Mothball

While we wait for some big turds to roll to a complete stop in my life, and while I take some time to decide what to do with the comic series; to complete it or to just let it rot at 19, this blog is being mothballed.

I would turn it off, but then Google does that thing where it says "You've been locked out", and that's no fun, so here's an empty holding blog while the jury's out.

Creating art (any art, even dodgy erotic comics) is a seasonal thing. Muses come and

Twilek

No particular reason, just Zan.

Thinking maybe the comic should simply be the adventures of Zan as she travels through our own galaxy and gets to know different humans, maybe comes across the occasional betentacled alien species and helps them chill the heck out.

Or she could have a stint as captain after a high-stakes game of strip poker, and use her new power to

Oh Tr*mp

(NB. I wrote this in Oct 2016...)
Oh America, what are we to do, eh?

So, quick sitrep:- 'Brexit' was sold to UK voters on demonstrable lies, by genuine shits who then resigned (Farage, Johnson). And as we begin to unpick what Brexit means for the nation, the Bank of England estimate £66 Billion will be wasted annually going forward, which is one almighty ongoing kick in the bollocks. So we

New character: Jen. Include in the comic? VOTE!

Ahh, character invention fun times! Playing with my Barbies has always been fun. Maybe it's a control thing, maybe it's just perving. Who knows. Either way, creating new characters isn't always a great idea in plot terms, but damn it it's just so ... just so ... moreish.

Yum, playing with body shapes (not that I deviate too much from my crazy idea of skinny hotness, it has to be said), toying about with 'gravity', props, outfits, expressions, faces, it's all jolly good fun.

So here are some renders. This character is going to be called Jen. Long personal story why she'll be called that, which I'm not going to go into here, but I'm not even 100% sure she'll

Dodgy Bob's Big Bag of Gravy

(Couldn't think of a sensible title for the blog post, obviously)

HELLO! It's me, 'Project Bellerophon', which now I think about it, is a pretty stupid name. What about Susan or Sandra of Freddy or something normal? No, it's Project Bellerophon. Ah well let's stick with it.

Well, in the last few months I've burnt out a laptop (ram fiasco this time, as you ask), I've burnt out a friendship or two, I've burnt my shoulders with too much sun, and I've burnt a lasagne. All true apart from the lasagne, I'd never burn a lasagne that would be unforgivable and stupid.

Unusual to burn a friendship though, eh? Never thought of myself as someone who could do that, but you know when it's time to

Summer yummer ding-dong

HELLO! Yes indeed, my word lots of lovely comments on the blog in the last few weeks, I shall endeavour to answer them this week perhaps. But my goodness what a summer rush of fun times!

Sorry I went quiet, but not that sorry because it's high time we all got out in this lovely sun and worked on our excellent skin cell death hobby.

FASHION SKIN - one to work on for the patent office there, Americans. You're welcome.

Woops there may have been a lunchtime mojito or two, apologies. You know that thing where you

Limelight roulette

If you have a massive Space Trek Fleet Wars binge and read through the whole saga in a couple of sittings (like I just did), you might notice the characters swing in and out of the limelight a little.

And Becky and Tom in particular - the key original couple - have been on the back burner for a few comics, haven't they.

Trouble with having quite a few characters (and it taking so long to render each scene) is that you can't really cover everybody all the time, otherwise each comic would either be 500 pages long, or stupidly jump about and be just sex scenes with no explanation. And if that's the kind of comic you're after, heck there's plenty of others out there that do that. In fact they all do that, eh. I'm not really into that - I'm more the slow build-up, slightly-more-believable type of comic producer I guess.


In the later comics, I've preferred to concentrate on the most awkward/human thing out there! So Blue Steel is Zan's main event (and she hasn't featured much since). Becky and Tom haven't had much focus since Bum Deal - again because that comic was all about those two. Hayley and Victor haven't had much airtime since Firmware - same deal, same reason, even though there was loads of potential - Hayley's lost virginity and eating out Luce was just skipped over so I could focus on Ix and Xho. Common theme is that I go for an awkward storyline, explore it slowly, then get those characters out of the spotlight to give others a chance.

