komikon, hoping someone would atleast notice them. I also felt my heart break whenever I see people just throw my work into the trashcan, tear it to shreds, dismiss it or see copies of my komiks on the floor being stepped upon by people. It was a mix of sadness and happiness for me; happiness in a sense that I finally have something that people are reading, and sadness whenever people reject your work. It was an experience I will never forget.
As I look back now, while my first attempt at making komiks is pathetic to say the least, it did teach me a lot and gave me a lot of insight in terms of entering the komiks industry. It also gave birth in a way to another project we did at Komikasi; The Espresso Komiks Magazine. And this coming Komikon, I look forward to my second attempt at making a komiks, and not a 1-page teaser. Thank you for reading and long live pinoy komiks!

PS: For anyone interested in reading “Knight of Grey” I uploaded all of the teaser pages on my DeviantART account. You can view them all here: http://diobrando.deviantart.com/gallery/8201614

Testing out bloggin on my iTouch

Well this is my first test using Blogpress to actually make a blog post via my iTouch. Im currently having dinner as i write this. Here's what im eatin so far:




So far so good, it seems to be working fine. Ill check and update this blogpost later. My one beef is that typing via the ipod's keyboard can be a bitch, but everything else seems to be fine.

If you're curious what's the resto im dining at here's a pic:



UPDATE:
I was able to link my YouTube account and here's a sample video I uploaded via BlogPress:

Reflections of my past, using my past characters I created…

To those who haven’t known yet, I draw alot. And I think I draw pretty decently. As I lay restless tonight, I suddenly looked back at how different my works have been over the years. As an aspiring comic artist, I haven’t been officially done anything that’s for public consumption yet, but I have done quite a few stories in the past that I’ve yet to release.

In so many ways, the characters I created (but haven't released in public form yet) represented the different phases of my life. So far here’s a list of the characters I’ve done over the years:

• A hopeless romantic who falls for his pink haired "imaginary friend" (My Imaginary Girlfriend)

• A rebellious youth who despises authority, with a fiery temper to match his flame-like powers (PH2: The Psychic Police)

• A charismatic & virtuous leader who falls out of grace due to the betrayal of his most closest friend (Ascalon: Book 1)

• A friend who seeks to mend his past mistakes he did to a friend, and to prevent him from bringing the world into destruction (Ascalon: Book 2)

• A pair of top assassins in the world, suddenly are betrayed by the organization that raised them. (Untitled Story)

• A dhampir, that hunts his kind, tries to find a way to fit in a world that doesn’t accept him for what he is (Knight of Grey)
• A clockwork robot hero, forgotten by time (Tentative title: OZ)

In so many ways, these characters represented in some form, a part of me and what I stood for and believed in at the time. It’s interesting that time can change a person, in the same way how different my characters are from one another. I hope to be able to release all of them in the future… someday, somehow. Hopefully one of them comes out this year.

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance coming to the PS3!!

As a big fan of action-RPGs (like Diablo II) I was HUGELY disappointed when I heard a few days ago that Torchlight was going to be exclusively available on the Xbox360. Torchlight, like Diablo II, an addicting action RPG (which also happens to be made by the same team who made the first 2 Diablo games) is a game I’ve been wanting to play but never had a chance coz it wont run on my netbook.

Here’s some gameplay footage from Torchlight:

However, I suddenly heard that a similar game, called Dungeon Hunter, was going to be coming to the PS3’s PSN Store. Intrigued, I checked it out… and I was literally excited on getting this for my PS3. Here’s a trailer vid:

Both looks pretty similar and plays just the same as well. What I can’t confirm though is if Dungeon Hunter will have a pet system similar to Torchlight (which was an uber convenient feature IMHO) but overall it looks like it’s a decent action RPG to satisfy my gaming itch. I love the fact that the game features both local and online multiplayer, although I’ve yet to see if you can login multiple profiles in a PS3. But for what its worth, its definitely a game worth checking out if you’re like who dying for a Diablo-type game on their PS3. Here’s some more shots of the game in action:

I HAZ MONOPOLY!! XD

I love Monopoly. XD

I kinda grew up playing that game back then. And the one I played wasn’t exactly the “official” version, but rather a local knock-off called “Millionaire’s game”. And I love it.

Fast-forward to 2011, I still have fond memories of that game. And recently I just played a version of the game on my PSP, and it simply gave me so much nostalgia that I had an urge to finally get myself the real “official” version. But I won’t just settle for ANY version. For this one, I wanted a very particular version of Monopoly; the Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition.

You see back then, when you play monopoly it usually involves paper money which can be very messy to setup at times. But with the new electronic banking setup, its much more easier to keep track of your money.

