Plywood: The Ultimate Weapon

Originally published August, 2005.

This one is more or less based on a true story. I attempted to create a likeness of my real life self as an avatar, using only the built in appearance sliders. (This was before photo-sourced, third-party skins were commonplace.) It was really quite horrifying.

Jon’s building up quite the odd arsenal of super powers here. In addition to the normal array of avatar abilities (flight, the ability to make plywood cubes out of thin air, etc. etc.), he has the Gendar sense. And now he has an avatar so terrifying that the mere threat of its return inspires instant obedience. I guess it worked well enough for Mighty Man‘s ([link]) dog, Yukk! ([link])

The second half of this comic was filmed in a local mansion next door to my plot in Louise sim. Many comics were filmed this way, by breaking and entering into unlocked homes and taking pictures on the sly. We’d fly off in different directions, look for likely sets, and instant message back. “Found one!” “What’s the auto-return?” “An hour!” “Score! Teleport me!”

--Nathan, August 8, 2008

Somewhere around this strip we started getting prop-heavy, which I enjoyed because it made me feel more useful. Also, you can't really tell here, but the logo on Jayne's shirt is from Something Positive ([link]), a webcomic that Nathan and I both read.

The last frame of this was HARD to get right. Because we only used freebie poses (neither of us was really motivated to learn Poser, and custom animations were pricey and not always relevant), sometimes we would have to get really creative with props, sit boxes, and camera angles to make the positions make sense. After a while, though, it got easier to figure out which poses could be used for what, and I think the further we get into the comic, the more use we have of the same ol' poses, used to convey different actions.

--Monica, August 8, 2008