PAST EXPERIENCE: part 4

Here ye, here ye. This is the last will and testament of Jason Badower. I've been struck down by some virulent Brittanic virus that seems to be some unholy synthesis of the Rage virus, Ebola, Leprosy and strain 138 of the Shanti virus. You get the point, I'm suffering. Suffering like a woman on the Boxing Day sales without her credit card. Surviving medical scientists have dubbed the virus, The Unholy Plague as only the depths of hell could have vomited up something so insipid and cruel in its symptoms and fatality rate.

Round 1 saw The Unholy Plague issue a totally unprovoked first strike. I hadn't been out drinking in two weeks. It had been regular work, early to bed and early to rise with a side order of good eating for two weeks. As far as I was concerned, my defences were strong, and going into any sort of match would favour me the victor. This didn't deter the The Unholy Plague. It first attacked me at 7am on Thursday morning with a couple rounds of vomiting. I thought a sneak attack was particularly ungentlemanly and secured a steadfast agreement to do pistols at dawn tomorrow... once I'd had some sleep.

At 1pm I awoke feeling like I'd been clubbed like Rodney King. It appears that while I was down and out The Unholy Plague laid a couple of stern body kicks which the ref didn't see. I protested the unfairness of this, but the ref was off warning The Unholy Plague's ring girl, Sinus Lass to stay outside the ring during the bout. During her latest verbal warning the bitch even caught my eye and grinned as The Unholy Plague went for an illegal choke hold inducing dizziness and nausea. I limped out of the ring, grabbed a couple glasses of water and stumbled back to bed.

SKETCH

I enjoyed these layouts. Simple, elegant and cinematic. I couldn't wait to draw Hiro!

I rose again at 6pm. I felt like The Unholy Plague had kidnapped me, hung me upside down in a large heshen sack and beaten me repeatedly with phone books and baseball bats. By the time my sister came home from work, she found me listlessly staring off into the distance, a half eaten piece of toast and a forgotten glass of water in my hands. I had devolved into (what is traditionally known in the zombie community as) a Shuffle. I struggled out of what could really only be described as Post Traumatic Shock and sent a couple apologetic emails to my editor promising that her pieces would be on her desk tomorrow. These were supposed to be the huge booth posters for the New York Comic Convention. They had to be the best work I was capable of. As soon as I'd hit the "sent" button, my sister hustled me off to bed. I warily drew up the doona/duvet (whatever) and reaffixed the sentry guns and landmines expecting another sneak attack from The Unholy Plague.

LINEART

I ended up doing a screen capture from Kaito's funeral from season 2 and moved people around, but it's largely the same frame. I do like my Hiro. I think I got reference from season 1 here. The trees were a bit experimental for panel four and I like the gothic noir feel it has. Those of you paying attention might have seen my geek Easter Egg and noticed that I used Hiro's boss, Mr Kin Egami as the executive who confronts Kimiko.

I cunningly slept through pistols and vomiting at dawn. I awoke Friday at 11am. Sensing trouble, The Unholy Plague had decided to lob mortars over my defensive wall which had not done any more damage, but the constant noise and shockwaves had stopped my Mutant Healing Factor from kicking in and repairing me whole. Somehow I kept my eyes open for 10 hours and finished off the last two booth pieces. The first I was very happy with, the last, not so much. At 9pm I stumbled off back to bed. The sentry guns were fully armed, the landmines prepped and I issued orders to the troops to engage in perimeter sweeps to dissuade The Unholy Plague from the previous night's mortar strikes.

TONE WORK

I especially like how all the people turned out. I felt that panel 1 got a bit muddy and confusing from poor composition, though.

