The Tanks (Thoughts on Design)

Reference Shot, Page 9 - Burcke's K10 Faces Off With An Imperial PP22

One of the things I wanted to do from the outset was craft a series of vehicles and equipment that was not necessarily realistic (as the Rule of Cool dictates so much of what goes on in the comic), but at least believable within its own universe.

To that end I did a fair amount of reading and research on the internet as to how tanks work, fight, and die. There's an incredible wealth of information out there in the form of images, discussion, technical manuals, milsims, videogames, movies, youtube videos, etc etc...I basically devoured everything I could get my hands on, deriving inspiration from everything from authentic WW2 battle reports to dicking around in Battlefield 3.

The Face of A Killer: Sgt. Stone's Republican K45

One of the things I knew early on was that I had to make the tanks very distinct in silhouette and function in order to keep things A) recognizable, and B) interesting. No sense in having a bunch of samey-same armored vehicles roaming around, even if that's usually how it works in reality!

There were two basic divides in terms of design that I was confronted with initially: Cultural/technological splits, and design/function of the individual vehicles. Real armored vehicles, like pretty much every other manufactured item, reflect the inherent culture and available technology of their designers.

Top: American M1 Abrams 

Bottom: Russian T-72

In the real world, these divides are quite recognizable when it comes to armored vehicles from competing nations, especially ones that come from places as different, doctrine-wise, as America and Russia. Whereas the M1 was designed largely as a state of the art, unkillable tank-hunter, the T-72 and related vehicles were intended to be cheaper to produce and work in concert with infantry to overwhelm and defeat enemy armor through numerical and tactical superiority. These design considerations produced very different vehicles that have only superficial similarities which bely their specialized roles.

Imperial ON89

And so I went about designing both an individual aesthetic for each tank (and each nation), as well as the underlying technology and the design considerations that went into them, both to further inform my design choices and to give the whole thing a little more verisimilitude.

Each of my kitbashed tank designs boast a couple hundred "design thoughts" that place them more firmly in the world that I created for them, and is echoed everywhere from their visual appearance to how they perform inside of the story.

Just one example of this is the identical guns of the Imperial IL29 and ON89 tanks; just as in the real world, where time and money can be saved by implementing already-developed systems for a newly-developed chassis, the two Imperial tanks share a common weapon system.

Imperial IL29 Kitbash In Fabrication Phase

I also developed a whole thought process regarding how the two factions use and outfit their tanks; the tactics, ammunition loads, crew positions, common mechanical pitfalls, engineering flaws, etc. Just as the German WW2-era Tiger tank is mostly remembered for being both a fearsome weapon and an unreliable piece of crap, my tanks needed a host of flaws and inconsistencies to make them more "real". 

To this end, some of the stuff tacked onto my tanks is just silly; dig that 30mm turret on the top of the IL29. Who thought THAT was a good idea? I mean, it's cool, but...damn. Talk about a shell magnet.

Counter-Clockwise From Top: Imperial ON89, Republican K10, Imperial PP22

One of the real luxuries with creating a world from scratch, though, is that you have total freedom with inventing the conditions that cause your decisions to "make sense" within that world. Yeah, the PP2 has kind of a high center of gravity and...wheels? Well, some idiot in the Imperial design bureau really needed a promotion, and when the Arms Procurement Tzar says "We need a hojillion APC's double-quick", you get what you get...hey, at least it's amphibious too, so it's not all bad!

IL29 Doodle

There's a lot more I could say, but the takeaway I've learned from all this is: Spend some time thinking about your world! Not only does it inject a healthy dose of believability into what's going on, but it's a lot of fun to stretch your imagination out and assemble something from nothing. 

Creatio Ex Nihilo!

The Tanks (Model Process)

The First Tank

The picture you see at the top of this post was the first tank drawing I did prior to starting this project. It was just a doodle that I accidentally left lying around, and I started having people come up to me and telling me how great they thought it was, and that maybe I should consider doing something with tanks?

I've always loved armored vehicles; they're big, scary, and pretty dang cool. There's few vehicles in the world that so elegantly combine the function-over-form aesthetic with raw killing power.

Problem was, while I may like tanks, I didn't really know much about how they worked, aside from the basics. I did a heck of a lot of research over several months while I began crafting how my tanks would look and fight.

