This week’s jam selection is Little Red Riding Hood. Let your imagination go wild on this one. Draw her as a girl, draw as a hottie mchott, draw her as a superhero, a mecha, a furry, what have you. Let’s see what you gots!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood

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Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Little Red Riding Hood
2. R3 Jam: Cable
3. R3 Jam: Re-Re-Redesign Wonder Woman

Sorry, this week’s TRDL Friday is the announcement of the Finit-e graphic serial’s second scene (chapter) which went live late Friday night.

:::

Scene 02 has been added! I hope you have a chance to check it out on the TRDL Site… then let me know your thoughts, here when you can!

Thanks for your patience, my R3 Army…

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Related posts:

1. TRDL Update: Finit-e Graphic Serial Scene 03
2. Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 03 Now Available!
3. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 02 Comments

Annotation for Finit-e: Scene 02

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Pg 9, p1: This is a view down Third Street, actually in my own neighborhood. Of course, at the time it was drawn, there was construction in progress in order to prepare for the new Light Rail line preparing to launch in the coming months. My interpretation of how that rail line would look, based on the center islands they had poured, isn’t too far off, though they ended up putting two cars side by side, so my scale is off width-wise on Third Street. In Finit-e, things are nearly-now, but a little different. We don’t have this level of density on Third Street currently, though it may happen in the coming years, as of this writing. Most of what’s seen beyond the cross street in this panel, now almost one year later, is UCSF Campus Expansion, with a taller residential tower to the left, park area, and other buildings currently planned, with structural steel sprouting from the fresh foundations on either side of the street. It’s pretty amazing. Seeing how my glacial pace makes this panel more or less a year old at the time of publication, it’s a good indicator of just how fast this area is being developed, that much of this view is already different. In this story, I’ve drawn the Giants stadium geographically a little different, in order to condense that corner of where the stadium meets the Lefty O’Doul bridge. I did the very thing I criticize shows set in SF of doing: strategically reforming geography to suit my sight lines. HA.

Also, anyone from SF will tell you we don’t have a tower of that monolithic proportion jutting out of the SoMA district. Actually, though, to the consternation of some residents, there are several tall residential towers sprouting up that make Kittering Tower seem less iconic than it is intended in this story.

Name root: Kittering Tower is named after Ed Kittering, a doomed Minder from Greg Rucka’s Queen and Country.

Another item out of place? I don’t have a Peet’s Coffee this close to my home. But I should.

Pg9, p2: A few Easter Eggs in this panel, namely my MINI and a friend’s Element. Also, in Finit-e, the Giants have become the Gigantes, representing the emerging commercial backbone of the Latino community in SF… and because, you know, it looks cool.

In reality, King Street follows from the Embarcadero, along the water, and the ballpark sits on it’s South side, between the street and the Bay, with the bridge crossing a boatway to continue Third Street beyond. Here, I’ve moved the ballpark to the South side of the boatway, and put a row of shorter commercial buildings facing a pedestrian walkway along the water. Personally, I think that would have eased the traffic congestion we deal with now that the ballpark is right on King itself. Of course, thanks to my screwey geographical tomfoolery, King is now not the last street before the water, but one back. Those nutty TRDL planners!

Pg. 9, p3: First off, that’s Tony Stark coming out of Kittering Tower. Also, the address of the tower is 306 King Street. Fun numerology references there: from the I-Ching, 06 represents conflict, and the numeral 3, in Chinese numerology represents life. Almost seems deliberate, doesn’t it?

Pg.9, pB: I tell you, trying to keep these guys reasonably realistic means I don’t have a lot of colorful rendering to enjoy like I do in the mainstream TRDL superhero stuff. On the display to the right, that text is actually a key from the TRDL Story Bible, describing the agencies, governments, programs and other interests at play in the TRDL superhero universe, broken down by the time period in which they operate. I throw stuff like this in there because…well, I don’t know what they’d be looking at, otherwise, and hell, it’s good reading. Not that you can read it. TRDL icon colors buried in the button layout around there, too.

