The VG Resource

Here's more of the rewritten script. It's probably not the wisest idea to just jump into this by myself, but I think I'm getting a better handle on the whole thing.

I rewrote the next part. I honestly hope I'm still on the right track.

(09-05-2015, 10:49 AM)E-Man Wrote: [ -> ](Parakarry flies off to resume his duties. I think he should drop a letter as a gag. After Black gets up from his back, he walks angrily away from the group.)

I really hope Red opens the dropped letter to continue being an asshole at the end of this part, only for it to say on Koopa Postal Service stationery

Quote:
Dear Koopa Brothers:

Taking another citizen's mail and opening it is considered an act of mail theft.
Mail theft is no joke - it's a kingdom offense that if you're found guilty in a court of Mushroom Law can result in up to five years jail time and fines up to 2,500 coins.

Sincerely yours,

Parakarry

only for Red to start cursing unintelligibly (RAHGGABABLGHARHGHEBABBLE) while doing the "hurt" animation and flipping around in frustration

As much as I'd like to use an idea like that, I can't really pull it off now without breaking the flow of the story. Still, even though it was originally just a simple nod to Parakarry's habit of misplacing letters in the original game, I'm up including it as a story element that leads to a similar gag in the future.

Basically, what I have in mind is that Parakarry is having letter troubles again and is looking around for lost letters. The one he dropped in the short was actually picked up by Green (it's offscreen, but the new short will show a flashback that extends to the point where Green picks up the letter) and he is keeping it until a good time to return it. Red eventually finds it and tries to read it, but it leads to a whole situation where the letter goes back and forth from Mario and his allies (including Green) to Red. Eventually, Red reads the letter, but as it turns out, it's from Black's pen pal and it's loaded with insults towards Red. Then, Parakarry tells Red that mail theft is a kingdom offense and make it clear that he won't get away with it this time. Thus, Parakarry Shell Shoots Red clean in the stomach. What do you think?

Anyway, I wrote a little bit more of the script.

try

dudes -> bros
dude -> bro
"bro" as in when Red uses it -> "compadre"

reading through it now, for some reason with the amount of times you use the word "dude" i kinda realize how
non-conducive it is to Red. Changing it to "bro" kinda gives Red a bit of a different vibe - one that's more relaxed and more modern but still lives on to this day.
Like think uh, you want more Robbie Rist than Townsend Coleman. (Robbie Rist has also done voicework in the new TMNT cartoons as Mondo Gecko (who appears in...episode 69. lol)

(it's alright on Green though - he's more of a goofball, and it kinda emphasizes his...weirdness. also "rigamarole" kinda sticks out in Green's dialogue - I used it once and it was to emphasize his goofiness then, and since he's been written completely differently. He's used it like 3 times now. Try swapping between "spiel", "rigamarole", and other synonyms for "long-winded story")

based on your writing, "bro" in various parts of the dialogue seems like it flows better than "dude" most of the time in Red's dialogue, and I mean, they're the Koopa Bros, not the Koopa Dudes, dude. Pepperoni! Totally tubular. Cowabunga!

You raise a good point, so I'll do that when I compile all the script pieces into one full script. I won't do it on this post because I don't want it to get cluttered with the final script piece I'll rewrite.

Speaking of which, it's right here!

This is it! Here's the compiled script with tweaked lines for Red.

Slightly bad news, guys. A good online friend mentioned that besides several typos that I somehow missed, the exposition in some places could use more work. On top of that, there are several places where the dialog seems forced. In any case, I'll give the script another rewrite to iron out the remaining problems. I only got clear feedback on the first bit, which is why I only rewrote that part so far.

While I was waiting for additional feedback on the first "re-rewritten" part of the script, I was finishing up that next bit of progress on some puppets.

[Image: Vgk4NT4.png]

Even though it'll make for a cool original character idea, the "Spike Paragoomba" is just a means of saving space. Also, when I ink Goombario, I might end up making his head smaller since his hat makes him look bigger than Goompapa in spite of the two actually being the same height. Besides, his original Paper Mario sprite shows that Goombario is slightly smaller than Goompapa without the hat.

Also, I finished shading most of the Big Lantern Ghost's first parts.

