Housekeeping

I hope you all enjoyed the very first installement of Quick Time Moral Tales, our new bi-weekly padding segment we spew out in a desperate attempt at keeping your  interest while I try to get off my lazy ass to finish another comic strip. And let me tell you, my handsome/gorgeous friend, on the internet, that is pretty hard. There are alot of shiny things that want your attention out there. So from the bottom of my heart, whether you're a regular visitor, or someone who just stumbled in here by accident; if you find a sliver of enjoyment out of the dumb stuff I post here, I love you. So I hope that you'll check back in two week's time for QTMT number 2, which I've decided to call "The Legend of Chosokabe Masayo". Exciting stuff. And hopefully, I'll have finished QTMC 7 well before that. It really looks like it could be something special.

On a different topic, while you're wandering aimlessly around the intertubes, you might want to give Conjectural Figments, the new science-fiction e-zine a click. Curated by ninja master and author of the upcoming novel Knuckleduster Andrew Post, and features the short stories and poems of some truly talented people, like Jhon Z Baker, Dale Herring, Simon West-Bulford, Craig Wallwork and Rommel Luna H. You should also pay close attention to the stunning artwork of mr. Glenn Porter, twice the man I am in more ways that one. In addition, you get a fascinating interview with Simon Morden, author of the Petrovich trilogy, which I am currently racing through. And it's all free! It is a must for anyone who enjoys good science fiction.

Now, the cynics among you might notice that there is a name I've left out of the people contributing to the very first issue, namely my own. The really cynical among you might even go so far as to say: "Hjels, you self-promoting sack of crap, you just gave us that entire spiel to sell something you're a part of. How can we trust anything you say!?"  

To that I would say, whoa back up, buddy, I have feelings too, you know. And then I'd say this: Reading this issue, I felt like that one guy who gets cast in a movie because of his good looks, while the classically trained thespians in the cast look at him going, "how did this asshole get the part?" They operate on a different level than I do, and just being associated with these people is a tremendous honour for me.

So do yourself a favour and check it out. I guarantee you won't be dissapointed, or your money back.

Quick Time Moral Tales 1

Harvested: A tale of love, loss and daily produce

Warning: Games spoiled in this blog post: Harvest Moon: Back to Nature (PSOne). 

Believe it or not, but there actually was a time in my life where I wasn't a cynical, snarky jagg-off who made fun of my favorite video games in comic form. Before mowing down hordes of aliens/terrorists/zombies or whatever the hell those things in Bulletstorm are, had turned me into a manly space marine with scars on his face in place emotions in his soul.

No, before all that, I was a young boy with stars in his eyes and a song in his heart, just returning to his grandfather's home town after his death. I had spent many a joyous summer on his farm, but circumstances and time had taken us down different paths, and had it not been for a rather curious clause in the old man's will, I might never have set foot here again. The farm had fallen into a sorry state of disrepair and only if I managed to return it to its former glory in less than three years would I be allowed to stake my claim to it. Now, at the time I was a typical modern city boy, with soft hands and an expensive haircut, but after mulling it over for a while, I decided to pick up the gauntlet, and accept grandpa's challenge. Before I knew it, I was standing there with a hoe in my hand, and my dog Brutus by my side.

To all you city folk out there, this may come as a shock, but farming is damned hard work. Every day, I would get up at the crack of dawn, work all day, and then collapse into my bed in the evening, every speck of energy drained from my tender frame. It was several days before I even made it into Mineral Town itself, but at long last, a welcome shower of rain meant that I found the tiniest opening in my harrowing schedule so I could finally take the trip and introduce myself to my new neighbors. I instantly fell in love with all of them. 

There was Ellen, the kindly old, retired mid-wife, who'd always have a story to share; Mayor Thomas, who reminded me that Super Mario could have had a real career if he'd only applied himself a bit, and Doug, the gentle, old-fashioned innkeeper, who just wanted to see his daughter  married off to a good man, to name a few of the wonderful people who constituted this kind, close-knit community I was trying to best to become a part of. There were a few less idyllic fates among these people as well. Take Duke, the closet alcoholic and co-owner of the winery who drank to forget that his daughter no longer spoke to him. He kept his grief well hidden behind his warm, friendly eyes, but you knew it was there. And the bottle was there to help him cope. He too was part of the great tapestry of personalities that made this town special.  

