The Enloe Trials Premier - THE BARON'S CRUSADE

[Stronox]

I just want to add my praise for your creative talents to what everyone else has already said. I loved reading this, and found myself looking again and again at all of the artwork (because to me every aspect of this is art at it's finest). I may be a bit behind, but I really like the overall look of the Stormies and seeing the subtle details in each of the figures. I also really liked the uncaring/bored look of Tylin Gere, it is so perfect for an Imperial Baron. Like so many others as well, the look of the scenery and set pieces are top notch!

I could only wish to be able to create something on this level...Can't wait to see more!!!

[YAK_Chewie]

This was a really well made chapter. I've read most of this photo novel already up to this point, even though I'm not a prequel fan and my interest in the EU has become smaller and smaller as it has gotten more and more silly. But enough about that. This series has had some great moments, and I like the customs I've seen. Lots of creativity and inspiration. In fact, last night I modified an extra boshek head and placed it on a VC AT-AT commander body so I could have my own quick custom of Tylin.

I should also mention that the sets used here look fantastic, and every shot looks excellent. Very well photographed

Thanks Scarrviper, I appreciate the support and kind words. And that's awesome that you made your own version of Tylin, that's really saying something! I'd love to see if if you ever post a picture of that.

The OT is still my favorite, but I'm also a prequel fan mostly because of all the various environments and variety of character designs explored - mostly Coruscant. Something about Cosruscant just appeals to me in a way that the other environments in Star Wars kind of fall short in... it's like the "ultimate" environment, I guess. So, I plan on exploring more of Coruscant in this series with the OT era, which I think could be awesome... areas like the Outlander Club would be even more interesting if a pair of Stormtroopers for example walked through the bar to arrest someone... or shoot an undercover Rebel, etc. Heh. It's cool to me at least.

My dioramas though are rarely very elaborate, and the ones I make don't hold a candle to your amazing Cantina diorama... man I'd have a field day with something like that. I get a little giddy thinking about that, lol.

Again, thank you for the nice words and hopefully it won't be too long before I can shoot another chapter.

[YakPurge]

HE'S BAAAAAAAACKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES! Thank the maker.
Love the enviro Chewie i mean wow fantastic set-up, it looks like a set from a movie I swear.
Story was great, straight to the point with just enough action to it. Can't wait for more buddy.

[Scarrviper]

When I get the time, I'll have to take some new pictures of all my customs and post them in the appropriate forum. I've also prepared an endor rebel soldier head for making a quick custom of Rykrof, I'm just waiting to pick up the figure I need for the body I want to use.

[stroebel83]

I cannot say it better than anyone else or with enough emphasis, your work is amazing

[YAK_Chewie]

Chewie, you have set the ball rolling in style my friend! I've never really been into the Clone Wars era, but now you are entering into my era of interest and your first chapter has me hooked.

If I were to offer any criticism, it's that I'm going to have to wait for the next part! The writing was faultless, the dioramas and customs add that touch of magic to the proceedings.

I particularly liked the walking away sequence "relieve him of his pain"... it has set the scene for an exciting villain.

By your own admission you have given yourself another immense task moving forward and I am very excited at the prospect of more.

Jules

As you're one of the most amazing photnovelists ever to walk the planet, your opinion obviously means a ton to me - I'm glad that you enjoyed the introduction to my new series.

Like you, I never really got into the Clone Wars either - but there are parts of the prequels though that I really enjoy and that's the one theme I always tried to stick with in the previous series; mainly Palpatine's manipulation of the Senate, Jedi Order, CIS, etc... basically his manipulation of the entire galaxy. That was what many parts of my original series had as a backdrop, everyone was working for Palpatine in some capacity, even the Badoo Corba terrorists were at times without knowing the grand scheme that everything that was transpiring in the prequel era was done so according to the design of the Sith.

Tylin Gere will be the main antagonist, but he probably won't show up in every chapter, as Rykrof will soon take stage - the prologue though is starting to set up Rykrof's involvement, but I know that's not apparent yet. It will hopefully start to mesh together over the next couple chapters, and Rykrof wil be in the thick of things in full force by the 3rd installment.

Thanks as always for the support and feedback.

[YAK_Chewie]

Wow...

I am ashamed to say that I haven't read the rest of the Enloe series...but I sure as heck will now. I've always been extremely impressed with your Yakfinities customs, easily some of the best I've seen, but that diorama blew me away. The photography was excellent, capturing feeling through faceless plastic like Kirshner! You also did an amazing job of making the shots look post-battle. It had a cold, dusk, heavy feel that really set the mood. I am so impressed.

Thank you, and no worries, I assume the percentage of forum members and general readers around fan sites that have read this series at all is very low... photonovels in general don't get the attention they used to - about 5 years ago however, there were more people making them, more people commenting, etc. They were kind of a customizing fad, I guess.