The big overarching story will return a little to Becky and Tom for comic 20, but so you understand the balance, the reason Ix and Xho have had so much focus throughout is actually because in comics 1 and 3, I raced through the relationship between Becky and Tom - and I always thought it would be nice to do it more justice, do it more slowly, hence the introduction of the Ix and Xho characters, and the much slower and more awkward build up to their having sex. Slower and more awkward = believable/feasible = seeeexxxyyyyyy. Well, that was the plan at least :)

It's not really to tease the fans, it's actually just my wanting to do a single brother-sister storyline and have it be believable. So there we are.

Anyway it's getting late and I'm sitting at the back of a pub and it's Friday evening so it's getting a bit busy in here for my liking:- I'd better hit Publish and get the hell out of here, before people get a view of my screen! If you've just walked into a pub in Holloway and saw someone sheepishly grab their laptop and shuffle out, that was me! Byeee! *runs*

Have a great weekend everyone!

Anchorman reference #1

Anchorman reference #2

Viagra Pez: copyright Project Bellerophon 2016

Extras DVD: the original script for comic #19. Plus banter.

Google locked me out of the blog again! Very annoying. If that'd happened a week ago, right before I'd published comic 19 (which is out, by the way, in case you hadn't spotted it), I'd have gone completely nuts. And so would you. Anyway I'm back in now, all I had to do was try and remember when I set the account up... how the hell should I know?! Eugh, anyway, stop ranting about google. I love google really. I would totally neigh for them, if you know what I mean.

I meant to say about the comic: there were 1,200 downloads of it in the first two days! BLIMEY! That's loads. Goodness. So could you do me a favour and

Comic 19: The Quiet Ones

Not going to lie, I'm pretty proud of this one. What an utter, unbelievably huge amount of work it was. Next comic will be smaller and much more boring, I promise.

What should I say about it ... it's a quiet, gentle, awkward series of discussions and an unstoppable tsunami of a build-up to about twenty climaxes over the course of 165 pages. Finally Ix and Xho well and truly ... well, you'll see.

Enjoy it. Read it all very slowly. Heck, do it in shifts for the full effect. Have a great weekend! It's Friday! Comic day, baby!

DOWNLOAD COMIC 19 HERE >>>>>>
(Zip file download icon is at the top of that link; get the full 64mb zip for proper res images, eh?)

On its way ...

So I took the afternoon off work (lovely and sunny anyway, right?) and finished finished FINISHED the comic. Yes indeeeeed. However, I'm on a train right now (long story) (ok, not a long story, but a boring one) and I'm uploading the comic to my google drive so I can share it with the world.

Thing about wifi on trains is ... it's on a train. So it's crap. You go through tunnels and past great radio noise patches and basically uploading a 64mb zip file takes forever.


Let's all just imagine we're back in 1997 and trying to get the dial-up modem to stop screaming and start joining those cheeky little bytes, eh? So while we wait, I can blog about it and tell you all it's on the way. So here I am.

Dum de dum.

Don't mind me.

So how've we all been?

Right, back to comics

Family bathtime. Good clean fun.

...and after that brief intermission to rant about the crumbling unethical politics of the UK, let's resume normal service.

I've done 165 pages. All the renders are done. In fact if I get a few hours peace this week, comic 19 [AKA The Greatest Bellerophon Comic Ever] might even be out on FRIDAY! COMIC DAY, BABY!!! Woop woop! No promises, but it's pretty likely.


