ElfQuest Fan Art

First a few thoughts on this one, and then on what TrollHammer posted...

Yeah, I do. "Transformers Animated" was killed in order to get it (and it's toy line) out of the way of the Transformer movie sequels.  There was also the Bat-Embargo on "Justice League Unlimited": Bruce Timm and co were disallowed from using Batman's major villains in the later seasons of the show because "Batman Begins".

Both were Cartoon Network proprieties, and both are examples of Warner Brothers doing stupid crap to keep from competing with itself.

Right, agreed -- STUPID CRAP.  Those decisions make little sense to me either.  Well... the Transformers decision might make sense, because that's apples and apples, even if the mediums are different.  The Bat-embargo never made sense to me, as I have little patience with the idea that audiences are unable to distinguish between an animated series' version of the Joke, and a live-action film's version.  Not that Nolan's films are aimed at the same young-age demographic that an animated series is thought to be aimed at.  (And the adult fans of both are perfectly capable of enjoying multiple versions of familiar characters.)

I know, I know.  Hollywood doesn't run on logic, and seemingly, Warner Bros. ESPECIALLY does not.

In contrast, though -- look at the way Marvel is allowing "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" to run somewhat congruently with its live-action MCU.  It seemed last year like they were hoping A:EMH would act simply as awareness-raising of the Marvel Avengers concepts, even though parts of the animated series are markedly different from the movie portrayals.  (Thor and Loki are quite different, even though Stark is very clearly RDJ-lite.)

Also, toys. The SciFi and Fantasy genres exist in a world where big-ticket properties MUST include the merch. "Merchandizing, Merchandizing! Where the real money from the movie is made!" More than one animated TV show or concept has been axed because merchandising it was unfeasible. IE: Cartoon Network cancelled "Symbionic Titan"- a great show IMO, not as 'epic storytelling' as Avatar but with a Buffy/ Angel mix of episodic a story arcs- largely because they couldnt find anyone to start cranking out an action figure line. Because the companies approached considered the prospect unfeasible.

Potentially a similar issue here. Toy companies want easily defined 'boys toys' and 'girls toys' to put on the respective aisles, and EQ cant be pinned into one. I can see the pitch meeting now: "Beautiful fashion-plate elves who hunt and go to war? A man with the power to make flowers grow? Are you kidding me?" "You do know figure lines are supposed to be divided into ones with mostly males and one or two females, or mostly female with one or two males, right? What's with all this equal representation? Parents WONT KNOW who to buy them for!"

Oh, do not even get me started on rants about the way toy licenses are handled or the way toys are marketed! We'd be here all day.

I'm a modest collector of action figures (I could go into reasons why they specifically appeal to me), and I'm constantly frustrated by the poor selection and the incomprehensible marketing/release decisions on the part of companies.  (Hasbro, here's a hint: when the movie comes out is when people are most interested in buying figures based on the movie, okay?  There was no earthly reason for the delay in offering the Thor and Cap figures.)

And I know that my opinion won't change the way companies are still idiots about the "boys toys" and "girls toys" thing -- but I can still call it out as stupid, and wish that someone, anyone would be bold enough to see in a property like ElfQuest to win big with BOTH the boys and girls markets.  Which is not to say I think that an EQ toy line should repeat the recent LEGO mistake (which got a lot of negative press, thankfully) of thinking that "appealing to girls" means "put pink crap all over everything".

I know there are girls who like pink, and flowers.  The thing is, those girls are hardly under-served by today's toy market.  I'm just speaking as a girl who had no Barbies growing up, but instead had the original 12" GI Joe figure, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and a whole bunch of realistic horse figures.  (I am too old to have had to contend with the original My Little Pony, thank god.)

So you market Redlance and Nightfall and Moonshade and Shen-Shen, and other EQ toys to girls.  You market more "action" oriented characters like Cutter and Skywise and Strongbow to boys. (And I hate even typing that, but that's as much bowing to reality as I want to do.) 

EDIT: Add to that uncertainty the economic gamble of EQ merch competing with Hobbit merch.  No sale.

I know it's much easier to theorize than to make actual decisions about gambling in the marketplace.  But again, I just don't believe that Hobbit merchandise, which ought to be offered near when the movies come out, is going to compete THAT much with theoretical EQ merchandise that could be aimed for summer releases.  No more than I believe that if anyone had offered a GOOD RANGE of A:TLB merchandise, it would have competed with Harry Potter.  People are going to buy both, if they become fans of both.