Saturday (today) I awoke, at 730am. The perimeter was unnaturally quiet and reports from the front issued a suspicious all clear. I stared over the horizon surveying the battlefield. It was like regarding an old friend who had returned from overseas. You know them, you remember them, but you're going to have to get to know them all over again. Everything had changed. War does that to you. War changes you. The Unholy Plague changes you. I'm still reeling. A man returned to a country he barely recognises. Everything's the same but different. People regard me differently. Human beings can sense on a visceral, subconscious level when another has been through a near death traumatic experience. They regard me with a wary nonchalance knowing that intimacy with my recent experience will affect them on a primal and heretofore unrevealed level, even to themselves.

COLOUR

Panel 1 got a bit muddy, but I like the way the rest turned out. If I hadn't been referencing an actual scene from the show, I would have set this at sunset for more dramatic lighting than in the middle of a sunny day.

My mind is sharp, but my body is still reeling from the experience. Two regular cartridges of Neurofen slammed into my magazine seem to keep me alert through the fog of The Unholy Plague's wake. You only wish this sort of suffering on your worst enemy. It's the perfect sort of suffering. They lie there, weak, nauseous and drained while you dance around them, throw general insults and little scrunched up bits of paper at their nose. If you're lucky, they die... suffering.


FINAL TOUCHES

Some added lighting effects. It was a buzz to draw Hiro again. I love drawing the guy. He's just so easy to draw. Overall for a fast, rushed page, this turned out really well. To give you an idea of how rushed, I drew and coloued pages 4, 5 and 6 over two days!

Inspired by the very mechanisms of human nature that drive us through our lives, we are forced to ask Why something like this could happen. How could something so brutal and heartless like The Unholy Plague be unleashed into our lives? But sometimes it's not our place to ask why, but merely give thanks that we survived. And the immortal words of Captain Malcolm Reynolds come echoing into my mind, "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

And I thank God for considering me prettier than the ill-fated Bendis. But he left me scarred with a hollow, haunted look to my eyes (that hopefully adds charm and a certain mystique.) And in the wake of The Unholy Plague, all we can do is hug a loved one and thank God that all of us who are reading this were indeed pretty enough.

Or I could just be a big wuss and a drama queen.

PAST EXPERIENCE part 3

Oh god, I am so slack I should be taken out the back and shot. When I die I'm going to Procrastination Blogger Hell where devils dance around my cage promising to torture me... tomorrow.

It's kinda funny that no matter how hard I work during the week I'm always rushing my ass off at the end of the week to get things done. I think it comes from a serious inability to say, "No" to fun projects. Instead, I just line them all up and then balk at the amount of work that has to be done.

Right now I'm doing some huge posters for Spacedog's New York Comic Con booth. I can't wait to see them 8 feet tall! I've also got some correx to do on a friend's movie pre-vis pieces.

But let's get back to Kimiko.

LAYOUTS

JT, the writer (I figured I better remind you as it's been awhile. I hear they've also invented jet-packs between my last post) suggested that the first panel should mirror the last panel of the last page. In fact, he had very clear directions for how he wanted the scene to run. I looked over them, and they were great. It was just a matter of designing the room and the placement of Kaito and Kimiko to make it work.



LINE ART

I noticed I copped some flak from some posters on 9th Wonders who didn't like my George Takei. At this stage of the game I was ready to print panel 1 out on nice piece of photopaper and mail it to his agent I was so proud. Seriously, that's George Freakin' Takei! I was so happy with it at this stage. I'm still proud of the linewor. Little was I to know that all my efforts would be thwarted by my inability to colour him.

I do like the picture of Kimiko on panel 4 also. I think it really looks like her, and I like it how at the one moment that her father actually looks at her, she looks away.

If I remember correctly, it was about at this stage that my computer was so under-performing I thought it had been taking tips from some of my ex-girlfriends.

It was so sluggish that if it had a pulse I would have checked it to see if it was alive. This page took me 2-3 days to do! And look at it, there's really not much to look at! But I was so frustrated by panel 3, I knew that I would have to look at other, more time effective ways to finish this. I opted for the first of my photo textures for backgrounds.


TONE

George still looks like George here, and Kimiko looks far more Kimiko-like. See? I write gooder!

