robolord
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Let's Talk - May
🕑 Added 2021-05-05 14:32:13 +0000 UTC
If you're not up for my rambling, enjoy Lexi and carry on :)
Let's talk a bit more about plot development and story.
You may (or may not) have noticed that in both Lexi's story and the latest short comic I have attempted to press more story into less pages. I'm happy with how this is working out, though it requires further refinement. Now recently I was watching a video that mentioned the sentence "show, don't tell". Something clicked in me after that. So far I have often let characters tell something about themselves or others, but not actually showing this. While the impact of showing something is obviously far greater. I have tried to do this in the short comic, actually showing what Victoria did rather then Hannah just telling it. I hope to continue this trend.
As for plot development. I've come to realise something. Well, several things. The most important thing is about Hannah's comics and short stories. Hannah is in the end a direct personification of my idea of a perfect woman. I am very personally and emotionally invested with her and her character development. Is this good? Is this wrong? That's not a question to ask me. You'd have to ask a psychologist. I don't have one of those so I'll just consider it a healthy expression of creativity and sexual identity.
Perhaps, in the first comic I ever made. Hannah was to be a super sexual amazon using men by the dozen. But I've noticed I quickly stepped away from that..
A lot of comic featuring muscular girls are about them doing exceptional feats or sexiness and everything being about those feats and sexy stuff.. a lot of my weekly sets are about that as well..
But that's not what I want from Hannah's comics. In the end I think Hannah's comics at the core are a slice of life series with the whole muscular amazon theme overlaid on these slice of life situations.. their feelings, their desires, their actions, all enhanced by the fact they are near superhuman girls..
It's hard to explain exactly.. I hope someone out there understands what I'm trying to convey here..
This is obviously not to say I won't just make a futa fucking half a dozen girls cause she's bored as well :)
I have a lot of ideas for Hannah's story and short comics, and while I am sure that at some point there will be a more dramatic / action packed story about them as well, I feel that "slice of life" is the current direction I want to continue taking this.
Now the second thing I've come to realise is slightly less phylosophical and about Lexi's story. The story initially started as her starting a blog about her growth and at the time that seemed like a fun idea. It still is a fun idea, but it's not a lasting one. I simply do not see a way to make a 200+ page comic around that fact (it actually is 100 pages long already.. damn..). So in the last few sets I have stepped away from that idea.. especially with more characters being introduced I feel that stepping away from the whole "vlog/blog" idea would liberate the story a lot more.
This obviously makes shit all sense with the earlier parts of the comics! The good thing is: it can be changed! I'll just go ahead and shove all those earlier images in a archive somewhere and remake the beginning of the story. I will introduce Richard and Rachel a bit earlier in the story, and remove all the parts about her blog. I think the absolute size of the comic will be slightly reduced.. but that's alright.. in my eyes.. I hope to get a proper start on this (if not finish it) in May. Tomorrow will still just be a regular episode, after that we might see several sets remaking the beginning.. or I might do that in one go and seperate from the weekly stuff.. not quite sure yet!
As for Lee's story, this is still very much in the story making stage. I'm making a entire storyboard cause I want to get this right and perfect in one go. I'd like to get started on it this month, but I'm not making any promises yet.
Hailey's origin story is also being planned, with a little guest appearance from a character from a artist who has helped me so much in learning more about photoshop :)
Next to that I have atleast one more short story planned which definitely needs to be made cause it's a set-up to one of the comics that will be in the poll. It'll be about the three sisters and the effect meeting Amy has had on Victoria and Hannah! I think the poll for the next comic will be made next week. It will include a futa option and plenty of other options. It's eventually up to you guys what gets made ofcourse!
That's it, you've survived trough my rambling. Thoughts? Comments? Would love to hear them!
Comments
Robolord
Will definitely keep doing what I feel really passionate about. With the commissions I've noticed that passion is a necessity to create the drive to improve and create.
Robolord
Definitely agree! I feel like stepping away from the vlog/blog thing will only allow me to place much more emphasis on her slow muscle growth and process, especially in the earlier parts of the comic.
Robolord
Agreed! There only being so little of it is also what pulls me towards it. At some point after seeing all those images of dominating super muscular girls your standard of "muscular" changes. Lots of artists solution to this is to just draw or create bigger and bigger girls till the point where the girls are so muscular they can't physically move their limbs anymore. I dislike this. I feel a better way to give that feeling of utter strength and muscularity is to provide a more realistic frame of reference for the muscle girl in question. Something that perfectly lines up with slice of life comics.
