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1
VOID Characters and Comics / It's Todd Time
« on: Feb 22, 2022, 05:19 PM »
Today is Todd's first birthday on Void! It’s wild that this time last year, we were terrified and not expecting to get that far, and now we’re tourney winners. So we thought it’d be fun to share some concepts, practice sketches, and more from behind the scenes to mark the occasion :)

The Origins
Badger and I actually came up with Todd the year before, because the lovechild jam is fun and slaps hard. Apart from the inherent coolness of combining necromancy with shapeshifting, Gold and Talon are very different in some ways and very similar in others. It was fun to mash their personalities together and discuss how this person would act. The crux of it was, in Badger's words: combine Talon's determination with Gold's self-destructive tendencies and bada bing bada boom! Recipe for disaster.

Where Talon was determined, Todd was obsessed. Where Gold sought out unhealthy relationships, Todd injected them directly into his head. Even though neither "parent" would kill somebody for self-gain, Todd is Just That Messed Up that he would, while crying because he does have some decency in him. The monsters in the basement and head demons have also been present since Todd's inception – twisted signs of his good intentions and loneliness respectively.

Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/06llUoF9B4cMZklfSFHpyV?si=c211218a467d4d59

First concept by me, April 2020


Further development by Badger



------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tournament
We lost our minds when the tournament was announced, and of course had to join. Working with Badger was honestly one of the best things I've experienced. They're an incredible artist and all-round cool person, and it was so cool to watch our contributions increasingly sync up. They also introduced the concept of actually planning before doing a comic, beyond the necessary scripts and thumbs. As someone who doesn't even warm up before drawing, this was an eye-opener for me and has helped me a tonne with future comics.

Another thing was that this was well and truly a collaboration! I've collabed with people before, but each person's role was pretty cut and dry. One person does this stage, another does the next one. With Badger, we talked every day, and tweaked each other's work until both of us were happy. It's a great feeling, and I think helped us do the best we could.

Lovechild Battles
Round 1 (2nd comic): https://entervoid.com/comic/7250
Round 2 (1st comic): https://entervoid.com/comic/7280
Round 3 (2nd comic): https://entervoid.com/comic/7302

Overall Notes
Before the first round even began, we decided that during the tourney Todd's curse would not be cured, and the overarching storyline would be a descent into darkness. Badger summed it up post-tourney very well:

"His whole arc pretty much builds to him building the nerve to commit to curing his curse, only to realize he can't and regret all of his actions so far. The entire story is about a descent into awfulness and he doesn't get a happy ending for killing 2 children."

We wanted him to have increasing agency in the deaths, culminating in completely unprovoked, first-degree murder in the final round. The first round was accidental - since Strigoi was pretty bestial, we used the agent as the "main" death that carried the emotional weight. Todd didn't kill him, but he indirectly caused the death. The second round was self-defence - arguably Todd had reason to kill Abby, but at the same time, he pushed onwards when she asked for mercy. And we all know what happened in the final round.

Visually, we linked them together with sigils as a kind of title card for each round. Badger was able to take my shitty MS paint ideas and make them look amazing.

Round 1: A stylised hand falling into a mouth - the handler's hand and strigoi's maw.
Round 2: Abby's heart with a lightning crack through it, representing her death and the literal lightning scar on her face.
Round 3: The two points are Maddie’s ears, the jagged line below representing the dagger.

Round 1
Imo our first round was the weakest technically. We weren't confident in getting far, so we focussed on making the comic work as a standalone and left out story hooks, like the head demons. I didn’t know how to handle the colours at all either. It was immensely fun to draw violence though! We had always planned for Todd's monsters to not be too out there - just sad, twisted creatures - but with Strigoi's power we had the idea of her body going mad trying to process both Todd's DNA and the curse.

A few people have commented on why she was killed when she wasn't a real strigoi, and I've been dying to explain why. Generally when dealing with (European) demons, as well as fey, names are extremely important and powerful. Give them your real name, and they have power over you. But the meaning of your true name has power as well. I was very inspired by a book called "13 Curses", which follows humans trapped in the fey realm and is heavily based on English folklore. At one point, a witch dies when trying to steal another character's identity, because her name is Rowan - a plant poisonous to fey. Rowan's name gave her properties of the real thing she was named for, and it saved her. So why couldn't the reverse happen?