Of course, being a young, virile man with charisma to spare, like all who know me would confirm to you, I couldn't help but notice the plentitude of young, single women of wooable age who lived in and around Mineral Town. But I also realized that though these were simple country folk, they wouldn't be all that impressed by this young upstart blowing into town to take over the decrepit old farm in its outskirts. I had to apply myself to gain the attention of any of these beautiful girls. So I walked back to my farm, with a bag of seeds on my shoulder, and a fresh determination in my step.

I first noticed her during the Tomato Festival that summer, standing quietly, listening to her friends' conversation but not really participating in it. She wasn't the most immediately striking woman I'd seen, with her purple vest, worn cut-off jeans and big sturdy work-boots, she was not the kind who'd immediately draw a man's gaze to her passing on the street, but should you give her a second look, you'd have seen a pair of eyes of so unfathomable depth, ships could sink in them and never be heard from again. So sharp and breath-taking were they, a battalion of poets could spend a century describing merely their colour.

They were green.

I knew right there and then that I would have to get to know this girl. From then on, whenever I wasn't working on my ever expanding farm, or slaving in the nearby mine, I took the trip to her family's store in town, often buying useless garbage I didn't need, just to catch a glimpse of her. She was dismissive to me at first, like she was to most people, but slowly but surely, I tore down the barriers she had built to protect herself from the world. Karen was her name. She had lived her entire life in Mineral Town, but she spoke with a confidence of a woman who had travelled the continent, and tasted a wide variety of the wonders the world has to offer. That was probably the reason many saw her as arrogant or assertive, but to me, she was nothing short of magnificent. Before long, I would spend all the free time I could spare in the store, discussing, conversing, arguing and laughing with her. She was opinionated, but always open to alternative views, even to her most entrenched preconceptions, as long as you offered her a compelling argument. She wouldn't smile just to make you feel better, only when you said something that really delighted or amused her. And at the same time she'd make you feel like the most important man in the world, because you were the one who tempted it out of her. 

I would enjoy this friendship for a year and a half before I noticed the initial signs that something more was growing between us. During that time, I'd had been less than covert with my affections for her, but she needed time, and I gave it to her, knowing in my heart that she was worth waiting for. My farm was doing well, I was becoming a respectable member of the community, and on a rainy day towards the end of summer, I felt her lips against mine for the first time, ran my fingers through her soft, delicate hair, and professed my undying love for her. 

I knew what I had to do. 

For the entire fall season, I slaved away on my regular chores on the farm during the day, but spent the evenings and nights working in the forest, cutting the lumber I needed for this most important project. On the first day of winter, I led her blindfolded to my farm, and as soon as she had stopped giggling that intoxicating little laugh you'd only hear when she was apprehensive but excited, I revealed to her the new wing of my farmhouse, the perfect fit for a fledgling little family. With tears of joy in the corner of her beautiful green eyes, she threw herself into my arms, and declared that she would of course marry me. 

As soon as the snow thawed, it was finally time to meet her at the altar, and exchange our vows of eternal love and companionship. The day was perfect. The entire town had turned up to share in our joy, and as Karen's father walked her up the aisle towards me, I knew that my life finally had purpose. To ensure that my bride had the life, the love and the opportunities she deserved. In front of the pastor, we swore to cherish and keep each other until both our days would end. Then I took her in my arms, and kissed her with all the passion stored up in me since the first time I saw her, and knew she had to be mine. 

And then, darkness...

I must warn you, dear reader, that it is as this point my story takes an abrupt metaphysical left turn. My screen had gone completely black, and as it stayed that way, and nothing seemed to happen, my initial belief that the PlayStation was merely loading all the assets for my wonderful new life slowly vaned. After half an hour, I decided to restart the console, and load the game back, confident that I would bypass this freak, once-in-a-lifetime bug, and be launched into the family bliss the game had so tantalizingly promised. Instead, all I got was more darkness. Six failed attempts at getting the game to run past this point later, I was getting worried. Was this some kind of cruel cosmic joke? Had I been led to the top of the mountain, and granted a look at the land of milk and honey, in the knowledge that I would never set my foot on it myself?

After a week of failed attempts, I was at my wits end, and I resorted to the one option that was left to me in the time before you could just run to the internet, and declare your outrage. I sat down, and wrote a physical, handwritten letter to the publisher, demanding an explanation, and more importantly, a solution. For weeks I waited, less than patiently for their reply and at long last, it arrived in my mail box. 