Pg. 10, 1-4: The idea here is that this concierge is very clearly security of some kind, but Kittering Tower doesn’t employ muscle like this. He’s set up as a greeter, but he’s got a wire, and he’s a linebacker. These don’t go unnoticed by Agent Warrington as he passes.

This is our introduction to Horace Warrington, an NSA Minder. What that means will become clear as we go. Suffice to say, he’s a spy, trained in observation and intelligence gathering, among other things. Not everyone employed by the NSA is an analyst, especially Minders, who have a different skillset. Warrington himself did come up as an analyst, but has other training as well. However, in Finit-e, not every character you meet is a kung-fu master. Warrington is a suit, not a soldier. Also, the Minder designation is part of the Finit-e mythos. You won’t find them in the real NSA org charts. Of course, you won’t find NSA org charts at all. The name ‘Minder’ is a nod to one of my favorite comics, and certainly one of the inspirations for how I’ve written and organized this story: Queen and Country, by Greg Rucka. Though there, Minders are MI-6 field agents. Not here.

Name root: Horace Warrington’s name is a loose reference to the issue of terrorism in the late 20th century, as one of many cities famously bombed in pre-911 terrorist attacks. I find it interesting that Americans seem to believe terrorism didn’t exist prior to 911. Obviously it has existed around the world for generations, though European countries like France and England have dealt with periodic domestic terrorism, and the resulting authoritarian crackdown and use of paramilitary counter-terrorism troops, as a result, long before our relatively recent troubles that have brought the issue not only to the forefront of our national dialog (despite many domestic terrorism attacks prior to 911 on American soil) but to the world stage as a new international priority. The IRA bombed the Warrington Town Centre in North-Western England, in which children were killed, and public support for the IRA waned as a result. This is not a terrorism story. But the state of emergency in Finit-e is set in the same hyper-sensitive world, with respect to the fear of domestic terror strikes, that we live in today, however more extremely exaggerated for this story. However, again like the real world, much of the story here is about agendas beyond, or despite, the culture of terror-prevention.
Oh, and I chose Horace because it was a cool, nerdy name. Not that I don’t love Massive Attack, but it wasn’t an intentional homage.

Pg10, pB: How about that goggle HUD? See, you won’t get that from the other leading brand!

Pg. 11, p1: Some faces here in the crowd, possibly of interest to some. Far right, black suit and duffel bag, heading away from you? Neil McCaulley from Heat (Robert DiNiro.) Bald guy middle field? Actually not the artist, but he looks excellent, regardless. One problem with being referential and providing easter eggs is that you start to look for them everywhere. What has meaning? What doesn’t? This is the Lost paradox. Some of the people you see in Finit-e are just easter eggs. Some are important later in the story, and some are just passerby.

The atrium shot was intended to be dramatic in scale, but my earlier roughs were TOO dramatic, and I wanted to keep the focus on the main lobby, at this point, not the atrium beyond. This pencil version of the panel was abandoned, but I liked the angle…

Pg. 11, p3: Part of the fun on this comic is all the peripheral design work. All of the environmental graphics, for example, or the phone iconography here. Obviously, me being an architect, you’d expect the architecture to be a big deal, but I’ve actually tried to keep most of it pretty realistic and simple. That’s partly to ground the story in the nearly-now realism, and partly to save time, frankly.

Pg. 11, p5: This will likely be of interest to no one, but the elevators, you will note, have no hall buttons. The entire building uses the latest elevator technology, called Destination Dispatch Control. Instead of pressing a hall button and waiting in the lobby for the first elevator to arrive, with a gong and an illuminated hall lantern, a destination system takes your floor request and then assigns you a specific elevator to stand by, and dispatches passengers intelligently in groups. Here, in this ground floor lobby, we have a destination input keypad on a pedestal, and only two shuttle elevators here. Normally, you would have numbered elevators for the system to refer you to, but these are shuttles, and the keypad just tells you to wait here, rather than go around to the other, larger bank of elevators. That second bank, not seen here, which contains a large bank of shuttles. The actual office floor elevator groups are stacked one on top of each other, and served from a number of sky lobbies, which the shuttles serve. This is typical of tall buildings, which are essentially a number of shorter buildings stacked vertically, to minimize the number of full height cores. That’s a whole lot of elevator business to bore you, but I wanted to mention it in case someone wondered why there were so few elevators serving a tall building.

