comic Insane Raiders [2022-12-29: Occasional updates are still happening!]

[Arthuriel]

Update (2022-12-29): I don't know how often I will use this forum, but I just wanted to write that once in a while I still make Insane Raiders themed comics. They are simpler (more like a sketch) and without colour, but they are still full of dubious decisions related to dynamite and landslides! Since I posted those only in Discord chat rooms etc. so far (where they can go under) I wanted to put them in one place and so I added them to my existing Insane Raiders gallery on DeviantArt. I hope you enjoy them!
https://www.deviantart.com/arthuriel/gallery/50994783/insane-raiders

Note: It can take a few seconds to load all the comics (depending on your internet connection).

 

Hi,

this is a thread, where I will try to continue a comic series every or every second week (note: replace week with month(s)).

Usually they are based on my experiences with the Rock Raider PC game and the behavior of the Rock Raiders (including a good portion of insanity and exaggaration).

 

Number 1. Dynamite

Spoiler

 

Only the most intelligent minifigures are trusted with the use of dynamite

http://pre05.deviantart.net/3a43/th/pre/i/2015/234/9/c/insane_raiders_no__1___dynamite_by_arthuriel-d7x9ygc.png

 

 

Number 2. Pathfinding

Spoiler

 

Ah, Lava, the best friend of a Rock Raider.

http://pre11.deviantart.net/af61/th/pre/i/2015/234/e/2/insane_raiders_no__2___pathfinding_by_arthuriel-d7xa1jn.png

 

 

Number 3. Reinforcement is for Losers

Spoiler

 

Everyone loves land slides ; )

http://pre03.deviantart.net/1f49/th/pre/i/2015/234/9/f/insane_raiders_no__3___reinforment_is_for_losers_by_arthuriel-d7xa1ze.jpg

 

 

Number 4. The Pain of Pictures Show

Spoiler

 

...where do you see ugly pictures and want to goinsane ? Well, this comic is about that topic.

http://pre14.deviantart.net/ecde/th/pre/i/2015/234/6/0/insane_raiders_no__4___the_pain_of_pictures_show_by_arthuriel-d7xa29n.png

Ultra Secret Link (TM):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnY4cLNUGy4

 

 

Number 5. Badly needed professions and items

Spoiler

 

A comic about things, that would make the game less annoying.

http://pre01.deviantart.net/a357/th/pre/i/2015/234/f/f/insane_raiders_no__5___professions_and_items_by_arthuriel-d7xa2ss.jpg

 

 

Number 6. Job oppurtunities

Spoiler

 

On some days you can't get rid of a SMLC.

http://pre13.deviantart.net/d14a/th/pre/i/2015/234/9/6/insane_raiders_no__6___job_oppurtunities_by_arthuriel-d7xa3cg.png

 

 

Number 7. Secrets

Spoiler

 

Hmm, somehow this thing with the combustion engines (at least they look like this) and the energy crystals troubled me a bit some weeks ago.

http://pre10.deviantart.net/56b5/th/pre/i/2015/234/c/b/insane_raiders_no__7___secrets_by_arthuriel-d7xa3xn.jpg

 

 

Number 8. An unnormal day

Spoiler

 

Oh no! Could it be? An unnormal day on board of the L.M.S. Explorer?

http://pre11.deviantart.net/e336/th/pre/i/2015/234/b/9/insane_raiders_no__8___an_unnormal_day_by_arthuriel-d7xa4k3.jpg

 

 

Number 9. Randompunk-Raiders

Spoiler

 

Another theme week means another week full of random explosions and other obscure things.

http://pre09.deviantart.net/208e/th/pre/i/2015/234/a/f/insane_raiders_no__9___randompunk_raiders_by_arthuriel-d7xa53l.jpg

 

 

Number 10. Alternative Ending

Spoiler

 

Imagine, if one Rock Raider had a good idea...

http://pre10.deviantart.net/be9a/th/pre/i/2015/234/b/a/insane_raiders_no__10___alternative_ending_by_arthuriel-d7xa5wr.png

 

 

Number 11. Mindless in space

Spoiler

 

The title of this story explains everything...

http://pre12.deviantart.net/4fe6/th/pre/i/2015/234/8/f/insane_raiders_no__11___mindless_in_space_by_arthuriel-d7xa6gv.png

 

 

Number 12. Traffic

Spoiler

 

The usual traffic situation on Planet U.

http://pre14.deviantart.net/23c1/th/pre/i/2015/234/8/3/insane_raiders_no__12___traffic_by_arthuriel-d7xa6tx.png

 

 

Number 13. Lazor-Madness

Spoiler

 

That escalated quickly.

