Hello everyone and welcome back for another episode of “As the Jungle Turns”, the crime fighting/adventure comic that is drawn and written by Pia Langfeld and Jaime Leos based on words selected the drawing game, Monkey Sidebars. Twice a week, Monkey Sidebars members select a theme/word and you draw accordingly. Many of the members are very creative in their draws. Yet writing a storyline with the themes selected is very tricky and require tons of brainstorming.
The word selection for this chapter of “Jungle Turns” and Round 58 of Monkey Sidebars was selected by our own, Pia Langfeld. Pia stated she selected this word as the 2014 Winter Olympics were just about to start and she was inspired to select “BOB” as in bob-sled. The theme “Bob” has so many possibilities for an artist to draw but imagination would need to be utilized.
Pia Langfeld- “After opening the armored door, Mary, Wayne and Gunnar were faced with an interesting map….but no sign of The Twins.”
The idea was to have a bob-sled track that the Twins can travel down to escape. The bob-sleds can travel as fast as 90 miles per hour so a quick getaway could be feasible.
Pia Langfeld- “Bob, from the Jamaican bobsled team, pointed the trio in the right direction…and the direction was down!”
Pia’s idea for this draw was to incorporate the famous Jamaican bobsled team and Bob Marley into her draw. Of course, Pia nailed the portrait draw using the colors of the Jamaican National Flag!!
Jaime Leos- “The Twins had a good solid lead ahead of the team but fortunately Gunnar was skilled in bobsledding! He told the team that with turns 3, 6, and 10, if they followed his instructions, they could gain on the twins and catch the fugitives!”
The Twins were not Olympic bobsled members and their inexperience could slow them enough for our heroes to catch them. I spoke to Pia at this time and told her that I was ready to catch one of the Twins! These guys had eluded our heroes’ attempt to apprehend the villains but I told Pia that we should catch one of the Twins. Separating the two-headed snake would help to slow the other down.
Jaime Leos- “Upon reaching the bottom of the track, the bobsled was found belly-up with footprints heading south…..and the moan of an injured villain!! After further investigation, even with the helmet, Mary knew it was Thomas! Anger began to coarse through her veins as he was the BASTARD who used her to frame his own death and cash out on his Trust Fund. Wayne was somewhat relieved that their resilience had paid off and now the hunt for the missing brother now begins…”
Thomas was quickly apprehended and after mending his wounds, he was taken to HQ for questioning. What the team did not expect was the fact that Thomas was RESILIENT. He would refuse to talk. Can our heroes extract information from Thomas?
Tune in to the next chapter for RESILIENCE and find out.
Thank you for reading and please follow
@jungleturns on Instagram.
Welcome back for another episode of “As the Jungle Turns”, the crime fighting/adventure comic that is drawn and written by Pia Langfeld and Jaime Leos based on words selected .
When we last left, Mary and Wayne had recruited the help of the specialist, “The Scandinavian” or Gunnar. Gunnar was able to locate The Twins with the illegal use of cellphone triangulation and listening to cellphone conversations of known acquaintances. However The Twins are protected in a heavily guarded compound and to extract the duo, they would need to use stealth and strong armor.
Pia had the brilliant idea to use a weapons expert similar to the James Bond movies. In the movies, “Q” would develop guns and rockets that would shoot out of his Aston-Martin or bubble gum that explodes. Pia’s version would be a Scandinavian native named “Å”.
Pia Langfeld- “With the help of “Å”, the Scandinavian gadget Meister, they were able to deck Mary out in appropriate armor…”
I told Pia that I wanted to draw Gunnar’s armor similar to the new ROBOCOP suit. Robocop was just about to appear on the big screens when we did our draws.
Jaime Leos- “Gunnar debriefed the team and lays out the strategy to raid the compound using stealth and nifty gadgets provided by “Å”, the weapons expert.”
While researching reference draws I was wanting to draw Wayne using stealth while entering the compound. Pia had the idea of using sonic grenades called “Paralyzers” that would cause the compound soldiers to double over and begin vomiting after detonation while the team raided the compound. I then began to think of the video game, “Splinter Cell” and the hero of the game, “Sam Fischer.” This was the result draw.
