Archive: Wallpaper!!

Few years back I made a bunch of wallpapers after someone requested it - then uploaded to Minus and discovered Minus were rubbish at honouring their upload/hosting thing.

So these are kinda limited edition (if you scrunch up your eyes and don't pay too close attention to the facts)!

For some reason I made them in 1080 resolution; not massively huge for modern screens but

Archive: FAN ART!!!

Yo it's time to catch up with all the super awesome fan art people have produced over the years. Part of this whole "Hey plz send me old stuff from my blog!" effort has dug up the following (props to Uzkuhi for that, they're currently leading the 'oldest fan' competition), so I'm plopping it here because OH MY GOODNESS the quality is so high.

NOTE: If you've sent fanart (or done some recently!) and it's not here - please send it to me!! cornholiobelle@gmail.com - and I'll add it to the load below :)

I mean some of you guys clearly have like 3DS Max and Maya and all that shit because the render standard is epic. I'm sure I could

COMPETITION: The Quest for the Longest-Running Fan

Here's your chance to prove you're the longest-running fan and win an appearance in the comic (by name or by photo - up to you). Just comment below with your earliest memory of finding my stuff! Extra points for uploading earliest development character renders or any gifs you kept! 

[Yes this is a thinly disguised attempt to harvest ancient renders I've long-since deleted, but you really will get into the comic if you win so please play the game! Heck you can even email me at projectbellerophon@gmail.com if you don't want to comment]

So, who thinks they've stuck around the longest then, eh? Who remembers my days as a Turkish butcher or my awkward struggles on a certain island in the frozen north Atlantic? The car discussions, the IRL voting, the bookshop fiasco, the original jump from Blogger to Tumblr? Who was there right at the beginning when I uploaded character development renders for first generation Tom and Becky, or that animated swimwear walk gif?! Gotta be a contender for winning upload if you have those kicking about! Who was there when I uploaded page
by page of the first comic to the poser gallery on Renderosity? Then it got a bit adult and moved to Renderotica and included a bunch of Tink-themed gifs? Hint: you won't find any of the really early stuff on this blog; that'd be too easy!

I have my own ideas of who might be the longest-running fan; guess we'll find out :)


Anyway, the thing is, fans are important to me! I've had some amazing feedback and kind comments over the years, it's just hard to pay back in a way that isn't just MOAR FREE COMICS. Kingdan got his name in Blue Steel after winning a competition - just for fun.

What you probably don't know is that the character of Xho is actually based on a long-running commenter on this blog. This guy never swore in emails or comments, and didn't tend to engage in the more IRL/political discussions - which was interesting. Xho's kinda innocent appearance was easy to create with that guy in mind because that whole "Gosh darn" approach sticks out, you know? Anyway I'm not going to clarify who it is (other than to say Who fanfic is a relevant reference), because I don't want to embarrass the guy, especially as Xho himself is on the brink of totally corrupting into an incestuous relationship, so it's a bit harsh to link that character with a real person!  :)

Anyway, answers below! Go go go!!!

Sexy hands of wonder

Errr, did you say "Ix's top off"?
Totally off?
I'm asking for a friend.

Well, the next comic is coming on and by THUNDER it's fantastic fun, this one. It has taken 55 pages just to get Ix's top off.

FIFTY FIVE! Yes I'm taking my bloody time.

So let's go off on a tangent and talk about hands. I know, it's a normal day at work and then someone comes up to you and creeps over your cute hands and/or hand posture.

Typical. Classic.

If I had a penny for every time ... only most of the time it's me being the hand-based perve. Not that I have a hand fetish you understand (heck if I had one it'd be obvious in the comics; no secrets there), it's just that hands can be so awesome and I'm only really just now consciously thinking about it.

It seems (looking back), I've always paid careful attention to what the hands of the characters in my comics do. This sounds stupid, but without poise the whole reality breaks down. And if the reality breaks down then there's no point trying to make it look sexy because it won't be.

In this image, Tom's hands are
expressing the emotion 'can't be arsed'

I could do some examples, where someone's finger angles look unnatural vs same pic with their hands expressing something, but remember I'm pretty lazy and so I can't be bothered.

Just close your eyes and imagine I've done that, and proved my point. See what I mean? Exactly. Glad we all agree.

Anyway, back to the comic - think we're going to be well over 100 pages again by the time I'm done. And yeah taking 55 pages just to get Ix naked means I'm going slow (I mean, all the others have been naked by page 20 or something, but Ix is the key one here), but the build-up just adds to the believability / sexiness I think. In fact I know; I had to stop at page 58 for the fapping to begin, and that's always a good sign - fapable content. Urgently fapable content, even better :)

Sorry, rude topic.

Means it takes a bit longer to complete the comic, but I'm sure you guys don't mind waiting, huh?

Free comic, can't complain :D

Rendering...

Beep beep. Pretty bored at work today, thought I'd move the comic on a little. Got some headway, played around a bit, made some nice things.

Truth is I love this process. It's such fun moving these CG characters around the 3D space, tweaking their thumbs and eyeballs and every body part, making sure it seems human, getting the riiiiight camera angle.

Maybe it's a control thing. Heck if it is, who cares, control is fun.

Even the pre-render clay subsurface calculation is fun - look at the picture below - the computer has to figure out how light is going to bounce beneath skin, so it renders just the skin and figures that out with the shadows from the clothes first. It's like a weird voyeuristic preview, giving you a vague idea how the scene's going to pan out.

Slightly strange one here in that Xho doesn't have a penis (it's hidden for this shot cos he has shorts on), but trust me, it'll come into play at some point. Oooh yes. Yes indeed.

Hey-ho pip and dandy.

 

This next comic though. It's going to be good. Goooooooood.

Brainwave mode

I've been reading a really interesting book on loop quantum gravity and (whilst extruding my brain into bow-tie shaped vol-au-vents), hit upon an epic plot twist for the comic. Yay physics! Yay geometry and movement vectors integrating with perceived time!