Todd works with demons all the time, and has to play by their rules. Even though Strigoi is more of the sci-fi genre than fantasy, in Todd's little branch of Void, demons and fantastical elements take precedent. Basically, in being called Strigoi, she gained the weaknesses of a real strigoi - like a blessed wooden stake.

My monster concepts


Badger's Strigoi sketches and thumbs



Evolution of Strigoi's death scene


My MSPaint sigil vs Badger's sigils



Round 2
Getting to fight an actual demon was a blessing from the RNG gods. It made connecting the characters pretty easy, and was a great way to show the head demons were in fact, demons, and not hallucinations. Since she is described as a powerful demon, we originally wanted to have Abby's parents actually feature and interact with Todd's curse somehow. Ultimately they only got a passing mention though, because it would have been a lot to juggle with the time limit.

Although it hasn't come up explicitly in Todd's storyline, we decided pretty early on that Todd should have a mix of Eastern and Western philosophy, for Gold and Talon respectively. In the second image below of Todd's unseen attic bedroom, there is a bagua poster on his "wall"; those familiar with trigrams may have recognised that he has the one for "fire" tattooed on his arms. The sigils formed the barrier, but the tattoos were responsible for the raging inferno Abby was caught in!

My house concepts, and trigram comparison




Badger's Abby sketches and thumbs



Evolution of final page


My MS Paint idea 2 electric boogaloo vs Badger concepts



Final Round
Fighting Maddie in the finals was tricky since we wanted to keep her relationship with Clyde (for Drama TM), but didn't want to change our worldbuilding to match, especially in the final round. Void has historically had anti-toon sentiment, so we just went with vague attackers to separate them and build urgency. We also worried that we didn't showcase Clyde's pain enough, but left the ending open in case Kozi and Schneider wanted to build off Maddie's death themselves, should we win.

Some details we wanted to point out: the fog at the beginning represented Todd's clouded mind, the branches changed to hands, and daisies marked the direction Maddie had gone in (check out the pavement on pages 2, 7 and 11).

Badger's Big Demon concept


R3 ~vibe~ and scene concepts by me





Badger’s Maddy and Clyde sketches, plus thumbs



Evolution of scenes ft. Big Demon's appearance and Clyde breaking in



Badger's sigil concepts


------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Unused Concepts
Unfortunately, not all concepts get to see the light of day. We had some very different ideas for how the bad ending would actually happen, for example todd's demons taking full control of him, or turning into a demon himself. A lot of monster designs were also not developed, as we opted to keep them mostly in shadow for dramatic effect.

Badger's Todd concepts




My monster concepts


------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Memes
We were gonna say something cool about Todd's future on Void, but instead we're gonna shred this man's dignity. Enjoy :)




2
spit spat, time to chat / Goodbye Letter to Void
« on: Oct 27, 2021, 06:48 PM »
Hi all. I debated whether to post this here or on the forums, because on the one hand people barely read the forums, but on the other, anything I say will get lost quickly in a Discord chat, so here we are.

This is my goodbye to enterVOID. I rejoined the server to see how Bark vs Bite was doing, but I’ve had it on mute and I think I’ll be leaving for good soon. I’ll still be around on enterVOID the website; I’m down for battles, I have some outstanding collabs, and if you want a comment or just to chat, feel free to hit me up on Discord. But I’ll be barely active. And as somebody who used to be extremely active, I thought I’d explain why.

The long and short of it is that Void has become a very negative place for me. It’s extremely draining to have many people react with apathy towards my comics and characters, or even hostility towards me. Not to mention the hypocrisy and clique mentality rampant in the community. Why bother giving so much effort to a community who overall doesn’t appreciate or reciprocate it, especially now that I’ve found others that do?

I don’t think Void is a bad place, or that all Voiders are like this. The people here have helped me tremendously with not just comics, but art as a whole. I’m still genuinely surprised at the massive difference in ability Void has fostered. I’ve also met some great people here, who I anticipate I’ll be friends with for a good while. I have felt like this for some time, but hung on and kept coming back because I wanted to stay for them, not to mention FOMO. But I was eventually forced to accept the cons now outweigh the pros for me personally.