Jaime Leos- “Wayne snuck into the compound with stealth using a zip line and night vision.’
With the use of the “Paralyzers”, the team was able to raid the compound without being detected but the activity outside alerted The Twins to escape out an “armored” door. Their escape route would lead to a bob-sled track so they could leave but travel quickly!
Pia Langfeld- “and now…what next?”
In the next episode our team find that The Twins have left and are speeding away at blazing speeds in a bob-sled. The team will need to catch up to them before they get away again!!
Welcome back and I see the “Force” has guided you back to another chapter of “As the Jungle Turns.” We left our heroes searching for a mode of transportation down to the land below as the Twins are para gliding away. The team has found an alien mode of transport and are searching for the villains in the clouds and debris.
Pia Langfeld-
Pia began drawing this great piece before finishing Chapter 21. Fortunately we were able to tie chapters 21 and 22 together.
To tie in the Star Wars movie theme, we decided to part ways with our friend, “Harry the Yeti” and twist our story a bit. For the rest of this chapter, I’m going to assume that you (the reader) has seen the first trilogy of Star Wars. In Return of the Jedi, the droid C3PO has found the tribe of the Ewoks and is able to speak their language. The Ewoks are amazed by his golden metal and believe he is a god. In our story, the Ewoks are amazed by Harry’s huge size as he has a furry exterior like the Ewoks but he is much more massive. The Ewoks embrace Harry and want him to protect their tribe.
Jaime Leos- “The group has landed in the Forest of Endor and located the hand gliders but no sign of the Twins. A small tribe of creatures called the Ewoks surrounded Harry in amazement by his size and stature.”Pia Langfeld- “Among the Ewoks, Harry realized he no longer felt lonely. In the Forest of Endor he had found his purpose as Leader and Protector.”
Jaime Leos- “No signs of the Twins….the remaining trio leaves for nearby Berlin in a new mode of transportation possibly left behind by the aliens…Speeder Bikes! Mary was definitely enjoying the bikes. The team hasn’t had the opportunity to unwind and lollygag in sometime since hunting the Twins.”
Since Pia is from Germany, I suggested that we take our heroes to Berlin for a bit of “lolly-gagging” until more intel could be gathered on the Twins. So until the next chapter…..and may the Force be with you.
Welcome back to another Out-of-this-World episode of “As the Jungle Turns” or “Mary’s Saga.” We last left off with the team of Mary, Wayne, Harry the Yeti and Mr. Sides exploring the ‘Enigmatic’ cave but suddenly the cave began collapsing around them. We last saw large plasma arcs flowing outwards from the cave, but to where?
The team ran out of the cave but what they saw was unbelievable!!
Mary could not believe her eyes…..
Pia Langfeld- “Mary couldn’t believe her eyes: The whole side of the mountain took off like some alien spacecraft….now, how to follow??”
The plasma arcs supplied energy to the alien spacecraft.
We had the idea that the Himalayan mountain served as a conductor for thunder storms and transferred the power to the generators.
This is why the cave was collapsing.
Jaime Leos- “The team comes out of the collapsing cave alive to find part of the mountain floating away!! It felt as if this was part of an Alien dream!! In the distance they could see The Twins escaping….they would need to find a mode of transportation to catch them. They would also need to be cautious of the floating islands because the crumbling rocks and earth was falling and revealing a spaceship!!”
The idea for these floating islands came partly from the movie Avatar. We imagined floating islands but soon reveal a spaceship.
The Twins are in the background hand gliding from the floating islands to the land below.
Floating islandsPia Langfeld- “Interestingly enough, the aliens had left behind a spacecraft…now they would have to figure out how to fly it….”
Pia drew this flying ship and I thought how it resembled the flying craft from the movie John Carter. The flying craft on the movie used light to obtain its power.
John Carter
While transitioning to the next chapter, “Star Wars” I decided to draw the floating island and reveal that after all of the rocks and earth had fallen off, it had revealed a “Cloud City”.
