Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, Promethean0416 said:

So to him it means Xero has the best design of all time! OF ALL TIME! 

...okay, I'm done.

Actually, it was a joke someone made in response to the design, not from Mr. Penders himself.

That'd be hilarious, though.

[Polkadi~☆]

I feel like these designs could be way better if they were just humans instead of weird alien freakazoids. But if that's the way Ken wants it, then fine, whatever.

[horridus]

7 minutes ago, Polkadi~♪ said:

I feel like these designs could be way better if they were just humans instead of weird alien freakazoids. But if that's the way Ken wants it, then fine, whatever.

The lousy and poorly designed outfits alas would stay in place. Penders just cannot for the life of him design sci-fi outfits that aren't either dull or bizarre for the wrong reasons. The characters would, however, look better if they were just humans. Penders is far, far better at drawing realistic humans than he is at drawing anthros, be they cartoony, realistic, or in the hellish borderland between the two that he's going for with the Echyd'nya up there. 

[Sidronas]

12 hours ago, DabigRG said:

The texture of his hair is a little bizarre and I'm not sure what's going on with his glasses/shades/visor.

at least with Dr. Eggman's glasses ("prince-nez" style, i heard?) had a defined shape, without any sort of rims.

 

And yeah looking at that picture, its sparingly obvious that he is trying to pander to people, saying he is multi-cultural but with little effort.

[Salamander]

Xero's hair and beard look like a different artist drew them on top of an otherwise completed image, like graffiti.  Very strange.

It also occurs to me now that the shades might actually be an attempt to reconcile realistic eye designs with Sonic's stylised mono-eye, which is actually a kind of interesting idea for a redesign.

[Promethean0416]

And now we have a group photo with 20% more lens flare! 

 

[The Tenth Doctor]

I've made my own shirts before and the framing of this is just wrong. Xero being on the side of the logo just irks me. Have him up top and move the logo into the middle. Also looking at the preview, Ken has been hit with an age old problem. Putting black as a background on your design does not mean it instantly blends into a black shirt. Its why I only make white shirts, it blends in easy, though white wouldn't really work for the shadowed effect he is trying to do.

Also notice how the main character is shoved into the back corner.

[Meta77]

On 7/11/2018 at 8:49 AM, Promethean0416 said:

Another photo op for a familiar face.

Not the worst, but definitely not the best either.

Why is his art so bad these days

[Promethean0416]

5 hours ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

I've made my own shirts before and the framing of this is just wrong. Xero being on the side of the logo just irks me. Have him up top and move the logo into the middle. Also looking at the preview, Ken has been hit with an age old problem. Putting black as a background on your design does not mean it instantly blends into a black shirt. Its why I only make white shirts, it blends in easy, though white wouldn't really work for the shadowed effect he is trying to do.

Also notice how the main character is shoved into the back corner.

Guess it is now either called The Julie-Su? Chronicles or she and Lara did a Freaky Friday-like body switch. Also, I noticed it was called "Meet the Echyd'nyas" and I am strangely imagining Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller's voices coming out of them now...

[horridus]

6 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And now we have a group photo with 20% more lens flare! 

 

Sooo does Julie-su NOT have glasses anymore? Last few times he showcased her then-current redesign he seemed pretty dead set on the glasses and the like. Maybe the criticism that she looked like Peggy Hill finally got to him. Also, MAN that grouping just looks awkward, with Xero hovering down on the side there like an afterthought. This is not a very good layout for a t-shirt, and that's without getting into the fact that the lens flare use is evocative of a middle schooler first playing around Photoshop in the 90s.

5 hours ago, The Tenth Doctor said:

Also notice how the main character is shoved into the back corner.

Yeeeah, this is not the first nor will it be the last time. Despite being the title character, a lot of the stuff Penders posts has to do with everything BUT her, and he's got this weird tendency to constantly sideline her in one way or the next. Almost as though he's not really interested in writing for her... 