I was also busy working on some good old-fashioned angst between Tom and Becky, when it struck me Tom hasn't been much more than the butt of the joke for about 10 comics. Poor chap. So this epic (and it is a corker) plot twist will bring our dear Tom back into the spotlight, back into the protagonist camp once more. No Ix isn't going to secretly have been a baddie all this time, they're all still good don't worry I'm not that evil.

Not wanting to give too much away, but I chose that pic of Ix holding her tshirt up like that because it (1) rather nicely depicts the infinite spherical loop quantum effects I'll be exploring in comic 20, assuming her cleavage and top are graphs for spacetime and (2) is a nice picture with boobies. 

My two great loves, there; norks and theorems. 

"...and if we take the bottom as dY, the path vectors accelerate towards the event horizon, dZ with respect to the original path described by the boobies. Even on the planck scale, spacetime ..."

Ah, astrophysics lectures would have been SO much more pay-attention-to-able.

Comic agenda

This is a lighting test. It failed.

So like let's talk about the comics, because comics are cool. And let's talk about psychology because that's also cool.

When I started them with comic #1, I was excited about the fact that I could basically put the digital Ken and Barbie dolls together and hit the render button and hey presto! A picture like I could never draw! Awesome!

So putting the comics together in the early days, I literally put no thought into the plot or the attitude of the characters. It was just "What basic premise can I use to get these dolls out of their clothes and basically inserted into each other?". Good place to start.

Looking back at the first few (5?) comics I did, it's actually pretty cringey - not because of the poor rendering nor the stuttering scripts, but the pretty bad way they treat each other! Like in The Spymaster, when Tom gets Zan out of hypersleep and just bends her over and has sex with her?! WTF! The real, real, genuine reason I put that in the comic is because I actually genuinely couldn't be bothered to render the whole thing where he explains everything to her, and it was just quicker to just have them have sex right there. Stupid, craziness. I figured it's nothing like real life, and as far as character consistency was concerned, maybe Zan would forgive Tom because he was cool about protecting her from a rape scenario at the beginning of Comic #3 - remember Tom is offered sex with Zan in return for ship supplies. His honourable reply explains why they get on so well with sex afterwards, and why Zan forgives him later - she knows he's good and his confidence is generally in his ethics.

Anyway, rendering-wise, it was laziness. But who cares, it's a comic, it doesn't matter.

Then I got as far as Breakfast in Tacspace, and I guess I started caring about the characters a bit more - caring what they said and how that affected each other.

Which made me start thinking about what matters to me, what was the big deal about why I wanted to escape into creating a comic in the first place? What was I really trying to tell the story of? The whole reason I put a 'rape' scene in Dive into the Dark, after that, was that I wanted to make a comment about control in sex. Get the ball rolling. Big fucking ball, roll it slow. Take 20 comics to explain it, fine.

And now we get to the point. I've mentioned subservience before on this blog, years ago; it's an interesting topic which gained a few interesting comments at the time. I get that people really get into tying up / control within a relationship, within sex play, that's something I kinda get like I get that it's fun to dress up as doctors and nurses and be naughty. All good fun.

I also understand that some people actually like being treated like shit in their relationship all the time  - though I do find that a bit sad if it's ALL the time, that seems more like serious psyche probs to me. I've had a few friends who've been drawn to abusive partners. I say a few, I had one. And that seemed to be because her parents were abusive and there was a whole trauma / abuse problem there re-occuring throughout her life. Not a happy bunny. Also pretty unusual. Not unusual to be abused, unusual to get a kick out of it.

So here's the point: how come there's so much subservience / control / abuse in porn? The propagation of abuse stuff in particular on porn sites is a bit worrying. Just look at the front page of Xvideos. Guys grabbing girls throats, calling them bitches, treating them like dirt. Like the male porn stars are the ethics police or something?

Is it the growth of the entitlement thing? Do young men really think they either claim (1) what's 'theirs', or (2) they earn it? That those are the only two options? Be a heck of a shame if that was the case, because both are bloody wrong. Is it because there's been so much divorce in America in the 80s/90s, and now we're seeing the cultural repercussions in the form of bad father-to-son modelling of behaviour? Those fatherless guys have grown up and are affecting the porn industry. Oh great. More prejudice against women. Wonderful.

*golf clap*

(Yes I know my thing is incest, and yes that might make me a massive hypocrite, but the difference with my particular bias is it's even-stevens, both parties get into it, and the other thing is there's only like 2% of stuff in porn is incest - it's nowhere near as mainstream as specific abuse of the female. If incest was prevailing so much I'd probably be equally concerned. I mean heck it'd be great if it was everywhere and it was sexy and well acted, but it'd still be a weird trend in terms of cultural psychology, right?)

So comic #19 will open with a discussion between Tom and Becky and I hope it kinda lays the ground for me to make a point in my comics. It's something I've been working towards (along with finding out about Ix's past), a bit of a discussion on misogyny and control.

Long-term readers of my blog will know I've always sorta thought of the different characters in my comics as different fragments of my own psyche. So when Tom's overconfident and full of shit in They Came in Outer Space - Ix lays him out. That's the part of me that wishes I could just end the conversation when a guy is unbelievably cocky. It's also the part of me that says stupid things and wishes I could take them back!

Or in the same comic when he says he doesn't want the alien girls, he just wants Becky - that's the part of me that wakes up and realises I'm in love. When Xho wants to do the right thing but keeps thinking about the wrong thing - that's me, right there. When Zan just wants everyone to get along, when Luce doesn't explain anything but remains a mystery, when Hayley just wants to cram things into her and experiment, when Becky's daydreaming or feeling cross - it's become ways to talk about my own feelings as opposed to just trying to produce a comic. I guess that's my secret. That, and not taking myself too seriously. So the next comic will include angry conversations about misogyny, and more incest than ever before.