I saw one online for sale at around $30, and that doesn’t include shipping yet. I was actually tempted on buying it online the other day, so imagine my surprise when I found a similar one inside SM’s Toy Kingdom. The good thing was they were putting it up on a discounted price so I immediately got myself one since it was the last box. I got myself the “Here and Now Edition: with Electronic Banking”, and I got it for around Php1,700.

Here’s my simple unboxing:

As for the electronic banking system, I made a video review of it just to demonstrate just now the system works (and to show how cool it is in action)

It’s pretty neat and really cool. I definitely love the nice upgrades they’ve made on the game, and I simply can’t wait to play with my GF one day. Definitely a must-have version for any Monopoly fan out there.

PS: I hope Hasbro would release a Philippine Edition with the Electronic Banking system as well here. I’d definitely get that if ever that gets released. XD

MOVIE REVIEW: RPG Metanoia

Lemme say this first before I start this review: This movie is well-worth your money so go ahead and watch it now. There I’ve said it. Now if you want to know WHY I believe it is worth your money, then stick around for what maybe a lengthy review, as I point out why I believe RPG Metanoia isn’t only the first 3D pinoy-made film, but also a rare gem in pinoy-made films that I can’t even fathom how the hell it even existed in the first place, but here it is and I’m loving it. XD

Now, lemme simply set your expectations straight. This movie is definitely NO Pixar film. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film, far from it!! Infact as soon as the first few minutes starts to trickle in and the movie opens up to a glorious morning scene that’s distinctly pinoy, you’d be in for a treat. The mundane everyday mornings we pinoys have is meticulously rendered in 3D that you can help but feel at home the moment it sets in. In fact, I can’t help but smile and be amazed at how heartwarming it is to see a typical pinoy morning in 3D. Perfectly complimented by a warm opening song, and you would feel right at home. And you know what, the way they executed it didn’t feel “baduy” at all!!

And that’s one of RPG Metanoia’s small triumphs in this film. The team was able to use their creativity and imagination to turn what could have been a corny, typical, and boring pinoy cliché and make it into something that’s beautiful and heartwarming. And this film is full of that; pinoy cliches found in most corny pinoy films turned into something magical.

The team of AmbientMedia and Thaumatrope Animation did something really special with RPG Metanoia and it shows. It’s as if these guys are fed up of the crap being shown every year in MMFF, and decided its about damn time pinoys are given something MUCH BETTER. Kudos to you guys!!

The story in a nutshell is about a young kid named Nico (voiced by Zaijan Jaranilla) who is engrossed with videogames and lives a sheltered life where he spends most of his time playing his favorite MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) called “Metanoia”.

The reason for that is he’s abit of a klutz and is easily discouraged when he loses or does something wrong. Thus he believes that he’d rather be inside the online game he’s playing because inside the game where he plays as the Vagabond-class character named “Zero”, he can do anything.

Together with his friends, he finds solace and acceptance inside the computer café called “Bomb Shelter”, where he lives his online life going on adventures and quests, while his mother (voiced by Eugene Domingo) worries that he may end up not being able to socialize and enjoy life outside of the online game.

After meeting another player who encourages Nico to step outside of his house and experience life outside of the game, he slowly adjusts and discovers that there’s more to life than just playing videogames.

Essentially it’s a coming of age story of a youth finding his place in the world, and learning how to deal with changes in his life, and how to surmount challenges. Now again, if this was handled by another local director/scriptwriter, this would have ended lame, corny and too kiddie. But like I said earlier, the team handled the story with care and the script was written with a lot of attention to detail, and it shows. Lines were naturally done, and the script was tightly written leaving no room for stuff that’s out of place or feeling weird. The humor also doesn’t come off as overbearing or “pilit” and comes off naturally. The team definitely made sure, that not only kids would end up enjoying the film, but adults as well. In fact, the film brings a lot of nostalgic moments to adults who were once kids as well, that I can’t help but smile.

Now there are concerns from people about the animation’s framerate as seen in trailers as shown below:

I understand that it can be irksome and that the framerate can be slow and choppy at times, but after watching the movie itself, I kinda had a feeling the animators INTENTIONALLY made it choppy. You see, the choppy framerate only happens when the kids are INSIDE the game, but everything is slick and silky smooth when the kids are OUTSIDE the game. The choppy framerate is common to local MMORPGs (believe me its real) due to lag. I’ve even seen someone post a comment on RPG Metanoia’s fanpage in Facebook, saying the low framerate in the film made him feel as if he’s playing a real local MMORPG. I guess the animators did a good job then.

But choppy framerates aside, the animation is really top-notch and the attention to detail oozes with every scene. Each of the characters are animated to life with such flair that they end up being so endearing and charming, that they are such fun to watch.

I end this review with a note to the makers of the movie: I simply can’t wait to line up next year to watch your next masterpiece!! Bravo!!