I remember almost rubbing my hands in glee at how well this page was turning out. I really dug the lighting on the two characters and loved how it accentuated the scale of the room.

Somewhere around this stage I'm probably chanting over my laptop in latin wearing rosary beads and a dog collar. A good old fashioned exorcism is about the closest you're going to come to any sort of technical support from me.

But, despite my best efforts to call out an unholy spirit frommy laptop, there was no screen spinning 360 degrees, no vomit and my laptop didn't even try and climb down the stairs backwards. Following in the footsteps of those pre-mentioned ex-girlfriends, my exorcism was a let down.

I decided to try another tact.

PHOTO INSERTS

So here's Jason trying to save his ass and deadline with photo textures. I can't tell you enough how much I *HATE* doing this. I feel cheap. I feel like I've asked for a refund at a $2 store.

But they look nice don't they? And how about those spiffy glass effects!

I can just see your reply now, "Boy, Jas, you do a GREAT glass effect! Don't tell me you actually DREW that glass in. You didn't put your back out actually DRAWING something did you?"

Shut up. My computer was possessed by a slavering devil from an outer circle of hell that thought that shoulder pads were still a fashion accessory and my time should be played like fingers down a blackboard. Slowly and tortuously.


COLOUR

I want you to marvel at the magnificence at which I have destroyed a perfectly good likeness of George Takei. What the hell was I thinking?! If another colourist had done this to my work I would have hunted them down, nail gunned them to a chair and fed them their toes.

As it was, I plead insanity.

For those of you who've met me, what you see is what you get. I'm one of the most chilled dudes you're gonna meet. Well, chilled as in "not gonna get angry" not as in "relaxed and laid back". I can't remember the last time I got angry at anyone. So believe me when I say I was ready to totally reenact every part of every rage zombie in 28 Days Later. I was especially looking forward to setting myself on fire and running around after people. I think it would have been cleansing.

Like the eye of the hurricane, a calm possessed me. I remembered that my friend Xander Black mentioned that he'd become pretty savvy at putting together computers and had about 8 desk tops at home. I called him and he offered to look at my laptop. So I headed around to his place.

He figured that the graphics card had crapped itself and turned itself off. He turned it back on and made some adjustments to my computer. I would of paid more attention to what exactly went wrong if I hadn't been forcefully kidnapped by his Playstation. All I know is that a couple rounds of Guitar Hero and Tekken later, my computer was working again. Oh the wonders of Playstation and its healing properties!

So Xander sat down and we throw down for some Tekken Tag (yes it's retro, but it's what we used to play against each other, and it's the last Tekken we both learnt to play).

FINAL TOUCHES

Yeah, so here's some lighting and blow out effects from the window. Blah, blah, blah. No one cares. What you wanna know is who won, right? Right?!

Yeah, I know I'm right.

I whup his ass at the start, but then he makes a comeback so brutal it has since been outlawed by the UN as a crime against humanity.

Finding my dignity and my Tekken skillz crushed under his designer boot I make a final resurgence at the end when my main man, Jin Kazama (also my digital man-crush - see below) remembers who he is and interfaces with me on a spiritual, emotional and intellectual level to unleash a mountain of destruction so big they set up a memorial service for Xander.

I hear that broken Tekken players make pilgrimages to this mountain of pwnage to pray at the shrine of Xander's broken spirit.

As you've probably gathered, I LOVE my Tekken. I just haven't had time for it recently. So come walk with me for a trip back in time. I promise to include an embarrassing photo to make it worth your while.

At the time, I wasn't the only one who liked Tekken. My entire martial arts club was into the game. We loved it because if you know how to fight, you can play. In the closest I ever came to cosplay, I organised my martial arts club into a performance called, "ENTER THE TEKKEN". I cast various members of the club as different characters from the game in a martial arts play that I scripted and choreographed.

Of course, I had to play my man-crush. =)

Yes, that's me. I painted those pants with a little help from a very talented ex-girlfriend. I used to wear those pants out clubbing and I got quite known for them. Another friend of mine did the makeup, tattoo (which you can't see) and hair.