Welcome back for another episode of “As the Jungle Turns” featuring three chapters dealing with Mary and Agent W-D40’s adventures in the Himalayan Mountains. The word selected for Round 49 of Monkey Sidebars was “Incandescent” selected by Gaile Hughes or @natpatg. The ideas we had were Buddhist monks surrounded by candles and The Twins along with their sister, Faith are seeking sanctuary in the Monastery.
Pia Langfield- “So off they went, toward the land of the rising sun-the roof of the world…ready for their incandescent adventure.”
Pia and I spoke of introducing a new cameo scene with Mr. Sides as our contact in China and someone who could get our heroes up the mountainside. My original idea was to draw Mr. Sides as an anime character but Pia brilliantly said, “Why don’t you draw him in his style of drawing?” To which I replied, “What do you mean? In BONDAGE?!?!” Besides his seriously sexy drawings, his military art is also amazing. I studied his draws on Draw Something 2 to learn his style.
Mr SidesMr. SidesJaime Leos
On this draw, we recruited the services of Pia’s husband to help us with the names of the elite forces in Germany. We now had Mr. Sides trained by the GSG9 and KSK.
One other item was to address Agent W-D40’s name. It was beginning to become a pain in the arse to say and since we were building a relationship, we needed a name. Pia listed names that started with the letter ‘W’ and ‘D’. Pia selected Wayne and I selected Duncan (being a San Antonio Spurs fan).
Pia Langfeld
Pia was super excited about drawing the Dalai Lama. Pia has the talent for portraits…. as for me… well not so much.
Jaime Leos- “The crew arrives to the base of the Himalayan Mountains and have located The Twins at a possible monastery hideout with the help of Mr. Sides. Wayne makes a vow to Mary that nothing bad will happen during the climb or possibly forever.
This draw almost never happened because it was lost on Draw Something 2. Luckily I drew this for fellow Monkey member, Joanie Sween or @jasween116 who sent the pic back so I could screen capture it.
We were working on building a relationship between the two and incidentally we will refer to this draw in future draws.
Jaime Leos- “Explanation of draw not needed.”
~EFFORT~
During the writing process, we knew it would take great “Effort” to climb up the Himalayan Mountains. I spoke to Pia about one of my favorite authors, Jon Krakauer and the book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. She said she owned the movie version so we looked at scenes and came up with ideas to draw.
Pia Langfeld- “Mary, Wayne and Mr. Sides started their journey up the Himalayan Mountains to the Twins’ Hide out.
The idea was to draw the ice crevasses with Wayne slipping and almost falling into the crevasse. It would take a great effort to get him out or otherwise he would be found frozen next to a Wooly Mammoth!
Pia LangfeldPia LangfeldJaime Leos
In keeping with the Into Thin Air we decided to throw a vicious storm in the mix. The heroes in the book die from a freak storm on Mount Everest so I drew a storm that would jeopardize the team.
Jaime Leos- “After the great effort to beat the storm, the trio seeks shelter at a secluded cave…or so they thought. Mr. Sides tells Mary and Wayne of stories that his grandfather had told him as a child….stories of a selcouth creature that dwelled in the Himalayan Mountains…half man/half bear known as Yeti.
This drawing is referenced from the comic series Carbon Grey and added the start to the next chapter, Selcouth.
~SELCOUTH~
While coming up with ideas for Selcouth, I mentioned to Pia that I had just seen a childhood movie, Big Trouble in Little China. While looking for ideas for the Yeti or the Selcouth creature, I wanted to use one of the creatures on the movie.
Big Trouble in Little China
However, we went another route because we wanted him to be loveable and cuddly yet scary to look at…. and we would name him “Harry”. I started looking for reference draws for the Yeti which there weren’t as many as there were for Big Foot. However I found a great one referenced from WYV1 on Deviant Art.
Jaime LeosPia Langfeld
Pia drew this scene with jewels added to lead to the next chapter, “Enigmatic”
Jaime Leos- “Mary befriended the creature as ‘Beauty can soothe the savage beast!’ Realizing that Yeti’s are omnivores and are harmless…she named him Harry!”
With the previous draw featuring Mary in a fur coat and fur hat, of course it would make sense that she had a furry set of lingerie! This scene shows Mary calming the savage beast similar to King Kong. In fact, the other idea we had for this draw was Mary being abducted by a large White gorilla but we scrapped that idea.
