Summer Heat!

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It's been really hot out the past few days. Sunday, Emi and I finally took care of the yard! 2 yards of pea gravel was shoveled, wheel-barrled, dumped and distributed all afternoon. I took care of the shoveling and wheel barrel duties while Emi smoothed it all w/ a rake. After hours of sweating, we finished it up. And it looks absolutely wonderful. For 2-3 yrs, it's been dirt. Ugly dirt. Muddy dirt. Dirt w/ mass weeds. Dirt w/ rock mixed in. Gross.

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As well, I shot more of the dio out there plus some singles of Scrap Iron to post on Joedios.com. The 85+ heat made my figures pretty rubbery. The Blueshirts were effected most while the NeoVipers were pretty stiff. The difference? In 2002, Hasbro used a harder plastic. By 2006, well, they went cheap. Even my HISS tanks were suffering out there. Now imagine if these guys were real in those heavy suits in that heat. OOF DA!

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That's about it for now.

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Until Next Time!

UP AND DOWN
AND ALL THE WAY AROUND...

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The last few weeks have been fairly busy.

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I went to my 1st appt w/ a new therapist to try to get my head straightened out. I am a very stressful and anxietal kitty kat. The first meeting went well and it led me to seeing the regular doctor to find a routine drug to take. Paxol. I took my 1st yesterday and well, it wasn't bad. (I have to tell myself that over and over.) I mean, the side effects. So that's that. I have an appt monday to see the therapist and I should have almost a week of pills in my system!

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On the dio front, JoeDebriefed has hit another snag and my stuff isn't posted. This bugs me greatly simply because I NEED a place to have it shown. As it stands, I am an underground dio artist!

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Which brings up Episode 2's Chapter 1. It's still being worked on and all but THIS time I have an ending to the whole shebang. Which is different than Episode1 where I spent months sleeping on it. Yes, literally sleeping on it (which means, I wasn't thinking about it at all, right?). But I came up with some ideas (via Final Fantasy : Advent Children) and it should be pretty dope.

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Thomas is a happy lil critter these days. Kody just got out of school. Other than he will be attending summer school to get his writing under control, he had a wonderful last report card and this year was quite a step for him. Next year, it's middle school! That's 6th-8th grade for those who have Jr Highs instead.

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Until Next Time...

UP THE IRONS!!!

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I'll admit it. I'm a Maiden fan. And for some strange reason, all the chapters involved in my dio, "Transformations" have Maiden song titles. Just a lil fun and Episode 2 won't be any different. And with that in mind, Episode 1 is officially wrapped up! I shot the last section of the dio and originally, it was to be in Chapter3. Ch3 would have been a long chapter and when going thru it all, I found it to be too long. So I chopped it in half and created Chapters 3 and 4. A few slight tweaks and 2 new covers and I was good to go.

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So let's talk a lil about what's going on. I look at it as a cans of Doom, a bit of Aliens and a shot of Stephen King. I thought it would be fun to mess around with things. Originally, the monsters were going to come from the Venomized Troops (aka V-troops) but I departed that idea. Just how would a Snow Wolf or Desert Scorpion turn into an 8 foot lizard OR a f'n red monster with 4 legs and gnarly claws??? Sure, I could have written it that Overkill really messed around with the dna splicing but I decided to go a different route. A more horrific route. Besides, I never liked the idea of humans becoming monsters. I like monsters as monsters, y'know?

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The main influence was the movie Doom. Say what you will about it. I loved the dark, creepy, blue-lit tunnels. I loved the air of suspense and the fact you never really see the monsters. I was going to try the same effect but man, it is so difficult. So in Chapter2, you don't actually see the monsters full on. You see parts of them which lends to more suspense. By Chapter3, you get both creatures and see what they are really fighting. And I'll admit it, I was too lazy to figure out a different light scheme for the Retreat sequence. (that would be the last Lobby sequence) In any case, I was toying around with endings and finally found one that worked for me.

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This is not the GI Joe you grew up with. It sure isn't Hasbro's GI Joe. It's not the cartoon. Not the comic. And certainly, not anything Devils Due has been doing. I have a lot of pretty anal ideas regarding my Joeverse so my verse doesn't equal YOUR verse. And that's ok because in theory, the dio is my story. And like fanfiction, it goes where it wants. BUT I wasn't going to make it so weird and outlandish that it's not remotely believable. Certainly, the cartoon had more weird ideas, yesh???

