With a little over a week of work (and lots of breaks for my sore hand playing stardew valley lmao) I'd like to share the comic I was working on! It shows my oc Jayce's growth as an AI into the disheartened assassin he is now. I wanted to explore his backstory in an ambivalent narrator's view of someone who knows him but we don't know them- an outside view into something essentially. It's meant to be disconnected yet emotional in a sense like Jayce is.
It gave me a great opportunity to let loose and try a softer line style with messy oil-paints for the color! I also got to mess with representing AI visually in an abstract way since they're electricity. I hope you all enjoy and become curious to know more about him :)
Also for anyone curious: The world he's set in is post-apocalyptic sci-fic mixing cyber and solar punk with ideas around green energy, societal corruption, and themes of spirit/existence/development with robots and AI as well as mysterious tech found beyond their advancement!
Transcript and Image ID under the cut!
(please don’t repost or use my work, and leave my description; thanks! reblogs super appreciated!)
text transcript of the pages in their order:
What exactly happened to you?
You were guided so closely, but quickly desired to break free.
They loved you... you were beautiful. But they didn’t love you enough.
You had to learn one more lesson. how to survive.
now it’s all you ever do.
But I have to wonder... do you remember what it’s like? To be loved?
I’m sure it’s the reason you chose to be soft bodied.
You’ve always been a romantic, after all.
end transcript.
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Start Image ID:
Page 1: The top of the page is white with a neon cyan blue silhouette in the center with squares coming off of it like pixels fading from its body. In the middle Jayce is in a fish eye view for dramatic effect with curved lines in the background creating a globe effect. His head is a motorcycle helmet in dark teal, blue, and silver with a black visor. His body is black and dark gray with a desaturated maroon leather jacket over his shoulders with silver buttons on the collar. The bottom of the page melts into more pixel like squares to fade to black.
Page 2: The page fades from a grayish blue in the top left corner to white in the bottom right. The bright cyan blue creature from before is changing shape from the same direction, the first being fetus and shrimp-like, the second being owl like with a round head, and the last being humanoid with silhouettes of two extra heads and loose definition of limbs. All three have pixelated squares floating off of them as well as echo lines. The bottom of the page is a field of pixel towers and squares that the third figure's feet are melting into as it is creating the field.
Page 3: The top of the page is white with a grayish blue edge that melts into lines and squares to the black bottom of the page where the figure is surrounded by pale gray square towers. The cyan blue figure on top is reaching towards the viewer with lines on its face suggesting it's looking upward. One knee is bent with the leg folded while the other hands in the distance with foreshortening, and its arm on the left dissolves into pixels. Its head is surrounded by halo-like echo lines. On the bottom the figure seems to have fallen, and looks like they're in pain. They're leaning forward with their head facing down with their arms extended to catch themselves and their legs folded beneath them. The echo lines are more faded showing the halo disappeared.
Page 4: The page is all black now, with a progression from top to bottom of the cyan blue figure slowly raising themselves to sit up as they start looking upwards. Around them various colorful abstract shapes begin to fill the darkness representing other artificial intelligences popping up into the void. A dark gray entity slowly forms teeth first through the progression much larger than the rest, taking up the whole page in the last panel roaring and preparing to eat them all. It has seven round white glowing eyes that open in the last panel.
Page 5: The scene shows Jayce and his buddy buggy in motion fighting two other robots using a cyan blue electrified whip/rope while the page is broken up into black spaces that show the inner AI of each robot including him. In the upper left is a robot with a blue head with three long black horns, a black jacket, purple pants, and leather spiked boots that is being pulled through the air by the rope around their neck. In the black space it shows their body melting into a lilac crescent shape. On the bottom is a yellow, orange and black cyclops robot whose arm is wrapped and electrified while their ear is zapped by buggy with a red laser coming from buggy's eye. The yellow robot's AI in the black on the left is bubbly and bright yellow. Jayce's body in the black sections is solidly human shapes now with stripes and squares of dark blue and red complimenting his bright cyan blue. His AI is spikier now and more refined.
Page 6: The same pose showing Jayce's figure from the precious page is now a blank faded silhouette with stripes of brighter cyan forming the contours of his form. The page is a dark grayish blue with faded polygonal shapes, squares, and pixels floating around in shades of cyan blue, dark blue, and red. The ground the figure is standing on has similar shapes seemingly rising and floating away from it to fill the air. The other robots and Buggy are no longer present in the panel making it out to be him alone.
Page 7: The page is now a light pink with buggy in the top right gazing at jayce's face which is not visible on the page at the top. Jayce is shirtless now with one arm raised towards buggy in a gentle manner, the scene focused on his upper body with only the top of his pants visible. His body is sectioned into various parts of teal, blue, silver, black and gray showing that while he is metal he also has softer artificial body parts that fold like skin. His pecks and sternum are teal with blue and silver stripes over the ribs, marked with cyan and red lights. His forearm is similarly mainly blue and teal with black and silver parts near the wrist and elbow.
Page 8: The scene is now a complex city scape in a pink sunset with jayce sitting on a stone balcony with a bouquet in his lap and buggy resting on his pointed finger. The balcony's stone is cracked with flowering vines growing over it, but the floor of the balcony is hexagonal high-tech solar panels. The city is a mix of solar and cyber punk aesthetics with billboards and neon signs with city streets combined with garden boxes, trees on roofs, vines over buildings, and a water powered bullet train line suspended over a canal. There are blimp shaped wind turbines floating over some of the towers and many of the buildings feature wiring and solar panels either in windows are installed on their roofs. The main feature building connected to the other with walkways in the center left is an asymmetrical abstract greenhouse tower with multiple gardens on each level, colorful bubbly windows, and a massive tree garden on top.
the final extra image in pink is a disclaimer that reads ‘please don’t use or repost somewhere else’.
check out more of my comics at mini dove comics & @retail-comics, plus like the facebook page for more comic news. also check check out the twitter and instagram pages for more things done by me.
Remember to go outside sometimes, my fellow nerds. I’m deep into the witcher 2, because I’m way behind on what the people are playing these days, but I try to remember that there are amazing things to see that aren’t powered by electricity. Also, hug your Robit for me please :)
