Sgt Starnes Evaluates a Report

Born in Newark, NJ, and raised on its meaner streets, Jack Starnes was no stranger to trouble.  In and out of ‘the system’ for offenses as minor as shoplifting, and as major as grand theft auto, Jack seemed destined for a life in an institution of lower learning.  And that’s where he WOULD have wound up had he not tried to take down a Tomorrow Girl during a robbery gone stupid in the course of her under-cover assignment in the City on day.  The agent could have ended him without breaking a sweat, though to look at her, Jack had seen fit to think otherwise.  Instead, she had a clean-up squad drop by with an innocuous little panel van which ran him over to Teterboro, onto an agency jet, and ultimately to the agency’s island training camp.

Jack took to the off-world defense techniques they taught him like an eagle to the sky, and after Dr. Lender installed the “loyalty device” in his head, Jack’s service record became exemplary.  A Battlefield Promotion gave him his Sargeant stripes, and Jack’s leadership position on the team was cemented.  Quick and deft for a man his size, Jack’s the guy you want covering your back in almost any scrape, and surrounded by the lovely Tomorrow Girls, Jack wouldn’t want it any other way.

Oh, don’t worry–we already know that we’re not going to do it publishing “Tomorrow’s Girls,” or any other number of comics we venture to launch.  While it remains a labor of love, what it is NOT is remunerative.  It’s just REALLY hard to monetize your creative products nowadays.  Just ask any recording artist you admire (or have even HEARD of), and you’ll see what I mean.

So while we contemplate our outcome–be it flaming out in a blaze of glory, or wheezing out with a whimper, we are still reasonably committed to “Tomorrow’s Girls,” and we’re going to publish it as long as we can.

Now, and to the point of my post, YOU can help us do that by making a donation to the comic at www.tomorrowsgirls.com, and clicking on the donate link.  It’ll let you send us a donation from your PAYPAL account, or with a credit card.  Every single penny is helpful, so I ask you to consider making a donation of ANY amount.  It’ll help us continue to publish on schedule in the short run, and assuming we make it through this challenge to the other side, it’ll ensure that the story will get brought to a proper climax, and ultimately to an orderly end.

Now we have been doing some traveling, and running about trying to chase some new clients in, but we didn’t forget the readers!  We’re on time, and under budget with the new post which went up about 6 minutes ago.  And by way of demonstrating our committment to the story, we post some new studies for future models scheduled to appear.  We hope you enjoy them, and that you’ll continue reading “Tomorrow’s Girls.”

An Earthbound Bodyguard

A Scillation Beauty

A Morally Flexible Industrialist

Dr. Lender's Daughter and Her School Chum

Taffy crosses the street in downtown Pacific City, Washington

Kristin Clarke's Downtown Apartment

Somebody's Gettin' a New Boyfriend. Test Render for Joe Bianco

If you haven’t stopped by the comic lately, now’s a good time to get back in touch.  We’re publishing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at www.tomorrowsgirls.com.

It seems that computer hardware isn’t as dependable as we want it to be.  I was sitting in my living room doing some maintenance, and adding a few files.  I extracted a rather large graphic file from one place on the hard drive in our Dell Inspiron laptop, to another place on the same drive, and all hell broke loose.  The file table was corrupted, and the next thing you know, we can’t save files, we can’t fetch files–it is a mess.

I spent the better part of a day trying to salvage the drive.  And while we DO backup the comic frequently, we DON’T backup the little files that we all take for granted–like installed fonts, for example.  I’m here to tell you that THAT’s changed–we backup EVERYTHING now.

Well the salvage job didn’t accomplish much except to be exceptionally frustrating and disappointing.  The Inspiron is only about 6 months old, and under warranty, but to meet our production schedule, we decided NOT to send the cruncher down to Dell in Austin and lose its use for days (and still have to install all the software, and recover all the files anyway).  Instead we bit the bullet, ran down to Best Buy and picked up a shiny new drive, and replaced it.  Well, actually we replaced the old one, and then put it all back together so that we could build some recovery files from the bad drive, and then re-replaced the drive with the new one, and began the arduous task of reinstalling 82,000 updates that have been made to Windows 7 since we first turned on the machine.  At this writing we’re still doing THAT.

So, what this means to you the consumer is that we’re out $100, and about a week of production time to this little pain in the ass.  We don’t regret the decision to replace the drive outside of warranty–it would have shut down the comic for at least a week–possibly more.  But neither could we afford to do this, so we’re asking for your help.

