Megathread The Lara-Su Chronicles and Ken Penders topic - READ PAGE 164, POST 4096

[Spin Attaxx]

So y'know what I thought of when I saw that model?

 

 

I am not sorry for this.

[Adamis]

Wow, BobR is a d*ck, again :

 

 

Frankly, I don't feel any of you have the qualifications on judging whether something is "professional quality" or not. I know I don't, and I have a hell of a lot more experience in the art/publishing world than any of you. So if you want to express YOUR OPINION, that's fine. But stating it as a blanket statement...okay, I will start banning people for that unless you can prove to me you have the chops to support what you're saying.

 

[Eitarou]

Penders speaks about the art.

 

What Kevin did was certainly of professional calibre work. Did he have access to computer equipment that could have produced an even better rendered final product? No, he didn't, and not many people have access to the level of software and hardware necessary to take it to the level it needs to be. Is it good enough for my purposes at this time? Absolutely. The comments I received from other professionals I spoke with basically amounted to what I'm saying here. They considered it professional level enough that only a properly funded project could yield better results.

 

 

 

I need to go lie down. I'm laughing myself sick.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Wow, BobR is a d*ck, again :

Aka, "don't ever criticize me, because I'm the only one who is right."

[FriendBot]

 

What Kevin did was certainly of professional calibre work. Did he have access to computer equipment that could have produced an even better rendered final product? No, he didn't, and not many people have access to the level of software and hardware necessary to take it to the level it needs to be. Is it good enough for my purposes at this time? Absolutely. The comments I received from other professionals I spoke with basically amounted to what I'm saying here. They considered it professional level enough that only a properly funded project could yield better results.

 

 

Well if Penders didn't reject that other deign he wouldn't have to deal with this kind of shit.

 

But that doesn't excuse how grotesque and downright hideous this render looks.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Frankly, I don't feel any of you have the qualifications on judging whether something is "professional quality" or not. I know I don't, and I have a hell of a lot more experience in the art/publishing world than any of you. So if you want to express YOUR OPINION, that's fine. But stating it as a blanket statement...okay, I will start banning people for that unless you can prove to me you have the chops to support what you're saying.

 

I just put this through google translate... here is what it came up with.

 

"It's not my fault the artwork is crap, you people just don't have the skills to know what good artwork is!

 

If you can prove to me that you are an expert and are better than my mad skills then I won't ban you unless you criticise my work."

 

Seriously, why do people think they can do/say stuff like that and get away with it, especially when they're creators of content. Look at that Earth 2066 thing which happened last week, that exploded due to the actions of the dev threatening to silence people. Day 0: Garry's incident to name another.

 

It's bad enough he's blaming his own forum users for not enjoying his work but to then threaten to 'silence' his critics, erm no you won't be able to do that.

[comic321]

Penders speaks about the art.

 

 

I need to go lie down. I'm laughing myself sick.

 

I almost passed out from laughing at this!

[FriendBot]

 

 

Frankly, I don't feel any of you have the qualifications on judging whether something is "professional quality" or not. I know I don't, and I have a hell of a lot more experience in the art/publishing world than any of you. So if you want to express YOUR OPINION, that's fine. But stating it as a blanket statement...okay, I will start banning people for that unless you can prove to me you have the chops to support what you're saying.

 

Well if someone posts a picture in a social network, it's pretty much for "What do you guys think of it?" kind of question.

 

And you want reaction, well here's your goddamn reaction! WE FUCKING HATE IT AND IT LOOKS DOWNRIGHT DISGUSTING! 

 

Like we can't even tell if it's even Lien-Da, I don't need to be an artist to know this is fucking garbage since I've seen much better artwork of Lien-Da.

 

So he's going to ban people if they're giving their opinions on the work.........IT'S A FUCKING FORUM! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU  EXPECT!

 

Like people like these are even considered as "mods".

[biznizz]

Okay, this is morbidly funny. https://twitter.com/Bendilin/status/459708721325551618/photo/1

 

And FuhrerMustang is still acting like a fanatical kiss ass. No surprise there. https://twitter.com/FuhrerMustang

[comic321]

Oh Lien-Da, I will miss you. I mean, even the art where she had green lipstick & looked like an echidna version of Poison Ivy was...decent. This right here? This makes children pee themselves. If there was anymore LSC merchandise, her face would make a great Halloween mask.

[Dejimon11]

Oh this is hilarious https://mobile.twitter.com/ThatsMySonic/status/459730841296314369

[Solly]

Penders speaks about the art.

 

 

I need to go lie down. I'm laughing myself sick.