Pg. 12, p1: The guy walking to the right, there, is my close personal friend Pat Olstad, who famously bought a green suit and brown shoes to prepare for his post-graduation employment interviews as a landscape architect. This was a memorable decision, to me, so I honor it here.

Pg. 12, p3: This guy is kind of a pain in the ass, but reflects the general attitude in the Finit-e world, among the urban population, regarding the sight of government, law enforcement, or paramilitary personnel on city streets. Finit-e assumes the same level of heightened societal awareness of official anti-terrorism response. The general public here, just like in the real world, may be only superficially aware of the perceived differences between Federal, State and Local anti-terrorism action, and while we today here a lot about the Department of Homeland Security being very involved at all levels, in Finit-e, the anti-terrorism effort is even broader, and more authoritarian, than what we see today. A deployment of paramilitary troops is not common, but not entirely unexpected, in this story.

Pg. 12, pB: That’s Hitch Tower under construction, as in Bryan Hitch, whose work I do admire.

Pg. 13, p1: This is our first good look at the paramilitary unit that has been deployed into the ground floor lobby of Kittering Tower. They’ve just come through the same lobby entry that Agent Warrington used, and as you can see, they didn’t get any static from any Kittering Tower security personnel, which further confirms Warrington’s skepticism about the guard out front. These agents are all wearing the same basic field kit, with some minor deviations based on personal need and speciality. The field uniform and armor are visible in the Finit-e Character Matrix, but generally consist of a ballistic mesh microweave uniform, which is non-conductive and thermally insulated, and are capable of deflecting edged and most piercing weapon attacks. Ceramic armor vests, bracers, bootsheaths, elbow and knee pads offer additional ballistic protection, as well as some degree of energy weapon resistance. These weapons are not common in the Finit-e world, though primarily employed as less-than-lethal tools for crowd control and riot dispersal, and this aspect of the armor’s protective capacity is less designed to resist deliberate attack, and more to mitigate accidental strikes in close quarter combat. Each agent is wearing an insulated baklava, with higher ranking agents fitted with cowls that offer full-face exposure. The headgear contains surface stripline comm system mic and earphones, which run on a modular frequency used by each individual squad, and looped into the overall command communication array. The agents are wielding multi-function goggles which offer anti-flash, telescopic and targeting visual assistance, and some specialized UV enhancement tools. Some agents wear an oxygen filtration mask or even an independent air supply, based on their task specialty. One distinguishing detail that goes beyond the level of technology available today for well-equipped paramilitary troop equipment, but found here in Finit-e, is a magnetic weapon clamp, located on the chest armor. The concept is very simple: straps get snagged. The weapon is fitted with a special magnetic plate and interlocks, and will stay mounted on the chest plate unless the electromagnet is deactivated, by tapping the left thumb against the side of the third finger glove. This allows the weapon to be easily mounted and remain instantly available, freeing the agent’s hands for other tasks. Hopefully, that sounds cool. We’ll see how useful it all is for them.

I drew several versions of the team taking the lobby. As I worked it out, I wanted it to seem less confrontational and more like they were conducting a containment, rather than a detainment, operation. So I edited out some of the more obvious images of them rounding everyone up, though it’s implied in the Scene anyway.

