I Started out here about two years ago, and I've seen a LOT of dios. I was reading dio stories about a year before I found this site, and I just wanted to cover some of the things I Like/Hate about some dios I've read. First...what I HATE;


1.) Poor stories.
Hi...meet the Joes....meet the cobra's.....BANG!!! FIREFIGHT!!!
That stinks. What about the purpose? What are their objectives?

2.) Poor Character Development.
Meet Duke.....poster child for America. He Always wins! BLAH! I like what DD did with duke and made him a shady character. Developed him a little. Make me FEEL something for your Characters!

3.) Pi$$ poor photography. I'm not a pro, and I don't intend to criticize anyone out there for their photography. My shots come out fuzzy and dark A LOT. Sometimes these things can play in your favor and make a scene more moody and sinister. What I can't stand (and I'm guilty of it, too...it's hard to control) is when you shoot an outdoor dio and the sun overlights your scenes. Or you take the shot and can see you neighbors house (out of scale) in the background.


4. ) Too much action. This is Caveat to #1. No development makes the action meaningless.

5.) Too Little Action. Understood that you need conversation and interaction to develop the story and characters, but 12 pages of dialog puts me to sleep. THIS IS GI JOE! NOT PAYTON PLACE OR DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES!!

6.) Unbelievability! Don't start a story out like it's gonna be "Black Hawk Down" and suddenly there are ninja's, Star Wars aliens and Transformers in it outta nowhere. I'm not knocking the sci-fi twists. I love some of the Star Wars/Transformers/ other figure crossovers. I'm talking about (and it doesn't happen here a lot, but I have seen it) is in the middle of the Story, the Joes are losing and "POOF" here's a Dragon or something incredible with no hint as to why or where and it saves the day. If you're familiar with "Deus Ex Machina" Plot device, this is what I'm talking about. This jumps out with some fantastic B.S. that doesn't meld with the rest of the story line.


Things I Like;

1.) Character developments. Sometimes I don't nessessarily like who or why...for example General Scarlett has Duke and Scarlett and item. I don't agree with it, but she develops the characters and makes them believable. When you put in the time to make things work....you're doing a GREAT job of developing characters. That makes a great storyline. And when you take a character and make him or her unique, give them a twist no one else has, that shows creativity.

2.) Great Stories. Give me a teaser. Let me know there's a method to the madness. You don't have to give away all your cards. Slowly develop your story and realize when your "objective" in your story is achieved...your story is over. If you wanna keep it going, you need sub-plots. And keep them unfinished from dio to dio. When one finishes, another should have been developed.

3.) The right mix of action and story. THIS IS THE HARDEST ELEMENT TO ACHIEVE IMHO!!! Too much action and you're guilty of having a crappy story. Too little and you have a BORING story. And it's hard to put a measure of what is the right amount. Sometimes you can lead up to a fight and end it there. Then the next story is the continuation of the battle. ViolentFx did this great with his last two episodes. I was chomping at the bit to see that big battle...and he didn't dissappoint!


4.) Good photography. Again, I'm no pro, but if all your shots are cruddy and out of focus, go back and work on it more. Look at the how-to's and try a few test shot in the "photo's" section and get some feedback. I like it when people say "Hey, more light" or "Less Light" or "different angle" more than when people are like "Great shot". Don't get me wrong....I love when people like my work, but I wonder who is just stroking my ego and what can I do better. Sometimes a good story can make up for bad photography!

Again, I'm not purposely knocking anyones stuff here, just posting what, to me, makes good dios.

What do you think? What have I missed?

I agree with most of yours, and I'd like to add; Some semblance of realisim, no not everything has to be STRICT MILITARY REALISIM~! however if a dude gets shot through his arm, he should not continue firing or be seen bending his arm that a bullet just went through 2 freakin panels later.

Thank you for using me as an example....

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Non illigitamus carborundum~Vos mos non effrego mihi

Coming soon: 'JoeSpecialOps'

No problem. It's a well know fact that your Duke/Scarlett storyline deviates from Canon, and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Like I said, I don't have to like or agree with how you change your storyline, but if you put in the time to develop it (as you have) that is GREAT Character Development!

If I wanted to use myself as the example, I would default to my use of "Pimp Daddy Destro". A terrible figure with a gaudy costume, but I have tried to mold him into a unique and deep character you can get a "feel" for. Talk about straying from the straight and narrow!

Heh.....tru enough.....Hell, mine and Flint's ENTIRE Joeverse is a mix of comic AND toon canon (which BTW, Duke and Scarlett are an 'item' in the 'toon )........and we have spent the past 25+ years re-working the mix of both into our own unique version that actually plays extraordinarily well and believable....including a mix of military realism, humor and a whole lot more........all without getting too 'out there' or 'heavy'.....

__________________
Non illigitamus carborundum~Vos mos non effrego mihi

Coming soon: 'JoeSpecialOps'

I can tell you that it's a constant battle to make them fit all the criteria you mentioned.

But to play a little devils advocate, everyone starts somewhere and my first Dio" An Eye for An Eye" was very rough. It was guilty of some poor photography, it didn't take a lot of time to build the characters. It was a straight action with a little story tossed in. Heck i even had figures standing on battle stands. But guys like General Hawk (From General's Joes) made me feel like all of it was very appreciated. He gave me some points and the rest is history. Like i said, everyone starts somewhere and I think it's great when anyone decides to put the work into making a Dio, no matter how rough it comes out.