http://pre07.deviantart.net/07fe/th/pre/i/2015/234/2/c/insane_raiders_no__13___lazor_madness_by_arthuriel-d7xa79u.png

 

 

Number 14. Lazor-Madness II

Spoiler

 

Part II of Lazor-Madness. Based on an idea by Ben24x7, which I modified and illustrated.

http://img00.deviantart.net/56d3/i/2015/234/7/7/insane_raiders_no__14___lazor_madness_ii_by_arthuriel-d7xa7mn.png

 

 

Number 15. The Dark Side of the Vector

Spoiler

 

A story based on the look of the lava texture im JimbobJeffer's Vector Mod for Lego Rock Raiders.

http://pre03.deviantart.net/800c/th/pre/i/2015/234/a/e/insane_raiders_no_15___the_dark_side_of_the_vector_by_arthuriel-d7xa7xb.png

 

 

Number 16. Meet the Bandit

Spoiler

 

Who is Bandit and why is he a crew member?

http://pre10.deviantart.net/44a4/th/pre/i/2015/234/3/d/insane_raiders_no__16___meet_the_bandit_by_arthuriel-d7xa8be.png

 

 

Number 17. Dynamite-Madness

Spoiler

 

Some months ago someone suggested, that I should draw a comic, where a Rock Raider should go crazy with dynamite. Well here it is.

note: The file size of this comic is bigger than the previous ones, because I used anti-aliasing. Next time I won't use it anymore though (it makes the file ~3 times bigger).

http://pre00.deviantart.net/5055/th/pre/i/2015/234/b/9/insane_raiders_no__17___dynamite_madness_by_arthuriel-d7xa9l7.png

 

 

Number 18. The Ultimate Punishment

Spoiler

 

I think, that Chief mixed something up.

http://pre13.deviantart.net/d0ab/th/pre/i/2015/234/9/a/insane_raiders_no__18___the_ultimate_punishment_by_arthuriel-d7xa9vc.png

 

 

Number 19. Ore Wars

Spoiler

 

It's back and you will never guess, on what this story is based on .

http://pre09.deviantart.net/138e/th/pre/i/2015/234/6/9/insane_raiders_no__19___ore_wars_by_arthuriel-d87imkb.jpg

 

 

Number 20. Announcements

Spoiler

You never want to know, what will happen, if someone plays a prank on Chief. Never.

http://pre13.deviantart.net/134d/th/pre/f/2015/234/d/f/insane_raiders_no__20___announcements_by_arthuriel-d8gg1qd.png

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Arthuriel

[Arthuriel]

-This post has been hijacked for the glory of Insane Raiders-

Don't try to switch the thread or changing the refresh rate of your monitor. We control everything.

Number 21. Fanfiction

Spoiler

 

When will the Rock Raiders find the worst Rock Raider themed fanfiction ever made?

P.S.: This is my first comic since February 2015. I wondered what I should make and thought, that a simple one panel comic would be a nice start.

http://pre00.deviantart.net/d2e4/th/pre/i/2015/234/e/8/insane_raiders_no__21___fanfiction_by_arthuriel-d95rx3m.png

 

 

Number 22. Idle Games

Spoiler

 

It was only a matter of time until the Rock Raiders would discover the thing, they are best at: eating sandwiches dying during badly timed TNT explosions playing Idle Games (or Incremental Game or however you may call them).

They either require just a running computer or additional mouse clicking, which means, that the Rock Raiders with Idle-Syndrome are the best skilled Idle-Gamers out there.

http://pre10.deviantart.net/ff77/th/pre/i/2015/234/0/d/insane_raiders_no__22___idle_games_by_arthuriel-d96p59w.png

 

 

Number 23. Friendship is tragic (Being mean to each other is also good/magic. Wait...)

Spoiler

http://pre04.deviantart.net/bbcf/th/pre/i/2015/350/0/0/insane_raiders_no__23___friendship_is_tragic_by_arthuriel-d9kbct5.png

 

Number 24. Advent Calendars

Spoiler

 

Will the stupidity of the Rock Raiders come to a stop when it comes to advent calendars? Will a christmas failure occur? Then you must read this comic to save christmas! (Okay, not really).
Here are some (totally not made up) quotes (to boost my non-existent sales) from people, who read this comic:
Rock Raider No. 773: "My christmas sucked. I got a piece of ore like last year and the year before that and the year..."
Chief: "Finally I got an electric razor, that won't break off, when I try to shave my beard. It's the best day of my life!"
Rock Raider No. 472: "Finally a big land slide occured like I always wished for!"

http://pre12.deviantart.net/41b8/th/pre/i/2015/358/7/e/insane_raiders_no__24___advent_calendars_by_arthuriel-d9lay13.png

 

 

Number 25. War of the Fences

Spoiler

An upgraded version of the Electric Fence is always the better option, right?

http://img09.deviantart.net/e73c/i/2016/015/6/b/insane_raiders_no__25___war_of_the_fences_by_arthuriel-d9o30fl.png

 

Number 26. Stuck in Heaven

Spoiler

What happens to a Rock Raider at zero health points?
Now we know it*: The concept of heaven is quite real in the world of Rock Raiders... ...and hard.