It should be noted that these agents have self-identified as GCTI [Global Counter-Terrorism Initiative] which is, in the Finit-e world, the agency that grew out of the need to link the operations of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as several other domestic agencies, to both the CIA operations abroad, and the anti-terrorism operations of nations friendly to the United States. The concept is essentially jurisdictional spill-over: where we may feel like DHS powers are overly broad today, in the Finit-e world, the reactionary, preventative and even pre-emptive anti-terrorism effort is an international, aggressive and bureaucratic beast. So big, unfortunately, that it’s not immediately clear if these really ARE GCTI agents. As noted, they didn’t display identification, though they are not required to do so, and staged identification and insignia display would be easy enough to fabricate. The salient point is that citizens are accustomed to the idea that they might have to comply with official-sounding orders from official-looking agents, without necessarily questioning them.

Pg. 14, p1: That’s Pepper Potts there, just for fun.

Pg. 14, p3: So, I’m not sure if it immediately clear from a single read-through of the comic, but this agent is the one that was posing as an operator from Ray Muranje’s office earlier in the Scene, the one that Warrington tested with a confirmation key. As we can see here, Muranje’s office has indeed been compromised, as Warrington suspected. This agent is the first we see wearing a different uniform, but is with other agents in similar gear to the supposedly GCTI-field team.

Pg. 14, p5: A gentle threes thrown, here.

Pg. 14, pB: What’s this? MORE brand alignment?

I originally intended to use all photo refs for poses in Finit-e, to try and add some realism to my figures, which can get too stylized sometimes for the kindof story I’m telling here. Then I realized the project was getting soooooo sllooooowwww that I decided to use photos on certain scenes where I really had something in mind, and not in others. Warrington calling in from the lobby was an early image from writing the story, and hell, I don’t draw trenchcoats often, so I hired a supermodel to help me out. Weird ass eccentric, though, refused to wear shoes. They stifled his chakra, I think he said.

Pg. 15, p1: The document being passed around by these agents is supposed to be a detainment order for Agent Warrington. It was actually created from the Most Wanted lert put out for Native American political actvist Leonard Peltier in 1975. Peltier is believed by many to be innocent of the murder charges levied against him, though his parole petition was denied under President Clinton. Bob Robideau admitted to a gathering of activists in 2005 that he pulled the trigger, protected under double jeopardy, but it hasn’t led to Peltier’s freedom. Anyway, so, innocent man perhaps unjustly detained by the authorities, could be relevant here. Ha.

Pg. 15, pB: For those unfamiliar, Fleet Week is an annual spectacle celebrating the US Armed Forces, where ships enter the Bay and dock at the various wharfs and piers and hold special tours and such, and the Blue Angels do a show above the city, and so on. It’s the only time in my life where having jets fly over you while in town seemed almost normal, though it never stops feeling juuust a little creepy. Also, I like these joggers. They have TRDL R3 spirit!

Pg. 16, p2: You may notice a certain TRDL Redesign of K.I.T.T. in this panel. Also, an unmarked white Mercedes van. I never trust unmarked, windowless vans.
You can see here that the GCTI agents, if that’s what they are, have cordoned off the access points to Kittering Tower and are blocking traffic.

My roughs were pretty accurate in this chapter. Many of the scenes weren’t reworked much in pencil stage. Less MINIs here, but otherwise similar enough. You can see that panels shifted around a bit, though, as I went.

Pg. 16, p3: This is our first time meeting Chelsea Byrd and John Nomic, two currently unidentified individuals who appear to be operatives, either undercover or otherwise unaffiliated with any official organization involved here. Are they cops? Are they crooks? By 2047, you’ll know!