 Plus tits.

And dicks.

And bottoms.

Haha, bottoms. Gotta love em.

Test render #2: "Uhh hi guys, I wondered if any of you knew why half my clothes are buried in my skin and I seem to have developed alopecia?"... this is why we do test renders ...

Original script for comic 18

Ix. No reason.

If you haven't noticed yet, my new comic's out. Read that first cos this blog post is a major spoiler otherwise.

Go on, read it - it took 5 months and is huge. Seriously, read it now. We'll all wait.

We're waiting. Srsly, we'll be right here when you come back, go on off you go. Gone? Good.

Back? Welcome! Phewffff, I know right?! And it was free, I'm like a freaking Girl Guide or something. Boy Scout? Who cares, something like that.

So, I thought it might be fun to release the initial version of comic 18 because it's fun to see the changes, especially when the original versions are dire! This is
also one of the first comics where I wrote the entire script out a few times before even beginning the rendering process.

Unusual that, to be that organised, but I think it's the way to go because you get a better feel for the flow of conversation rather than if you just make it up as you go along and try to caption the comic after it's all rendered. If you do that you're screwed because you're at the mercy of describing what you've rendered rather than the other way around, so the conversation always ends up a bit unnatural.

Anyway, if you've read this far you must be a proper fan of mine because this is a really boring topic!

Congratulations! No cash prizes.

Here's the scripts then :)   >>>>>>>

Comic 18: Shadows and dust (original sketchy version)

• Shit kicks off for Tom etc, they try & fire (Zan on joystick, Bex on weps) but ships disappearing, explosions mayhem pew pew, Zan flying blind,
  "Evasive manouvres!"
  "There's nothing to evade; their fleet's still about a thousand clicks off!"
  "Then what the hell are they firing at?"
  "We've been hit we've been hit! Oh sorry no wait that's ketchup on the monitor. Carry on."
  "Hold on, no-one's even firing at us, they're fighting amongst themselves".. leading to one ship left. Ix-Xho running to bridge. Tom says must be Fabuloso, and with that firepower they're in real trouble
• Katana plot, Luce revealed
• Luce/Ix respect, head down to tacspace
• crew tests hyperdrive, tattoo explanation conversation
• Asteroid messages left in home system
• Ix & Zan measuring scene
• Ix & Xho no touchy question time
• Ends with reference to emperor; notice passed in quiet halls

That's it! Very nearly no nudity whatsoever! AAALLLLL PLOT. And yes my notes to myself for the space battle were "Shit kicks off". Thanks. That's great. Great notes, there. I'll get right on that. 

So here's stage 2 -  the full script:


Comic 18: Shadows and dust (first proper draft version)
*wraith enters battle, speech bubble from bountyhunter*
sir! an unmarked craft just buzzed in and dropped six mines on our hull!!
shit it! shields up!
too la*explodes*

ships disappearing, explosions mayhem pew pew, ix flying,
xho: they're miles away, what the hell are they firing at?


*another speech bubble from battle*
commander, our shields have been taken out by railgun kinetics!
what?! from where?
i can't te..

bountyhunter on screen: this is captain aurelius, we demand *static*
becky: we demand what? he hung up!
tom: that's just rude
becky: so rude
xho: err, his ship was destroyed
becky: oh
well, fair enough


ix: i've taken two out, but no-one's firing at us, they're all dealing with some tiny bloody attack ship by the looks of it
i think it's a drone of some sort
whatever it is, it's chowing through them like a bastard

*page or two of sky fighting, zooming, lasers pew pew
becky/zan: twelve left
ix: gotcha! eleven
nine
shit! did you see that?! four!
thr.. two.

*one ship left*
ix: well, guess we get ready for some negotiation
Tom: must be fabu-fucking-loso, and with that firepower we're in real trouble

ix: whoever it is we'll need to have a little chat. i'm going to get a coffee



xho: err yeah coffee sounds good, i'll join you

*walking through corridors with coffee, lots of thought bubbles from both*
"sorry about the cum" ... "i'm sorry i came all over you"
oh god there's no good way to say that
"how do you feel about all that sperm then?"

look at him, stressing about something
fuck
he's so gorgeous
am i visibly salivating?

*5 mins later, with coffees*

i've got to say something
she's so ...
i just want to touch her
say something

xho: you were ... you're amazing. pretty, i mean
pretty amazing?
i mean you look good except i'm so rubbish with words!
thanks. you too. look good, are good, all sorts of good
i'm sorry about my ... sorry about all the ...
(smiling) all the what?
um nothing
*ix pinches xho's bum as they enter room
*ix and xho pad in with a coffee*
*tom and zan sitting at stadium seating, becky playing tomb raider*
we about to die then or what?

it's still just hanging out there; seems deserted or something weird

can't be deserted


(full page)
becky: sorry, what even is it? I don't understand how it took out all those ships

xho: it's a wraith; they're like drones in that they can manouvre at insanely high gee, but they do have a human crew; the pilot goes into a chemical trance and operates the ship from a slowtime couch, meaning they can process instructions almost as fast as a drone ship's ai mind

ix: so they have all the manouvrability and lightning-fast movements of a combat drone as well as the creative unpredictable attacks of a human crew
they're unmatched and almost invincible as fighter ships, but because of the exotic materials they're made from and the risky affects of slowtime on the pilots, there's only a few wraiths in existence
hardcore

(next page)
look, the crew must be either repairing or planning something - comms still closed?
yeah, totally dark

ok, they've had enough time for negotiations; i'll head to the armoury and suit up; tom, with me, zan and bex get ... zan what?

i don't know, it feels ... weird in here

come on, we need to ... oh

*silent look*

get her ix!