The title of comic 19 will be 'The Quiet Ones', as a bit of a reference to The Dreamers (see pics). I know, another slightly straight film reference a la Shadows and Dust, or Fap Club. Thing is, the title Space Tits Ding-Dong Rub-A-Dub kinda set the bar pretty high for madness, so these straight titles balance the series out a little. And it includes a great big non-talking scene - which was pretty difficult to do but is I think more realistic (people don't talk ALL the time, after all). Difficult to do because having no speech bubbles in a comic encourages the reader to race through it, and is a lot of rendering effort because you have to move the plot on with expressions and poise rather than spelling out what characters are thinking all the time. Much harder. But I'd always wanted to do a silent scene because some of the best human interactions are silent, and you don't get that a lot in comics. Hence The Quiet Ones.

Anyway; The Dreamers - if you haven't seen it, it's a film about a guy discovering this isolated brother and sister who've inhabited a cool deserted apartment, surviving as their parents leave them for various reasons. Very good film. And seems appropriate considering my usual brother-sister intrigue stuff, eh? Yes. That's right.

In fact it's very fitting; they all just hang out semi-naked, talking nonsense and human politics the whole time. Chuck in some stars and an occasional alien and you'd basically have my entire comic series.

The Quiet Ones may also be the title of a non-great 2014 horror film, but heck they apparently didn't do a very good job so it's time to redeem the title, n'est ce-pas? Oui.

... pardon?

So, the comic - like I say, I've done all the rendering now; it'll definitely be 165 pages. An absolute mammoth then, with at least enough content for five separate comics. But heck I'm not selling them so I can decide how to divide up the plot, right? And I like the massive comic thing, because it gives you time to really get into it, really escape into the curious world that's being described. That's why not much happens in The Dreamers - you sort of get absorbed into the believable world of the siblings, makes it 100,000 times hotter when the slightest thing happens.

Only jobs left to do on the comic are (1) bit of speech tightening-up - like tweaking the conversation so it's either (a) sexier, or (b) funnier, or (c) flows better. Job (2) is the final task - adding all the 'wetness'; yep that gross job that always comes last. Photoshopping fluids is a bit of a mission normally, but for this marathon comic it's going to be a total nightmare because heck there's ... there's just SO MUCH OF IT!! Needs to be done though. That's why I can't guarantee this Friday - am too much of a perfectionist, even with sperm.

A Sperm Perfectionist? Is that a thing? Should be.

Fcking Brexit

Dear the rest of the World; we, the UK, are sorry.

Being English is normally excellent, it's normally great, great fun. Everyone loves (or jokingly hates) the British. We're jolly, jolly good fun normally.

Blimey.

But fucking Brexit has pissed me right off mate. Blimey crikey cor blimey I'm reet off me tits on .... whatever the opposite of national pride is. National shame.



We seem to have sided with the most moronic elements of the world. Only Donald Trump (don't get me started), Boris Johnson (demonstrably lying), and ISIS thought it would be a good idea to leave the EU. But no, we thought we'd ignore every economist and historian and the advice of every technical institution and industry we have, and side with the racists. Great.

(For the foreign amongst you, the EU is the European [economic] Union).

Brexit does not mean we will be leaving the continent of Europe itself and physically floating away, nor does it mean (as some true ignoramuses actually believed), that we have voted to get the 'foreigners' to 'leave'.  No, it simply means we have utterly shot ourselves in every bollock we posses, all in the name of giving two fingers up to David Cameron (not an entirely wasted effort I must confess), and has left our dear nation sadly lacking ... well ... a government, for a start. And for number two, at the mercy of every racist and xenophobe we posses.

Talking about a number two, we're off back to the fucking Bronze Age for a bit. Byee!

In the meantime, comic update; I've done 140 pages now. I'll be hard pressed to finish it in under 150 pages, but we're definitely getting there :)

Something to look forward to as our glorious nation folds itself into a singularity and falls foul of the total thuggish mentalists who normally stay in their bedsits and keep bloody quiet.

Lots of English rage right here. Sorry about that. Cup of tea? Two sugars?

