At first, I was a reader of many various amateur fan fictions and professional projects published on the web and in magazines like Heavy Metal. Some were, to put it bluntly, really poor.

They were either so badly written that the images were reduced to a sad afterthought, or the images were awful but with a story that was reasonably compelling enough to suffer through.

Around 1999, I began to see a new wave of artists using 3D graphic applications to create very interesting sets and characters. With my interest piqued, I began to work in the medium I'm most comfortable in. I began to write scripts based on unscripted images collected in various websites I had seen on the web.

One artist responded with a very positive reaction. Timo was very excited when I sent a proposal for a fan story he had rendered and let slip onto the web. We exchanged ideas for several months until we were both confident that any work we did would be to the levels we both expected.

Around 2 years ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue asking if I would script an original project that Timo had begun but was growing overwhelmed with due to having to perform both the artwork and script. After some negotiation over the schedule and specific job responsibilities were settled, I began writing for Timo's Ms. Midnite/Justice Legion project.

Timo had developed a full universe of characters and a massive overall story arc that took two years to produce. We're at the end of The Justice Legion story as we had planned.

Along the planned arc we developed, new characters stood out. I saw a chance to create a stand alone story based on one heroine I had really wanted to tell.

As a kid, I had seen Chariots of the Gods and was mildly interested in a what if story based on the dubious claims made by the author of the book the film was based on.

What if humanoid aliens had come to Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago and genetically intervened in the development of life here? Would this explain the near superhuman exploits of being in the earliest of human history?

So I wrote a story of a female humanoid alien who quietly appeared in a world already shaken by events shaped by native metahumans. She was mistaken as yet another metahuman who had been accepted fully by the 'good guys' at the Justice Legion. The public named her Mega*Girl. (One of our fans came up with her name as a reward for his enthusiasm).

Ticha is my very first professional and independently written character. Everything else I've written for belongs to the artists who created them.

And that's how the ball started rolling.




Since I am primarily a writer, the simple list goes like this:

A computer that is connected to the internet via a high speed connection like a DSL or cable modem.

A web browser.

A word processor.

That's the basic configuration. Beyond this, some special software tools do come in handy.

Even if one does not produce the images themselves, the ability to add dialog balloons to a picture is very valuable. In my case, since I use a Macintosh, I use a third party application called Comic Life Deluxe.

This is an application that allows one to place an image in a fancy frame and add various styles and colors of dialog balloons to several image formats.

Being able to add text to images relieves the artist from that part of the workflow, allowing him to focus on other work.

Beyond Comic Life, a basic command of a regular image editor like Photoshop is very important, given that Comic Life does not allow basic color correction or major cropping of a picture.

My workflow goes something like the following.

First, I create the story in basic outline form, based on the specifications established with the artist I work with. From there, a series of chapters are generated, with a fixed number of pages per chapter established to break at dramatic points.

The artist produces a set of images based, in part, on any dialog I can produce as well as specific examples of work he has done in the past to set the poses, angles, lighting and colors.

Lately, I've been fortunate in that I have a large gallery of work by my artist. I've been able to compose a visual prototype page to act as a cue for the artist.

Substituting my character and backgrounds for his, he is able to produce original images that are unique, yet did not take a great deal of reorganization with the software application he uses.

Once I receive the final raw images, I place them in a folder and place them into a working order. The current project I work on requires a minimum of three images per page. One large and two or more smaller images.

When the picture order is set, I open Comic Life and use it to make the pages for the chapter. The color, shape and overall page size is set in the application, so all that remains is to drop the ordered pictures into the specific large and small image windows.

Since Comic Life output isn't as 'correct' as the raw images, I use a graphic application to restore the accuracy and depth of the images.

Once I am happy with the final image pages, I upload them to the website image server. My artist and I select an action or drama oriented image and use that as the basis for him to generate a cover page for the chapter.

Thanks to the use of existing models. sets and props, the creation process is accelerated. We can do up to 30 finished pages comfortably in a week if we only do one project at a time.

While I'm on the subject of models, props and sets, I have to thank my artist Timo for his tireless work on my behalf, creating hundreds of images for the stories we tell.

And there are some unsung heroes in this process. A legend in the 3D community is known by the name of Davo. He creates and sells models and sets to the Poser users of the world. We make use of many of his products, which are sold via an online store hosted at the Renderotica website.