[Image: E6MPC47.png]

I actually foresaw the problem involving the dangling bit with his head ever since I finished inking, but I didn't want to bring up a possible workaround without getting accused of laziness. As good as my shading looks, it's does make obvious seams in the moveable parts of the puppet. I tried to shade that bit in a way that don't look at at only one position and doesn't cause too many complications, but it still hardly looks good anyway. Even the alternate take to the right hardly looks any better. I might end up trying the shading on that bit again, but if all else fails, what do you think of the idea of either using flat shading or cel shading for the characters?

In regards to that script I wrote, I showed it to my youngest sister to see if she could improve it. Surprisingly, all she mentioned that it just need to have a non-robotic delivery and it's good. Despite this, I'll show it to both my dad and other sister to see if they have a different opinion. Also, don't be shy about giving my writing any additional suggestions on how to improve it.

Speaking of improving, I experimented with an alternate shading style for Kent C. Koopa's head in addition to inking him.

[Image: 294dLO5.png]

To be brutally honest, I'm displeased with the results. I tried different variations of it, such as reducing the shading on the beak and making the contrast not so intense, but it still doesn't look good in my opinion. Even though this style makes it easier to deal with seams, I just don't like the lack of variation in the tones. On top of that, pulling off bit of subtle shading correctly is nearly impossible.

Then again, I'm not the best at cel shading, so maybe you guys could do better?

So, I went back and played around with the Big Lantern Ghost's shading. It wasn't easy and the results aren't exactly perfect, but at least it looks better than the previous version. Also, I shaded his other arm positions.

[Image: SFgXVXB.png]

I do want to give cel shading another chance in the future, but I'll probably leave it to an artist who understands it better.

With Cell Shading, instead of continuous shades, you map, or approximate, intervals of shades to be a single flat colored shade. The underlying ideas are all the same; you should shade by paying attention to the light source and the surface receiving the light.

With your attempts above, you've failed to correctly represent the surface of Kent's head which lead to his head looking like a flat cookie.

I wouldn't exactly say that I failed at shading Kent's head. Instead, I was completely thrown off with the lack of tones and yeilded me average shading attempts as a result. Besides shading placement, what bothered me the most about the previous attempts were how harsh the contrast was with the shading and how I going by how cel shading usually doesn't use the same kind of highlights I use. Regarding the latter, it especially gave me a hard time because it made it harder to build the shadows without a solid "cornerstone."

Anyway, I decided to give the cel shading another try. I know that the contrast for everything is still too harsh, but I wanted to at least try to implement highlights to see if they help. Also, I took your suggestion about mapping the area to help define shading and came up with a possible solution in the form of contour lines . I plan to do this for now on every time I ink a new part regardless of which shading style I use.

[Image: NzWzlGw.png]

I made a few additional sketches for the Koopa, so I'm just about ready to ink these.

[Image: IWUhbcG.png]

I won't start inking right away since I want to ink some more Goomba parts and take care of Kent C. first, so feel free to suggestion something about my new post and I'll take it into consideration.

I drew some lines to approximate the normals of the surfaces. You have inconsistent light sources that differ from his cheek, beak, and around his eyes.

Looking at the beak, the pointy end of his beak receives the darkest shade. If you look at the surrounding normals of that area, you'll see that they're quite close so it shouldn't be so dark.

Similar issues occur around his eyes and the back and top of his head (especially that large dark brown band).

Here's my attempt at Kent:

[Image: 0rGr5K5.png]

I didn't prefer your contours, so I drew my own. Yours are fine, but I prefer to have constant slices. The vertical lines show a X slices (varying YZ) and the horizontal lines show Y slices (varying XZ). Due to my contours, KentC appears to be viewed from above, front, and a bit to the left relative to his face. I also changed the shape of his beak by pinching the area below his nostril.

[Image: dYhVsLF.png]

The light is aimed down and to the right relative to his head. So I shaded the faces whose normal pointed away enough from the light, which include faces that point downward and to the right. Note, I shaded Kent's entire jaw since it's occluded, it's normals are aimed downward, and it's simpler to one have one large shadow.

[Image: kdo7rWd.png]

I didn't see a need to have multiple shades since I made the lit surface threshold pretty large.

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