OMGoodness

Seriously you guys, comic 19 is going to be the best one yet. Like, it's amazing.

I don't normally say that; I normally say "It's a good one, this one", or "Weeeell this one had to have lots of plot so it's more about the tension...", but not for this one. Oh no. This one's the best.


I've done 126 pages so far but it'll be maybe about 140 by the time I'm done. So there's about 300+ renders, 9 characters, all individual poses for each render (I don't tend to duplicate renders to fit more speech in, I hate when comic artists do that it just lazily interrupts natural flow), all depth of field, lots of memes and silly bits and goodness me a lot of very, very nice flesh.

*cold shower*

 

Oh don't keep hitting refresh though, I'll let you know when it's a few days away, reveal the title, stuff like that.

Ix Glow Facto

So then. Huh.

Someone mentioned to me a few years back it'd be cool to have Ix's dots glow sometime. Damn right, I thought. But there'd have to be a reason; a trigger for them to light up.

So I've been working towards that; towards the situation in which every part of her little body is utterly,
profoundly orgasming in one huge torrent of spine-breaking craziness, towards the moment when her subconscious is entirely opened out and joined to the person she's with. Can't fake that kind of sex, but if you've had it in real life, you'll know what I mean. So to that end I've been slowly moving the plot; isolating Ix from the crew a little since we met her really; there haven't been many intimate sex scenes with just her and the other characters. I've been getting her theoretical subconscious to the point at which the release would be just like real life: epic.

And we're finally there. Difficult to upload pics to this blog without giving away spoilers this late in the comic rendering process, so you can have these lighting tests instead (you know me and lighting tests, it's this fetish I have...). We're at about 120 pages and ready for the dots to start glowing, baby!

Don't check back every five minutes; it'll take at least a fortnight of work to get the comic ready. At least. But we're getting close to that stage :)

Gotta be honest I'm proud of this one, there's more funny bits than normal I think, and ... wait what am I saying there's nonsense in every comic. But this one is more haha than the previous ones. To me, anyway. And it's more ... I dunno, intimate I guess. Just what I was going for, and lovely to have some warmth after the fairly bleak plot environment of comic 18 - Shadows and Dust was really good but necessarily a little dark and cold. This one has just a touch of chiaroscuro, but on the whole it's all about the comfy snuggliness.

And tons and tons of descriptive content so if you're blind and just have someone read it to you it's hot as heck. How accessibility-minded of me! You're welcome.

Publishing note: The blog title Ix Glow Facto was because I was thinking early last year (when I wrote the script for comic 19) that the comic should be called 'Ix Xho Facto', but I thought people probably wouldn't get the 'clever' play on words from the Latin Ipso Facto, nor get the link between the content of the comic and the meaning of the Latin phrase. So I thought bollocks to Latin references, let's have it subtle rather than convoluted. Anyway, there you go. I might have Luce whisper "Ix Xho facto" to Zan instead; I like their conspiratorial stuff, they're a good couple to play with. Just ask Tom. Or Becky. Or ... well, anyone really :D

If you click on the pics below there's higher quality renders. Just sayin :)

Chiaroscuro

The recent Comic 18 was full of Chiaroscuro (high contrast lighting, lots of shadows etc), largely because I wanted to get some of the cool lighting I had lucked on when I did the corridor [anal] scene between Ix and Tom in Breakfast in Tacspace.

When I created that scene in Breakfast in Tacspace, I threw a few spotlights in and it just kinda worked - I remember blogging about it at the time and someone was like "Hey amazing chiaroscuro!" - and I'd never
heard the word so googled it and discovered it was a real thing! Yay!

So wanting some of that harsh/atmospheric lighting back, the title of #18: Shadows and Dust just kinda fitted with what I wanted the comic to be; Luce being a shadowy character who used stealth to get onboard the ship, and because (1) there were lots of shadows generally (corridors, the galley, main ops room all shadows), and (2) the pivotal use of the hyperdrive as a weapon was to shunt rock around the galaxy. ie dust.