And, 'blasphemous' it may be, I doubt an ElfQuest movie could have made its investment back on ticket/DVD revenues alone. It'd likely be another "Treasure Planet," a good maybe even great film that couldn't break through to a large audience. With "Iron Giant" sized marketing confusion to help drive people away. In other words, a very pretty bomb. And that's not just sour grapes, I've felt that way for a long time. Being up against The Hobbit on multiple front wouldnt have helped either.

Yeah, this I completely agree with, sadly.  I've seen too many perfectly good films fail to break through to a larger audience.

That's why I started thinking that EQ would be better poised to gain attention and success as an animated series or mini-series on cable, rather than as a one-shot theatrical release.

Carol, I would love to hear about the technical process you use to transfer sketches to illustration board! I own a lightbox, which I sometimes use for things like "I have now gotten to the point where I can't erase any more, I need a fresh piece of paper" and so on.  But it obviously won't work with illustration board!

If it's blasphemy, Mirror, then I'm right there with you. 

Here's what I have been thinking for several years: many devoted fans of EQ have said, even recently, that their dream of an EQ adaptation on film would be for 2D animation first.  I personally was EXTREMELY doubtful about the notion of any live-action being involved.  I think that all-CGI could probably work, if necessary.  IMO, all-CGI works best when the character designs do not aim to produce "realistic" humans, but rather, when they are stylized; and the elves are already stylized. 

However, I've also always been dubious about doing a 2-hour (if you are lucky) EQ movie.  And while getting to see those 90s storyboards was interesting, it kind of only reinforced my opinion that that's a less than ideal format.

Meanwhile: I have the highest of opinions for the recent Nickelodeon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (and am looking forward to its sequel series, "Korra", hugely).  I thought the animation was attractive, the action very well done, the storytelling excellent and ambitious, and most importantly -- while 2D animated films have not done well at the box office, 2D television series can be quite profitable (if the channel airing them doesn't muck things up).  I've also really been enjoying things like "Young Justice", and the new "Thundercats" wasn't terrible-looking either.  "Avatar" proved that long-format storytelling can be very well-received, both critically and popularly, even in a fantasy world.  (IMO Nickelodeon didn't even capitalize on it as much as they could have and should have.)

I don't even begin to know how one would "shop" ElfQuest to studios with the intention that they should make a long-format animated tv series out of it... but I strongly believe that would be the best way to present EQ as it deserves, and would stand the most chance of it being as successful as I think we all would like.

I think you could find animators who could develop designs for the characters that might not look precisely like Wendy's drawings brought to life, but, which would be quite attractive.  And I think that for animated series, and tv series in general these days, the important thing to remember is that a lot of their profitability lies not just in broadcast, but in the ability of a series to live on in a well-produced DVD set (or in distribution methods like Hulu and iTunes, allowing fans to obtain a series directly without having to be dependent on broadcast).  Series given intelligent marketing treatment can really become cult hits. 

Now all we need to do is get someone to watch "Avatar" and then realize the potential a similar-format ElfQuest series would have.

*thumbs up*

Thank you to everybody for volunteering!  It means a lot that folks are willing to step up and work to keep this place going!

I didn't feel able to pledge the time it would take to be a mod, but like Afke, I will try to contribute by cheerleading.

Also, Treefox, in answer to your concern above: I think that the benefits of having a mod, or mods, who are multilingual outweighs the possible miscommunications that might arise.  It's by no means certain that such miscommunications WILL arise or become a serious issue, while we know that a significant constituency of this group is European, so I think it's great that we have mods who represent a lot of different backgrounds.

At least you know that it MIGHT become an issue, and that's all that anyone can ask.  If you're really worried about it, just make sure that folks who you're communicating with know that you're ESL, and have someone on the mod team whose first language is English ready to be called in if you sense there might be some misunderstanding happening.  But you're prepared already, and that's half the battle.

I just want to say in a blanket way, this is tremendously exciting, and I agree, the results are really spectacular.    

Thank-you to Windrider and Foxeye for all your hard work so far... and still to come with the next two calendars!

I think it depends on where you are trying to buy it.  In the U.S., it is possible to buy a much cheaper edition of Photoshop for "students and teachers" -- $200, as opposed to like $800-$1,000.  But you have to be either a student of some kind, or faculty or staff at a school/college/university; you might be able to buy it if you are the parent of a student, too.  And I don't know if there are international versions like that.

Fantastic!  Thanks!  Am totally going to download and save all of those.

I had never heard his name before, but clearly he was one of the popularizers of this technique of starting with simpler shapes first and then building up the detail.

*thumbs up*!  That sounds like a good way to do it, and it makes a lot of sense to take pressure off you guys doing the layout.

