What Ninja?

It’s finished! *passes out on the ground*

This was just a fun idea I had that also gave me the opportunity to show everyone on the crew! (Minus Nic and Nyt, our newer part-time members and resident Hat Dragon and Raid Strategist. Sorry, guys!) For anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on, I shall refer you to one of my favorite UPD inside jokes:
“Cheeko’s such a good ninja that none of the crew even knows she’s a ninja.”


Panel Notes
Panel 1: I liked this panel best before I inked in all the black parts; I was experimenting with light-on-black highlights but I’m afraid it makes the blackless personas look washed out. Oh well, live and learn, and I’m still proud of it. That is probably the nicest building I’ve ever drawn. (And put down that produce, Wings, you know we don’t have enough fountain money for such frivolities!)
Panel 2: Hey, look! I didn’t give myself all the dialogue this time! I had to digitally shrink RzR a little bit for this one; I may be interpreting it wrong, but your profile makes you look kinda short, RzR.
Panel 3: I totally forgot Doodlee’s hat twice during this comic. This was one of those times. Yay for Paint.net and the eraser tool! And tell me if I am getting across the joke of Yubria pulling up her eyepatch to look around or not. I love that joke, but I’m not sure it’s obvious enough.
Panel 4: TINY DRAGONS ARE SO HARD TO DRAW but it was worth it. I totally love this panel. The guy coming out of the store has pokemon symbols all over his shirt.
Panel 5: Lol, Yubria’s comforting hand on RzR’s shoulder is one of my favorite parts. XD You just seem like the type who would be all sympathetic like that, Yubria. The posters on the windows (behind the stupid text that blocks everything!) are an ad for 25% off of batteries, a Missing poster for a sort of lizard cat pet…thing, and an ad for the new Koala the Fluffy Dragon doll (in stores now!)
Panel 6: Love how the background on this came out. That goofy abstract silhouette totally saved this picture; I was just going to stop it at the gas station. Yes, that is a gas station. And yay for disgruntled ninjas. ^^

Btw, in case it wasn’t clear, speech bubbles were filled in with the general main color of each speaker’s skin. Except for RzR, because his skin is white, but his color theme is very black and white and so I thought this would look cool.

Little things that were oddly difficult:
-Yubria’s horns (why were these so difficult I don’t know agh).
-Doodlee’s hat and Wings’ antennae, which apparently I was incapable of remembering after the first panel until I inked everything. I also forgot the fin on Doodlee’s arm in the fifth panel and the fact that Rise’s elbows have bumps and not spikes on them, but digital editing can do amazing things!
-Those evil pillars in the sixth panel! Took me FOREVER to draw those right!
- One word: cars. Thank goodness they were in a conveniently empty part of the parking lot most of the time. I was by that time so ready to be finished with this comic that you could not force me to look up car references when they just were not important enough for me to care.
- The fact that I left out Yubria’s bag, which is very important! But I didn’t manage to work it in. Sorry, Yub!
-SPEECH BUBBLES agh I hate theeeem. Does anyone have any tips on how to make them easier to make/control? I think they came out okay here but it was REALLY frustrating most of the time. They cover up my nice drawings!

Little things I’m happy with:
-Yubria’s feet in the first panel (I dunno, I think they look like how she draws feet on her anthro-type races in her comic, Second Generations)
-RzR in general—dude was oddly easy to draw, which was a nice change of pace, esp. since he’s a GUY and I am not as great with drawing guys.
-That whole little montage of us all in the first panel
-Rise’s and Doodlee’s noses (thought they would be hard, but I ended up figuring out how to draw them)
-The gryphon ninja Wanted Poster (go ahead, try and spot it)
-How my persona came out in the first panel; I esp. like how the legs look, for some reason
-The fact that, at least as far as I can tell up to this point, I managed to keep everybody pretty near their actual original selves! The marked exception to this is the lack of Yubria’s pretty cheek swirls, but those are absent for the same reason that her coloration doesn’t show up: I couldn’t get them to look right just drawing them, and I didn’t color anybody. Hopefully one of these times I’ll get that right!

MAN that took a while! I’ve probably been working on this off and on since…what, early February maybe? Yeah, that sounds about right. This was one huge experiment on drawing comics in a bigger format. Every one of those panels was either a full or half-page of sketchpaper. I’m really pleased with how much better the details came out, even if it did take forever and scanning them totally sucks away some of the quality. I hope everyone enjoyed! ^^ You probably won’t get a comic out of me for a little while after that (esp. since I’m moving in a couple of weeks for an internship), so I hope the rest of the crew is up for some contributions!

Members of the Urban Pirate Dragons: (in comic)
: Captain
: First Mate and Repairman
: Medic and Swordsman
: Official Truck Driver and Flag Knitter
: Lookout and Officially Designated Win
: Bearer of the Bag of Infinite Holding (which has a much longer name that I can’t remember)
: Ninja Spy

The UPD’s Main Prey/Nemesis:
: Ninja Dragon

*marches off singing the Urban Pirate Dragon Theme Song at the top of her lungs, since she is the only one who knows the tune thanks to DA’s incapability of loading music*