We are back with a new project!

The Alice Demon's Gate project crashed back in 2018. Now, we are making a fresh start, with a smaller team, just Petra Brewitz and I, and a shorter story.

Back in 2015, when we were working on the A Rift in Time photo comic, which we managed to finish and publish, we discussed making a series of four connected stories. Alice Demon's Gate and The Return of Maple White are both part of that story suite.

The reason why we have started working on The Return of Maple White, rather than continuing with Alice, is that Maple's story is much shorter, and easier to tell.

If all goes well with The Return of Maple White, we just might decide to tackle Alice: Demon's Gate again.

Alice is back!

Alice and Agnarr face off against a giant spider. This is a standalone picture, Arachnophobia II, not part of the storyline in Alice: Demon's Gate.

The Alice team is back at work after a summer hiatus. We had a planning meeting today, and work will proceed, with focus on finishing the first draft of the manuscript.

Haldor Half-Ear

Haldor Half-Ear is played by Jesper Andersson.

Haldor Half-Ear is one of the main characters in Alice: Demon's Gate.

You may wonder why there are Deep Ones and a T-Rex in the picture. It's not a spoiler. We just decided to have some fun with the picture.

Battles, bloopers & some changes

We are slowly, very slowly, moving forwards. The picture above is a small part of a larger battlefield picture.

Our main problem is the same as most projects like this has, a lack of funding. It does not stop us, but it does slow us down.

Bloopers, on the other hand, aren't a problem. When they happen, we have a laugh, fix the problem, and move on.

A funny blooper can actually provide extra energy.

We are doing a couple of visual changes. For example, the adventure was originally set during winter. We are changing that for two reasons:

• Winter campaigns were very unusual 1,000 years ago. The logistics were simply to difficult to handle.
• We may shoot some backgrounds on location, and it is getting warmer. The snow is gone. We can add snow to scenes, but it is time consuming, and the results vary. It is better for us the less work we need to do. Better for you too, if you are interested in reading Alice: Demon's Gate.

We are also changing Alice's sword, Illi, a bit. The inscriptions on the sword used to be in relief, but that makes the sword difficult to clean, so we have changed the inscriptions to be in a metal of a slightly different color instead. Makes a lot more sense.

That is it for now. Back to work!

Blood and Gore - in 3D

Blood and Gore-day!

I've been busy working on blood and battle wounds. The results look pretty good, I think...in a horrifyingly painful way.

When I do stuff like this, I work while wincing.

I was pretty happy when I saw the test render though.

I've done blood and gore before. Notably in our previous graphic novel, where we had one pretty horrific scene. (If you have read A Rift in Time, you know exactly what I mean. If not, I'll spare you the details.)

Previously, I've only done it in 2D. This is the first time I am doing 3D blood and wounds.

Doing things for the first time is part of the reason we are doing this. We want to push ourselves in new directions.

Style Experiments: Laborec vs. Soldier with Spear

Lennart Guldbrandsson as Laborec

We are trying out some new tools to create the graphical style we want. The picture above was created using Daz Studio, AutoPainter, and Affinity Photo.

We are also optimizing the workflow a bit. Rendering this image was about 8 times faster than before. This is really important when making a graphic novel.

One problem with 3D is that it is difficult to make faces that look right. They tend to have stiff expressions, and be a little bit off. So, we are using live actors for face shots.

Laborec is played by the author Lennart Guldbrandsson.

For comparison, check out below what the picture looks like if we use 3D only.

Laborec, 3D only version

As you can see, there is a lot of difference. The version with Lennart Guldbrandsson wins hands down.

Blooper of the day!

We were trying to record brief presentations of the Alice: Demon's Gate team members. This was my fifth try.