Planning Sketches

The earliest days of Alternate Trigger were highly whimsical, but when the comic got a little more serious in nature (higher production values, more focus on progressing an actual story instead of merely stringing together community-based gags and references, etc.), then it became natural to plan ahead. At some point I began using rough sketches to anticipate which scenes I would need to render, and how many panels it would take to play out conversations, and so on.

At first the sketches were extremely rough, no more than scribbles and conceptual notes on what was to be said—as opposed to actual dialogue. Like the comic itself, these sketches became more refined in time, as I found them more and more helpful in the planning phase. Instead of just showing Megaman, I could sketch him in the pose I envisioned, so I'd know what to aim for when doing the 3D render. The better the sketches and the more fleshed out the text, the more accurately I could assess the flow, pacing, and visual presence of a given page, which is important in cases where I want to reach a certain point, like say a big reveal, by the end of a page so that the reader can be surprised when they turn to the next. The sketches also give me a bit of reflection time, so to speak. Sometimes, by the time I get around to 3D renders, I've gotten new and/or better ideas on how to work things differently from how it was planned in-sketch.

I believe some of these sketches were lost (deleted without thought as I added the final renders in their place), but I decided it would be fun to dig up and share the ones I do have, for the comic's few hardcore fans who might enjoy a little more behind-the-scenes content.

Please be aware, if you haven't yet read the actual finished pages, these sketches will spoil the story.

From Part 05