CAPTOR [23]

Colors! I don't know why it took me so long, but I had to decide on which shades to properly go with for each character. There isn't much to explain, it's simply colors.

CAPTOR [22]

Spoilers, for anyone who dislikes them!

Today I wrote up a pretty brief plot for Captor so I can end up starting on the comic extremely soon. Not much to really take note of, since these are literally notes themselves. I'm going to end up fixing the plot up a bit in my head, as I left out some of the fine details from the writing here, and prepare to start setting up the actual pages so I can produce the first chapter by Nov. 19th.

CAPTOR [21]

There's a reason I slanted the picture like this: I want it to be slightly harder to read because these are all future references. Though I'll end up adding in more as I write up the actual plot, these are my main ones. Don't try to read it if you don't want to spoil yourself, even though I tried to keep it as un-spoiler-y as I could. I hate ruining some themes or concepts of my work, so I try stupid stuff like this. I spent a good twenty minutes on the entire thing, but I won't show the bottom half here on my blog due to the fact I'm having my collaborators or future readers of Captor watch over these posts and don't want to ruin it for everyone.

CAPTOR [20]

Finally getting down to the final grit of sketches and concepts and all. These are the three reapers weapons - though Azel is also one, he doesn't use a weapon, and instead fights with fists [and his tail and pretty much his entire being]. Abigale tends to scrounge for creatures that could feed the entire "troop." Her scythe enables her to collect the creatures soul and keep their body as a resource instead of it dissolving and reviving the nature around it. Xavier's scythe, however, just lets him collect the soul. Zane's weapons do the same. He tends to use a handheld pistol of some sort, and uses odd "wizard-y" powers, Azel refers to it as, to quickly collect any empty shells and keep ammunition on hand. His gun can actually shift into a shot gun or rifle as well, in case he hunts bigger game. Xavier and Abigale's weapons don't change though.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture

CAPTOR [19]

I did a little loop animation to show the actual planet of Leben. It's extremely small to what normal people consider planet size. This is why majority of the time people [within the comic] consider Leben to be an oddly shaped realm. Majority of the time they seem flat, and are PART of a planet. However, Leben is independent and isn't part of another planet. Their reasoning is also explained by having two realm/portal gates on either side of Leben. One is confirmed to be the gate to Hell, which is where Zane tends to go to often. The second one is supposedly Heaven, but, it also branches into the Nightmare Realm, and that itself causes the gate to smoke purple due to  the realms environment. The black mist/smoke around Leben however is what is considered an 'ozone'. It has the same purpose as Earth's ozone layer, but instead of deflecting the sun's rays, it deflects radiation from either gate. The downfall to this is it's secondary negative effect. The mist causes atmospheric pressure greater than that of Earth. However, it doesn't affect non-humans. Therefore, the only one who it has affect is Rob.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture/iaza.com for animation

CAPTOR [18]

This is the facility. It's known as the only building on Leben, bluntly due to that there are only five humans [or human-like] people on the planet/in the realm. The bottom floor is more professional -  it's for work, business [if any visitors come along] and the top floor is for the characters to live in. They have a kitchen/living room area and a bathroom upstairs. One can refer back to the plot drawings linked here and here. There isn't much really to say about the building, but, again, just like Rob's own room, the entire building structure is foreshadowing.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture

CAPTOR [17]

This is basically what Rob's work space looks like. He has some sort of complex machine that he uses to 'reincarnate' certain souls. As I've mentioned plenty of times before, he keeps a stash of either weak, ill, or small souls in jars marked with a red X. Many of the jars are reused, but whenever he puts a new soul in he'll redraw over it to put more emphasis or to help the fading of the color. The walls and floor are more towards white on the grey scale. He keeps the lights on while working, but only on that half of the room.