Many aspects of the Finit-e story grew out of the evolution of my role-playing-game campaigns set in the Dystopia: Hostile Takeover [D:HT] system, my house rules based on the old R. Talsorian Cyberpunk rules, which were in turn the most faithful and engaging gaming material based on the true classic cyberpunk literature as developed by William Gibson, Walter Jon Williams and Bruce Sterling, and later evolved by Neal Stephenson. D:HT involves plenty of rules rewrites, different gear, weapons, equipment, character generation and so on, from the original Cyberpunk rules, but the primary difference is that it is a cyberpunk ‘prequel’, set in a worldscape that isn’t dissimilar to what we see here in Finit-e: more tech, more paranoia, more corporate power, but less overt tech and rebellious fashion cyberpukery. The campaigns I ran, in turn, were partially developed out of a novel I wrote in college, which was, to say the least, unpublished, though edited. Some characters, corps and themes were carried from the novel to the game, and some of those have carried through to Finit-e. As a result, any of my old players who remember those campaigns will find many things familiar, as Finit-e continues. Some characters have appeared in either the novel or the game, prior to this comic. One of them is John Nomic. In my D:HT campaigns, he was John Autonomic, a pompadored corp muscle of slavic descent. So, Nomic here is based on John Autonomic, but not exactly the same. Fear him more, fear him less? We’ll see.

Pg. 16, pB: There’s another of these mythical SF skyline shots, showing Kittering Tower hovering over the lower-rse buildings around it. Also, the black helicoptor panic being referenced here is rooted in a true conversation I had with one of my best friend’s parents; they had moved to Arizona, both educators from California (one born in Arizona, point of fact) and were surprised, in socializing with their new neighbors, to learn that there was a fervent and hand-wringingly knowing gossip about black helicopters being spotted out in the desert, unmarked, mysterious, dubious in intent, which were married with the conspiracy theory that the Feds built an underground internment camp beneath the Denver airport to hide political prisoners. Straight-faced delivery. So, I was inspired to reference that. I’m an X-Files fan, so it certainly isn’t uncharted territory for me, but I was surprised to hear about retired community members all agreeing about such things over daiquiris.

Pg. 17, p1: Here we meet the back of house crew in the van, Lupe Garcia Castillo and Dick Kumosaki. Lupe’s laptop is actually checking out character galleries published on TRDL’s Dystopia: Hostile Takeover pages, so she’s multi-tasking. In fact, I’ll do you one better: a character seen in that page has a relationship with Lupe herself, though we may or may not see much of it referenced in Finit-e. It’s kind of a circular reference. Otherwise, we’ve got a thumbs-up thrown and some verbal commonalities with my own manner of speaking, so those are references for those who know me personally, more than anything. Lupe’s line about the security here is a homage to one of the best lies of dialog in Heat, delivered by Dennis Haysbert, as the doomed driver of the getaway car: "There has not been a hard time invented, that I cannot handle." Ah, yes.
Last thing: the fact that her personal firearm is mounted in memory foam in the van is a reminder of how detail-oriented and anal Lupe is. She’s a straight arrow, which will be important later.

Pg. 17, p2: You can see in the background a few agents are applying a sensory film on the glazing at the lobby level of the Tower. This blocks most radio frequencies and scrambles UV and thermal imaging systems. It is a line of sight system, so it isn’t perfect, but it helps mask what’s going on inside from both visual and auditory surveillance. The agents are using a modular frequency comm system that, unless it gets hacked, can’t be tuned to externally. But as we read in the panel above, Lupe and Dick are all over it.

Here’s one of the rough for the film-application scene. I must have roughed it about 6 times, all told. I knew the angle I wanted, and what was going on, but it seemed difficult to capture it the way I saw it in my mind’s eye. Adding the van in the foreground, and then later, having John interact with the agent in an effort to move closer gave me the foreground action it needed.

Pg. 18, p2: We saw on pg. 10, the Kittering Tower lobby actually leads to a large atrium space. If Warrington had initially wanted to escape, he could have potentially fled into the atrium galleria, though there are agents there as well, at this point. However, Warrington was initially boxed in by ducking into the telephone bank, and is now trapped between the front entry and the main lobby where the agents have been rounding people up. He can’t get past the agents at this point, and has been holding off from being collected into the area where the building users are sequestered, to afford him a bit more time to try and communicate with his office and secure back-up. But time has run out for our man…

Pg. 18, p4: This was a panel I’ve had in every thumbnail of this scene. It’s one of my initial images associated with this moment, and I love the pacing here.

