Feebos Farlay

My Scoundrels story will feature all manner of superbly handsome aliens.

Mass Effect 3 : Raise the stakes.

Mass Effect 3 is a big deal for me.

As I'm sat typing this, a week from today I will be a few hours into my adventure to somehow stop the Reapers from destroying the galaxy. And I can't wait. I wanted to talk about thoughts I've had on what will create a great end to my Shepards story.

My Choices. Mainly; Punish them.

I Role-played alot throughout Mass Effect 1 & 2. We have a lot of games today that give us the option of moral choices and decisions, as well as the option to create an avatar but I have always preferred to create a character and make the choices that make sense for them, as opposed to creating myself and choosing what I would feel or think. For me, Commander Shepard is a spacer; she was born on a ship and has spent more time aboard vessels than on solid ground. Her parents have been with the Alliance all her life so she spent her life growing up around warfare. It makes sense to me that she'd have joined the Alliance given her history and that she'd be a capable solider- capable enough to have survived the Skyllian Blitz, becoming a war hero prior the the events of Mass Effect 1.

Now!

As an extension, I figured; no one would climb to the rank of Commander by being a dick. So I played Paragon. I always tried my best to save as many lives as I could, to be diplomatic and to solve problems without pulling a gun on my enemies. It just made sense for my character.

For ME3, I don't want every one of those 'Paragon' decisions to have been the right one in the longrun. If I let a murderer go to prison instead of shooting him- let it come back and bite me in the ass, make him escape and hurt more people because of what I did. I want to know that there's no good decision that makes everything alright. This is the final game with no going back, having tough story elements hit Shepard would be great for the future decisions I have to make in ME3, I'd feel more pressure to see the bigger picture.

Kill someone we Love.

One of the highlights in Dragon Age 2 for me was the moment my sister Bethany was taken from me. To explain; She was my little sister, I protected her through various encounters and events, I had been through a lot with her in the earliest parts of the game. She was a mage and I was a warrior, I had built her stats into healing and she was a vital part of my attack strategy. I couldn't get through fights without her.

As the story progressed we were about to set off on a dangerous mission when our mother, having just lost our father and brother, pleaded with me not to take Bethany with me. She grew upset and desperately begged me to listen, not wanting to lose the only loved ones she had left. I truly felt emotionally connected at this moment- I didn't want to upset my mother because her reasons were completely justified, however I knew without Bethany my own chances of survival were slim. In the end I forced Bethany to stay behind and carried on without her.

It was a horrendously tough mission, I emerged hours later barely holding together but pleased with the spoils we'd found. I returned to find Templars surrounding my house. This was immediately worrying as Mages in the world of Dragon Age are hunted for basically being, crimes against God- for having magical abilities. In the game up until this point we have learned that mages forced into 'The Circle' are reduced to nothing but vacant bodies, void of emotion and functioning only as a slave to Templars will. I immediately thought of Bethany.

When I entered my home the game presented me with a choice, my sister was being dragged away by Templars to join 'the Circle'; to await a fate worse than death. I chose the option to fight the Templars, I chose the option to keep my promise to protect my sister but she wouldn't let me. I was forced to let her go and lost her participation in the game from that point onward.

This was incredible for a lot of reasons, yes, I admit a big one was the fact I had no dedicated healer(which from a gameplay point of view made the game much more challenging)but throughout the game to follow, I felt my blood boil when I encountered any Templars. Every one I killed was one more for Bethany. I changed my point of view on events, I chose a side- the Mages, I freed every Mage the game would allow me to and I destroyed any one who opposed Mages.

ME3 should do this aswell. Alot of us care greatly about the characters in Mass Effect and we've had two games to get to know some of them. My Shepard romanced no one in ME1 and Garrus in ME2. He's one of her oldest friends, they've been through alot and he was a permanent choice of Squadmate for me in both games- it made sense for me that she'd choose him.

Now if Garrus were to die in ME3? And I don't mean die like they could in ME2 right at the end, I mean early game- he's dead. You can't save him, he dies in your arms.

That would properly upset me but I kind of want that to happen. No part of me wants Shepard to lose the war or for the Reapers to win but sacrifices have to be made. I can only imagine the pain my Shepard would feel becoming an immense power for the battles ahead. It would really rub a lot of people up the wrong way but I've seen it done so right in Dragon Age 2, It'd be a bittersweet moment for me if I had to watch a character I truly love die. You have to ask yourself why Shepard is even fighting the war against the Reapers, a war they can't win. Is it for Humanity? Or the Galaxy? Or so they can spend their life with that one person?

Ultimately, I can't see what ME3 has instore until I play it. I won't be disappointed if all my choices were the right ones and if Garrus and Shepard live happily ever after but I feel like the stakes need to be so high, it needs to get personal and Shepard needs to grow as a person as they fight the fight. I think it'd be a fitting end to have the galaxy saved(somehow!)but with a lot of wounds left to heal.

-Rant Out!

You are what you wear.

I've made a post detailing the character design for "Prey Valiance" whose story will be my input to Scoundrels later this year.