i don't think ix will be moving

yes ma'am

tell them

guys, stay still. this blade is a monofilament hydroforming saw
it could cut through diamond like it's walking through a fart
if i'm right, it's fitted guided by a semi-sentient ai

she's called glaive* *glaive is a Krull reference! We all knew that though, right? Right! High fives all round

the ai can move about using magnetic vortices and change direction pulling five hundred gee. possibly the rarest, most illegal weapon in the civilised galaxy and we don't want to fuck with it

oh shit

yes. shit.
one word from me, and you'll become diced ham in two tenths of a second. so let's talk

how did you even get in here?

you  don't seem too hot on keeping the shields up, i just strolled into an airlock.

becky: sorry, that was my bad; i mean, the bountyhunters were gone and i wanted to play tomb raider so ...

ix: zan - smack becky's bottom please.
zan: yes ma'am!
*zan continues to smack becky's bum throughout comic*

ix: you're from the wraith, right?

i'm the pilot

then I guess we should say 'thank you'

that's a good start
there's a big price on ix and xho here; you - fatty - how exactly do you know these two little dudes?


err .. we employed ix at a space station as our pilot about a year ago. then we, well, ix, rescued xho from a hostile planet a few months back

and?

and nothing; that's it

i can remove them both from here without any problem and leave you three to your own business, would you like that? i'll even split the bounty with you

no deal. we're crew

interesting. do you agree, zan?

*zan continues to smack becky's bum throughout comic*
how do you know my naOH MY GOD!

hahahaha!!!! oh my god!!!! no way!!

zan, what?

huh? oh, nothing, nothing. um, no mysterious 'wraith pilot', i would not like you to remove ix and xho - they really are crew. and we love them
*zan continues to smack becky's bum* 

cool. gotcha. glaive; return

becky (to zan): could you stop smacking my bum now?
oh! sorry, got carried away


SSSCCHHIIIIINNGGGGGGG

becky: so you're?!
tom: LUCY!
*zan hugs lucy*
hi, dickhead.

sorry for testing you, i wanted to know your intentions
i know these three, but it's an honour to meet you and your twin, captain ix

the honour is all mine, wraith pilot lucy (bows)

a captain with humility
now here is someone i can serve under (also bows)


ix: right you lot, it's a good bet fabuloso knows exactly where we are now, the clock's ticking and we need to test that hyperdrive; xho?

yeah we can jump anytime.

what? i thought you still needed to ... then why didn't we just jump away from that bloody great battle?

i ... didn't think we really needed to. i mean, nobody asked?

ix: xho ...

sorry, you're right i should've mentioned it. hey, we can even bring the wraith if it's close enough to the ship

distance?

within two hundred metres of the hull would do it

let's test it then.


ok *presses a single button*
*they're all facing away from the windows, stars zoom briefly*

done?

*looking at screen intently*

err ... yep!
yes!

ready to test?

it's ... we've already tested it

what?

we're now five hundred lightyears from where we were

since when?

uhh since i pressed that button

holyyyyy ... shiiiiiiittttt!!!!

yep!

*hugs all round*

luce: great job.
hey, where did you get this tattoo?

i crewed a wraith as the cover story for the last job i did; our government used it as an excuse to penetrate a smuggler colony and get me some kudos on the way in

it represents?

well i got a reputation for getting results; for using tools to destroy the invincible. the tattoo is an icon for bellerophon - he was a

i know who he was

is yours?

pegasus

...

tom; pegasus?

...

*eye contact between luce and xho*

xho: because sometimes you need a magical flying horse

luce: pegasus and bellerophon made the ultimate team

tom: cool.

becky: no way, so you both have tattoos of the same horse and rider? what?

ix: that's a hell of a coincidence

zan: or a hell of a destiny


luce: this new hyperdrive is ready to rock then, what's your problem with this admiral?

ix: well he's ...

zan: hang on. hold on. i've just had an idea. xho, can you transport other bulky objects next to the ship, like a few hundred tons of rock, and make multiple jumps within a few seconds?

yeah but it could take hours to run the computations
be quicker to move the hyperdrive to the wraith - less mass to figure out

ok, and could we also run the maths first? like i mean do all the calculations before the wraith even heads off?

yeah, sure

ix: what are you thinking, zan?

well, this might be a bit out there, but it will mix things up for fabuloso...

*a few days later*

massive rock flies through system at six hundred thousand kmh, fabuloso's fleet tracks it - can't understand how it appeared at the edge of the system without them knowing about it

rock with lasered cock on it  turns up at zero relative speed next to a ship - the delivery wraith hops away.

similar rock placed in orbit with message to the government

*speech bubble from a fleet ship*
"Commander, here is a close-up of the asteroid"
"Damn, they've totally circumnavigated all our defences to get these asteroids in here. We must be dealing with a ruthless cartel of top-end professionals"
*cut to lots of renders of everyone; tom & hayley in bunk, luce & xho in shower, becky riding victor in wraith

ix and zan scene
*in manhattan apartment -style cabin*
*zan looks at insertion depth*
knew it.
wha .. what's that line?

i measured xho's schlong against it so i could test a theory

what?

i think you could take the whole of xho.

what? but i can barely get tom inside me, and xho's ...

xho is a little bigger and a little harder, yes, but it's a species thing.

but ... but YOU can't even get all of xho inside, and you're twice the bloody size of me!

listen sugartits, i'm the only one who can feel inside you and becky like i do, and you're different on the inside. you're tight but you go deeper - you just have to bend at the right angle
and i'm the only one who's had both cocks in me, and they're different, they move slightly differently, at different points...

what .. what are you saying?
*zan rolls to one side*
i'm saying, young lady, that there's a very real possibility that despite appearances, your cute little pussy is the only one onboard that can take every millimetre of xho.

no!

zan: yes.

no!

i'm telling ya. the tentacle never lies.
*whole page*
i reckon it'd fit like a glove too  *ix eyes wide, zan talking in her ear*
fill you right up
i'll leave you to think about that little scenario

*exits, 20 mins later is seen whispering in xho's ear in a corridor*
xho: no!

i'm telling ya

why .. why are you telling me this?

just thought it was interesting, that's all. veeeery interesting.

i ... i ...

