The Crumbs Project: Makeoverssss

I think I'm starting to get to grips on this whole 'organising my work and life' thing. Here's hoping it takes.

After I finished my commissions (which I might share on a later date if I get permission from the commissioners), I had more time to plan 'The Crumbs Project' a lot more seriously, from story lines and notes to finalising character designs. I hadn't drawn or coloured the pigeons in Photoshop before now and used the opportunity to sort out colours and lineart techniques. I used to use Illustrator but while the lineart looks nice and crisp, I think it loses a bit of personality that the original sketch had. More often than not, I've found myself preferring my sketches to my finished work whenever I used Illustrator.

So hopefully I'll be able to train my wrist to master freehand lineart. I mean hey, a big reason I'm working on the comic is to experiment with storytelling, character design, art methods and so on.

Anyway, here is our colourful cast of main birbs:

And allow me to introduce (or rather RE-introduce, to anyone who read the previous comics) the turtle dove twins, Lilac and Pink!

You can thank the super spectacular Tor for the inspiration behind their redesigns. Lilac is her favourite and I was trying to think of a new pigeon breed that both she and Pink could be (with them being twins, they'd need to look the same, especially since I'd made them different breeds originally) before I remembered Tor suggesting I draw a turtle dove sometime due to them being her favourite pigeon.

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone (If you'll pardon the expression. Awkwaaard) and make Best Pigeon her favourite breed! Albeit rather simplified. You ever seen a turtle dove? Google those mothers, their plumage is nuts.

Now that the introductions are out of the way, I've got a little favour to ask of you guys.

While I was colouring all the pigeons, an error with layers gave me the idea to turn the whites of the pigeon's eyes red, similar to how pigeon eyes usually look. I'm half tempted and I think it looks especially god on Lilac personally but there might be people who are put off by the look, or think it makes them look too sinister. I MIGHT give the look to a certain mysterious pigeon either way though… perhaps...

So I've got a comparison of the white eyes and red eyes for people to look over. I'd appreciate it mightily if you could let me know of any preference you have! You should be able to click the pictures to get a closer look.

Red Eyes
(Drugs are bad, mmkay?)

White Eyes
 

Hurrhurr stoner birbs~

I'm leaning towards the white personally but if I'm able to shape the eyes a certain way, I could probably pull off the red if people preferred it.

I'm going to begin work on the human and dog characters from tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have them to share with you next week! I also want to play about with poses and expressions of the characters. I've only got the pigeons in similar poses for now to show off their design more than anything.

Tune in next week (maybe)!

Reveal: The Crumbs Project

So once again, Crumbs went on hiatus. And I'm not even surprised that it did. It's my own fault, really. I told myself that I had to make a story "right hugging now" whether I planned it through properly or not. And at first it went OK, I was able to burn through 9-14 pages but around/after then, I always lose steam because I realise that this is a boring story that I absolutely don't want to tell.

Or rather, it's a good story that I DO want to tell but due to the lack of proper planning and thinking things through, I'm not telling it right. Either way, I stopped uploading and the comic fell by the wayside. Again.

Crumbs has had way too many false starts and for the longest time, the site was just standing there with no activity on a design and page that wasn't even relevant anymore. Until now. I've trashed everything and replaced the homepage with a teaser image for, what will hopefully be, third times the charm.

Allow me to present: The Crumbs Project. Or Crumbs for short.

More like 'Coming Eventually', am I right? Hahaha… haha… haaaa...

As the page states, the story outlined in the simplest way is "A webcomic about a cancelled military project being given a second chance; to develop pigeons into tools of peace in the modern world."
I might as well reveal this now: in every single interpretation of Crumbs I've ever done, Jay (the dark blue one, in case you forgot/don't know) has always been a genetically enhanced pigeon created as a military project for any future wars, which often explained his wacky design and skills that the other pigeons didn't have. I always liked the idea of pigeons being tools of war but thought the idea might be too farfetched or that I wasn't clever enough to be able to tell such a story (whatever that means. My brain is pretty hard on me) but it kept eating away at me… and it wasn't until I saw the cinematic glory that is Big Hero 6 that I decided "You know what? FUDGE IT. I'm doing this goddamn super-pigeon story, y'all better recognise!"

And now with a lot of rewriting, redesigning, developing characters old and new, tossing out old characters/ideas, revising story lines and so on, I'm slowly but surely on the right track in the planning stage. I have a few very kind and patient people who are willing to read through my rambled notes and offer critique, feedback and advice. So much so that I'm almost certain I should provide co-writer credits cos SHEESH. 

(FYI, I'm making the deadly pigeon pathogen idea a future conflict. Throwing it in now would have way to much going on where the story currently is.)

I've already revealed the redesigns of the four main pigeons: Scarlet, Jay, Blue and Green, as seen in the teaser image above. You should be able to see them in a previous entry or on my Instagram page. The pigeon's poses here are meant to give you some small idea of what their individual power is, although Green's isn't very clear. Basically, Scarlet has the skill of weaponised feathers, Jay has advanced communication: the ability to talk to humans and other animals, Blue is able to camouflage/turn invisible at will and Green has super strength, able to lift humans and knock tanks over. My brain was farting too hard to figure out how I could portray that in his pose so I just have him posing with his chest puffed out all heroically instead.
I'm going to work on some conceptual art and designs that'll show off their skills better. As well as introduce some new characters. I'm planning to reveal those very soon.

So yeah basically, the story is still at the beginning of the planning stage and I have absolutely no idea when I'll be able to share the finished comic with you. I'm mainly just owning up to the fact that I once again let Crumbs fall by the wayside and that I'm working on a new and exciting idea that'll hopefully knock all the socks off. I know this for sure though: I refuse to share any pages whatsoever until I finish the first arc/chapter. Still working out how I'm going to set up the stories. That's what this here planning process is for!

I hope you think of this as an interesting idea. Personally, I'm having a lot of fun with it. A LOT. And I haven't even introduced the human and dog characters yet. If you have any questions, feel free to comment!