Smile!

Initially, I was just doodling made-up tanks for the heck of it. As I got into writing the actual story they'd go into, I realized very quickly that I needed to standardize their appearance, and that I needed to be able to draw them "on-model" from any angle very accurately to keep the whole illusion together.

Very Early IL29 Doodle

One of the first things was figuring out what 'era' of technology these vehicles would belong to. "Dieselpunk" was a pretty obvious choice, so I chose it and never looked back.

Inspirational Doodle For The PP22 APC

But doodling was only going to get me so far. So, I went ahead with what seemed like the most logical solution to my concept/reference dilemma - kitbashing. In November 2011, I started buying Tamiya, Revell, and Trumpeter 1:35 scale models and kitbashing them together.

Early K45

Initial experiments were extremely positive...

K45 + Very Early K10 Prototype

Things were going pretty well for a while. I think I spent around $150 for my initial batch of models, but it was worth it.

K45 Test Illustration

The real "baptism of fire" for my models occurred before they were even finished. The above illustration was created using a 75% K45 model; observe some of the goofier stuff like the raised gun-sight, boring turret-face, etc.

From this illustration, I knew I had it made. This was exactly what I had been looking for.

IL29 + K10 In Progress

K45 + IL29 + K10 In Progress

PP22 Nearly Done

ON89 + K10 In Progress

K10 Nearly Done

I ended up creating a total of six 1:35 scale tank models out of ten model sets, costing somewhere around $300 and two months of work. My main tools during this endeavor were an xacto knife, a dremel, and glue. I used a few "foreign" bits here and there (the white thing on top of the K10 is a Pepsi bottle cap, for instance), but 99% of it was from the model kits. I think I probably handled somewhere around 5,000 individual parts in the course of assembling these...and I still have stuff left over!

First K10 Illustration.

In the end, it was all worth it once I sat down and drew out the first tank for page 1. It simply wouldn't have been possible without the models.

Introduction Scrawl

Imperial Coastal Defense Battery CDD-551A

The "Introduction Scrawl" will serve as a prologue to explain the setting. It will be interspersed with illustrations depicting what it's going on about. The above image will be included in this.

This has undergone a few revisions, and I'm still not entirely settled with it...it simply needs to be shorter!

Current version:

It is the Third Era.

The Holy Empire of West-Southland, gripped by imperialist notions of manifest destiny, invaded their neighbors to the north, the People's Republic of Southland, beginning the First Peninsular Conflict - a pyrrhic struggle that would take sixteen long, bloody years to resolve itself.

At the start of the war, the Imperial forces strode across the fertile landscape of the Republic, capturing whole towns and regions overnight in a massive blitz.

This campaign soon took a turn for the worse, however, at what would later be called The Battle of Mock Creek - where nearly a million Imperial and Republican soldiers clashed, died, and ground to a halt. Degenerating into trench warfare, Mock Creek devoured two years of men, materiel, and time. But while the Imperials had been spending their time, Mock Creek allowed the Republicans to buy it.

Raising a new, more modern army, the Republican forces decisively concluded the Battle of Mock Creek and turned the war around. No longer on the defensive, they began to dictate the terms of the war to the Imperials through a series of bold and staggeringly effective offensives.

The Imperials, however, were not so ready to agree. Drawing on the vast manufacturing capabilities of their nation, they turned the countryside into an armored fortress, ready to repel or resist the advancing Republicans at every turn. The standing order, from the Emperor himself, was "Stand Fast".

And so, they did. The Republicans found themselves on the winning side, but as they were discovering, victory had a price. 

One of the units willing to pay this price was the 53rd Heavy Shock Army - an elite army group unit composed of battle-hardened troops, the heaviest and nastiest equipment available to Republican forces, and only one purpose - to find the enemy, exploit the weaknesses in his line, and destroy him.

There were many Heavy Shock Army units, but as the war dragged on, the 53rd secured its special place in history - at battles with such names as Hesh Rock, Mosh Pass, the Siege of Teul, and Kut Hill.

But this story is not about those famous battles. This is about a much smaller conflict, relatively unknown by the greater public, and even to later historians…this is story about Staff Sergeant Kenneth J. Burcke, the town of Orangeview, and what happened there.