It will also be kind of fun to stagger the reveals that way -- it won't make us wait horribly long, but will build a sense of anticipation towards the later sets.

I have to say, I want to see all the art that gets done by this first deadline, at least.  It's been fun watching the list get filled in, and to me, it would be a bummer to have to wait years to see some of it.

All of mine can be marked IN PROGRESS.   Inks are done on all (though I may fix the inks on one of them), and Mantricker is all colored, but I still have to clean those up after scanning.

You can also mark IN PROGRESS the three down for Celticgriffen - older Bearclaw, Flam, and Lehrigen.  I've seen the inks for those, and I expect she will either have them done by the deadline, or very soon after.  (I told her to get in touch with you.)

I was able to see it, Kitt.   And yeah, I see what you mean.  I have a better scan of that piece on my computer, where the color looks a little brighter, but not by much.  What's used on Joyleaf in that collection of pastel portraits is noticeably more yellow than what she used to color Cutter's hair in the same collection.  So even when a 1-to-1 comparison can be made, Wendy seemed not to intend Joyleaf's hair to be quite the same color as Cutter's.

Also, other examples of Joyleaf art from that same year, colored by Wendy, show much more yellow hair -- such as the back cover of OQ #4.  I'm not sure in precisely what year Wendy painted colored the comics for the first OQ graphic novel collection, I think it was a year or two later, but that back-cover was colored contemporaneously with the pastel portraits collection.  So it seems to show that Wendy didn't necessarily intend Joyleaf to have Cutter-colored hair originally and just changed her mind later.

Yeah, I'm not buying it, either.

Lord Voll really can't be looked at as an afterthought, an the entire example of Willowill is of a female leader who is a VERY BAD LEADER (and a bad person), so that hardly belongs on the side of an argument in favor of female leaders.

Kahvi is also a somewhat ambiguous case.  In the OQ, you can argue that she is presented as simply a strong leader with a very different style than that of the wolfriders.  Later, she is presented as a quasi-villain, so it's difficult to assess her legacy.

I really have to disagree with the interpretation that Leetah is seen as just as much a leader of the wolfriders as Cutter is.  Pfft, no.  The wolfriders respect her a great deal, and they value her for many different qualities, not just for her healing abilities.  But I really Cutter stands foremost as the leader of the wolfriders.

Now, where you could make this argument would be in the case of Bearclaw and Joyleaf, and how Joyleaf is looked at as much as a chieftess as Bearclaw is chief. 

And of course, there's Ember.  Gosh, so many female leaders! 

Meanwhile, Olbar has really always been presented in a positive way.

I mean, as Foxeye says above -- clearly, the creators of the world/story like their strong female characters.  I think it's also important to recognize that in the times when they started writing, strong female leaders (especially warlike ones) were much harder to find represented in fiction.  Giving the Go-Backs a female leader like Kahvi really went against conventional expectations of the time. (I would argue that the character-types represented by Savah and Winnowill were less against-expectation.)

But to say that it amounts to ElfQuest having an anti-male message is silly.  "Leader" is not the only positive role that a male character can play, so there are many positive male characters in the world/story.  It also ignores the fact that while the creators' tastes (and desires to go against convention) led them to establish a preponderance of female leaders during the main story's time-period, their world's history is not without both positive and negative examples of male leaders, just as some of the female leaders are negative examples rather than positive ones.

For me, what it all boils down to is... I wonder if the person who edited that bit of the Wiki article would equally define stories in which most leaders are males as "anti-female" or misogynist.  Or, more likely I believe, whether the person just regards that as "normal", and what is unnatural is all these female leaders. 

In fact, I think EQ is pretty balanced in its portrayal.  But the key thing for me is it presents a variety of types in both genders.  I suppose I might take claims of misandry more seriously, if EQ was not only filled with female leaders, but if there was a strong thread of "males are incapable of being good leaders".  That's not the case.  EQ doesn't fit either gender into just one category.  So it just starts to look like it's someone who thinks "misandry" means saying that more than one token female can fill what are usually regarded as male roles.

By the way, would it be alright to draw the pinup pose with the back towards the viewer or at a 3/4 angle or similar? Venka's being awfully bashful and will rather show me her butt-crack instead of her front-rack *doh*

I have to say that sometimes, my favorite "sexy" pictures are that back view with a look over the shoulder.  That is VERY SEXY.  (I have always thought that the interplay between the curve of the small of the back, down into the butt, is really, REALLY nice, on both men and women.)  So I fully support the idea of that for the calendar!  (I was kind of considering using it for one of my pieces as well, although I'm not decided on it.)