Welcome to the first installment of the journey to creating my webcomic, Dash Lykos. This one is about how I went about finding the idea, this post will be light on details regarding story, but I hope you find it at least a little informative.
All things start with that germ of an idea, be it a name, scene, a small piece of dialogue or overall concept that just appears out of that magical ether we try to tap into to create.
This idea started simply enough with a question “What am I going to do for 24 hour comics day?”. Last year, though I try not to think too much about it, I could not help but think of what am I going to do this year? Keeping the details away as much as possible, I knew I wanted to do something very unlike the project I am working on. I started to think of the major influences in my nerdom and wanted to draw heavily from those. I compiled a list in my brain and thought about threads these things may share and how they would mash together into an interesting package.
The List:
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Monster Squad
Star Wars
Indiana Jones
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X-Men
Transformers
This was my starting point.
Now, I have to back up a bit and make mention of one thing. My day job is located 35 miles from my home. So that means I have an average of 2-3 hrs each day to kill in my brain, so I get a lot of “thinking” done about various ideas and the such. So, a lot of stuff gets fleshed out whether I really focus on it or not.
Now, back to business.
With the list of major influences cobbled together, I started to pick and choose different elements that immediately jumped out at me.
Space-Monsters-War-Adventure-Teams-Alien
The obvious ones, right? Time to dig a little deeper. What did these things mean to me? What did I personally latch onto with each of these?
Morality-fears-facing impossible odds-loss-deception
Ok, we have a little more to chew on here. Now we can’t just put those things into a blender and out comes an idea, but with those things to draw from, the mind can start working.
Or so I thought.
Now it wasn’t that ideas were not coming, but that they were all random, no connective tissue to tie them together. The only thing worse than no ideas is no direction. I had to make some conscious choices to get this thing moving. Though what do you choose and what do you leave to “inspiration”? I needed something that would let all those influences be welcome, and not forced. Then it hit me, like a giant sack of obvious, the setting!
We are all ultimately influenced by our settings in life. So yeah, sack of obvious.
Now choosing the setting was ultimately the easiest thing, as what child of the 80’s wouldn’t want to do something set in….space. The endless void with endless possibilities.
With the setting decided, it was like a room full of dominos being set off. My commute became mental brainstorming sessions and within a week or two I had a main character, a supporting cast, and the first arc of a story loosely sketched out. Then came 24 hour comics day.
24 hour comics day went as smoothly as I could have expected, while not a completed 24 page comic, I got my introduction to the main character fleshed out, character designs started, and a opening scene I really, really want to redraw (because I like it so much I keep thinking I ripped it from somewhere but thankfully haven’t).
Most importantly, I know what this comic will be about, but we will have to get to that next week.
Next Week: The Concept Revealed! Also, some character sketches!