*zan walks off*


*xho walks into galley, ix sitting on surface with coffee*

hi there

ix: oh err hi!

hey
you been busy?

errr ... well ... ****Ix pictures her with zan in bed, a render or two in thought clouds****
kinda busy, yeah. you?

err, same *Xho pictures him with luce in shower*

i err ..  wanted to ask about the message we lasered into those asteroids
i mean
i wanted to talk to you

sure, anything

that tacspace thing. look, i'm sorry i've been so uptight
that time we were trapped together was ...
was actually ...

[SPOILERS REMOVED: THIS SECTION'S NOW AT THE BEGINNING OF COMIC 19]

oh! i meant to ask - about those asteroid messages we left
what do you think will happen next?

well hopefully it'll mix things up politically back home, get some of fabuloso's superiors involved then anything could happen; the whole fleet could come after us, or fabuloso could simply be removed from power and we'll be free. guess we'll find out
we're in a much better position than we were though, thanks to your work on the hyperdrive

oh it's nothing. great fun

*ix blows a kiss*

hah! i ... see you soon

*ix side smile*
*xho exits, door closes*
*ix gasps, holds head, lies back "wow"*


****comic ends with quiet hall - messenger brings emperor a message****

your imperial majesty, a substantial threat to the home system ..

hmm?

a message has been cut into an asteroid and placed in orbit, circumnavigating all our defensive systems ... including the fleet itself

...hmm

the ... the message requests that we remove admiral fabuloso from command *holds pad out*

emperor turns, eyebrow up

THE END. Now rewrite this five times & make 30% less dreary GOGOGO

Comic 18: Shadows and Dust

Friday! Comic 18 day! Woop woop wooooopppp!!!!
This is a good one. Oh yes indeed. Oh myyyyy.

120 pages: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wet yourself. There's plot, but it's not slow. There's love, but it's not cloying. There's boobies and willies and bums and all sorts of nice moist things that go squelch.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE >>>
(or from g.e-hentai here)

Lovely to have this out by lunchtime, eh? You're welcome; a little gift to the world from sunny England! Cor blimey mate!

Just rendering the cover...

So after much deliberation (ie. none, it just seemed right about 6 months ago or whenever it was I was pondering the plot), the next comic will be called ... Shadows and Dust.

< This is part of the raw image for the cover, rendering out. I tend to put slightly more effort (& raytrace bounces, all that tech crap) into the cover for obvious reasons. Can't be doing with depth of field for most of the comics pages; places to go, people to see. But for the relevant pages and the cover, depth of field adds some lovely ... well ... depth.

Looks from the progress of the render above like I'll need to sort out the tomato-coloured light on her face, but that's no biggie.

Anyway, back to the comic title: it'll be clear from the plot why it's 'shadows and dust', and I've done the usual thing of obsessing over lighting to really get into the chiaroscuro mindset - kinda difficult because you're always tempted to add more lights and reveal more of the object you're rendering, but I guess that's sort of the trick; knowing when to stop.

Not that I know, but it does make lighting this stuff an interesting challenge in discipline.

Not that I have any of that.

So, update-wise, I still need to photoshop the little errors and improve the contrast on all 120 pages, so seriously don't hold your breath, but given a few days peace and quiet from the tumultuous craze of my life we could be seeing the final comic online by ... well ... Friday/Saturday maybe? Be nice to get it up in time for the weekend, eh?

Definitely by next weekend, anyway.

The final straight

The closer she gets, the harder I become...

Heads up - we're nearly there - 105 pages done! Yeeaaaayyyy!!!!

Just need to do about 10 more renders and put together the last little bits and POW! It'll be new comic time :D

So this one [as always] is a bit different. There's no real consistency is there? I mean there's a bit of character consistency between my comics I think, but like some of the comics themselves are all-plot [Spymaster], some are all-boobs [Fairy Good Deal, Bum Deal], and some are kinda weird daydreamy sequences stitched together [Breakfast in Tacspace, Daydreaming, Pilot Plaything]. This is a new type of comic, where the first half (like 40 pages or so) is all plot, and the second half is ALL TITS. Wow, imagine a whole spaceship filled with tits and you open the airlock door wondering why they haven't been communicating and then there's just like this tsunami of breasts pouring through the hatch and you're like AARGH!!! Scifi is hard yearrghhh!! Make it staahp!!!! DO NOT WAAANT!!!

But I digress: HALF PLOT! YEAH WOOOOP! "We freaking love plot!", I hear you cry. And yeah, plot gives me a major boner too, I know what you mean. Damn, if only more sexy comiccy things were just pure plot and chatting and arguments, wow we'd be having so much more fun I can tell ya!

OK I'm being sarcastic, nobody likes plot when they're after boobies and willies, but listen it's all part of the story, this one.

And anyway once the background's setup, the build-up gets some explanation; the words die down and the clothes drop off, and the serious stuff begins in earnest.

Funny thing about 40 pages of no sex, though, let's face it, is some people are going to flick through the comic looking for some quick pr0n, and be disappointed. Their nursed semi will disappear by page 10, and by page 20 they'll be like NOPE. I have to admit it gives me great pleasure not to care about that, safe in the knowledge that my real fans will read on, get drawn into the strange little spacey world I've conjured up, and then the payoff will begin.

"Shit. Guess I can keep it in my pants one last time."

Couple of things to note [slight spoilers]: (1) Ix and Xho do not get it on properly in this one. Sorry about that. Just a little more flirting to make the main event more believable. OK and a little bit of touching. Remember touching and your heart sets your face on fire? That. (2) I didn't really have space to go into what happens with a couple of the crew members who haven't met before, but there's some nice suggestion if you read slowly. (3) I'm aiming at finishing this plot thread properly in comic 20, so each comic [18, 19, 20] has to fit certain things in before we're free and onto more independent whacky plots [thousands of Ixes, Tom's birthday surprise, stuff like that], so don't expect too much craziness.