The answer was devastating. 

The letter basically told me that it was a bug they were familiar with, and that there was nothing that could be done about it, but they handily provided me with an address where I could send my copy of the game for a full refund. 

I was furious. 

I don't want your god-damned blood money, I want my wife back!   

Eventually though, I had to realize that the dream was over. There was nothing that could be done. Karen was gone forever. I felt like a young Bruce Wayne, standing at the graves of his parents in the pouring rain, wondering how it could all go wrong so fast, and fearing having to live the rest of my life without the one I loved. But there was no way around it. She was never coming back. 

So, like anyone whose backbone was worth the calcium it was made of, I decided to face my dark, unyielding grief like a man. By shaving my head, and murdering Nazis or Orcs or whoever stood in my way. Beats actually having to confront your feelings, am I right, men?

So here I am, thousands of lives of my conscience later, a grizzled, bitter old man, who remembers that young boy with the stars in his eyes and song in his heart only fleetingly, on the coldest, loneliest nights in the trenches of whatever God-forsaken conflict I've gotten myself involved with. I sometimes wonder how that life would have turned out, had I been allowed to live it. I wonder if I should have handled my grief differently. Maybe Duke had the right idea after all. Maybe the answer did lay at the bottom of a bottle. Then again, how could all the Krogan liquor in the galaxy do what slaughtering waves upon waves of Locust never could? Erasing Karen's face, looking lovingly at me whenever I close my eyes. 

QTMC presents: Quick Time Moral Tales.

I came to a conclusion recently. It was one I struggled against my own entrenched preconceptions to avoid. But there is no way around it, I now realise. You, my dear, dead sexy readers, who have been scientifically proven to have the hardest of asses and the silkiest of hair, are not going to be satisfied with me posting my stupid doodles in comic form every couple of months. You're not going to keep coming back, and gifting me with that which I crave most of all on this earth: more clicks. So, in a desperate attempt at pulling your mouse pointers in my direction, I hereby am proud to announce a new, and very special feature to my little blog I keep hidden away in the internet's basement. I mean, the fact the you've even found it, proves that you are a sleuth on par with Batman himself.

Anyway... QTMC and its creator, me, are proud to announce Quick Time Moral Tales. That's right, from now on I will actually write stuff on here, and not just dripfeed you the comics I provide you with far too seldomly. Quick Time Moral Tales will mainly consist of stories that have accumulated in my warped mind during nearly two and a half decades of video gaming. This bi-weekly feature will occasionally contain illustrations by me, Hjels, your humble servant, and to kick off, I will take you on a tragic and oddly metaphysical journey to the world of Harvest Moon, and a piece I call "Harvested: A tale of love, loss and daily produce."

Look forward to that sometime between christmas and new years, and keep checking back for the comic, which I will release as soon as it's ready.

Did anyone else get caught in that temporal anomaly? No? Just me?

Whoa.

So there I was, minding my own business, slaving over a hot sketch pad, trying to work on the comic you, my handsomest readers where patiently waiting for, when all of a sudden, my room evoporated into a festival of colour and light. I felt like I was pulled through a tunnel of truth, like my very soul was cought in the changing and merciless currents of time itself. It lasted only a moment, but when I regained consciousness, two whole months had passed, leaving you, my stunningly gorgeous audience in the dark as to what was taking the strips so long.

What's more, it seems my sketches must have been eaten by a temporal dog of some kind. A big one!

.......

Alright, fine. I'm just lazy. But despair not, QTMC is still alive and, if not kicking, then at least shuffling along. 7 is still coming up, and I appreciate your patience.

You sexy thing, you....

Back in the hamster wheel

Just a quick update this time, I'm afraid.
I'm back from vacation, and working on the strip again. (When are you ever not on vacation, Hjels?) Number 7 is taking a while, as those who follow this blog will know, but it is still coming, and wihtout promising too much, I think that this is going to be something special.

Struggling a bit with getting the model for one of the characters right, let's call him Adam J. No, that's too obvious... A.Jensen. That's the one. (Well done, Hjels. Is your next strip called "Who shot mr. Burns"?)

Anyway. Long story short; strip, work, will be done, something special....