*that's official canon, I swear by Chief's beard AND eyebrows!

http://pre11.deviantart.net/5403/th/pre/i/2016/024/9/0/insane_raiders_no__26___stuck_in_heaven_by_arthuriel-d9p5z5f.png

 

Number 27. The Circle of Pain

Spoiler

In August I found a diagram, that I made many months ago and I thought, that I should do a finalized version of it, because it fits the overall theme of my series.

 

Insane Raiders 28. The Cookie

Spoiler

 

Remember the Hunger/Sandwich bar above the Rock Raiders? Well, now you know the dark secret behind it!

 

Number 29. Insane R
It's the manga edition of Insane Raiders (that's why you have to read it from right to left). Is it bizarre and has references to series like Initial D? Yes. Is it way over the top? YES. Note: The preview looks way smaller than usual, because there is a height limit for pictures of 750 pixels and this picture is 4700 pixels long. Solution: click on it and view it in its original resolution.


Update (2022-12-29): I don't know how often I will use this forum, but I just wanted to write that once in a while I still make Insane Raiders themed comics. They are simpler (more like a sketch) and without colour, but they are still full of dubious decisions related to dynamite and landslides! Since I posted those only in Discord chat rooms etc. so far (where they can go under) I wanted to put them in one place and so I added them to my existing Insane Raiders gallery on DeviantArt. I hope you enjoy them!
https://www.deviantart.com/arthuriel/gallery/50994783/insane-raiders

Edited December 29, 2022 by Arthuriel

[Antillies]

This is great.  You can draw and its funny.  Keep them coming!

[Addictgamer]

 

Now all we need is an animated short (or whatever those are called)!

[Alcom Isst]

 

Now all we need is an animated short (or whatever those are called)!

Flash animation?

[Jimbob]

 

Now all we need is an animated short (or whatever those are called)!

Flash animation?

 

In the words of Quaritch, "I can do that."

 

This was funny, I definitely look forward to more!

[Car CrazeXVI]

That made me laugh.

Another comic is excepted.

[/randompersonalitylessvoice]

[Arthuriel]

Wow, thanks for all those responses and comments . I hope, that I'll have at least ideas for.. ..let's say: 10 comics with good ideas minimum (but I think, that there is probably much more potential to this).

 

Besides: I've uploaded a new comic. I think, that putting all the comics in one post is the best solution at this point.

[Jimbob]

Another funny one, well done - I particularly like the links with generic rock raider 1837 at the end of both of them. Perhaps if this becomes big enough I can get a 'Generic Rock Raider 1837' t-shirt?

[Arthuriel]

Yeah, I thought that the generic rock raider thing has the potential as a running gag:).

 

PS: Big enough to sell t-shirts. This would be funny/awesome. Time will show, what will become out of the series.

 

PPS: Aargh, I've found a spelling error in my 2nd comic^^ (relatity instead of reality)

[Jimbob]

PPS: Aargh, I've found a spelling error in my 2nd comic^^ (relatity instead of reality)

 

You should check out a Games Workshop book sometime, you're fine.

 

 

 

Now all we need is an animated short (or whatever those are called)!

Flash animation?

 

In the words of Quaritch, "I can do that."

 

By the way, I was serious about that. Although I'm not a great graphics artist, I know my way around Flash and can make animations if you want, although your comics are perfect as-is.

[Arthuriel]

I finished the third comic. Maybe I will use another fine liner to make some of the letters more readable (although it's perfectly readable, if you use the "show graphics" option, after right clicking it) and scan the comic again.

 

PS: I added a color-version, too. Probably I will do the following comics in a similar way.

[Cyrem]

I didn't noticed you posted 2 more! These are great!

 

The third comic is really well done! Nor far off the drawing quality of those you find in the news paper.

 

Thanks.

[Jimbob]

Very good! May I ask, were the colours filled in on Paint? If so, Paint.net has anti-aliasing on its fill tool, meaning it avoids the grain effect.

[Arthuriel]

I used GIMP 2.8. First I changed the histogram to get only black and white (maybe I should try other curves in the future) and after that I painted it wtih the fill function (which was a bit annoying, because there were so many small pixels which were still white, although I had only a black-and-white picture).