Do expect boobies, willies, bums, kissing, little hints of things that aren't explained but will make sense later, full-on intercourse, tentacle sex, some horsing around, stupid gags to do with English politics, some major teasing, pinched bottoms, and a lot of fudged physics jokes.

YASSS!

Oh, also, don't sit here hitting refresh all night: it's going to take me at least until next week to finish it so don't get too excited yet.

Derp-ression

Ah, this time of year is so dandy, eh? I've had my fair share of moody bluesy January/February sad times, but this year hasn't been so bad.

Well it has been a little bit dark, which is why the new comic's not out yet. Basically I've had lots of opportunity to complete it and plenty of time and would like to get it done, but then those grey skies and windy trees [in my brain] whisper to me, they whisper much.

And they say "Hey, PB, don't lift a finger, don't open your laptop, just sit there and scratch your butt. A little lower. Lower. A little lower. OK do it from the front. Come on, both hands now, do it properly..."

Which is never very productive. Until I have a MASSIVE amount of work on, like I have this week, and then my brain is like "Hey PB, you know all that stuff you have to do? Don't do it! Your laptop's open; do some work on the comic instead!". So I've done that and here I am writing a blog post for the first time in ages, and now I'm probably a few weeks away from completing the comic too haha!

Yay!

This is assuming I don't get into massive amounts of trouble for not completing my work, because if that happens then I'll have to do even more work, and the comic will slip and slip. And not in the good way. Not in the trouser-filling, skin-stroking, suggestive, intimate way that some things slip and slip. No sir. What the hell am I talking about? I've lost myself and I'm the one doing the bloody typing.


Sooooo ... skip the blue text if you don't want to read about mental health :)

There's always sad suicide stats for this time of year - particularly for young men - and as there's a huge proportion of young men who read this blog, it's worth chatting about eh. Why don't bloody blokes ever open up about this stuff anyway arrgh! More hugs, that's what's needed. Hugs and boobs. 


Basically I've got my own story of self harm and MH issues, but through discussion with a few girlfriends a while back, things have changed for me - I managed to break through a bit of a cycle. This is good! And a nice story. So this was the cycle: (1) I'd do something crap [like hurt myself somehow, let's not go into details] > (2) Feel like that was stupid and I am therefore trash > (3) This is at odds with the good things I do, therefore feel **total turmoil** inside, therefore go back to to (1).

This sounds like a stupid cycle, but the truth is it's very easy to ride that negative spiral for a few years, it turns out, and despite all the intelligence in the world, it's very difficult to fix. If anything being pretty intelligent makes it harder because you're like "I should be able to fix this and can't! I must be total garbage!". But I learnt that one thing doesn't have to lead to the other.

Something wonderful happened. I guess about a year or so ago I learnt (through friends and, subsequently, counselling) that you don't need to fix any of the points (1), (2), or (3) - you can just prevent them from leading onto each other, and then the points lose their power and eventually just piss off. For example, instead of doing (1) and that leading to (2), I'd think "Hey yes that is a weird thing to do, but it's also pretty common, and not a bad way to express turmoil, because turmoil after all IS BAD, so (1) DOES NOT prove the theory that (2) I'm trash. Cycle broken temporarily, done.

And at other times when I'd feel like trash, or randomly want to hurt myself, or just have this unexplained turmoil going on - by disconnecting (1) from (2), and (2) from (3), through deciding that the logic didn't need to lead from one stage to the next, it totally took the power out of the cycle.

Magic. Amazing.

Anyway, it really affected the way I processed complex feelings about myself, because one thing no longer led to another but happened in isolation. So if I was feeling super down, I'd think "This is ok, it will pass, it doesn't mean I'm stupid, I actually do have value. No need to go to (3)". Which sounds really obvious, but in practice can be very difficult to do when you're in it. And if (2) did accidentally lead to (3), I leant to realise that didn't mean total failure, just an organic thing from which you could move on.

So there we are. This last year has been full of more joy, more freedom and more OK-ness than any year for a long time.

Finally on this subject, if this is at all relevant for you and you've never spoken to anyone (BLOODY MEN TALK TO SOMEONE OR I SWEAR I'LL COME AND KICK YOU IN THE SHINS), I'd totally recommend talking to the doctor. Doctors are amazing and mine pointed out they deal with it all the time for all genders/ages and it doesn't mean we're trash that should die, it just means we need to dismount from the NEGA-PONY, and here's how blah blah blah blah.

I put nega-pony in capitals because I like the idea of it being the nega-pony who carries unsuspecting people to bad places.

So my doctor and my close friends were totally cool talking about it; and talking really does help. And if your doctor's a dick about it, or makes you feel slightly like it's your fault and you should stop wasting their time, just go straight to reception on the way out and ask for an appointment with another doctor. Some doctors don't have a clue about mental health in the same way that some plumbers rob from their clients - just try a different doctor, seriously.

Anyway it's getting sunnier. The seasons are warming up a bit. The blossom's nearly here. My next comic's almost nearly here too. Good times.

Having done all the speech-bubbles on the upcoming comic, I've noticed there are more question marks than ever before, in this one. So that's something to look forward to as well; ample punctuation. Phwoarrrr I love a bit of punctuation, mmm chukka-bawm-bawwwmmm. Seriously though, there are loads of question marks. I have no idea why? < AARGH THERE'S ANOTHER ONE

There's also 90 pages complete now, which is good, and renders for a further 5 done, which is also good. In fact I only need to render about 20 more images and we'll be good to go. And I know what the title's going to be, so we're ahead of the game there too.