Also Gladiator is a great film and having just watched it (and randomly given my PB Google account the name Marcus Aurelius Bellerophon for shits and giggles), having a reference to that film sorta fitted. In an obscure film reference kinda way, even though the universe of Gladiator and that of STFW are literally lightyears apart.

AAAaaaaaaanyway, in the above page from the upcoming comic (don't hold your breath; it'll be about a month yet), Xho is clearly looking for Ix. Just thought I'd blog it up because I liked the lighting; looks super scifi having such strong contrast and reflective surfaces. I quite like the way Tacspace fits nicely with Stonemason's scifi corridor prop - again an amazing scene from that guy, which with a bit of light play can look super atmospheric.

Note the subtle x-wing in the corner of tacspace - that's the only hint we ever see of it in this comic, just chucked it in there for consistency with the previous comics, though I figured Xho's had time to clear all his tools and junk away since his work on the hyperdrive.

Yes I think about this stuff too much. No there isn't really any reason because nobody but me would likely spot those details. Yes plenty of readers would skip all these pages anyway because there's no boobs on them. No I don't care.

I'm just gonna keep doing what I do :)

Hot physics flipchart action

Remember I garbled on about Loop Quantum Gravity a while back? You know, how it explains a big plot twist that's been rumbling on under the radar for a few comics and will be fully untangled in comic 20?

Well this is where we're at: I've done over 110 pages of comic #19 now. That's right, it'll be
another epic. But we're about to meet the most exciting new character yet: THE FLIPCHART

AAARGHH!!!! I know, right? I've just created this sexy three-legged bastard, and damn it's got me all hot under the collar. Winking its inky eyes at us as it squats and presents Xho's meandering sketches on LQG to the world (no I didn't draw those equations I just googled LQG pics, yes I'm lazy). Daaaaamn baby, turn a sheet for me, mmmm, yeahhhhh.

Anyway ... fun thing about this is it's not going to get explored/explained in #19, the flipchart's just going to sit there in the background of one of the sex scenes so that when we (ie the crew) realise the importance of LQG in comic #20, they return to explore the physics that Xho's already been doodling about.

Fun!

COMPETITION RESULT: And the winner is ...

Right, time to announce the winner of that arbitrary 'Oldest fan' competition from a week or so ago...

*Drum roll*

Winnar: Uzkuhi Fongo! Won because of sending the dropbox link for me to download all that stuff I've blogged up this last week. They also win the 'craziest made-up name' competition. So I've designed this poster to go on the wall of one of the
scenes - it'll be near the end of the upcoming comic.

(It's a little brown mushroom cos Uzkuhi himself said it'd be funny, and I put it in German because I think that makes it even more bizarre [truth is I think Uzkuhi is probably from Germany, and it seemed funnier in German, so...])

Archive: Character development with Rebecca Starwalker

1st generation Becky character

Silly idea really; basically make a 3D barbie character and play with her. Get bored, make a 3D Ken doll (Tom) and smoosh them together. Still not quite edgy enough ... hmm I know they can be siblings! Yay wincest! What's not to like?! Great fun. 

These renders were like original character development; I liked the idea of being

a 'real' 3d artist - you know the sort of 3D artist who produces cool looking characters as concept art for films (in Zbrush or whatever) - those amazing artist guys always did renders like this, 360 degree spin-around views of their character.

Mine just had fewer clothes on, is all :)

(as you can tell, I was going for the sweaty / wet look...)

So here she is; first ever character I created in Poser; Rebecca Starwalker - lead character (along with Tom) for mini comic idea 'Space Trek Fleet Wars'. You knew that.