Alison
What attracts me to Lexi's story compared to some of your other stories actually is that she isn't 10 miles over the top (e.g. a lifting a 2 ton truck type of girl) like Victoria or Hannah. She's the peak example of a super muscular woman who eventually becomes stronger than most men but is at least somewhat believable in terms of strength. While I'm not saying you should make her weak, all I'm saying is that I'm actually attracted to you keeping her a semi-realistic muscle girl who's feats of strength and grounded in reality enough to make the progression seem organic and exciting. I personally find it sexier seeing muscle growth in a woman who doesn't get to the point where they're crushing boulders because then my brain just shifts into science fiction mode. Your current approach here makes the transformation more grounded in reality and is in my opinion much better than other fmg artists and it's the ultimate way to do fmg comics.
frank gasteon
Huge vote in favor of "slice of life." I long for more genuine interactions with miraculously gorgeous muscle bound women... too much the genre gets sucked down into bigger and more ridiculous domination and fetish exaggeration. At least from my perspective, having something that tries to showcase the challenges, joys, hardships, tough decisions... and of course... the insanely sensual sexual reality of life as a muscular woman... anyway, that sounds amazing. There's really very little out there like that at all.
cheeselord123
Well as big fan of slice of life stories and muscle women, turning the main line comic and Lexi's series into said narrative with the added twist of huge and ripped amazons is a change I fully approve of, especially since the more recent works of yours are already a nice example of that direction. The rework of Lexi's story sounds especially nice. I don't think anyone cared about that vblog stuff at all but rather about a story of slow, hard and honest earned and semi realistic FMG but as you said yourself, hundreds of pages of that would become boring too and might as well be a slide show instead of a comic (Well a lot of artists actually do create dozens if not hundreds of renders with no or next to no story at all that but you are not the average artist after all) so the earlier addition of side characters add some needed spice to the comic. That … and it's a bit awkward that the current Lexi is nearly a match for Richard in size and no doubt in strength too. The idea of a mostly normal woman (Well even default Lexi is model material) surpassing and even later eclipsing her master would be a nice thing to observe. And take your time with the Lee and Hailey stuff and I say this as big fan of Lee who would love to see more of her but I would rather have a well made story over some jumbled mess even if the latter got perfect art too. The show and don't tell approach is very welcome too. I think pretty much everyone prefer 10 more pages of Victoria over two or three speech bubbles from Hannah. And well it's a comic after all so I came for the nice and colourful pictures first and the speech bubbles second. :P Also I want to reinforce what the others said, do it in a way it keeps you motivated and interested. It's a hobby after all for you and everyone here will be a winner if you keep being passionate over your own characters and stories and creating high quality comics which they deserve instead of forcing yourself just to create popular themes which other people covered to the point of over saturation and in return quality suffers since there is no spark behind it any more.
Robolord
Lexi's desire is definitely going to come from two places. First from a positive place, then a negative place that just pushes her that much harder to get stronger. It'll show in the comics in the end :)
Scarlett
I think another important aspect to consider is what flaws and drawbacks do your characters have. The desire to put in the work to grow stronger can come from positive and negative places. Usually its a mix of both I think. And then when different characters has different motivations they can come into conflict and suddenly there’s a story
Robolord
I like what I've been doing lately. Having her grow a bit and then having a different scene all together that is a bit seperate from the actual working out but more focused on how growing bigger effects the rest of her life.
Robolord
Agreed! By losing the entire blog/vlog thing I also hope to focus more on her own motivations and feelings towards working out. While also fleshing out what it does to her normal life and her relations with others. It will allow me to focus on the grind of working out more.
Torchlight3D
I agree with Tom Scarlettson, a good example of this type of story is Khooza’s Sarah story that has the girl growing at an almost painfully normal rate. The reward for such a long story can be tremendous and gives you a lot of flexibility to speed up and slow down the story when it suits you. I think investing time in your characters in your characters’ development will actually be very good thing. Overall doing what makes you happy is most important though, because that’s how you stay motivated to continue producing content. Just like your girls, it’s good to grow ;)
Scarlett
At the end of the day you should do with your characters what keeps you creatively interested and motivated. I’m particularly interested in Lexi’s story and this genre in general because I love working out and getting stronger but in real life its an extremely challenging endeavor that takes a lot of time and consistency to accomplish less than 1% of what these models already have. Its motivating to think about what’s at the end of the tunnel but its also motivating to see others experience that grind, overcome it, and enjoy the process. Projecting aside, thats something I hope to get out of lexi’s journey anyway