Jaime Leos- “Wayne and Mr Sides tracked Mary to the Yeti’s lair to find her unharmed!! The guys were ready to attack when Mary stopped them and told them that he was harmless. She also pointed to some ‘Enigmatic’ markings that were in the cave.
Again, I had just seen Big Trouble in Little China and wanted to draw something that would honor this movie. I found this reference draw from Supajoe on Deviantart.com.
Pia Langfeld
Pia drew these symbols referring to the Elvish writings on The Hobbit. The team would need to decipher the code to go further into the cave.
~Enigmatic~
While brainstorming for Chapter 19, “Enigmatic” we also took into account the following chapter, “Alien”. While our journey took us into a strange cave that had a “Selcouth” creature, jewels embedded in the cave and unusual writing in the cave we shouldn’t have any problems coming up with an enigmatic concept.
Pia Langfeld
To decipher the enigmatic markings in the cave and determine what was behind the door, Mr. Sides had a German Enigma Machine. The machine was used by the Germans during World War II to read codes sent by the allies.
Pia Langfeld- “Cracking the code was easy enough and opened the door to a whole new Enigmatic world.”
Once the code was interpreted by the team, they moved on to a whole new Enigmatic World!! What was found in the cave was something that should not be! A jungle-like atmosphere inside the Himalayan mountains! But how? The team would press on to explore this enigmatic cave while trying to find the Twins and Faith.
Jaime Leos- “As the team explored the caves of the Himalayan Mountains, they came across an enigmatic mural with people worshiping a tall God-like man who is pointing to a constellation. Above him are unusual symbols that are not recognizable to Mr. Sides’ decoder….Is this tall being and this enigmatic cave from another planet?
Here we were transitioning to the next chapter, “Aliens.” Speaking of which, this drawing was inspired by the movie, Prometheus (2012) which was directed by Ridley Scott and was intended to be a prequel to another movie he directed, Alien (1979).
Jaime Leos-“The large generators suddenly came alive producing large electrical plasma arcs that flowed towards the final door. The generators made a rhythmic hum similar to a heart beat….lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub….it seemed as if the mountain was coming alive!!! As the noise became louder, the mountain began to TREMBLE!!!! Rocks began to fall over our heroes heads and they quickly ran towards the final door of the cave.
In this scene, we gave the cave…LIFE!!! We would see the cave beginning to collapse and large amounts of energy being transferred out of the cave as if it were a large power source to a great machine!! But what would require so much energy and where was this energy being generated from? The idea was the mountain collected energy from electrical storms outside of the mountain that were stored inside the generators.
These three chapters tested our imaginations. So many strange ideas came about but because of words like “Selcouth” and “Enigmatic” we knew that our world could be no less than unusual!!
Welcome back for another episode of “As The Jungle Turns” with your host, Jaime Leos. And as always I am joined with my talented partner, Pia Langfeld! So sit back and enjoy!
We are going to combine both Zaftig and Voluptuous as they both take place at Zaftig’s House of Bodacious Women!
Before drawing Rabble for chapter 14, Pia and I began discussing how we would transition to the word Zaftig. Pia lived in Germany and told me that the word sounded like the word, “saftig” which meant “juicy”.
Zaftig
After checking on Google images, we decided that we needed to chase Faith and the Twins to a strip club named “Zaftig’s House of Bodacious Women.” However, because we are still on Faith’s turf the club will be very risky and dangerous.
While looking for reference pictures I came across a draw from one of our Monkey Sidebars members, Straylightv, who mentioned an artist named Babs Tarr. I began researching her and found a drawing that would be great for our Zaftig club theme. There is a restaurant here in San Antonio, Texas called “Old San Francisco Steakhouse” which features an older, gold rush ambiance and a swinging girl from the ceiling.
This picture brought me home.
Babs TarrJaime Leos
I wanted a draw that would give an introduction of the dangerous and disreputable establishment. A place that was frequented by both politician and criminals.
Mary and Agent W-D40 would begin their search for the Twins and Faith. Yet as fate would have it, a pair of “twins” found them!!
