How do we make a Hatman comic?

My friend, and fellow 3Twin, Steve, suggested that I explain what all goes into a Hatman comic from conception to flash file. First one of us (Andy, Steve or myself) has an idea and we discuss it over the phone or through email. Then one of us writes a script (usually the one who had the original idea) and the other two read over the script and edit it for spelling and grammar (Andy is usually the worst a spelling and I am usually the worst at grammar) Then usually the original writer rewrites the script or one of the other 2 will do the rewrites. On occasion we have sat together and done rewrites. We did this with Heroic & Incredible which turned out to be one of our best adventures yet. After the writing process is finished we decide the order the scripts should come out in. Sometimes it doesn't matter when a script could come out, other times it is very important that a certain script come before or directly after another one because a new character may be introduced or something crucial to the plot may need to happen in a certain order. Once we figure out the order we assign the script to an artist (most of the time Steve, but sometimes others). Regardless of who is drawing for that issue, Steve will go through the script and figure out where the page breaks should be and then he creates a layout for the cells with comic life on his wife's Mac book. He then will print out the cells for himself or the other artist to draw in. Sometimes he will do a quick sketch of what he would like in the cell other times he just hands the blank cells on to the artist for them to do it their self. Then the artist draws in the cells in pencil and later goes over it in pen. After that we scan the drawings into the computer and I take over the coloring process. I usually just use MS Paint to fill in the shapes but sometimes we need something a little more special and then I take the colored picture into Photoshop and I will add any elements to it there (for example the different colored beams of light in the disco scene after color is restored to Hatman in Its Not Such A Wonderful Life). During the drawing phase I gather the audio. I have the various voice actors come to my house and record their lines directly into my computer using my Creative sound card. Each character is recorded separately because some of us do more than one character and certain characters may need to have some special effect done to the voice (i.e. I do the voice of the Leprechaun and we pitch it up slightly so he will sound smaller). After we have all the audio recorded either Andy or I will edit the audio with SONY Vegas Video editing software. We save the files as large wav files. Then I cut them up into the individual pages (adding the page turn notification chime) and I reduce them to a smaller mp3 file I play around with each ones compression so that it will be the smallest file yet still sound nearly as good as its wav counterpart. Then we take the colored pages and the compressed audio into SwishMax and put the comic together with the page flip animation and add any other animations that may be needed. Finally we upload it to the web and I send out an email to those who are signed up for our newsletter informing them that we have a new Hatman comic.

3Twins Cookout (looking back)

So, we had the 3Twins cookout/meeting/party on Sunday. It was a very good turn out. Everyone who said they were going to be there came with the exception of a couple of people who had a last minute family emergency, and one who's family decided to throw him a birthday party. I think we (the 3twins) learned a lot about our fans and our site. First of all we put together a survey which was pretty insightful on what things are liked and what are not so liked on our site. Steve is going to compile the data into some sort of tangible form so we can have an even better grasp of that but I think that it will help us to shape our site in the future to better fit the personality of our fan base as a whole.

We had the meeting video taped for future reference and today I captured that on my computer and watched it while doing so. I was somewhat surprised that the actual meeting portion of the time took only around 13 minutes and we really didn't convey as much as I think we thought we did (if you can follow that). Also, the setting was in our friends home opposed to last year where it was held in a restaurant party room. I think that last year felt too much business and not enough fun and this year was the total opposite. So, for next year we will try to find a half way medium.

One draw back is that Andy, Steve and I live in Garret Indiana, Grand Rapids Michigan, and Schoolcraft Michigan (respectively) we don't get to have a meeting with the 3 of us all together very often, so we met the morning of the meeting and had to compile what would happen when and such with only a couple of hours of preparation. Which I think because we were focusing on making sure our guests were going to have a good time we sacrificed a little bit about what our plans our for the future and some of the pitfalls and lessons we have learned over the last year.

We also played a trivia game based on our site and that seemed to be pretty fun for everyone. Eric was the ultimate winner of a Limited Edition 3Twins T-shirt, with our runner up, Tom receiving a glossy of the first Hatman comic cover.

At the end we passed out 11"x17" posters of our comic covers to everyone and I was really surprised that a lot of the people wanted our autographs. I really look forward to doing this again next year with the possibility of adding a second one in the winter perhaps.

3Twins Cookout (looking ahead)

I haven't posted in a while so I think its about time that I did. This coming Sunday we are having a big 3Twins meeting/cookout/get together for those who have been involved in 3Twins and a couple of lucky fans. Hopefully, its going to be really fun. But being that I'm one of the main guys running the show, I'm really starting to feel anxious and a little bit nervous about it all coming together and actually being fun. Last year we did something similar but it was just a meeting in a private room at a restaurant and I think it lacked the element of fun. I mean it was probably very informative but we want this year to be fun. This year Andy and Steve (the other 3Twins guys) are putting together a trivia game where some of the people at the meeting will go head to head against me. I know of a couple people already who are studying the website and I'm sure I'll have some tough competition. I've also been working on a Star Fetched Trailer to debut at the meeting (for more info on what Star Fetched is just read my first blog). And its coming along nicely, but like everything we do I always want it to be better. We're planning on having some giveaways and some prizes as well. So, hopefully it'll be a really good time and help get people pumped up for the next fiscal year for 3Twins.net.