I’ll end this with a message to anyone it concerns: Void is a community, and a tiny one at that. Please give something back to it. Don’t use this as a place to dump your comics and get instant validation. Don’t stay in an uncritical echo chamber with the same few people. Read comics by people you wouldn’t normally read, take crits as a learning opportunity, comment on anything you see up when you visit the site. Everybody knows each other here, and every one of you is already a significant part of the community who can change things for the better. Thank you. 

3
VOID Characters and Comics / Backstage Pass
« on: Dec 27, 2020, 01:28 AM »

What is Backstage Pass?
Backstage Pass is a podcast focused on characters and overarching stories within Void, as well as the process of making the comics of EnterVoid. The initial idea for this podcast was born from the realisation that a lot of planning and effort behind each character, story, and individual comic goes unseen, and we wanted to get a behind-the-scenes look at these processes through an interview-style setup. Rather than crit comics, we want to have conversations with artists.

How can I be featured?
Just ask! We won’t necessarily be looking at recent comics, and will often look at several at a time if we want to talk about things like character arcs and storylines. Episodes are based on specific artists, not specific comics. For shyer folk, don’t worry - episodes are pre-recorded and will only feature you and the hosts.

Isn't this just Junkcast?
Yes and no! We're going for a bit more of a traditional podcast setup, and also something that's almost the reverse of Junkcast; rather than put the spotlight on the comic itself and our reactions and takeaway from it, we want to hold a microphone out to the artist to let them spill their secrets. Junkcast is a comic review podcast, Backstage Pass is an interview.

----------------------------------------------------

Our pilot episode features Flytee as our guest star. This episode was mostly just proof of concept, and to try to iron out any wrinkles there might be. It's a little messy and a little informal, but we weren't worrying too much on the quality this time! Future episodes will be a bit more polished now that we know a little on what will work and what won't.

STARRING

FEATURED COMICS

HOSTED BY



4
Art Jams / Evolution Jam Version ????
« on: Nov 15, 2020, 10:21 PM »
Underwood forced me to do it.

RULES:
1) Each person draws the creature's next stage of evolution with a small blurb.
2) No giant jumps or wild additions that you wouldn't see in real animals.
3) Please note if you want to skip/shift your turn!

Signups:
1) Cy
2) Underwood
3) Footini



This little worm uses its brightly coloured head to lure unsuspecting prey into its propulsive, hidden jaws. When threatened, it retracts its head, its tentacles acting as false heads to distract predators. It is a couple of inches long and lives in rock pools, its soft body unable to withstand strong waves and wind.

5
Art Jams / Voidmas Advent Calendar
« on: Nov 06, 2020, 08:08 AM »
Stay tuned for December :3


6
There are many things about my art that I dislike, but my inks have got to be wayy at the top. I have never found a brush that suits me and hate how much my art fluctuates as a result of trying different brushes all the time. I want my lines to be clean, but also soft and not too "harsh" and artificial looking, like something drawn in Paint for instance. I also don't like brushes that are too transparent since that makes it harder for me to colour in nicely.

Here are some comics I've done with different brushes:

Does anyone have any recommendations for Photoshop brushes, or tips on how to use/adjust the brushes I currently have so I can get closer to my goal? Also of the ones I've tried out so far, which looks best? Am I being too harsh on myself and should I stick to one of them for now until I can find what I'm looking for? Also if I come across as too vague, I'd be happy to share some artists with lines I like if that would help with suggestions :)

7
GO FOR BROKE! / Cy Tries Art
« on: Oct 23, 2019, 01:28 AM »
Hi my name's Cy, I mostly do shitty pencil sketches not fit for posting and don't know a consistent style is (:

Here are some more recent, acceptable works of mine:


July 24th, 2018


August 31st, 2018


January 15th, 2019


April 3rd, 2019

8
A few months ago, an idea came up in the Discord chat of an event featuring vampires vs werewolves, which expanded to undead vs shifters. I was pretty hype for the idea so I figured, hey, maybe I could try organising it. So I wanna see if enough people would be interested before I see about talking to the admins and officially planning something :)

After some consideration, I think for this event only beings that were originally human, or are a variant of human, should be counted. As there was already a Monster Mash I don’t want to cast the net too wide, but I also wanted to more inclusive than simply vamps and wolves. So with that in mind, here is how I would define the groups:

SHIFTER - a person who is able to change into an animal
UNDEAD - a person who has been killed and reanimated*


As per request, here’s the list of people who have shown interest so far:
  • Shen
  • BuggyPumpkin
  • Badger
  • Astrodile
  • Flytee
  • Heavenbat
  • Rivana
  • yarnwitch
  • Elyan
  • Dechado

(*I’m still really not sure about how I’d define this myself, so this definition is very much subject to change)

————————————————

Other questions for discussion, if you’d like the idea of such an event:

1) Would you prefer a Retribution-style long haul event, with individual battles and a point system, OR a huge collab event, with several people on the shifter side and several on the undead, each working on one big comic together?