If you go back and read the earlier ones, I feel the story is more solid than the photos and presentation. I'm not ashamed of the photos by any means but there's a progression of improvement - a few setbacks along the way too. It's all very amateur as is this latest chapter.

But thank you, I'm very glad you liked this intro to the new series!

As far as EU, prequel, and photonovels, here is my feeling. I am an OTC man, through and through. I enjoy most well written EU, regardless of era, and can take or leave the prequel series (Revenge being easily the best of the three, and perhaps saving the trilogy IMHO). Photonovels, though, have a way of taking the "Hollywood" out of Star Wars, the way George did to start the series (but seemed to lose his way, sadly). A well written photonovel is every bit as good as the OTC, and this is shaping up to be just that! Can't wait for Chapter 1!

Yeah, I think a lot more readers on these boards might be more interested in the OT. I've waited since 2004 to be able to get to this stage and am glad it's here. I almost started this new series right after ROTS - but I figured if I did that, I'd NEVER get to the end of this storyline.

I'm going to try my best to make this series have an "Empire" feel to it as much as I can. There will still be some hints of the prequels though, as Coruscant will be seen some, but by and large I want to keep this with an OT tone.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[StooperZero]

NICE!

I like the newer "GRITTIER" look.

[YAK_Chewie]

hey guys lets make the hit count equal on these boards too...

http://www.imperialshipyards.net/SMF/index.php?topic=7647.0
http://www.sandtroopers.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=5est1nh6ce5h0mf621a858inl3&topic=14871.0
http://echobase.d2i.net/index.php?PHPSESSID=46f8cd54cf4e0943797b278ece708ea3&topic=818.0
http://www.jedidefender.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=22247.0
http://forum.rebelscum.com/t1078227/

show your support everywhere! keep enloe alive...

I remember back in the day, at most sites people could post a photonovel, and easily get hundreds of hits, and at least a dozen comments - unfortunately those days seem to be far behind us now. I've tried to talk to other sites regarding promoting this aspect of the hobby more, but most sites rarely promote anything customizing related these days unfortunately.

[YAK_Chewie]

Tylin also, now, looks aged.

Thanks - that was really what got me into wanting to try and paint his face in the first place (and Rykrof's).



I think that painting, and proper lighting is going to be key to help portray that moving forward.

[YAK_Chewie]

Justin,

Great start to your new series! I have to agree with Jules, I'm glad you are out of the Clone Wars era and now into the OT era. Your old photonovel was the only one I could follow that was in the PT era. I'm just not a big fan of clones and such.

I loved the depth of your dioramas! Your Bob Ross "happy mountains" painting really paid off! I also like the hazy look and feel of every picture. Absolutely love "the Baron." The arms off that German motorcycle figure are some of my favorite. When I first say that toy it immediately spoke to me of Admiral Skreed from the old Droids cartoon.

Thanks man, glad you liked it. I'm also glad to be in territory now of the OT, which I think most of the older crowd enjoys more. I still find a lot of the prequel era fun, but the OT is the best. I know what it's like to also have a hard time following photonovels that are in a different era... photonovels are already a niche, but when they are in eras that we are less familiar with, the niche gets even smaller.

I'm also glad the mountains seemed to work - they're not perfect, but they seemed to work okay and I learned something new in the process. As for Tylin, I like those German arms too, and a Screed figure could be awesome if Hasbro made on in realistic style...

I kringed when I saw your custom Gun Turret with the blast marks, because I only own two I couldn't imagine scorching one like that; but that is the price we pay to produce photonovels. I'd like to see a better picture of that speeder looking vehicle with the ramp down where the Rebel was laying. It looked pretty cool.

I would have really struggled with doing that to the turret, but I was able to get a few of them loose for a fair price about a year ago. There actually is a huge hole in it that I made that the picture really doesn't show.

As for the speeder, I love that thing - Owen D actually made that for me as a commission a few years ago:



There's pics of it and more HERE.

Lastly, I know there's been a push by Darth D to post on various forums. Me personally, I can't keep up with all the different forums. I do good to keep up with Yakface and Rebelscum, and I've already decided (if you haven't noticed) not to be posting my photonovel on RS. Reason being, the level of response has always been down on that site.

Yeah, it's tough to be active on so many various sites. I struggle with it. I appreciate you posting your work here though; we're lucky to have attacted a nice crowd of good people who are interested in this stuff here.

Speaking of such, I have on my plate to update a photonovel spotlight with your work and some other stuff soon... I wish other sites would tip their hat to customizers more now and then, but it seems like those days might be past us.

Only real critique I might have is the opening crawl. The top of the crawl was hard for me to read. It may be the identical angle from the movie, I think the angle looks good, but I would suggest a darker shade of yellow/gold for the letters.