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In any case, I HOPE a lot of questions come up because Episode 2 will reveal a lot but it will also show that... Well... The author feeds the reader what they want. And don't think for a moment that I don't have it planned that the viewer is misinformed. ;) In any case, Episode 2 is coming together. The 1st 10 frames are ready to go. Chapter1 will be pretty long and if Ep1's Chapters 1 and 2 were like totally different stories, hopefully the same will happen w/ Episode2.

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I'm having to do a lot of thinking how Ep2 will play out. It's gotta be bigger and better but added things can't take away from the story. I have a lot of ideas that need to be fleshed out. It will also be a further look into my Joeverse. Just for kicks, I'm providing the link that gets you to the Chapter page.

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Until Next Time...

Almost there...

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Doing a dio is a lot like film work, I figure. I bet a lot of the same terms are thrown around. "Sequence", "Principal Photography", "Crap, NOT AGAIN!!!", etc. In my case, Principal Photography is done for Episode1. The next step is to review the shots, see if it fits with the story (or vice versa) and then start adding the dialogue as well as any effects. I've sorted thru everything and made some changes.

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The 3rd chapter will be cut in half. The 2nd half becomes Chapter4 because it was getting too long. That means, Chapter 3 is ready to be posted. In theory. I have to come up with a cover for Chapter3 now. :( Chapter 4 shouldn't be too far behind it. I do, however, need to head back into the garage and take a few more pics to fill in a few blanks. So close!

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Until Next Time...

The Analistic Approach

or

George Lucas Style in Effect!

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For awhile now, I've been kinda bugged about how the titles were working out for my 'big' dio. I say 'big' because it's the 1st dio that I've put a lot of thought, effort, sweat and tears into since "The Ultimate Weapon". That 1st dio was all trial and error and I used a pretty piss poor program to make it. I can't even look at it and it is currently not posted anywhere. It's VERY long and nobody has an afternoon or nite to get thru the whole thing.

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In any case, when starting work on the sequel to "Transformation(s)", things just weren't jiving. I was thinking in Star Wars terms, maybe too much. The original title was simply; "Transformation". And then each chapter would have it's own title, like a book, right? Well, the way I had created the poster for "Transformation", ain't nothing felt right. So I went back to the drawing board, looked at what I had, discussed things with a couple of people and in the end, I revamped them.

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I decided, if Star Wars is the generic overall series title, then what's MINE gonna be called? "Transformation"? No, that was what the story was called, but not the overall series. So I set out on Friday to fix the problems. I also decided to call the sequel "Episode 2" as opposed to "Sequel" cuz well, "Episode 2" just sounds better.

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First off, I came up with what I was doing. I looked at Luke's title pages and got some ideas from that. G.I. JOE had to be part of the title to show that this was a GI Joe dio. It'd be obvious to anyone who looks at it, but I just wanted the clarification. But it was NOT going to be GI JOE : Transformations. I was thinking of doing many stories under the same sort of name and Transformations was 1 very particular story. I came up with "Chronicles".

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G.I. JOE : Chronicles.

Episode 1

Transformations

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I actually changed the name of the dio, made new covers and had to repost the 1st chapter over on JoeDebriefed.com. The way it was originally posted drove me up the wall. I like the idea of having the 2 covers and THEN the story on the next page. Not cover then story.

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Ok, so I got the "Transformations" title for Episode1 because frankly, it IS about Transformations. That'll be explored a little bit more in-depth in Episode2 which does NOT have a title. (Chapter1 of Ep2 however, does.) Each episode is made up of chapters, right? Each book is made up of chapters, right? And usually, the author comes up with neat lil titles for each chapter. I tend to be REALLY bad about figuring out titles so I started using Iron Maiden song titles. :D

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It became:

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G.I. JOE : Chronicles
Episode 1

Transformations

Chapter 1 : Quest For Fire

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Chapter1, originally, didn't even have a title! In fact, the original chapter was supposed to be a stand alone dio but I started getting all these ideas and blam, "Transformations" became more than just a 1 shot dio w/ an open ending. Check out the covers!

