[NEW MANGA] KAKASHI: MURDER DOLLS (DAY ONE)

Day One

So, we’ve officially started the Manga in a Month Challenge. Can we produce a manga in 30 days?!

Let’s find out!

We started today with the cover. This was for two reasons:

First, it will likely be the biggest time investment barring (perhaps) the double page spread. The colors always make things take so much longer and we want this to rock for you guys. The overall quality of the final product should be on par with (or surpass) her work on the W/X Crossover Pinup.

The second reason is marketing. Since the rest of the book will be black and white and our sales and research show customers prefer colored products, we’re going to be relying on the cover(s) to advertise our Production livestreams. Which, given our current self-imposed exile from the YouTube community, will largely double as our main marketing vehicle.

Normally, we’d produce five rough drafts and pick the best from the set but given the crunch, with KAKASHI we did things a little bit differently. After three attempts we settled on the cover you see above. Our goal was to create something dangerous and sexy that could show off Yuka’s current skills. But I felt the first two, while having their strengths, fell short as a cover. So, we repurposed them.

When fully finished this rough will appear as the Chapter Page and will be used as the Milestone Card for the first series, shipped along with the book.

While this piece excellently captured the amorous nature of the series, I felt a rear view obscured her design too much and was not suitable for a first impression of the character. As such, it was repurposed to be the back cover, barring KAKASHI #1 becoming a flipbook (but more on that later).

The cover we finally settled on excellently captured the setting, the characters and their designs and we’re currently debating doing a version with Scarlett in the foreground and Jack posed on the powerlines. However, investing in a second cover is going to be a time sync that I’m cautious to take on until we have gauged fan interest in the franchise. Yuka and I will talk about this over more tomorrow and update you more tomorrow.

In addition to the cover mock-ups, two more pages of rough storyboards were finished to satisfaction, barring the final dialog sweep which will come in the last week of production to assure everything is tied together.

Overall, today was productive and fun. Another great day at the Conquest Studio. Yuka and I joked around, worked our butts off while using Mike Judge’s King of the Hill as background noise. It was a good time.

With everything out of the way and the Wonder Island line art on pause while we finish this challenge, tomorrow promises to be more productive!

YouTube Update: Once the roughs for the entire first issue are complete, we will begin livestreaming the line art in regular production streams. Thanks for believing in us!  We’ll see you in the chat!