Yeah, good point. The layout is from the crawl creator at http://www.starwars.com - but you're right. Here's what the text says in case it wasn't legible:


THE BARON'S CRUSADE

It is a dark time in the
galaxy. All institutions of
the Old Republic have been
dismantled and changed
beyond recognition.

As countless star systems
adjust to this new era of
Sith rule, small bands of
resistance fighters dare to
oppose the evil GALACTIC
EMPIRE...



Again - thanks for the feedback - I really appreciate it.

[jlw515]

Justin,

I think the mountain painting worked great. Did you actually have it set as a backdrop or did you add it through Photoshop? Either way it gives your pictures great depth where they actually appear to be in an alien enviroment. Hopefully you can utilize it somewhere else in the series.

Concerning the opening crawl - I never knew about that site, I'll have to check it out. I did take a snap shot from the films and compared it, and the angle is perfect. It's made me go back and adjust the angle and font size on my next chapter. Also meant to say this last post, but I like how you've tied events (Sith relic) from the first series into the second. Do you anticipate as many chapters as the first? If so will the "Trials" extend to the events of ANH?

Jason

[YAK_Chewie]

nice kick off to the new installment in your saga justin!

-i really enjoy the painted back drop youv'e done for this as opposed to digitaly altering the pictures, as mentioned by some of the other forum members the whole set really does look as if its natural out doors and has that dusty grity air to it. the aftermath of the battle came off well with the wrecked speeder and barrier walls along with the rebels casualties.

Thanks Erik, it's great to have someone still share feedback for these after so many years... it means a great deal to me.

I think I got lucky with the atmosphere of the setting, it turned out to be a fluke thing from some test shots with the painting - after those test shots, I was like, "Hey, this looks better than I expected - I'll snap the pics here!"

-storywise its also very intriuging. it's clear that tylin is running around searching for this relic for personal reasons and using the assets of the empire to do so, which i cant imagine the empire/empror looking to kindly on. im really looking forward to seeing what he has planned for it once he gets a hold of it.....

I appreciate that, and yeah - Tylin is kind of doing his own thing to a degree here. I plan on there being some involvement by Palpatine in all of this with the artifact, but the main thing coming up is going to be how Rykrof gets dragged into all of this.

-i was interested to see that you gave one of the troopers an actual name, Draven. Im curious to see if he develops into an actual substantial charecter in the story that mabey conflicts with tylin or is his right hand man, or if he is a charecter we will see worthy of another custom out of armor.....

Yeah - I plan on having a role with Draven. I'm not 100% certain on how much I am going to go into the character, but he'll show up again and he's not going to be mentioned just this one time.

again a great kick off and im defineteley looking forward to seeing the next chapter......great work friend!

Thanks again, your opinion means a lot to me... I recall your PN series too and absolutely loved it. Any chance you might consider picking that back up?

[YAK_Chewie]

I just want to add my praise for your creative talents to what everyone else has already said. I loved reading this, and found myself looking again and again at all of the artwork (because to me every aspect of this is art at it's finest). I may be a bit behind, but I really like the overall look of the Stormies and seeing the subtle details in each of the figures. I also really liked the uncaring/bored look of Tylin Gere, it is so perfect for an Imperial Baron. Like so many others as well, the look of the scenery and set pieces are top notch!

Thanks Stronox - you're an amazing customizer, and reading your thoughts definitely gets me pumped to get moving on the next chapter... glad you liked this!

Yeah, on Tylin, he's looks smug and arrogant; which really was why I used a Boshek head for my first Tylin Gere custom back in 2004 - that was a while back, but in the "storyline" he was a Republic Peace Officer well before the outbreak of the Clone Wars... for a good laugh, you could check out my old page at TCU - HERE - the top pics are from as recent as 2009, I think... but scrolling down to the bottom, some of my earliers customs are there, from 2002 or so. About midway through you'll also see my original photonovels... here's the very first image of Rykrof and Tylin, from 2004:



Oh, what memories... I never would have thought back then that I'd still be doing these... I actually made 17 chapters from 2004-2006, then went back and redid those 17 chapters again, then moved on with chapters 18-32. Thought I might be done, but realized this is "part of me" as a fan, so here I am in this again.

I could only wish to be able to create something on this level...Can't wait to see more!!!

Well, if you ever try something like this, with how amazing your customs are, and presentation, I am quite confident that you'd have people in amazement.

Thank you again for the feedback.

[YAK_Chewie]

HE'S BAAAAAAAACKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES! Thank the maker.
Love the enviro Chewie i mean wow fantastic set-up, it looks like a set from a movie I swear.
Story was great, straight to the point with just enough action to it. Can't wait for more buddy.

Thanks old friend - glad you liked the environment... on the story, I didn't want to make this first one too long. I cut out about 10 frames - maybe I can show a few "Deleted Scenes" too... that could be fun I suppose?