The other half of his room is just his bed, which is the only one in the entire facility to have a headboard, he keeps the lights off. This causes it to look more towards black on the grey scale. The creation of his room and they way he set it up is actually foreshadowing. And of course, like one would suspect, he has surplus amounts of jars with souls in them.

Rob tends to work day in and day out sorting, organizing, and rearranging souls. At one point he experiments with 'soul meshing'. This causes the less populated species control it, and thus when sent out into Leben, causes twins. Souls, alone, need to be kept in a casing of sorts where the air of Leben [it's oxygen still, don't fret that the air is chlorine] can't touch it. If the air seeps into the soul, it can deteriorate it and therefore destroy it, including it's casing which is the 'pretty and flail-y colorful' part of the souls. The real soul resides within it, and it tends to be the lightest shade of whichever color the soul casing is. Majority of the time it's pure white. Once the soul fades though, it's too old to be reincarnated again, and Rob marks it and jars it.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture

CAPTOR [16]

Simple floor plans for the only building on Leben [which is the name for the planet/realm where the story takes place].

And here's four of the five character's bedrooms:

Abigale Wright's room - It kind of shows her color scheme and her fashion sense. She tends to rely on proper colors and organization to stay sane, so she's quite anal about everything, especially her job. She has her own dresses, laundry bin, and some writings/documents under her bed for safe keeping. She keeps her window open most of the time, and on her wall are framed pictures of her parents.

Azel's room - He tends to just collect blankets and a random pillow whenever. He prefers to sleep on the carpet more than anything else, so his extra mattress was given to Xavier due to his height. He tends to have candy wrappers on the floor, but he normally keeps them in a small pile. Azel has two posters in his room, both of which show pictures of creatures that look similar to him, except the second is blue.

Xavier Kidasimo's room - His room is also neat, like Abigale's, but he doesn't have as many things. His bed is two mattresses stacked on one another so that when he goes to sleep, he can pull the top off and make his bed long enough for him to be comfortable with his height [reminder, he's 7'2'']. His room leads to the outdoor balcony. His wall has some ancient looking texts on them that actually foreshadow a bit of the comic and a separate comic.

And finally Zane Blake's room - He's very disorganized, but he tends not to care because he states he's not there enough to even give a damn. He has a small dresses that of which has one drawer dedicated to ammunition for his weapons. The others hold extra dress shirts and pants and spare ties. His documents and book pages tend to scatter, and he always seems to forget his jacket somewhere in his room when everyone goes out to hunt.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture

CAPTOR [15]

Today I decided I would spend my day indulging back into my art folders of previous years. It was a bad idea for the sake of the horrible things I found such as horrid anatomy [compared to what I manage now] and down right confusing pictures that make me question why I even created them. In total, I was working on what we define as "story" for each individual character and then mash them together and later edit the current plot.

But, they all did make a good refresher for developing outside of given circumstances, and figuring out more for myself and future readers of Captor how each character reacts with one another. I dug the most dirt on Zane, so I'll focus on him in this journal. Forewarning, it's gonna get long due to the amount of notes I took today.

It seems already shown that Zane has a short temper, and I believe I had stated that before. However, it differs on how short his fuse is depending on who he's talking to, so his attitude is very unbalanced and fickle majority of the time. When talking to people he considers as lower than himself, he tends not to care - and if they refuse to answer a question or do their job incorrectly, may only your higher ups save you then.

However, when he does talk to people he has to obey and can't really defeat [which is how he tends to judge - really stereotypical just by looking at someone] his temper can skyrocket when he doesn't get what he wants or is insulted himself. Other characters have more of a tolerance to insults, just like normal people. One person may be insulted and reply sarcastically, another may be insulted and be hurt a bit but shove it off, and another person may just have a full out episode of boiling anger and hormones. Zane is the last type. 

However, when he isn't insulted, and instead has a conversation like a proper adult, he tends to insult the other party. Sometimes it works wonders, and the second party member will leave or fold in, but others may burst just like he tends to.