The Zaftig dancer led the duo to Heidi, the bar owner.
Jaime Leos
Pia’s idea for Heidi was draw a bodacious barmaid and in keeping with the German Zaftig theme, she would be dressed like a Bavarian Oktoberfest lady with a name like Hilda or Heidi!
I immediately thought of the St. Pauli Girl.
St. Pauli GirlPia Langfeld
Pia drew her in the style of Angelina Jolie with her zaftig-like lips and other ‘juicy’ credentials. Heidi’s character was that of a savvy business owner. There was nothing that happened at Zaftig’s that Heidi didn’t know about! She looked at Mary and demanded a dance on-stage in exchange for information.
Pia’s idea for the dance was to do something that would distract the audience while Agent W-D40 could search for the Twins and Faith. If there was ever a scene in a movie that strip club patrons were distracted and amazed it would have to be the scene from Flashdance where Jennifer Beals pulls that rope making the water drop on her! This was the inspiration for Pia’s next draw.
Pia Langfeld
~Voluptuous~
When brainstorming for the Voluptuous draws, Pia and I began throwing up ideas that “with all of the voluptuous girls at Zaftig’s House of Bodacious Women, Agent W only had eyes for Mary.” We wanted to draw an escalating relationship between Agent W and Mary. We wanted to build something as the next word for Monkey Sidebars was “Incandescent”.
Jaime Leos
I decided to draw Mary coming off stage with her clothes all wet!
She would come off stage, strutting her stuff yet playing innocent….
“My clothes seem to be all wet Agent W! Help a lady?”
Jaime Leos
Agent W being the gentleman that he is decided to give Mary ‘the shirt off his back’ revealing his voluptuous self. Pia’s idea was to draw a voluptuous male figure since we had all of these half naked women so I drew this for our lovely lady-monkeys. Claire Austin’s response was the funniest to me because the ‘love-trail’ of hair under the umbilicus made her chuckle.
Pia Langfeld
We continue with the chivalrous acts of Agent W as he assists Mary with the shirt to keep her from getting cold. I believe Mary is impressed with his gentlemanly gestures!
Pia Langfeld
Agent W and Mary were getting off track and off the mission. They approached Heidi to gain their information on the Twins.
Heidi led them to the land of voluptuous mountains….Tibet.
We had a lot of fun with these two rounds of words and our fellow Monkey Sidebars friends also had some HOT submissions!! Freddy Mercury said it best when he said, “Fat Bottom Girls You Make The Rocking World Go Round!”
Thank you for reading and please follow @jungleturns on Instagram.
This chapter was a strange one but fun to create! When Pia Langfeld and I began to throw up ideas, Pia’s idea was to draw panic in the eyes of Mary and Agent W-D40 followed by the #Rabble breaking out into a “Flash Mob” dance scene like Micheal Jackson’s Thriller Video! In the meantime, I was looking up references for the chapter- Zoftig. When Pia suggested the flash mob scene, immediately I thought of Weird Al’s Fat video!
Weird Al’s Fat Video
Michael Jackson’s Thriller
Pia’s idea was Michael Jackson’s Thriller’s dance scene with the Zombies.
Pia LangfeldPia Langfeld
With the Rabble surrounding Mary and W-D40 the question was, “How are we going to get our heroes out of this one?” When Pia suggested the Flash Mob idea and Michael Jackson, I started watching MJ videos and came across this scene.
Michael Jackson’s Beat Ithttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdxUFDoQe0
It was perfect! Agent W-D40 was going to have to fight his way out. A duel with the gang leader! A knife fight choreographed similar to that in the Beat It video or West Side Story.
Jaime Leos
After I drew this scene, I realized that the gang leader looked just like one of our fellow Monkey Sidebar members, Mr. Saul Osorio!! I did a double take and couldn’t believe my eyes. I knew I had to tag @sawoooly on this one!! And this is how our first cameo came about! I sent this drawing to Pia because I was hesitant to use it as not to offend Saul. I’m glad we used it and Saul commented on Instagram, “Man this made my day! LOL!”