We open on a dreary morning, mere days after the 53rd has begun their assault on this former Republican township. The outer Imperial defenses have required some dismantling, and the pieces still hum with the blood of an enemy that will not be quietly conquered…

Fig. #706A

Previous incarnation:

It is the Third Era. 

For nearly two hundred years, the Holy Empire of Western-Southland and the People's Republic of Southland have coexisted in relative isolation from one another, divided by geography and ideology. 

In the year P.W.K. 193, the Empire invaded the Republic, citing a divine right to expand and fill all corners of the globe. At first, the Empire advanced. Then, it faltered. And then…it ran.

It is P.W.K. 199, and the Empire's armies are engaged in a massive strategic retreat back towards Imperial territory. After six years of devastating conflict, the Republic's war of self-defense has transformed into a dogged pursuit of a wounded, yet still powerful, enemy.

On this particular day, in the sleepy Republican town of Orangeview, the Republican 301st Heavy Shock Army has moved in to entrap the fleeing elements of the Imperial 2nd Norjt Front. More than 40,000 men and women on both sides are committed to the action.

Of these legions, there exists a particular Republican armored unit amongst the 301st: 3rd Division, 2nd Regiment, 1st Squadron, Company B. Their unit name is "Tausen's Tigers", and as part of 3rd Division, have fought in dozens of individual battles, and are considered an elite unit.

To everyone else, and especially their enemies, they are simply part and parcel of…
The 53rd(Heavy Armored Division) 

Main Character Concepts

Main Character Concepts First Pass

Six of the major characters from the comic. The main protagonist, Burcke, is in the upper left there. The main antagonist, Ulrich, is in the upper right.

One of the things about my work is that I am heavily reliant on reference to draw things; I'm just not one of those people who draw stuff straight out of their head, and certainly not over and over again reliably and accurately.

With the main characters, I took a great piece of advice from one of my professors and put it into action: find a famous person who resembles your character, and trawl the internet, films, etc, for shots of them to use as reference. To that end, I've built up a small library of celebrity look-alikes for my characters, so that I always have a solid foundation to return to when I get stuck.

There are some pretty heavy differences between what my characters actually look like and the people they're "based" on, but the key facial structure stuff is all I really need.

2nd Lieutenant. Elizabeth Power

I do studies of each character before drawing them into the comic, trying to get their "look" right, figuring out what works, what doesn't, what elements to include or exclude...essentially developing a visual language for each person to separate them from the others.

Staff Sergeant Kenneth Burcke

It's a lot of trial and error to get the right sort of feel for each individual, and I have plenty of odd-looking sketches floating around in my sketchbook.

Burcke, Before and After

Sometimes a thematic or visual change forces me to go back and revise a previously-illustrated panel. In the case of Burcke, his introduction panel has been re-drawn three times now. Further tweaks are still likely.

Power, Before and After

Sometimes the changes are quite minor, but necessary. These last two revisions of Burcke and Power introduced more angular features, heavier blacks, and a general reconfiguration of their style to fit with the rest of the comic.

2nd Lieutenant Isaac Westerfeldt

Isaac's intro panel. He's lit a bit differently than Burcke due to the nature of his tank's interior lighting. Each character has a signature interior light color to separate out their appearances in the comic, as well as give a different 'feel' for each tank they command.

WIP2A

Need to go back and tidy up some of the lighting here.

Ditto. Actually, I should probably revamp my work on this page entirely to make it read better.

Still trucking along. Redrew Burcke and Power, third panel's still AWOL. It's intended to be Burcke sitting inside his K10 and looking somewhat commanding.

Could use some tidying.

Tidying in progress. Not pictured: reduced the halo under the K45.

This main panel came out about 10x better than I imagined it would. I think I'm starting to get the hand of this coloring thing!

Burcke looks pretty durp right now, but that'll get fixed when I color him.

Also, I'm not too sure about the dialogue here. Needs some thinking.

Not much to say, other than that I really like how Isaac turned out here.

The rest of this page is still in drawing limbo, but that's Sgt. Stone, commander of the K45 that we saw on pages 4 and 5. He's Burcke's wing-man, essentially. This panel is him kinda going like, "AWWWW YEAH, WE DOIN' THIS!"

More to come.