Zane lacks many emotions and tends to be angered and sarcastic. He smiles normally when devious, but no other reason. His personality is honestly crappy, as he is that 'bully' type from high school that would constantly put you down and beat you with a crowbar, then have his team throw you in the local dumpster and slam the lid shut. He has a knack for getting into verbal fights with others, mainly in Captor, he aims towards Rob the most. However, due to the fact Rob rarely comes out from his room, it's normally over an IM program on the computer, or through text messages. Abigale tends to be the one to break it up by apologizing for Zane and then confiscating his phone for a period of time. Again, his attitude is fickle and just as crappy as his personality. He tends not to know who he's talking to before saying that they're a waste of his time and doesn't need to work for them or vice versa. This obviously gets him into more disputes, mainly in public. Many people that know him personally, such as Vincent [a character that doesn't appear in Captor, but is mentioned] tend to sigh, cover their eyes, and walk away pretending that Zane didn't exist.

The downfall for other characters is that Zane, sadly, does still exist, and no one has figured out a way to get rid of his whiny and bossy little self yet. Zane's history is still unknown in detail, but the summary of it all was he was just created for the sake of sending messages from the Arch Demons to the devil. His life hasn't been very long for a demon, and therefore he hasn't done much but parade around Hell trying to give everyone the proper letter and assign simple tasks. In all his past tended to be boring for a demon highly ranked enough to personally deliver letters to the devil. He has no family, so there's no branching off to other characters in blood lines.

Lastly, here's another little example of Zane in action. It was an old experiment strip for a much longer and more complicated comic [not in progress or public - it's gonna be the last comic I do out of the current ones I have] of mine called Heaven and Hell [which has a few mentionings from Zane and Xavier in Captor].

all media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo pen and touch

CAPTOR [14]

Today I was pretty much just researching for some of the concepts I'll be incorporating into Captor. The biggest theme I'm shoving in is the concept of reincarnation. The Latin translates to roughly to "again in the flesh is shown," but it's better translated to, "entering the flesh again." It's said to be determined whether one person is reborn again through karma, thus showing that if they did bad prior to their death, they would probably not be reborn. The version I'm adding into Captor is a bit difference from what the Hindu text says, the Buddhist text, the Greek, or any other form that I've searched thus far. Of course, I've explained it a bit before - how Rob, the main character, tends to sort through different types of souls of animals, slots them in the correct shelf, and then sends them off again during the right time to reborn. Originally, Rob was going to be nicknamed Karma, and the nickname would be tossed around pretty frequently, but I assume it to be blunt and obvious. Even though, already, the recycling of animals souls is kind of obvious as is... But, instead of Karma being some sort of non-humanoid thing and instead just an aspect of life, in the case of Captor, it's not really involved with the determination, and is instead decided by a pale and odd little man locked in his room.

As a little bonus, this was the first picture I had drawn of Rob [from 2011 I believe], and it's where Captor's idea started formulating in my head. Eventually I just piled in a few more characters, added onto their back stories [which I won't really reveal on this blog because I want to keep it spoiler free!], and from there I just went at it and tried my best at trying to make it as confusing as possible.

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo pen and touch

CAPTOR [13]

media: digital - paint tool sai/bamboo capture

And the final character, our main building block of Captor, the actual Captor, Robbert Grimm! He's a shut in and constantly works in his own little shop/dorm room. He organizes the souls brought in by the reapers of different animals and watches for which ones are too weak or too old to be reincarnated again. Those certain souls tend to be put aside in jars marked with a red X. It's unknown to the other characters what he does with the bad ones, but the audience finds out he actually eats the extras. The reason is found out later, but the difference is obvious if looked into a bit of depth on the basics of the characters given in each picture I've posted the last few days. Anyhow, he's all around shy and has a love interest that isn't brought up much, but at one point has it's own little section of the comic to show itself only to go hide back in the depth and shadows never to be spoken of again.