Jaime Leos
Unfortunately for @sawoooly, he had to go down or otherwise we end the comic saga…LOL! Mary had to flash some boobs or something along that line to distract Saul long enough to lose. Agent W-D40 agreed to spare his life if he told them where Faith and The Twins were. They ran off to Zaftig’s House of Bodacious Women!!
Back again to share how the ideas for faith came about. Several ideas came about between Pia and I. We spoke about chasing the Twins through dark alley ways since our next word was “Rabble”. I had an idea to have Wayne calling for backup while before entering the ghetto. Mary would get too anxious and want to chase them before they got away but Wayne would tell her, “Have Faith.” We scrapped this idea and came up with the following draws.
Pia Langfeld
While Pia was researching reference draws for “Faith”, she came across several graffiti draws with their faith being depicted. She went with this idea and got many religions and faiths into her draw.
Pia Langfeld
On this draw, I came up with the quote from Dante’s Inferno while Dante and Virgil enter Hell, they are greeted with the phrase, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here” but we changed the ‘hope’ to ‘Faith’ to go along with the new character we were about to introduce.
Jaime Leos
I drew Faith as the leader of a ruthless gang. She would have to be able to move the Twins with little notice, able to obtain weapons, fake ID’s, etc. so she would need to be connected. Someone who would not want to be arrested nor someone who would be willing to go quietly. Of course, she would need to be bad ass. On the captions, I did not want to use “….and this is my ‘hood!!!” but I couldn’t think of anything better at the time.
Posting time was coming up soon and I couldn’t think of another word for ‘neighborhood’ or ‘turf’ due to mental constipation (or brain farts).
Jaime Leos
Here, I drew Faith wanting to ‘put a hurting’ onto Mary but her priorities were to get the Twins out of the country…. preferably somewhere they couldn’t be extradited. I drew Faith with Iron Crosses as a symbol of Faith.
Since our introduction of Faith we have only shown her in one draw (Dance) but not recognizable since Faith is drugged. But we will come up to that in future Jungle Turn posts. I hope that we can get a great word selected by our monkey friends where we can have Mary and Faith finally face each other and have a great fight with plenty of action or maybe an oil wrestling match!!
Hello everyone!
Back again with a narrative of the thought process Pia and I go through to make our draws and storyline work with the words selected for Monkey Sidebars.
As I have mentioned in the past, sometimes when a word comes along and I can’t come up with a plot to go behind the word then I will ask Pia if she wants to skip the word. My idea was to draw a Rock Tribute. I wanted to draw Mary sporting a Metallica t-shirt or something like that. Maybe draw her with headphones listening to The Beatles. Maybe we could draw Pia dressed as a punk rocker. Pia on the other hand said, “We can work with this.” We started to throw up ideas and before you knew it we had a storyline for “Rock N Roll”. I thought they should dress as a KISS tribute band since the villains were trying to lay low and not be noticed.
Pia Langfeld
The first draw was done by Pia heading to the Belly Up Tavern. An actual bar that Pia said she used to visit in her college years in San Diego.
It was the kind of place that you hoped to get out of alive. It’s where Pia got her training to become a Crime-fighter comic artist!
Pia Langfeld
The next draw shows Mary and Agent W-D40 searching for the Twins. Only they did not know that The Twins were right in front of them!
Jaime Leos
I’ve seen so many cover bands and tribute bands in the Austin/San Antonio area but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a KISS tribute band. Anywho… our tribute band playing at the Belly Up Tavern (notice how I wrote Bottom’s up Tavern on the draw…doh!) was Destroyer!!! I didn’t know if there was a tribute band by the name “Destroyer” but I figured there would be so I Googled their name and there is an actual band called Destroyer! They actually played 30 miles from my hometown this weekend! Weird.
Jaime Leos
WTF indeed! Pia and I discussed how we would make the GRAND REVEAL! I thought this idea was crazy but we actually pulled it off. I was so glad that we stuck to the storyline and not drawing some random draws.
Stay tuned for some exciting changes in the Jungle Turns saga!
Will Mary return from the DEAD!! Will she be a WALKER
(see what I did there Walking Dead fans).
Please follow @jungleturns on Instagram.
Thanks – Jaime.
Jungle Turns 