Other things, what else eh? Well, things in Bellerophon World continue as normal despite the grey winter months dragging the heck out of everything. I'm in love, which is nice. I have a fairly good opinion of myself for once, which is also nice.

I did even get into keeping fit for a year or so (hint: exercise famously helps with MH issues, and 100% totally true in my experience), so I'm feeling trim and svelte, even, which is pretty good except last week I twisted my ankle really weirdly doing spin class (if you don't know what that is, don't ask. It's like setting yourself on fire for 30-40 minutes), so I can't now exercise and I've got that sinking feeling that my body is prepping to absolutely balloon up and I'll have to roll everywhere supported only by hot dogs and ghee.

YE SHITS THIS BLOG POST IS TOO LONG.

Just ignore every other paragraph and it'll be about the right length.
Byee! xxx

Wake up, Belle! Sitrep!

First off: if my blog ever goes to sleep and you get locked out, it's nothing personal. Chances are I've moved the URL / account and you'll just have to fire up the Googlebox to hunt me down.

Anyway, it's the exhausting festive break of you-know-what, and I haven't mentioned the upcoming comic for a while, so here's where I've got : - 70 pages all done! Just need to put the text on! Hooray!

It's a good one, but 70 pages doesn't mean it's imminent, no siree! In fact I do believe comic 18 will be the biggest, longest, firmest comic to date, probably weighing in at about 100 pages, and with more penetration than you can shake a stick at. Hooray! Penetration! That's *the best*

No penetration for our current awkward couple-of-the-moment though; the delicious twins Ix and Xho need a little more ripening I'm afraid. I couldn't care less how much whining the internet does about not much happening in comic 17 between those two: I want it to be believable when it does, and that'll take time. Sweet, delicious, sexy time.

So don't hold your breath on that one. Do remember, dear reader, that my personal preference for sexiness is a fair amount of believability. If you wouldn't walk into a room and just hump a person in real life, then nobody will be doing it in my comics. Well, hardly anybody. Maybe Becky. OK definitely Becky. For everyone else, the tease is part of the fun, just like it is in real life! Remember dating? Remember trying to figure out who likes you? Remember that dance? Sexy A.F.

Anyway, rest assured once the teasing is over, the payoff will be entirely believable, slowly epic acts. Just like the first times in real life - it takes hours. Porn is wrong, nobody fucks in 20 minutes when it's the first time with someone. You savour it, you devour every touch, every awkward conversation, you think it through a million times - consider your responses, your eye contact, everything.

Yum.

Yum.

Yum.

In the meantime, there'll be plenty of business occurring between the other characters anyway! Yay!

As I mentioned a while back, I've written all the scripts up to comic 20, so I know exaaactly where we're going, and it all comes together very nicely by comic 20 (in my opinion...), including explanations of a few long-buried facts from earlier comics. In fact after some re-working this week, comic 19 is possibly the greatest conversational one ever. Ever. Like, soaking pants o'clock just reading through. Always a good sign.

So that's something to look forward to. That and Christmas. And Star Wars. Again.

Maybe I should blog about Star Wars. I need a sleep first though, this season always takes it out of me.

Right, everybody out! Wake me up in the New Year x




>>> This isn't Lost in Translation, >>>
but what a great film. She was ruined in The Avengers, poor girl, Hollywood again pretending to know what equality is and failing massively.
</hobbyhorse>
</rant>
</gin&tonic>

Sexy ghost jumper

Happy Nearly Christmas! Have some test renders...

Normally wouldn't upload this sort of render because it's awkward and she has an annoyingly vacant expression and there's awful clothing poke-through, so it's very beta.

But then, look at them, how can we not like Ix eh? Even in an imperfect CG setup.

So here she is, getting ready for comic 19, where it's all going to kick off. Big time.

Tss, if only I was faster at turning my ideas into comics, I could churn out 20 per year and it'd be like the most escapism-involving space ding-dong wonderfulness ever! Well, it wouldn't be bad.

 

Woops, forgot to re-show Ix after I sorted out the reflections.... so here's just a jumper:

SEXY GHOST JUMPER BIDS YOU ALL A HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Late night = legs night.

*Wanders in*

*Blogs up non-spoiler comic image*

*Wonders out*

*Wanders if it's wonder or wander in this context*

*Shrug*

*Gluhwein*
 


[Massive kudos goes to 'blackhearted', who made this custom 3D V4 body morph {GND4} which I've always used - the body shape is juuuuuust perfect.]

Fashion and hair and subtle lighting. Afternoon well spent.

Eugh, now, I've been having trouble with my google account so if this blog suddenly dies, then find me on tumblr or deviantart. Let's call ditching Google entirely Plan B.

In the meantime I'm here and I've had a few hours to play about making an attractive little top for Ix. This one's a special one because it unzips! Hooray! It's kind of a weird top because it'd have to be boned in order to be supportive (not that Ix particularly needs support for her breasts, but it'd need to be boned in order to maintain that top line at least), but I designed the boning (yes I'm into plausible fashion) and the structure kinda ruined it, so we'll have to stick with the 'scifi fact' this is some new material which simultaneously provides support, and looks a bit like flimsy/stretchy cotton.

*Insert obvious boning jokes here*

Memory cotton then. We've been here before, haven't we? This using futuristic fiction to provide the excuse not to quite stick to real-world physics. I like this excuse. Hey, they're my toys, I can play with them how I want :D

I'm not going to show the unzipping fully in action, because it's more fun to tease (we know this: it's established fact), but I'm pretty happy with the semi-reveal version below tbh.

So: feedback time: new hair? Yes or no? Did anyone notice the hair? No. Ah well. I think it's cute. And assuming Ix meets Luce at some point in the not-too-distant-future, she's bound to get some styling tips from our gothic femme noir.

Because hair is important. Yes it is.

New hair:

Old hair:

New hair:

VOTE! 

(Project Bellerophon reserves the right to completely ignore the outcome of the vote, but you know: shits and giggles, eh?)