In terms of Chapter 2, titled "Fear of the Dark", what the reader sees for the cover is the Chronicles cover again and then the Chapter 2 cover underneath. Chapter 3, Here to Eternity will follow the same formula. In fact, it's a standard I made for my dios. I could've tried to jam EVERYTHING on the same page, but it made no sense. In dvd terms, it's like a box set. You have the box cover, then the individual dvd covers each with it's own episodes (errrr, thinking SW here).

Anyway, I got it all fixed up and am quite happy with how things turned out.

Until next time...

The Making of "Transformation"

Chapter 2

Fear of the Dark

Part5

The Story

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I hate hindsight. I hate how it's 20/20. When I did the 1st chapter of "Transformation", it was going to be a stand alone story. It was supposed to end like a lot of my other dios. It was open-ended. But for some reason, I decided to expand on the idea. The original story was kind of a jab at how Hasbro actually makes their GI Joe figures. It's the only way to explain why we get some pretty darn swell figures and some pretty darn pathetic ones.

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There are little things in the 1st chapter that bug me. As it stands now, this whole thing of "Transformation" is considered Ep1. I don't have a nifty title for Ep1 yet, other than "Transformation" which is kinda lame. Someday, I'll reshoot the cover and call it something entirely different. It's a Star Wars thing. Remember, Lucas eventually called our beloved 1977 SW Episode 4, A New Hope. That was a trip for those of us who don't pay that much attention.

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Anyway, the plot thickens and starts to really get into the meat of what the story of "Transformation" is about. The 2nd chapter is aptly labeled Fear of the Dark. Tho I used my best attempts on a limited budget, I did my best to make the 2nd chapter seem like it was in the dark. Unfortunately, it's not dark enough. I was aiming for a Doom/Aliens look and well, you see what I got. *chuckle*

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Chapter2 opens w/ the 1st RRTS (which has, unfortunately, no cool nickname). Comprised of Lt. Graydon, Stalker, Beach Head, Snake Eyes, Bombstrike, Gung Ho and Footloose, the team (sans SE) are sent in to retrieve a missing Snake Eyes. On their approach and from an earlier report, things don't quite sound right. There are no Cobra sentries posted outside nor is there any sign of Cobra equipment. When the RRTS land and enter the lobby of the installation (which doesn't have a name at this time either), they find it void of Cobra activity. What would cause Cobra to up and leave a perfectly working operation?

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After hacking into the computer, Stalker is able to get the security cameras on-line and the Joes witness a squad of NeoVipers in a firefight. They can't see the enemy, but the NeoVipers are terrified. The Joes go investigate only to find a room full of bodies. The plot thickens as Graydon and Stalker hack into the video logs of Overkill's Lab. Cobra's been messing w/ humans and animal DNA again. The chapter ends w/ Graydon pushing the squad to find Snake Eyes and to leave the installation. They ARE on a rescue mission, afterall.

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Chapter3 has yet to be published but in my mind, it all makes sense. Unfortunately for the reader, I had almost NO action in the 2nd chapter. I don't exactly show what the Joes will face. Everyone is hanging on! The main point of Ch2 was to set up the atmosphere and look of the story. I think it worked. Chapter3 will be mainly action AND it will wrap up the story. 3 chapters seem awfully short especially when the 1st chapter has a totally different feel. But Chapter3 should feel full despite the entire 1st Episode being short.

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Now apparently, my Joeverse is different than everyone else's. I use what works, make up a lot of my own stuff and disregard a ton of things. If my main 2 teams are comprised of 7 chars each, what about the other 100-some Joes running around? How come we don't see Duke and Hawk and well, the 'normal' Joes everyone wants to see and EXPECTS to see. It's because my Joeverse doesn't revolve around the ninja aspect. Or Duke. This is my GI Joe as I see it. It's not melee action on the battlefield, tho that's what the cartoon portrayed quite often. This isn't SW Battlefront (the video game) but hey, maybe in the future I'll have a big old melee. I'm into small, specialized teams that can kick booty. Ahhhhh, the things Doom and Aliens have done to me...

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Until Next Time