Pg. 18, pB: Note the news chopper in the distance. See, I make an effort at continuity!

Pg. 19, p2: In retrospect, I don’t know if this panel works as intended. I was trying to show that moment of panic, where your adrenaline has kicked in and you get tunnel vision. Unfortunately, it reads to me now like these guys are in a Matrix void. HA! Ah, well.

Pg. 19, p3: Where else do you see details like spilled cocktails? Not from the other leading brand!

Pg. 20, p3: I tend t avoid lots of sound effects and motion lines and the typical muzzle flashes that are so commonly stylized in comics, but certain applications still work for Finit-e. This was one of them. I like when sound effects are isolated.

Pg. 20, pB: Yep, that’s Flight of the Conchords, right there. Cheeky, yes. But hey.

Pg. 21, p1: Who is this Royal, of whom they speak?

Pg. 21, p2: Finit-e is not a violent, gory action comic. It’s more of an espionage procedural. However, where the story demands it, there will be action. I’ve mapped it out the way some of the filmmakers do that I admire: periods of calm interrupted by short moments of intensity. So here, even though Agent Warrington has been shot in the back, it wasn’t important to see this happen and have this dramatic blood splatter and toppling figure. The important thing is that it happened, he’s down, and they’ve got him, alive or dead. It’s actually difficult restraining yourself as an artist, at least for me, because I tend to want to draw something flashy in a scene like this. But anyway, I think it works.

Pg. 21, pB: This final shot in the bottom thread, during this Scene. It’s another of those shots I’ve envisioned since the onset of the project. I’ve mentioned here and there in the TRDL R3 Forum, that this comic was in development for several years, and is now in production for the next 333 years, so over that time, I come across elements of other projects (film, comics, books, real life, etc.) that have corollaries or similarities to what I have in this story. Most of those coincidental moments occur later in the story, or are thematic similarities I don’t want to talk about prematurely. However, this is one I can mention now: there was a scene in the film The Island, in which a helicopter is hovering at the top of a tall building, and there were shots in that film that are very similar to this panel. That thrilled me and horrified me, naturally. I can’t speak to everything else that happened in that film thereafter, at this point, but it was neat to see, all the same, I guess.

End Scene 02

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Related posts:

1. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 03 Annotations [BONUS]
2. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 01 Annotations [BONUS]
3. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Dossier – [Warrington]

If you followed this link from the button in the Finit-e comic reader, then please do post your thoughts on what you’ve seen in Scene 02. I know it’s sure to be frustrating, to get into a string of sequential pages and then have it end… that’s the downside to publishing by scene or chapter instead of single pages… but understand that each Scene will be published in it’s entirety. Some are longer than others, and as you go, you may, I hope, be compelled to go back and re-read earlier Scenes. There’s straightforward storytelling and then there’s Finit-e. Hopefully, you enjoy the book and find the journey worth taking, as it’s definitely a journey book more than anything.

If, on the other hand, you HAVEN’T read the comic yet, and came here looking for it? Visit Third Rail Design Lab and click away!

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Related posts:

1. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 03 Comments
2. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 01 Comments
3. TRDL Update: Finit-e Graphic Serial Scene 03

This is Saula, a oposthuman assassin for the Scorpius Guild.

Concept, Design and Art: Joao Marques
Origin and Background: Thom Chiaramonte and Joao Marques

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Saula [Lambda Scorpii]

Name: Unknown
Affiliation: Scorpius Guild

Attributes:

Melee: 30
Reflex: 30
Muscle: 30
Vigor: 30
Acumen: 10
Observation: 40
Will: 30

Life: 120
Influence: 80

Abilities:

Body Armor: All Scorpius Guild members wear a thinshield armor weave offering resistance from physical and energy based attacks [20 AP].

