 We are excited to present a new series of interviews
featuring members of the Renderosity Cartoonist Team. Each week
these outstanding artists put the "giggles" in our funny bones, and
the "thrills and chills" in our adventurous spirits. This week our
featured cartoonist is James Roden, better known on
Renderosity as JamesRoden. Each week James provides the
thrills and chills" to the Renderosity Cartoon team, as he sends
his Tunnel Runners into exciting escapades along the
Renderosity Front Page News' Comic Strip pathways. Don't
miss a week of James's continuing Tunnel Runners adventures!
While you are there be sure to say hi to James and the rest of the
Renderosity Cartoonist Team!
Your continued tales of the Tunnel Runners, featured each
week on the Front Page News Comics Strip, has been a huge
hit on Renderosity how long have you been creating this specific
strip? The seeds of Tunnel Runners have been in my head
for probably 15-20 years now. It's only been since the Renderosity
strips that I have really had the medium to give it the attention
it deserves. The other thing that made Tunnel Runners a
reality was the creation of Bryce and Poser. I have absolutely no
drawing skill whatsoever, and without them, this series would not
exist.
The Adventure Begins
As with all great stories I know that the Tunnel Runners
has an exciting back-story, will you share it with us?
Tunnel Runners has two back stories. 1. TR is one facet of a
larger series called Requiem, which is a
multi-cast sci-fi web comic that I am doing right now. Tunnel
Runners is kind of a prelude to the larger work, and shares a
number of characters with its parent (Ray, Fionn, Moira, Ian).
2. Tunnel Runners also comes from some of my personal
experiences exploring abandoned places and tunnels in my home town
as a 13 year old kid. This was back before the Net even existed,
and I have since learned that there is an entire subculture
dedicated to whats become known as "Urban Exploration.". Back then
though, I thought I was the only one doing those kinds of things.
[laughter] One thing I especially like about the series is its
feeling of the old weekend serial movies [chapter-plays], or those
great Doctor Who reruns. Did you have that in mind when
creating your weekly strip? What I was thinking of with the
setup and pacing of Tunnel Runners was the BBC television
dramas. When the BBC lost its monopoly on television broadcasting
and the Independent Television Authority came in the BBC got into
Sci-Fi. Back in 1953, a gentleman named Nigel Kneale, put together
a serial called
The Quartermass Experiment. It was about a professor who
investigated unexplained phenomena and such. After being fortunate
enough to see the third one in the series entitled Quartermass
and the Pit, (Five Million Years to Earth as it was filmed for
the Americas) when I was very young, it really became the seed for
all of this. What other strips are you working on, or have
created in the past? Well, the source comic for all of this is
being hosted by the kind people at Spider Forest, where Requiem is a
continuing-daily. Also, there is another comic that is in hiatus
right now called Pryce. Pryce is set in the same
universe as Requiem and Tunnel Runners and deals with
a war between rival criminal factions. (Think Dashiell
Hammett and Red Harvest) What software do you use, or
does it differ with each week's strip? The whole series is
built in Poser 5 and 6, Bryce 5, an old copy of 3d Studio Max 4,
and occasional work with Blender. Image Optimization is done with
Irfanview and Macromedia Fireworks. But on the 3D side of things;
Poser and Bryce are all you really need. I know there are all kinds
of capabilities in Bryce 5 that I haven't even touched yet. How
long does it each strip take from conception to completion? On
average, Id say about 4-8 hours (sometimes of course they go much
faster)
Ian and Ray
Do you storyboard and script each strip, or do you come up with
new ideas each week as the strip progresses? Things get
storyboarded and scripted out in my head but really not much of
that goes on. Its all up here in my head already. The hard part of
it is to scrape it out of my skull in the first place. The main
thing that I do have is the big dry erase board over my computer
desk that has a running record of where everyone is, who is all
traveling together, and the current date within the comic plus it
helps me keep track of little things like who needs to be attended
to next. Outside of the world of art, what/who inspires you?
Music of any sort, really is what helps me get focused. I really
ought to put together a track list of everything that gets played
while I work on these comics. On those rare spare moments when
you are not creating comic strips, what are your non-cartoonist
artistic [and non-artistic] outlets? I enjoy spending time with
my wife and cat. Other than that, with my job (Im a software
trainer specializing in CADCAM software) and the comics, free time
is at a premium. Please share any words of wisdom for budding
Renderosity cartoonists? Other than practicing with your tools
constantly? With software like Poser and Bryce, the only
limitations you have on what you create are what you see in your
own mind, and your facility with your chosen tools. Hardware isnt
even as much of an issue as people think now, especially
considering pieces like Renderosity artist Flak [David Lloyd ] put
together with his
Siege series. Work on things constantly; be aware of your
own surroundings. Heck, I once did an episode of Requiem
that had its scenery based entirely on a section of highway I drove
on while I was on a business trip in Toronto.
Finally, try to look at things from a world wide prospective. There
are things that maybe just off camera (shadows and reflection) that
sometimes contribute as much to the image as whats right in front
of you. You can use anything for inspiration and subject matter,
what you have to do is be attentive enough to pick them out.
 "Lets Talk" with Dee-Marie
is a monthly featured column
by Dee-Marie:
Senior Staff Writer, and Managing Editor of
Renderosity's Front Page News Sept. 12,
2005 |
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