2) What kind of stakes would you like to see? One suggestion was winner turning the other side for example (though whether that would be permanent or not is also up for debate).

3) What beings do you think should be counted for each side? For instance, would a ghost be counted as undead, or do they have to have a physical form to be included? Should only single form shapeshifters be included, or those with multiple forms as well?

4) Any name suggestions for the event? Shifters vs Undead isn’t the catchiest title out there imo XD I think something including “Children of Night” might be cool.

9
VOID Characters and Comics / Shapeshifters of Void
« on: May 11, 2019, 07:50 AM »
Had an idea for an area of Void where shapeshifters like to hang out, maybe a bar or something, so I was interested to see what kinda shifters are around and thought I'd compile a list! I'm defining shapeshifter as a character with a human/ish form and animal form. NPCs counted too! Since Werewolf Things is already, well, a thing, I'm not gonna include em here. People that turn into wolves of their own accord are all good though ;v;b

So far I got:

Ghost - Rooster
Gold - Cat
Kubo - Fox (retired)

10
THE INCUBATOR / Cy and the Lads
« on: Apr 21, 2019, 09:18 AM »
Hey all! Here's the design sheet and description for my first character! My main concern is whether or not this is of acceptable quality ;u; I'm currently unable to line things digitally so I hope this is alright. Will be adding the sketch of my introduction comic later!

...Okay for something that's under 800px wide this seems super big OTL

Anyway here is the bio!

Bio:
Gold is a young shapeshifter who ran away from home, and is currently living with a friend growing increasingly frustrated by his behaviour. He’s an adept thief, compulsive liar, and generally slippery fellow, but he isn’t evil by any means – underneath it all he’s just suspicious and scared of people. His confidence lies in his criminal abilities and appearance, though the latter has been tempered by the injuries he’s received to his face. He’s also well aware that he looks younger than he actually is, and often plays it up to avoid suspicion (or consequences) when committing crimes.

His primary animal form is a cat, and spending a lot of time as one has influenced his appearance and personality; his movements are at times uncannily quiet and fluid, his teeth are a tad sharper than they should be, and he can stare for minutes without blinking. It’s very easy for him to switch between feigned innocence and quiet creepiness.

Shapeshifting info:
Gold is able to bring aspects of his cat form to his current self, such as slit eyes to see in the dark, or take a halfway form (though this is rare). The halfway form is literally halfway, not like an anthro-cat or anime style catboy, but a blend of features that probably comes across as more eerie than anything. Animal forms take colours from the clothes he is wearing as well as his hair, so if he were to throw a black cape over his clothes, he would appear as a black cat with some smears of red.

Finally, he can turn into other humans or change his features, but the only time he does this is to disguise himself so as to not get caught. He cannot change into any animal – he has had to choose and practice the forms he currently has.

Misc. notes:
The white and gold patches on his cat form aren’t “strict”, they were just my attempt at portraying the colours found on red Somali cats. As long as he is mostly red, and keeps his scars, that’s fine! Additionally, the jacket he wears is a bomber jacket. Its stiff appearance in the ref is a result of style.

11
Help / Comic Dimemsions and Sketch Levels
« on: Apr 19, 2019, 02:08 AM »
Couldn’t find questions about this in the FAQ so I hope they’re okay to post! I was wondering:

1) The old FAQ said intro comics won’t be accepted if they’re the incorrect size, but what IS the correct size? I can’t find listed dimensions anywhere aside from the “character sheet should be 1000 px wide”.

2) What is defined as sloppy for traditional comics? I have only managed to glean quality level from digital. Currently I’m dealing with nerve inflammation in my dominant hand and a dying computer, so I don’t think I can manage lining a whole comic digitally but I still want to take part! If I submitted a scanned comic that had cleanly drawn boxes and no construction lines, but with characters a little shaky around the edges, would this be considered too rough or “sloppy”?

Thanks!

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