Ken, buddy, hearing that it looks this way on purpose isn't helping anything.

 

The more I read this guy's writing, the more uncomfortable I get. He's weirdly dedicated to telling a story most people aren't seriously interested in, and he doesn't take criticism the way most adults should. I'm not trying to sound mean, either- I'm actually kind of concerned. 

 

So now we have a 3D render and the other day wasn't he going on about voice actors too?

 

Well obviously we need to find a suitable voice actor... What do you think Roger Craig Smith?

 

 

Accompanying music to enhance the effect. 

[Captain Fun]

Ken just Tweeted this and

 

 

 

This is actually frightening. This is the kind of face I see in my fucking nightmares where I try to scream but it sucks all the breath out of me so that only silence remains. 

[anna]

That sounds kind of like those 10 year olds on DeviantArt who can't take a single ounce of criticism, and are immediately defensive, like "U DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT ART IS!!!"

Nice going, Penders. You're really paving your way to success here (sarcasm)

[Zaysho]

So, while I don't have time to pick apart the... *ahem* wisdom of Penders and BobR, I wanted to drop this here.

 

I showed the image to my sister (who is not a Sonic fan, and knows nothing about this). Note, I did not give her any prompts. I asked her if it she was in a bookstore and saw this, would it be appealing to her. She said no. Then she said it looks like Knuckles in a wig, which, again, I didn't even say what it was.

 

So, you know, if any of you needed to be sure you weren't crazy, I think that's good proof (and I trust my sister's tastes and opinions... don't any of you ever let her know I said that though).

[Emperor Robrainiac]

Second, the anatomy is not wrong. It's different. Deliberately so. It's not meant to be what you're familiar with or emulate another artist's style. It's certainly not meant to simulate anything associated with SONIC. Lien-Da, like Lara-Su, like Geoffrey St. John, like Prince Elias, are alien species from another world. In other words, they're not chipmunks, skunks, echidna, hedgehogs or anything part of the furry world. THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES is hard core sci-fi set on an alien world, depicting a culture in some ways like ours yet so very different.

Regarding the creepiness of the character, that's exactly what's intended. Lien-Da is one of the villains of the story, and I was getting worried for a bit there when the reactions I was getting from young teenage girls through women in their late 20's and beyond was that the character was "cute". 

 

 

Good god, did this guy just pull the "It's the artstyle, its supposed to look like that" card? I see that crap all the time on Deviantart, mostly from kids.

 

Dude, just because it's meant to look like that, does not excuse how bad it looks. There is such things as ugly and bad artstyles.

 

Also, it's fine and all that you want to make the character look threatening... However, this picture that's been going around is creepy for all the wrong reasons, not because she's supposed to be a villain. 

[Mick Mundy]

What I would really want to see is someone take this render and do their own rendition of this character and make it the way that it should be done, just to prove a point and to have people oggle the other image than this god awful one that is being presented. 

 

Someone should really do that. I want to see it so bad. xD

[The Egg WAH]

This mans ego is just far too big, how much hate and negative feedback is it going to take for him to finally realise just how bad all of this is? How does he not realise that his first wrong move was battling SEGA and Archie and having characters adored by many fans basically ripped away from them all because of his ego and greed?

 

Please Ken, just stop...

[Ratcicle King]

You know what? I get it now, all this time I've been trying to think where have I seen a style like that, I remember vaguely something just like that, the same style, the same horrid 3D, and now I finally remembered.

Be afraid, friends, BE VERY AFRAID.

[Indigo Rush]

Looking forward to Laura Kong and Lien Kong in Pender's Kongicles.

[Jason Berry]

The fact is I recruited the first Sonic fan into the pro ranks of the Sonic series when I took on Dawn Best as my assistant. Should I not have provided that opportunity to her? In so doing, that action led to Karl hooking up with J. Axer. And those actions in turn led to Mike Pellerito taking a chance on Ian Flynn. So please spare me the snide comments as in doing so you're belittling Kevin in the process. He's every bit as good as Rafa.

So now he just credited HIMSELF for Ian Flynn being on the book. Bravo sir, bravo. It takes a massive ego bigger than a heel pro wrestler to make that kind of statement.

 

What Kevin did was certainly of professional calibre work. Did he have access to computer equipment that could have produced an even better rendered final product? No, he didn't, and not many people have access to the level of software and hardware necessary to take it to the level it needs to be.

 

He made it on a crappy computer, so it's okay! Ken, bad or good, the kind of CGI artwork shown here hasn't been done since the early 90's. ANY computer out there right now can do a better job than this.

