Mar 26
6 / 6
Mar 27
4d ago
choccyprophet
4d

Hey everyone!

I’m Prophet, a writer who likes telling cool stories, and I’m looking for 1-2 artists to join me and my small team in creating a short sci-fi comic. This will be a for fun, unpaid project.

About the Project:

The story is set in a future where Earth has been cut off from the stars by an impenetrable layer of space junk. The last remnants of humanity that remain have been corralled into giant continent-spanning megacities by the Nostradamians. This group is a shambled together fusion of backstabbing world leaders and insane zealots who espouse a religion called 'The paradise plan' to the masses in order to control them. They believe that only when humanity has truly reached its lowest point and has completely given up hope, it can truly be saved by the 'Final Ark' which will take them to the stars. This despair is enforced by the 'Salesmen', equal parts missionaries and secret police, who ensure that those who wish to see humanity return to the stars through any other route are thoroughly extinguished. However, at its heart, this is a story about a girl from the slums who just wants to see those stars—no matter what it takes.

If you want more information on the story, there's a draft version of a script I wrote for it attached to this post. I hope you enjoy it! Although keep in mind it is very rough and it's likely that a lot of changes will be made between this and the final story.

AIMS:
- The comic should be around 10-15 chapters long, 20 at maximum if the chapter length is quite short
- I am aiming to release a chapter every month
- My goal is to use this initial comic as a springboard for future, more ambitious projects, so if you enjoy working with me and my team it'd be a pleasure to continue working with you

Who I’m Looking For:

1-2 artists, ideally with a strong grasp of background art, but all passionate creators are welcome!

This is a for-fun project, purely about storytelling and creativity. If it somehow gets popular, I’m more than happy to split any earnings fairly amongst the entire team.

Commitment & Deadlines:
As I said previously, I’ll be holding myself accountable to deadlines, as I have an annoying double whammy of DCD (Coordination and organisation disorder) and ADHD, I want to ensure the project stays on track. So please only join if you feel you can commit to the schedule!

If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, send me a PM on Tapas with some examples of your work, and I’ll share my Discord so you can join our team server.

Thank you for your time and I'm looking forward to cooking up some fantastic stories together!

Prophet

Beyond the Veil script1

Biku
4d

seems like a lot of requirements for a volunteer project

choccyprophet
4d

Thanks for your response! I'm very new to this, could you please explain how the requirements are too much?

Thank you!

Aleksei
4d

Okay, yeah. It's a lot of work for a volunteer project. As you say that you are new, here is what you should take into account:

1- How much time it takes to do the project: When you said 'short', I thought a graphic novel short. From 20 to 40 pages maximum. That's a short project, and it will take 3 months, take or give depending if its with colors, the style, how much free time the volunteers have, etc.
But you presented 12 chapters, and no insight on how many pages per chapter. That's A LOT of work and compromise for a volunteer job, specially if you want to publish monthly. That means around 20 pages drawed, inked, colored in less than a month. That's a lot. For no money. So you must seriously rethink the size of the project.
2- You should had left a link for the draft project. I know that you may feel protective of your work, but specially for free work, an illustrator want to know in what is he diving into. And the writing says a lot of the project. Because one thing is the shape of the story. that you have writen there, and another its about what is really is the story. The one word that perms the script. Is it 'love'? 'friendship'? 'fear of death'? There is a lot of concepts that drives the writing, and we can't know just looking at the trailer. That's what is done to sell the project, of course, but you are looking for people to work with, not to sell it too.

3- You should also add some comic pages of what you expect to see, so people around that skill will look into the opportunity that you are offering. Its good practice, because you are looking for partners, not employees.

4- I don't know if you considered it, but if you are serious, try to add to the project the monetization via Kickstarter, or the like. I have never done that, but with the promise of money if the goal is reached, its much better motivation to work than just 'the experience'. Because, you know. People need money to eat, not experience.

With all that, if you want to work in partnership with someone, by all means, do it! But start with something little, not something that will take more than a year of planning, because as you have said already, you also lack the experience of managing that kind of work, and more than one year is very taxing. Sorry if I am assuming some things here, I am just telling how I see it from the post.

The best of lucks in you project -be it this, or any other!

choccyprophet
4d

Hi! Thank you so much for taking the time to give such a long and in-depth response, as someone inexperienced its really helpful to have this information:

  1. I admit this was definitely a shortcoming of my pitch that comes from inexperience, I wasn't thinking about helping people understand the structure of what I want to do and considering how realistic that would be for a small group of volunteers to manage. I'll take this into better consideration from now on.

  2. I did leave a link for the draft project, its under my name highlighted in blue at the end of the post, but I appreciate its probably not the most visible. As for theme, I didn't want to get too bogged down in the story part of my pitch, just because I know I could get into that for a long time. Although I definitely see what you mean, I hoped those main ideas would be noticeable in the script I wrote as a draft.

  3. I understand the logic behind this, and after this post, me and the two artists I'm already working will try to draw some samples of what we're looking for.

  4. This is a good idea, but I wouldn't feel comfortable creating a kickstarter when I'm almost completely new and inexperienced, with the pressure that comes with delivering for backers. That's the main reason I wanted to do a 'for fun' project, because there's less pressure and it gives me an opportunity to learn through experience. I should've clarified that because of that the monthly deadline isn't hyper strict, its just preferred to help the project stay on track.

Again, thank you so much, this has been very helpful to help me to understand these things. From here, as I said before I'll work with the current members of my team to try to create some drafts and maybe even a full chapter to use as physical demo's before looking for any more members. That said, if its alright I'll leave this post up just in case anyone still happens to be interested, even though the post isn't perfect.

Thank you again!

Prophet.

EncryptedWriting
4d
Biku

While I agree, I think this post is written excellently. It is asking for something but it is also explaining their thoughts/reasoning.

I feel like this particular person has asked appropriately for help. Yes, it is a lot of work, but this is a good lost by OP.