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Cobra: The Inner Sanctum

Excellent point. Being too serious is a danger too. And not addressed very often. Being around Military for the last 20+ years, some of the best Soldiers and Marines I have met, the toughest and the most intense have a sharp sense of humor and laugh and joke in the heat of battle to relieve stress. Making Characters too serious makes them unbelievable, but you have to be careful to make sure not to make them too jocular, also. They need toi be portrayed as serious professionals, but people who can enjoy their work and get loose.

GREAT POINT!!

I'm sure there are different ways people do word balloons. Using the CBC not using the CBC. The way I figure it, the process is like this...

1. Have a slight idea of what the script is going to be. Be flexible when changing things up (ie; run out of space in the balloon). When you shoot, consider where the word balloons MIGHT go.

2. With CBC, you gotta resize the shots to a certain size and then let the CBC do the resizing for you. I forgot what the max requirements are for the CBC but I thought it was 900x1100 or something. However, if you go the route that General Hawk and Violent Fix and myself go, we say screw the CBC and we do it on the art program of our choice. Therefore, our shots can be different sizes and the word balloons can be changed easier.

2a. If you use the regular old art programs, RESIZE the shot first THEN put the balloons in. I think some people work with a large canvas, put the baloons and text in and then resize the shot. And then they sit there and wonder why the text got so small. Most likely, the shot was changed, but the VIEW was whatever was appropriate for the monitor. So if you are working with a 1200x1600 palette, the program will make it so you can see the whole shot at once. You put the word balloons and text in and then change the size of the shot, it don't work. I ended up with a LOT of itty, bitty text my first dio.

3. If you run out of place for your text, use the larger CBC windows (I did that a lot) OR shoot more and do more dialogue (that's a 2-edged sword) OR get to the point faster (lol). I tend to be wordy but that's USUALLY because I have so much space!





And just a tip for people in the shooting phase: Have music going, be it walkman or mp3 player or whatever. It often helps ya get in the mood and you might have new ideas pop up.

And the tip for people working the dios on the computer: Have music going. Again, it'll put your head in the right place. If you are listening to bubblegum pop music, we'll most likely see a LOT MORE NEON characters involved. But if you're listening to metal, I'm guessing there'll be a lot of bodies hitting the floor. You guys can probably figure out what I was listening to when doing my stuff based on the dialogue.

You KNOW this is a loaded question!

HATE.
1. Lack of fotography skills. If the shots are consistently out of focus, then I can't read on. Artistically, one could start from afar so it's fuzzy and then it ends up in focus.

2. Too many characters. It was said that one of the hardest things to do with a comic based on a team was the fact that the artist would have to draw the characters going from room to room (and so on). What I find frustrating is remembering one team from another. Recaps are always nice. Especially when it's MONTHS between parts or chapters.

3. Inconsistency. Make the text size the same UNLESS you have a reason for making it big or small. Someone yelling, sure, make it big. Whispering? Make it small. Try and keep the FONT the same too. You take someone like Cobra Commander or Overkill, I use CHILLER to give it a different effect.

4. Characters in squads that don't make sense. "Yeah, I think I'll use Shockwave and Widescope in an underwater adventure so they can use their billy clubs on shrimp..." What about BBQ in a jungle adventure (well, moreso if the COLORS don't make sense). You really think I would use a guy like BBQ in the War For Territory dio over someone like Gung Ho or Footloose?

I'll have to meditate on this.

LOVE.
1. Well thought out stories. A good storyteller can use any character, even ones we personally hate. And it is even better to not take people's assumptions for granted on how YOU see the character. It's certainly more fun to flesh characters out as to how YOU see them. There is room for stories where we 'know' the characters, but this is OUR chance to make characters deeper. Afterall, readers got to see a side of Gung Ho that's probably never been dealt with in my dio. On the other hand, Footloose was pretty cartoon-oriented, man.

2. The USE of characters. You guys KNOW that I'm not a fan of ARAH figures anymore so I tend to get distracted by the figures over the story. That's just me, mind you. I'm sure people feel the exact same way with the Themes Era and 25A. I think it's hard to show emotes w/ ARAH over the newer stuff where there are better facial molds. But a lot of you can do good w/ chars I could careless about. Related to above.

3. The ability to dios w/ minimal stuff. I come from the Luke Ellison school of dios so therefore, I build everything I can and tend to be meticulous. I know 80% of you guys ARE NOT like that and yet, it DOES NOT SHOW!!! Some of the shorter dios have been absolutely awesome! It's like, "You can shoot a real dio just doing that???" I was hoping to be the Paul Anderson of dios, but sometimes, I feel like I'm more like George Lucas. Which is why it takes me forever to get stuff done.

4. Do the stories you want. Yes, it's nice to have early feedback and people to bounce ideas off of (I do it all the time), but in the end, you have an idea and want to execute it the best way you can.

I shall meditate on more.




For the record, a LOT of you 1st timers have FAR better stuff that I did. I can't even say my 1st dio. A LOT of dios and shorts I've done SUCK ROCKS compared to what you guys have done. And I KNOW there are some of you out there who rock the single-shots but have yet to make the jump to full storyteller.