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

Why is his art so bad these days

Combination of factors- firstly, his skills have generally degraded over the years due to inactivity. Secondly, his range is pretty limited- he's okay enough at drawing realistic humans, but anything beyond that is difficult for him, and he insists on using semi-realistic proportions on the Echyd'nya, who resemble the anthropomorphic animals he always struggled with. The biggest thing though? Penders cannot, for the life of him, digitally color, ink, or shade, yet insists on doing this himself. He's just straight up terrible at digital stuff and is much better with traditional methods, and as such he art looks even worse than it might normally because of the color jobs. 

[DabigRG]

7 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And now we have a group photo with 20% more lens flare! 

 

 I'm not exactly expert, but man, the designing of that t-shirt is bad.

Why the square box?

Why is Lien-Da noticeably larger than Julie-Su and Lara-Su? 

Why is everyone shadowed on the same exact side?

Why aren't Lara-Su and espeecially Xero's shades reflecting the lens flare as well?

Why is Xero awkwardly off to the side of the left-favoring logo?

Why is Xero even on the shirt at all?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

8 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And now we have a group photo with 20% more lens flare! 

 

Oh, is this not available yet? I was just about ready to drop all my other cosplay ideas and just go to the rest of the conventions this year as "a very bad idea."

[Dr. Detective]

God dammit... in any other context this would sound arrogant but Jesus Christ I'm so happy I'm a much better artist than him. I could make that woman not look creepy, or old, or like her head is made out of sedimentary rock.

[DabigRG]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I could make that woman not look creepy, or old, or like her head is made out of sedimentary rock.

Which one?

[antyep]

35 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Which one?

All of them!

[CleverSonicUsername]

15 hours ago, Promethean0416 said:

And now we have a group photo with 20% more lens flare! 

 

You could not pay me to put that on my body.

[RetroRy]

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/1019628498338525184

Finally confirmation of an app.  And it's...not unlike any other comic app.  Also how damn small is that data file text?  If you were reading it on a phone it would be impossible.

[Promethean0416]

1 hour ago, chaosjam said:

https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/1019628498338525184

Finally confirmation of an app.  And it's...not unlike any other comic app.  Also how damn small is that data file text?  If you were reading it on a phone it would be impossible.

I am still strangely getting Comix Zone vibes from this...

[horridus]

Uuuh-huh. So then... when does the actual book come out? Like... all of this effort has been been made to the tie-in App, but we still don't have much of a clue as to where the proper book itself stands. 

[Rabid-Coot]

I was just thinking it nearly time for the annual comic con everyone I showed the app loved it/never seen anything like it/one said their kids would love it tweets.

[DabigRG]

 

So, is the Chinese-esque text a recent thing?

[King Scoopa Koopa]

4 hours ago, horridus said:

Uuuh-huh. So then... when does the actual book come out? Like... all of this effort has been been made to the tie-in App, but we still don't have much of a clue as to where the proper book itself stands. 

I thought he said there wasn't going to be a proper book, just the app?

"Conventional mediums can not contain the scope of my greatness ideas," and all that.

[horridus]

22 minutes ago, KingScoopaKoopa said:

I thought he said there wasn't going to be a proper book, just the app?

"Conventional mediums can not contain the scope of my greatness ideas," and all that.

Honestly, he's gone back and forth on the subject like, multiple times. I *think* he intends to start digital and go with a solid release later on down the road, but given how often his intended plan changes I'm not even sure anymore. 

Either way, not much else to do but sit back and see if he actually releases this or if it'll be yet another 'let people see it on MY phone/ipad' deal like its been the last few times. 

[Sidronas]

On 7/17/2018 at 5:18 AM, horridus said:

Well, getting away from all that and a bit more back on track...

We've another art update from Penders, this time of the new guy, Xero. 

Not a lot that I can say about this that I haven't said before. It's less terrifyingly bad than a lot of his usual art, but once again, I say he'd be better off having someone else handle the digital coloring, inking and shading, cause he is just flat out no good at these things. 

Is it me, or are the tendrils/tentacles does not look as though it is a part of him and looks more like a prop that was glued together from the head?

[Salamander]

Ken already has the costume department for the TV adaptation in mind.