If you like Tomorrow’s Girls, then consider going to the home page of the comic at www.tomorrowsgirls.com, and hitting the DONATE button on the top of the page.  It’ll take you to the Paypal site where you can with your Paypal account, or via a credit card, hand us a couple bucks toward our out-of-pocket expenses.  We’ll recognize all who donated when the goal has been reached, or when no further donations come in for a reasonable length of time, online at the comic site.  And if we somehow recover more than we spent, then we’ll apply the balance toward the purchases of scenic elements and costumes that our girls wear.  Unfortunately your donation will NOT BE TAX DEDUCTIBLE, so please don’t include it in your charitable giving on your 1040.  It’ll only get us BOTH in trouble.

Thank you in advance.  Now’s the time to show the girls you love them.  Donate!  And Thanks!

Captain Tom Pritchard and his Gal Pal, Dusty King

A promotional image and test render for Tom Pritchard, captain of the Bad Idea, and his main squeeze, Dusty King.  Tom’s pretty much where I want him, but I may have to change Dusty’s hair.  This model is pretty difficult to keep at a consistent length as you move it around.  I like the look a lot, but if she turns out to be a big pain in the ass to use because her hair’s always out of place, then we won’t use her.  And the model is too pretty to not use.  As always, your feedback is appreciated.

Deirdre de Carlo

Twisted, evil genius, Deirdre de Carlo in her undisclosed location.  Mostly a study for the costume, though I DO like the composition of the full frame.  I’m having more difficulty dressing Deirdre than I have for any of the other girls.  Easy to succumb to the temptation to ‘tart her up’ but I’m trying hard not to go overboard.  This outfit may not make the cut.

Bridget on the Slave Planet

I never really stop learning things while I produce Tomorrow’s Girls.  Every render teaches me SOMETHING.  Tonight, I worked on this image alone–all night.  I didn’t intend to, but I couldn’t get it right without rendering it something like 25 times.

This study was all about depth.  I needed the Scillation installation in the distance, to actually LOOK like it was in the distance.  It’s a lot harder than it looks.  I accomplished the image by using a 3d model figure of a fog.  It sort of looks like half a canteloupe, and its composed of several semi-transparent layers.  By manipulating the axis of the model, its size, and the opacity and color of the various layers in the model, I was I think, able to render a convincing illusion of depth.  But YOU decide and let me know.

Character Studies of Stacy Raffles

Stacy Raffles, an employee of a Wyoming Biotech company, is scheduled for an encounter with the forces of evil quite soon.  Stay tuned to Tomorrow’s Girls to find out how it all comes out.

Here’s a few more peripheral characters who may (or may not) eventually find their way into the comic.  The older guy is conceived to be Carmen’s Dad.  But he might wind up playing a parent for one of the other girls, or he may eventually become a client of the Agency.  The young one in the short skirt has been tentatively named Stacy, and isn’t purposed.  She is conceived to be an assistant, a secretary, or something like that.  But she might eventually wind up on one of the off-world colonies where employment opportunities are a little more varied and challenging (if not dangerous).  And the last is an image of Carmen with someone conceived to be an offworld boyfriend who we have tentatively named, Dex.

Oh sure, you guys all think that meeting a 3-page-per-week publication deadline is easy–even with a day-job in the way.  What you probably don’t realize (probably because I haven’t said much about it) is that the images you see represent only a fraction of the work going into the comic.  I not only have to render three to 8 images for each page, but I need to keep scenes in the development pipeline so that it all gets done on schedule.

This little revolving gallery includes peripheral characters not yet added to the story.  The woman in zebra stripes is Ruth, a soon-to-be-middle-aged woman, not yet purposed for the story.  She may show up as a mature secretary, a realtor, a jewelry counter sales person, a school teacher, or the waitress at the dive diner down the street.

There’s ‘Druggie Diane,’ (the ragged-out chick with the leather halter-top) conceived to be ‘background noise’ in the underbelly of the story, or possibly a future client of the Tomorrow Girl Agency.

The red-headed guy is unnamed, but conceived to work as a henchman, or a dealer (perhaps Druggie Diane’s dealer), or a worthless boyfriend for one of the Tomorrow Girls.  Possible he is both.  We’ll see.  I like his look.  He could be useful.

Then there’s Tiffany Dane, conceived to be a potential victim/client for a future episode.  Tiff’s wearing the cocktail dress.

And there’s a couple renders of Monica, and her squeeze, Rick.  Monica you will remember is the agency’s hunter/tracker.  Rick’s conceived to be a paramilitary/mercenary grunt–probably from off-world.

If you haven’t been by the comic lately, then you’re probably out of touch with the ever-evolving storyline.  I know the feeling.  Happens to me too.