Name: Rebecca Starwalker

Age: 17 to sort of 20 ish
Height: 5'5"
Weight: How dare you! About 8 stone? 9 after a big roast?
Waist: Barely
Bra size: not that she's ever worn one, but 28H - 28J depending on how booby she's feeling
Favourite drink: Red wine
Favourite position: Cowgirl, though also partial to being bent over a desk, bedside etc. Depends who's in charge
Hairstyle: 'Shag' - a la hit TV sitcom Friends character, Rachel
Love interest: Tom. Always Tom. Since she learnt to masturbate. 2nd in line is probably Zan; they've always got on, on account of the easy-going ness, and the ... err appendages.

Then I was like "Hey, we need more outfits; need some sort of soft sports kit that can be unzipped" - so this kit turned up on Zan and Luce in the 3rd comic, but it had been setup on the original character, Bex.

(Notice in this render she has slightly smaller boobs than later on in the comics? Pretty sure I gave her a boost as the comics progressed; liked the idea that the 'coming of age' stuff led to bust development, as you'd find in real life. Yes I probably put too much thought into it. Yes I did the same with Tom and Xho's penises - just in case you'd not been paying attention...)

Actually those shorts are pretty cool, maybe should grab them again sometime, wonder if I still have them for her...

^ Very early character fun thing, this - did it to test out lighting (no suprises there), and though it was never used as a scifi comic scenario with Bex, I later used it for Tom (see Spymaster). He didn't quite look as good as Becky though, and I always wonder if I should have swapped their roles in that comic... ah well, too late :)

2nd generation Becky ...

More detail in the skin, less shininess/wetness so her skin looked drier than 1st generation. Better detail in the eyes, slightly stronger tan so her skin contrasted nicely with Zans. 2nd generation Becky also had slightly larger breasts as I thought she was a year or two older than the coming-of-age 1st generation Becky (above), so I gave her a slightly more womanly jawline and bigger hips too.

YES I KNOW YOU DIDN'T THINK I PUT THIS MUCH THOUGHT INTO THE CHARACTERS OMG I KNOW IT'S A BIT OF A SHOCK ISN'T IT AAARGHHHHHH!!!! Obsession eh? I think about this detail for all the character, btw! Yes I probably need psychological help SHUT UP ABOUT IT IT'S JUST A HOBBY AAARGHHH!!!

A SEXY HOBBY AAARGHHHH!!

Favourite 2nd generation character pose, below. Always loved that cowgirl moment, she just sort of naturally fits it, her contrapposto bodyshape accentuating the shape of her breasts, hips and waist:

Below: first render in 'Tacspace' after I'd plonked the lighting and grey backdrop in there, I put 2nd generation Becky in there and hit render. Yikes, I thought, that works. Time to do a comic.

Got a lot of time for thigh-high socks. These were sock test renders, readying the texture for They Came In Outer Space...

Just ... errr ... no reason.

2nd to 3rd generation test comparisons below - 3rd generation was all about the subsurface scattering on the skin  - these tests look kinda waxy, I toned it down a bit for the 3rd generation proper, and made her skintone a little closer after these tests, which made her look a bit pasty compared to old, tanned Becky.

Skintone was 'deeper' though - she was a bit glossy so looked like wax, but the realism was upping slightly so I was happy :)

Was pretty pleased with this bounce cycle to be honest, despite the skintone not quite being right.

Too tanned ... but nearly there ...

Nightie mode. Sometimes the sexiness comes from the scenario rather than the medical close-ups I guess.... :)

2nd generation - tanned and flat-looking (flat skintone I mean, not flat chested.)
(Obviously.)

3rd generation not quite there; too pale and low contrast and waxy looking, needed a bit more work...

3rd generation Becky...

Just need to sort out that darkness around the mouth...

3rd generation Becky character, reporting for duty. Love the subsurface on this skin, even though the lighting is weird and eerie :)

I'm such a sucker for a walk cycle...

  

Poor girl: tuckered out from all this test rendering and changes of skin, posing, sex etc. Needs a break.