The Process

I often get asked; "Hjels, exaclty what kind of unholy sorcery do you use to conjure forth the images in your comic strips?" I'm just kidding, I never get asked that. Some times it feels like no-one even cares. Like I can be in a crowd of people, and still feel like that last man on earth. Not nothing I do matters to anyone else in the slightest. Who would know it if I vansished off the face of the world tomorrow? Who would care? God, I'm so lonely, I...

*Ahem*

Where was I? Ah yes, the process. How is my comic strip created, what steps go into forging the hilarity (or at least, relative mirth) of QTMC? Well, my friend, in case you are interested, let me walk you through it. If you're not, I don't blame you. Just go. There are probably several cute kittens on the internet you haven't seen yet.

Still here? Sweet

• Step the first

It all starts with a pen, and a sketch pad. I do have a decent tablet, but after trying it for a while, I found that I missed the tactile feedback of a good, old-fashioned ink-filled sylinder against paper. I am self-taught, meaning I don't really have a process for getting the proportions of my models right, which again leads to more trial and error than neccesary. But that's the way it is. 

• Step the second

With the ink sketch done, the analogue part of the process is over. From this point on, everything happens on my computer. I start by scanning the sketch into Photoshop Elements. (I don't have the cash for the proper one, but I make due) This scan is usually pretty rough, and need alot of cleaning up, as the example below shows. Notice how I missed the shoulder, and had to draw over it to get the proper proportions on Marston's body.

• Step the third

I now go to work cleaning up the model, making sure to remove any lines that do not belong, and completing those who are not long enough. In this case, I realised that I hadn't drawn enough of Marston's legs, so I had to extent them in PS. 

• Step the fourth

At this point, I'm ready to start colouring. I do this by selecting the parts of the model that fit together, and create one or more seperate layers for each of them giving me the chance to create the shadow effects. The vest, for example had two, the hat had two, and the skin had three. Using this technique makes the colouring process prett easy, but it also makes it easy for the shadows to become disjointed from each other, because I deal with such isolated areas in the model. 

  

                                                              

• Step the fifth

With the colouring done, I move onto the home stretch. I very rarely draw more than one model on the same page, unless they are directly interacting. Instead, I do each one seperately, and compose them together in PS. The backgrounds are screengrabs from the games my comics depict, since I'm not a good enough "draw-man", (I'm afraid I can't use the word artist) to do it properly myself. I apply filters to both the charactes models and the backgrounds to make the aliasing between them appear less stark, and I finish the whole thing off by adding captions and speech bubbles. Then I repeat the process for all the panels. 

The logos I use for each of the strips are meant to ape the logo of each individual game. This means, I have to hunt down the font used in the games logo, and find a way to ape the layout, to create a familiarity. I find that having named my comic Quick Time Moral Choice, I get alot of lee-way, when doing this, because has enough letters to fit most the names of the games I've done so far. God help me if I ever do one for Rage or SiN or any other game with few letters in the title. 

So there you have it. Simple really. I wouldn't recommend this process to anyone else, because it is highly personalised to the way that makes me feel comfortable. But I hope you've gotten something out of this post at least. 

Stay tuned for 7.

An augmented future

So 7 is now officially in the works. And you know what that means; I'll get to it eventually. For the second time, I will be moving away from the world of Mass Effect, and onto strange, uncharted territory. And for the second time, I leave it to you, my incredibly intelligent and beautiful readers (seriously, have you lost weight?) to crack my astonishingly subtle clues as to what corner of video game absurdity we shall be exploring next.

I give you the QTMC 7 logo:

I mean, what kind of tier one mastermind could solve this puzzle? Can you? I mean, I made the thing, and I barely know. Stay tuned.

QTMC #6

Aaaand, here it is... My quickest turnaround from conception to finished product yet, and maybe a promise of  more frequent updates in the future. Maybe.

In the mean time, I hope you enjoy it. As always, I'd love it if some of you could leave me with a comment or two? Please? Just one?

I'll dance for you...

QTMC #6 coming along, and... something else...

So I thought I'd give a quick update in the wake of the fifth strip getting cancelled in an unexpected turn of empathy. The next strip, though still as juvenile but not as tactless as the cancelled one, is coming along nicely. I just finisehd the inking, and all that remains is the colouring in photoshop.

Which I hate. That's why these things always take so long.