Listen, Goog...

And now, after that brief intermission...

Hello! As those determined enough to find me will have discovered, I gave Blogger a couple of weeks cooling-off period after some faffing, but now I'm here! Hello again!

Sorry about that awful "You've been locked out, this is only for special people" landing page that Google puts up - it's not very welcoming is it? If I could edit it, it'd say something a bit less confusing like "This blog is bloody well closed to everyone until the whole internet pulls its jolly great finger out, please. Thank you."

Just popping in to check how the internet is coming along. Good, good. Could you guys maybe stop trying to hack into my emails please? Many thanks x

Anyway, I had a chance to get on with some comiccy stuff recently, which I wasn't expecting, even to the extent of thinking about a new haircut for Ix (pictured above), and to create some unusual props for a few comics' time. Like this cigarette (Also pictured, but you noticed that, didn't you? Yes you did).

Funnily enough, although Ix might well try that haircut for size, she is not going to take up smoking - it's actually going to be a spy-type device for general making-of-mayhem purposes. Lovely, lovely, don't we all wish we had more spy-type devices for general making of mayhem? Yes, yes we do.

So then.

There's also a new bunch of unusable renders which I could put on this blog (and would love to, because they're amusing errors like Ix's whole arm poking through someone's torso etc), but then looking at them there's some pretty severe plot spoilers going on, so I can't. Which is a shame.

I guess what I've learnt from all this comiccing is to keep the plots simple, cos when you get twisted up in a running plot, you bloody well take ages unravelling it all and closing every plot hole and it all takes blimmin ages! It'll be worth it though. This upcoming comic is a good one, but the one AFTER that - OMG. And the one after that? Number 20? That's the killer. That's the Oscar performance right there. OK, maybe not an Oscar, but at least a GNVQ Level 1 in storytelling.

Blimey, it's almost like I never closed the blog, eh? Happy Friday everyone!

The renders that never made the cut...

I thought it would be a good idea to occasionally post some of the renders that didn't make the cut.

You know - cos of bad lighting or the wrong expression, or when I render it and a random eyeball is staring out the window (always funny), or their arm is poking through a wall or the perspective makes it look like everyone's got bamboo spine or someone's haircut is hovering six inches above their heads or whatever.

Sounds stupid, but every one of those things has happened in my renders over the years. Yes, it IS a stupid hobby. But we forgive its stupidity, don't we? Yes indeed. Yes siree. With this utopian flesh on display, we forgive it its foibles.

So instead of unleashing a swift "bugger!" and tweaking it and rendering again and binning the faulty detritis, I'll post it on this blog. Because why not, eh? It's a laugh.

And certainly in this case it doesn't particularly reveal anything spoiler-y about any upcoming comic.

This one didn't make the cut because ... and yes I do consider these things ... in the crew's timeline, Tom has just an hour ago (ish) been bumming dear Becky's little bottom, and here we notice his tallywhacker about to enter Zan's mouth ...

Stop Zan, STOP! You don't know where that thing's BEEN! We, dear reader, may consider these things and lucky for me I realised this before Zan was left with a chocolate moustache and convulsing tummy muscles as she realised the error of her choice of mid-space-battle amuse-bouche.

In reality, of course, Tom would be too much of a gentleman not to keep his meat in tip-top hygienic condition, but as this is comic land and I don't want to bother writing in a dull scene with him showering and/or disinfecting said meat, it's easier to just change position and smooth over that possible social fauxes-pas.

And no, Xho is not about to grab Ix's arse, he's just holding a cup of coffee.

And yes, I did position the lighting to carefully but subtly annouce said arse.

Phew, what a hobby, eh?

Such nonsense.

Scifi screens...

Gotta love some dual-layer glowing tech screens!

This monitor graphic is ruthlessly grabbed from an article about Prometheus, and is probably massively in breach of something blah, but you know. It's out there. People are using it, I don't feel too bad.

There's also some gag screens in the upcoming comic too. Stupid gags, mind; nothing too high-brow here, mate.

Anyway, just plopping it here for interest. Bit of carbon fibre, bit of touchscreen interfacing, bit of flesh, a little underboob, a touch of belly button, all good.

The infinite variability syndrome

So it's like a few weeks since I've posted anything. Figured I'd update the world on what's happening in Bellerophon world!

OK, it's not a world, more like an occasional fap-based hobby, but still.

One interesting thing that happened was I read through all the comics from Dive Into The Dark up to the recent one, and I have to say I now rather like the recent one.

It was easy at the time to take the criticism that not much happened (which is true), there was no actual sex etc (which is also true), but to be honest I think it's sexy as hell! One of my favourites now. And knowing what's coming next it's all part of the build-up, so will make more sense to one and all when the next one hits the streets. So I'm happy once more, safe in the knowledge that my little project hasn't derailed, and is actually alright chugging along its cute little awkward path :)

While pondering the whole thing of "They never eat or go to the loo!" (a point which I raised a month or so back), I got to thinking of all my awkward real-world conversations in kitchens at various parties over the years, and realising that actually a kitchen/galley is indeed a valid setting even for a battle-hardened scifi space crew.

So here we are, a couple of obsessive lighting renders, where I'm trying to figure out how the hell to light the scene to give it the right 'feel'.

Bloody hell lighting makes a massive difference - check out these renders - those who've followed my blog(s) for a while will know I always do this - change things minutely, testing every combination of infinite possibilities before I stick with what I want.

It would make FAR more sense to spend that wasted time investing in some decent rendering software so I could render lifelike scenes outside of Poser, thus improving the comic by infinity percent. HOWEVER, I am a bit of a dick when it comes to adopting new techniques, and thus I'm sticking with what I know, and enforcing a quality -ceiling in the renders, totally ignoring the possibilities of the incredible render software out there and shoving my head well and truly into the sand.

Ah well.

Shits and giggles, eh?