-Adam

Doodle Debate

As practice for something else I have in mind, I cropped a segment of my Podcast and added some stills to visualise the discussion.

-Adam.

Two Thousand And Twelve.

So it's 2012 and with that comes an optimistic look at the year ahead with steely eyed determination to do better than we all did last year. 2011 won't be a hard year to beat as I stumbled a lot more than I gracefully flew over the past twelve months. It's with that in mind that I want to lay some of my personal goals on the table for the new year.

1) Firstly addressing the obvious- Felicity has been put on ice for the last couple of months. I went into a great bit of detail on it just before that. Summarizing; I have to rebuild my confidence on it and approach it with belief that I can 'do it justice'. My issues with Felicity are mainly routed in my frustrations with my own artwork- never quite delivering the results I want on the book. Curiously, these are issues that seem exclusive to Felicity, which I feel may be because I created Felicity alongside re-writing my artistic identity, I have had to rebuild each element to match my current artstyle.

I think it's time to completely rebuild those elements and do it thoroughly. I aim to release another chapter of the story. I can't say it will be in the first half of the year unless my problems are solved quicker than I expect. Who knows though, I might be able to kill my gremlins on this one.

2) Secondly, The Journey- my short story has been put on ice as well. Although this is for entirely different reasons, I completed my goal of a December deadline for Chapter One but I have since come to realisation that there is a far better direction I can take this story. I will be rebuilding it as a higher priority book than my other 'Free-time' stuff. Ultimately, I've managed to create something more special than I initially thought and I don't want it brought down by my lack of experience in areas where it needs to SING.

3) Thirdly, Magpie will be getting a debut Issue late this year as I'm currently scouting for a writer to collaborate with, it's not a high priority for me compared to my other stuff but the demand amongst the folks who have loyally supported my work is certainly high(more so than any of my other work) and I can definitely say I will have one Magpie book completed by years end.

4) Lastly, although most probably the first piece of work I'll produce this year; Scoundrels is a new mini-comic that I've just detailed in the previous post. My contribution will be one of hopefully a few from many artists and will be a piece of a bigger puzzle. While I may only do one book for this in 2012, I'm hoping by years end, there will be a lot of books to read.

That about does it for the Artistic ventures I alone can control, I do of course have some work in between to involve myself with and which I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy. Hopefully some of that stuff can come to the surface this year, will have to see. Fingers crossed!

-Adam

Takes All Sorts

//Currently, Until the first batch of stories are released(expected around April/May) any creators interested in joining, hold tight for now! It's very early days for the project so I want to make sure it makes it off to a good start before any more people put the effort in. Thanks, I'll announce when we're ready for more.//

Scoundrels is a collaborative comics project.

An idea to build something alongside artists/writers and at the same time work some of those story-telling muscles. It also isn't going to break the time-bank.

The idea is to let several to dozens of comic artists and/or writers collaborate to create individual stories set around the same premise and characters- to explain;

Each Artist or Artist and Writer team would be tasked with creating a short six to ten page comic that stars a character or characters of their own creation. This would involve character concept and design, right through to realising them in a story-driven context, whelter that be through colour or black and white.

There are little to no limits on what the artist or writer can do outside of the following requirements;

-All stories are required to end with a pre-estasblished narrative element- which would tie each characters stories together. (That element being that a legendary fable "The Atlas" has been discovered to be truth. How that information reaches a creators character is up to them, but it must reach them by stories end. It's also entirely possible for a writer to skew this information, perhaps have it reach their character through misunderstood words or myth- ultimately driving them to a goal that is different to another characters understanding.)

-All character stories must revolve around or directly involve Pirates, smugglers or otherwise questionable individuals. Whilst it is entirely possible to have a character that combats against pirates, the end-story tying all characters together is very much going to be a pirate-centric element so they would require a reason to want to be involved.

-Set in a world with a Science Fiction/SteamPunk/Retro futuristic vibe. (Attire is very much in the style of 18th Century Pirates with Science Fiction twists.) Aliens are present and accepted as part of a galaxy wide culture, stories can take place on any planet with any number of unique additions to the lore welcome.

The overall idea being that several characters would come together in one place, having all come from individual and unique backgrounds. A later, larger collaborative project involving all characters together would then be an interesting possibility.

Ultimately, this is a chance to allow artists/writers to get involved and muck in to create something together, for purely the end result of having something interesting and fun to read and share.

There will be no 'leader' as I myself just want to simply be one artist out of group that decide to create a character and add a story to the lore. As such there isn't any right or wrong outside of what's been described above. If you want to have a story about a robot who escapes the belly of a beast to rejoin his crew then that's fine, infact, that's badass- why aren't you starting work on that?

Any one interested, drop me a comment here or contact me on twitter. Or go ahead and create a character and let me know when you've got a story together, each story would be featured on the website and credit the creators involved.

-Adam

Elephant Graveyard.

I was doodling Magpie for an upcoming blogpost and when I realized how the expression came out, everything got a bit Lion-Kingy.

-Adam.