I've got news for the Miranda fans out there though. Oh, man, you're gonna get a kick out of this...

You favorite, sultry Cerberus operative... will play no part in QTMC 6.

(-What a dick you are, Hjels.)

Tali will though. You guys like Tali, right?

Anyway, hope to have it on the blog in the near future. Oooh, and I almost forgot. On twitter I promised a little teaser for my latest, non-QTMC project. So it is with great pleasure that I give you the raw, uncleaned penned drawing of my upcoming, one-shot webcomic "One more year":

 (-Hjels, what the hell is that?)

That is a shoe.

(-I can tell...)

More than that, that is the shoe of the main character.

(-A story about shoes... I'll be sure to read that...)

Excellent! I hope the rest of you will, too. I'll have a new, seperate blog up, once I've made more progress on it. For now, QTMC 6 should be right around the corner.

Strip number 5 has been cancelled.

In light of the tragic events in Oslo and on Utøya, Norway of July 22nd 2011, I will immediately suspend work on Quick Time Moral Choice #5. The reason for this is the theme of the strip could, in the aftermath of yesterday's senseless attack, be construed as making light of the notion of terrorism, something that was never my intention. It holds no direct allusion to the events of yesterday, or any other such cowardly action, nor is there any violence in it, but rather than releasing something that could be seen as poor taste by some, I will instead probably never realease it.

I do recognise my own inherent hypocrisy in this whole affair. After all, this is not the first time terror has struck, neither will it be the last. I freely admit that though I concider myself an empathic person, the arrival of terror on my native soil has personally hit me harder than other similar events of the past. For this I apologize.

This will not be the end of QTMC, though. I will continue to try to make people laugh, which is my sole objective in this project. But a strip titled number five will not see the light of day.
 

Back from holiday

Hey, do you remember about three weeks ago, when I posted, saying that I would try to have number 5 ready by the end of my vacation? You do? Do you also want to hear a funny story?

Yeah, that didn't happen...

Not the vacation, mind. That definetly happened. And I had a marvellous time, should you care. Don't worry, I know you don't. Bad news is that the strip is STILL not done. Good news, that the sketches are actually done, and only the soul-sucking tedium of cleaning them up and colouring them in Photoshop remains. Further bad news, I hate this part. So there you have it. I'm back to work again, to gift my readers with a smile or a snigger, or dare I dream, an actual chuckle.

Delays, delays, delays.

Man, am I slow at this. I haven't finished the strip I said I would finish, and for that I apologize. Part of the reason for this is my terminal laziness, but the other parts are the fact that I work full-time during the days, and that I am currently writing a script for a book. (The worn, torn pages of which will probably be found a few weeks after my death, unpublished, nearly done, but scattered about with no page count, meaning that any attempt at actually having it posthumously published will be a fool's errand.)

Anyway, I digress. I shall soon go on holiday, and hopefully, I will actually finish number 5 during that time.

And to kill time during what must be an agonizing wait, here is Luca Toni:

Mambo number 5

Alright!

It's Mass Effect again. I was working a little something from a more fantasy-flavoured part of BioWare's catalogue, but Mass Effect is such a treasure trove of potential humour. At least I hope so.

I'm trying to draw a krogan for this one. It's hard. But I think qtmc 5 will be something special. Just you wait.

Quick Time Moral Choice #4

I told you.

I told you there'd be cowboys. I'll be honest, and say that this one stayed in the pipeline for a long time. (Red Dead Redemption, Hjels!? Get with the times, grampa!)

But since I had been working on it for a while, I decided to finish it, even though looking at it now, I can say that I feel it is the least of my works on this little web-comic project of mine. But I am still quite happy with the outcome. As you can see, I am still trying to lock down the style of QTMC, and I wouldn't hold my breath for any greater consistence to my drawing any time soon.

When I'm happy with it, I'll stick with it, dang it!

Anyhoo; QTMC #4, for your viewing (and hopefully laughing) pleasure.

By the way, I shall start work with #5 almost immediately, and we'll be going back BioWare's games again. Not telling you which one, though.  

Almost there...

Two panels down, one to go.

Not to sound like a douchebag or anything (he said before doing exactly that), but this one is coming along nicely. Please note that there will be just a wee bit gore in this one, so if you are especially sensitive, make sure you only read it while partway covering your eyes.