I did the abs. =)

ENTER THE TEKKEN went on to win the Grand Champion Trophy in showmanship in an international tournament. Of all the martial arts trophies I won, that was the one I was most proud of.

See? Embarrassing photo. Told you it would be all worthwhile.

Next post soon, I promise!

BLACKOUT page 4

Here's The Jas (Yes, I've decided to speak about myself in the third person.) doing what he does best. Solid conversations with interesting people. The Jas really enjoyed drawing this conversation between Mohinder and the Teenage Patient.

The Jas has also included here his tones (See below). This is the digital painting that The Jas does before he goes in with colours. The Jas doesn't know if you can see all the brush strokes and stuff, but they're there. While some have commented that The Jas' finished artwork has a photographic quality, The Jas actually works quite hard to bring a painted, hyper-real quality to the work. Simply making it look like a photo is bloody boring.

If you want a photo, go check out the tv show.

I- er, I mean The Jas, uh... The Jas means The Jas believes there was some confusion on the boards after the patient manifested their ability.

Oh frak this.

Back to the first person. How the hell do wrestlers do this? I can't believe I've been out-grammared by every pro-wrestler on the planet.

Now the only rumour that I know is that Kristen Bell is going to be doing an arc on HEROES. I'm pretty happy about this as I'm a huge fan of Veronica Mars. I maintain that the first season is the strongest first season of almost any tv show.

I have no idea if there's any truth to the rumour about Kristen Bell's power, but apparently there's some similarity. Me? Couldn't care what her power is. Couldn't care if she has a power or doesn't. And I'd prefer if no one in the comments confirms or denies Kristin's powers or lack of powers, role, name or anything else about her. That's spoilery and I will delete your post!

But let's mine this rumour like a canary holding pickax wielding mad person.

What I'm really excited about is the possibility that I might have drawn the new season two character to be played by Kristen Bell. Apparently one rumour is that Kristen Bell's character's power is similar to that of the patient. Therefore, some people have been stating that they think this patient could be Kristen Bell. Let me see if this is indeed the first appearance of NEW SEASON TWO HEROES CHARACTER:

KRISTEN BELL:

TEENAGE PATIENT:

Wait! I see it! They're both sitting on a bed! That's it! I'm such an idiot. How can you not see the almost photographic resemblance. It's like I traced this EXACT photo. I mean the similarities between this weedy, sick guy I drew and this gorgeous, healthy woman are just uncanny. And if you don't believe me, check out exhibit B:


KRISTEN BELL:

TEENAGE PATIENT:

See?! They've both got blue eyes! How can you not see the resemblance?! It's not often I draw a likeness this absolutely freakily accurate. But I hear dissent from up the back of the crowd. Well feast your eyes on exhibit c:

KRISTEN BELL:

TEENAGE PATIENT:

Ah ha! Yes! Now you see! They're both looking sideways. Because if they're both looking sideways then they MUST be the same person. I know I don't look sideways.. EVER. Which means that I'm neither a teenage male patient nor Kristen Bell. By process of elimination we have deduced the answer! Ho, ho, ho! Case dismissed! But as my crushing finale of irrefutable evidence I present the coup de grace:

KRISTEN BELL:

TEENAGE PATIENT:
They both don't look happy do they? They MUST be the same person. They don't even need to do any makeup on Kristen to make her look like this guy. She could just roll out of her bed and onto set and voila! She's ready to go.

Seriously, people. Is my art that bad? How the HELL could you possibly confuse this guy I drew with Kristen Bell?! I know you're all looking for foreshadowing and easter eggs, but there's a difference between drawing conclusions and wild, irrational speculations.

In the future, if you think you might be onto something - just ask. I'm more than happy to deny, and if I'm silent - then perhaps that's a confirmation?

The Jas should also apologise as this has also been a shameless scam to post pictures of Kristen Bell. =)

If you smeee-eeeell what The Jas. Is. Cooking.