 

The comments I received from other professionals I spoke with basically amounted to what I'm saying here. They considered it professional level enough that only a properly funded project could yield better results.

 

 

Funny how we NEVER hear from these other "professionals".

 

As for retailers I spoke with, they considered it on a par or better with the level of quality seen in the Sonic books, to say nothing of other comics on the market.

 

 

Somehow, I doubt that.

 

Look, I get the drawing is radical, a departure from what came before. The main reason I put it out was to make it clear from this point forward nothing is ever going to be the same. I've provided links to what came before for those that need it and wanted some resolution - which they'll get - but I'm going for a much broader audience.

 

 

Fair enough, but you still have to make them APPEALING in some way to draw that audience. I assure you that this isn't it.

[Conando]

You know what? I get it now, all this time I've been trying to think where have I seen a style like that, I remember vaguely something just like that, the same style, the same horrid 3D, and now I finally remembered.

Be afraid, friends, BE VERY AFRAID.

 

Hey now, man. DK had an angelic singing voice, there was that. Don't lump this train wreck in with DKC.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oN3JX-bf14

[Sonictrainer]

 

 

 

I spent far too much time on this but I was trying to figure out exactly what was giving it such an odd… ‘feel’.

 

I’m not a 3D modeler by any stretch but I was just trying to figure things out. I think I narrowed down what the biggest issues were, though:

 

The eyes, as a whole. The pupils aren’t really ‘that bad’- it’s mainly the eyelids and especially those goddamned eyelashes that were causing the problem. The eyelids don’t contour to the shape of the eye, so it causes some issues. But those eyelashes… they resemble one of those ‘sleepy dolls’ where you tilt them back and their eyes close. I had a look at a view Dreamworks and Pixar animations to see how they handled eyelashes- they generally don’t get very detailed with the eyelashes and the main point is the impression of them. A thick line with a few strands coming off of them pulls off the illusion well enough.

 

The teeth. Actually, not the teeth, but the gums. Again, I looked at ‘pro’ renderings and the teeth aren’t usually too detailed- it’s mainly texture work. Gums don’t show unless it’s an extreme push of an emotion, which I generally don’t see this to be.

That this isn’t a ‘neutral’ expression doesn’t help but… it’s mainly those elements I think that’s throwing it off, facially. If those were changed I think it’d do a lot for the overall quality.

 

 

 

The characters are not supposed to be humans. They’re not supposed to be animals- not any earth animal you know. They’re not even supposed to be considered anthromorphic, from Pender’s recent words.

 

They’re aliens.

 

So why not make them look like aliens.

 

These are some good points

[Wittymations]

Second, the anatomy is not wrong. It's different. Deliberately so. It's not meant to be what you're familiar with or emulate another artist's style. It's certainly not meant to simulate anything associated with SONIC. Lien-Da, like Lara-Su, like Geoffrey St. John, like Prince Elias, are alien species from another world. In other words, they're not chipmunks, skunks, echidna, hedgehogs or anything part of the furry world. THE LARA-SU CHRONICLES is hard core sci-fi set on an alien world, depicting a culture in some ways like ours yet so very different.

 

Sooooooo... he needed to rip these guys from the Sonic comic book series for what reason? To turn them into ugly aliens with no connection to their origins in any way?

[Jason Berry]

 

 

 

These are some good points

 

This is fantastic. Who did this? Also, where did the extra Lien-Da model come from?

 

 

From Bob R

Frankly, I don't feel any of you have the qualifications on judging whether something is "professional quality" or not. I know I don't, and I have a hell of a lot more experience in the art/publishing world than any of you. So if you want to express YOUR OPINION, that's fine. But stating it as a blanket statement...okay, I will start banning people for that unless you can prove to me you have the chops to support what you're saying.

 

 

"If your not a professional artist, you don't have a right to criticize or be banned!" Oh brother.

 

I may disagree with Penders on a lot of things, but I can respect the man. He was once a great writer for the series and contributed a lot. While a bit egotistical and delusional at times, tends to be very respectful and polite in the way he talks to others even when they are insulting to him.

 

BobR on the other hand? He's this guy.

 

 

Lefou from Beauty and the Beast. He's cheering on Penders and just happy to live in his shadow. Only difference is while Gaston was well loved by the town, the same isn't true anymore for Penders. Also, BobR tends to be even more damaging to Penders PR than Penders ever could be. He's been very abusive and hypocritical as a mod on Penders forums. You can't swear on Penders forums, but he has. And as an example here, he'll ban you for ridiculous reasons when it comes to criticism. He will defend Penders vehemently no matter how small an issue it is to the point of being annoying. Penders seriously needs to get rid of him