Early Years: Age 12

We're getting up there now. Age 12. Sam is starting to look older now. I kind of had 3 different age looks for Sam, this is the middle one. This page was made to really reinforce the fact that Sam's Dad has been drilling this stuff into him. This had to be done, or this first arc of Sam wouldn't really be believable.

As far as the art goes I really like this page, the only panel that really gets me is that last one. And actually I think it's all fine except for Sam's Dad. He's standing at the wrong angle. I think I might actually redraw that part for the final issue, because it really bothers me. But I really like the first two panels. I actually really like the pose Sam is in in the second panel. I also tried to really put this page in a setting, which is the family dojo. I hope you enjoyed this page.

Early Years: Age 09

And we have another page. This page is just to show that their is a long history of the samuri in their family and that Sam's sword has been passed around for a quite a while. And no his sword is not the Ivory Rose. You'll get to see that later.

I really loved that last panel, but the hands on the panel before it are really funky. Not a whole lot else to say on this page.

Early Years: Age 07

Page 3. Moving to Japan. This page again seems rather simple, but I just wanted to illustrate how big a deal it was for Sam to move to Japan. This is probably one of the few panels you'll actually see Sam's Mom in. I have a couple flashback ideas for Sam's Dad, but his mom isn't really apart of them, but maybe I'll work her in.

As far as the art goes. I like it for the most part, though I kind of have a little something wrong with every panel. The perspective of the arches is a little off, the shadow on the plane is a little funky, and Sam's face look a little off, but It's ok.

Early Years: Age 05

OK page 2. There isn't that much to this page. It is basically to show that Sam's dad has been training him since a very young age, and that he was trying to teach him more than just fighting. One of the first things I decided to do when I came up with the idea for this short story was to have little to no dialogue on these first 7 pages, but I felt this page would have been too odd without any dialogue.
For the most part I really liked how this page turned. I really love those first two panels, but the third is a little funky, and the fourth is fine, but I thought I cut Sam's Dad head at a weird place. But yah, there you go.

Early Years: Age 00

Yeah! It's finally here, Sam early years. Unfortunately this page is mostly old news since I posted most of these panels a couple month back, but now you get to see it in the new coloring style.
I don't really know why I just chose to go all the way back to when he was first born to start the comic. I kind of felt like it would be epic to start the comic off the day he was born, it also establishes that he was born in the US, because soon you'll find out that he doesn't stay there long.
My one problem with this page was that I felt like it doesn't entirely match the style of the rest of the comic, especially that last panel. It looks a little to real, but oh well. You win some you loose some. Tomorrow Age 5.

Sam Sans Band

So this image is going to take quite a bit of explaining. Basically Sam has had the same look all his life. The all white t-shirt and pants and the red head band and belt, but after the end of early years, and through the beginning of Chapter 1 he was a radically different look (for reasons I can't explain right now, but after the last page of early years you'll know, at least if you understand what happened). This is that look.

Notice the lack of head band, and the regular t-shirt. Every time I've drawn Sam it's been with that head band, so creating a version of Sam without it was rough. I did tons of different sketches of this version of Sam and I think this is version I'm going to use. A lot of the versions I did were decent, but just didn't look enough like Sam. I think you can definitely tell this is Sam, just sans head band.

NWU OZC STIKER

Here is the last sticker in the series. I really liked it at first, but the more I look at it the more I don't like it. Oh well. I already printed the stickers. Plus big versions this time. Should be fun. Should have them all done in a couple days.