Melee Weapon Affinity: Saula is an accomplished fighter, proficient in multiple hand-to-hand melee weapons. He specifically employs a custom blade and chain, which he can use in both offensive and defensive capabilities. He can strike at targets within close range by extending it’s chain to maximum length, parry attacks by spinning or grappling with the chain, strike targets with the flat or edge of the blade, and use the weapon to perform both offensive and defensive moves simultaneously by gripping the chain at an intermediate length between the handle and the head of mace head.

Saula may utilize any ranged melee weapon, without prior training, employing the Reflex as shown in his Attributes. When using his custom blade and chain, the following specialized attack and defense bonuses apply:
- +1CS to strike using the blade and chain as an Edged Attack
- +2CS to Parry using the chain as a defensive guard
- +1CS to Grapple an opponent or an opposing weapon with the chain
- no multi-Action penalty to Grapple or Parry, then strike in the same round, against the same target, by using the chain to parry or grapple and swinging the blade around the opponent’s defenses to strike.

Hand-to-Hand Combat Training: Saula, like all members of the Scorpius Guild, has trained extensively in a variety of martial-arts and is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat. In addition to the weapon-specific bonuses above, Saula also enjoys a +1CS when making a Slam or Stun/Shock Save.

Origin:

With the death of Helvetia, apparently at the hands of a skilled assassin, the posthuman development program leads of the Northern European Achievement Initiative, several national programs within the European Union, the US’ Posthuman Planning Directorate, and representatives from the Posthuman Development Initiative met in a rare, secret counsel in a decommissioned US military installation in the Fiji Islands. Though many had collaborated or worked together previously, individual program security protocols prevented many researchers and program leads from communicating freely after the advent of posthuman deployment in the world. However, this meeting was a sober one: someone had targeted a posthuman for death, and executed them on the public stage. The nations represented in this meeting saw the event as a warning.

The American delegates from the PPD were adamant that a covert operation be employed, overseen and executed by unspecified American agents, to ferret out and eliminate the assassin, and his or her employers, that made the attack on Helvetia. The NEAI representatives argued that so little evidence was found at the scene that pursuing the attacker would be a waste of resources for all involved, and that the approach should instead be a surveillance dragnet in Western Europe, focused on the civilian sector, tuned to listen for chatter about posthuman activity. The representative of Portugal’s posthuman program warned that provocation could lead to further attacks, though the Spanish representative mocked this attitude, and declared the assassination only possible due to the general weakness of the posthumans being developed to date, boasting with confidence that the Spanish National Hero, Gitano, would survive a similar attack with ease. The meeting grew combative, with members of different programs accusing the others of conspiring to weaken or undermine rival programs, particularly among the European delegates, whose national rivalries remained sensitive despite the common bond of posthuman representation on behalf of the European Union. Throughout the heated meeting, the Americans watched, and studied the others. At the close of the largely fruitless and increasingly paranoid exchange, the American delegates of the PPD abruptly stood and announced the US’ intention to pursue the assassin by any means possible. The risk to the American posthuman machine was perceived, by the US administration, to be too great to allow the precedent of posthuman murder to exist.

Three days later, the chief delegate for the PPD, Dr. Crane Maldeer, disappeared from his home in upstate New York. His property was investigated by the FBI, a PPD internal security team, and even visited by the Liberty Group’s 21st Sentry. No sign of the missing researcher was found, save for a single drop of blood in his study. Further examination of the specimen found spinal fluid in the stain.

The following evening, packages appeared in the personal residences of every delegate involved in the clandestine meeting. No sign of forced entry was present, no indication of trespassing. Within each parcel, wrapped in dark red tissue and sealed with wax, was a perfect cube of human flesh.

The intelligence agencies of each country immediately went into crisis mode, at first withholding their incidences, then sharing the information among each other, chilled to discover an emerging pattern. The flesh was sourced to Dr. Maldeer. None save the individuals themselves knew officially that the meeting had occurred, but the message to the posthuman agencies was perfectly clear: investigation into Helvetia’s assassination, and the existence of her murderer, would be lethal.

