Introduction

Edenworld Saga is a SciFi / Fantasy comic created and illustrated by Chris Crontiris and edited by Jason Lanum.  Additional editing provided by B.T. Chimeramechaic.  The site is built on WordPress using a custom ComicPress theme modified by Vermifuge.  The team is based in the San Fransisco East Bay Area.   All except for B.T. who presides over a swamp deep in the heart of Indiana.

Edenworld Saga chronicles the struggle of Lyron Jotun.  With the assistance of his friends, they attempt to survive in a world that has outgrown their kind.

Preface

Edenworld’s origins can be found in a PSX video game called “Xenogears.”  I fell in love with the idea that mecha could be ‘alive’ via divine creation just as the many religions explain our own existence.  I crafted a FanFic that described an alternate universe of the story that developed over time.  The comic has gone through at least three different incarnations leading up to what you see today. Each new version has brought new ideas to the universe, incorporating more technology to balance the fantasy.  In the interest of making the story original, I introduced three mecha personalities.  They would go on to chronicle the history of the machina in one part of this world.  As the universe evolved a mirrored side of the world emerged. I introduced three new mecha to tell the side of the Jotun that inhabited that world. I made this decision in part because i felt too many SciFi or fantasy genres are humanoid centric in the way the story unfolds.

So now we enter a world were humans were defeated by monsters and machines. Now What would that world look like?

The Author:

I was originally interested in becoming an artist because I liked animals, dinosaurs and monsters.  I constantly practiced drawing until they were no longer a challenge.   As I grew older I was influenced by the  fantasy movies and cartoons of the eighties.  By my late teens my interests shifted from fantasy to SciFi. I took college courses in painting and figure drawing while training myself to draw in an anime style.  Much of my work consisted of mecha based on gundam models I put together in my spare time.  My imagination has always been fueled by the bizarre and macabre of mythology.  Over the next few years I developed my art and the story behind comic you now hopefully enjoying.

Chris’s Statistics

• Gender: Female
• Age: 28
• Height: 6′
• Blood Type: B+
• Influences: Mecha & Dragons.
• Sign: Scorpio / Metal monkey.
• Education: Chabot Community college in 2002 with a associates in General arts in the spring
• Favorite colors: Emerald green and silver.
• Favorite Food: Wor wonton soup, Prime Rib, Spumoni Ice Cream.
• Favorite movies: Fight Club, The Goonies, Short Circuit, Indiana Jones Series.
• Favorite musics: Hybrid, Fatboy Slim, bBnjovi, Mr. Scruff, Basement Jaxx, Jam Project, Best of Unreal OST, Aphex Twin, Daft Punk, Justice, The Steve Miller Band

The Comic:

When I make a new comic page, I typicly use a pre-written script that I had submittd for Editing and finalized through jason lanum. I take a scene or a block of text and I plan what will happen by thumbnailing or pre-sketching all my comic panels day to day on a sheet of paper. i can plan camera angles, check flow, and experiment with panel shapes before I do the final drawing. The final drawing is sketched onto a pre-rulled sheet of type A DELETER brand comic book paper, size B4. because the size of this sheet is very big, i cros a line through the middle of it and draw 2 pages per one page of paper.

Deleter
Equipment
Script and Thumbnails

rather then useing a photo blue pencil, i use a sharpend 4H derwent pencil for under drawing, and a  papermate sharpwriter #2 mechanicle pencil for darker lines and easyer scanability. If I need to errase, I find the “pentel Click erraser” is much easyer to use then a big block erraser and it saves on useing up the pink erraser tips on your pencils. I scan The side of the comic paper that i just completed on a cannon lide 30 flatbed scanner, and the 300DPI greyscale jpeg is imported into Adobe cs 2 for cleanup. Dust and scratch marks can be manually cleaned up useing a fine errase tool, or lassoing a dirty section and then going > immage > edit > levels to toggle he brightness and contrast. from this point, I apply various shades of grey on a layer under the line art layer. the line art layer property should be set to ‘multiply” to see the layer under it. while painting and adding contrast in the panels and try to find new ways to apply brushes, filters, or overlay layers to convey texture and make the world around the charecters more interesting.

I do not use ink. While inking provides better contrast to your comic pages, i find it to be an unnesessary extra step in the process of getting a non-color page or 2 out the door in a given week.  there is no one way to do a comic of course, so I suggest aspiring webcomickers to experiment and see what works for them and what they dont have the patience for.