Maybe I'll try it with the anti-aliasing function in GIMP or use Paint.net.

 

PS: I tried the anti-aliasing filter in GIMP, but it still looks a bit grainy

 

PPS: Now, that I look closer at the fill tool in GIMP, I think, that there is an anti-alising option, too.

[Cyrem]

You can achieve far greater colouring if you do it by hand rather than fill. You can also add detail where the picture never had it.

 

Here is a sample I did in about 15 minutes using flat curved stiff bristle brush.

 

This is obviously more time consuming though.

Oh btw, not to spoil the greatness of the comic or anything... but 'loosers' should be 'losers'. (Nothing a little image editing can't fix)

[Jimbob]

Ah, I didn't know you had GIMP, that'd probably be better. In which case, by setting it to Black and White, it will remove all shading completely - hence the grain effect which won't be so easily reduced with anti-aliasing. If you had Illustrator then you can vectorise it* which can create a nice effect, although Cyrem's suggestion would be nicer (albeit taking longer). Or you can continue as you do normally which is just fine

 

*Or I could do it for you!

[Fush]

This is actually better than I expected. Kudos!

As far as coloring goes what I usually do is to use GIMP's "posterize" option to reduce the image to as few shades of gray as possible.

That gets rid of the "random slightly-off-white pixels" issue.

Hm, would you be offended if I were to re-draw one of these?

[Arthuriel]

@Cyrem: Thank you for the clue . I've uploaded a hand coloured version (the withdraw are the bright looking colors), but it took some hours. Therefore I will try do this task in a computer or just make black-and white version.

 

@Jimbob: That's the first fan art of this comic^^. It looks interresting (exspecially the headline and the letters in panel No. 4), but I don't know if this is a good standard style for the comic.

 

@Fushigi: Thank you. I tried it with "posterize" on a black-and-white comic, but there were colored pixels (maybe I reduced it too much). That's the reason why I used the "Remove Color" function or work on the histogram, but maybe it depends on the picture.

You also have my permission to redraw one of my comics .

[Cyrem]

@Cyrem: Thank you for the clue . I've uploaded a hand coloured version (the withdraw are the bright looking colors), but it took some hours. Therefore I will try do this task in a computer or just make black-and white version.

Oh, yes, I did mean hand drawn on the computer not with physical pencils/brushes. Still, the real hand drawn colouring looks better than the fill version.

[Fush]

@Fushigi: Thank you. I tried it with "posterize" on a black-and-white comic, but there were colored pixels (maybe I reduced it too much). That's the reason why I used the "Remove Color" function or work on the histogram, but maybe it depends on the picture.

You also have my permission to redraw one of my comics .

Thanks for the permission, I just hope I don't ruin it

About the colored pixels, that's probably due to jpeg compression. Jpegs are never truly black-and-white, in fact I don't think a jpeg ever has pure black or white in it at all... instead the "black" is made of reallyreallyreally dark shades of blue and red.

Protip: never, EVER save anything as jpeg while still working with it. It's okay to save it as one once it's finished to save space, but jpeg compression will really screw up your work.

I don't know what a histogram is since I usually don't use the more advanced tools, but this is the procedure I use whenever I color a picture:

1. After scanning, I open the picture in MSPaint (it's easier to work with), resize it, crop it, and save it as .png

2. Open the .png file in Gimp

3. Use "desaturate" to remove any and all trace of color in the picture, reducing it to greyscale.

3. Use "Posterize" to reduce it to as few shades of grey as possible. I can never go all the way to pure BW since I lose a lot of detail like that, so I have to leave a few shades of grey in there.

4. Use the "select by color" tool to select all the white areas.

5. Invert the selection.

6. Take an enormous black pencil and scribble over the entire image. Since at this point everything except white is selected, it should only cover the outline.

This method is not foolproof so you will probably have to fix a few lines by had, but it works well.

Try it sometime, if you don't like it you can always do something different.

[Arthuriel]

@Cyrem:  Oh, okay. Well, next time I use the computer again (maybe I should buy a graphics tablet).

 

@Fushigisaur: Wow, thank you. That was extremly helpful. I followed your advice and coloured the new version of comic no. 1 much faster and easier, too.

[The Ace Railgun]

Haha nice job I noted some good anime references in there as well :)

[Jimbob]

Wow, #4 is a bit more grim than the rest, and less involved in the Rock Raiders theme, but good nonetheless

[STUDZ]

Wow... I have to say, I'm actually impressed. You have both artistic skills AND a good sense of humor to back up your comics!

 

This is some very good stuff here. I look forward to more from you!

 

Also, I do think the hand-drawn colors look better than computer-filled. Just saying.