Only the Americans would covertly continue to explore the existence of this posthuman assassin, and would soon suspect that more than one individual was involved. A league of assassins was feared to be operating behind the curtain of the most sophisticated intelligence community the world had ever known.

:::

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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Related posts:

1. TRDL Character Factory, No. 46: Antares
2. TRDL Character Factory, No. 47: Lesath
3. TRDL Character Factory, No. 59: Helvetia (Deceased)

http://marvel.com/universe/Silver_Sable

It’s Silver Sable, the mercenary and Nazi hunter from the Spidey books…

I don’t think there’s much great SS art out there, thanks to her popularity in the 90s… let’s tip the balance this week!

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1. TRDL Tribute: Silver Sable
2. This Week Jam: Kim Possible
3. This Week Jam: Mary Marvel 02

This is a piece done for the This Week Jam, the subject being one of my favorite characters, from one of my favorite creators: Hellboy by Mike Elder God Mignola.

Hellboy is almost, but not quite, as difficult for me to tackle as Superman. The iconic nature of his look is so defined, especially by Mignola’s style, that it’s tough to get him to look like who he’s supposed to be. That said, I was very proud of how this came out. The drawing was missing something, when I first drew, scanned and started coloring it. I had done it by memory, so I couldn’t decide what was missing…until it dawned on me: wicked mutton chops! Once I added those, the thing worked. The drawing is a clear homage to one of my two favorite Hellboy stories…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute : Liz Sherman [Hellboy Animated]
2. This Week Jam – Hellboy!
3. TRDL Tribute: Poison ivy

We have This Week jam here: the character, Mike Mignola’s Hellboy! Any version. Go nuts! Make the Elder God of Comic Art proud…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Hellboy
2. R3 Jam: Liz Sherman [Hellboy]
3. TRDL Tribute : Liz Sherman [Hellboy Animated]

New Submissions, New Parameters, More Art!

Hey gang

It’s a good time to make some more subject requests for the jams.

For the This Week Jam, I would recommend that you propose names that are maybe a compromise between the really popular and the really obtuse. The more intriguing or nostalgic the selection, the more likely you’ll get responses to the jam when the time comes. Any character is within limits: present mainstream comics, classic comics from your past, old favorites, pulp characters, movie heroes, anime characters, video games, etc.

In addition, I’m going to make a tweak to how this works: I’m going to fold the R3 Designer Jam into the This Week Jams, to make simply R3 Jams. The Designer jams have incredible potential for creativity and fun, but being 6-week jams and being off the pattern of the quick weekly routine, i think they get lost. And that’s unfortunate for folks who have proposed that we draw their own creations, for example.

So, going forward, I still want you to give me the following:

3 characters from any property, in the This Week fashion

and

3 design challenges: either propose a design what-if (draw a character gender-bent, like a she-Thor) or a redesign (redesign Scarlett Witch!) or a creator-owned design (draw your interpretation of a creator-owned character)

I will pool these selections into the master pot and pull at random.

This way, each week we might have a new character to draw OR a new design challenge, but a new topic will occur each week regardless. AND, all will always remain open.

So send me your nominations via PM or email, and I’ll add them to the mix!

I hope this will also help spark some renewed interest in the design and personilzation of all the jams. Make your mark on these characters!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. R3 Designer Jam FAQs
2. R3 Designer Jam: Amoeba Man and Company!
3. TRDL Tribute: Mecha Maiden

This is a piece done for the This Week Jam, the subject being Deunan, from Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed.

This was one of my all-time greatest influences, primarily in manga form. Shirow is probably my greatest inspiration in terms of technology illustration, mecha design, comic pacing, and the basic concept of a Landmate-style powered armor. I have hordes of drawings of Deunan and Briareos from back in the day, which i might dig up. Here, though, I think Deunan, in her pre-eyepatch period, is doing just fine without the big guy…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. This Week Jam: Deunan [Appleseed]
2. TRDL Tribute – Toni Hogan from Go Dorito’s Iron legion!
3. TRDL R3 Exclusive- Wifebot(tm) Revealed

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