To Dream In Deep Water “cover”
August 29th, 2010
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A Lengthy Introduction
January 16th, 2010
My main project for 2010 is a graphic novel by the name of Pastel Sun. This has been a long time in the making, and I’m glad I finally grew the balls to start working on it. I’m going to give you a very brief introduction to the story here, as well as some considerably longer notes on its inspiration.
I have always been fascinated by the deaf. Sign language, too. On the one hand, I love music so much that it scares me a little to even think about what it would be like to be deaf. But at the same time I have such an enormous respect for people who live without it because I’m sure they’ve heard that exact sentiment a thousand times – how do you live without music? I’ve only met one deaf person in my life so far, and I tried my best to hold back on my questions. Something about the fact that I literally could never understand the way they see the world intrigues me to no end.
At some point I wondered if there had ever been any (well known) stories about a deaf main character. I couldn’t think of any, but that might’ve just been a lack of luck. (If you do know of any, please email me! Books, movies, short stories, comics, anything!)
So, being a wannabe writer, I figured I’d write one. Not long after the story started brewing I realized it would carry so much more depth as a more visual medium than writing, and I stubbed my toe over that dusty old comic book idea. I had never really been a fan of comic books (I have issues with most superheroes…) but the idea behind the medium was one I had every respect for. This was about six or seven months ago.
I spent some time trying to doodle out an acceptable comic book style of art, and eventually gave up. Lineart goes against everything I find fun about painting. Eventually I was clocked on the head by some unseen force of reason and it dawned on me that I didn’t have to come up with a whole new style of art for this to work. I could do it in my own painting style. It’ll just be, y’know, difficult.
And so the complete vision of Pastel Sun promptly popped into my head; a story about a deaf priestess in a fantasy culture that worships beauty and believes demons literally travel and breed by word of mouth.
I’m still outlining, so that’s all I’ll say for now. If all goes well, finishing this story will be the proudest moment of my life.
Cheers.
New painting: Suntamer
December 26th, 2009
Summeryear Graphic Novel
December 15th, 2009
I’m young. I’m still learning about myself and my creative impulses. So, I’m going to try something.
I’ve always loved the idea of comics and graphic novels, although I never read any at all until recently. It’s a brilliant mesh between written storytelling and visual art. I want to be a writer and I want to be an artist. I figure I’ll try doing both at once and see how it goes.
I expect this to be an enormous project — much bigger than the novel, maybe. But hell, I can’t learn without trying, so here goes. First order of business is writing out the script. I’ll update again once I’ve finished that.
The plan is doing the whole graphic novel in my own digital painted style. Nothing cartoony if I can help it. A daunting project, but if I can pull it off I might find a life calling.
Cheers. (EDIT: Doing this with a new story called Pastel Sun instead)
NaNoWriMo Update
November 19th, 2009
I’ve spent the last few nights trying to fall asleep and the last few days trying to stay awake. This isn’t anything new for me, insomnia is something I’ve dealt with most of my life. Every three or four months there’s a week where I just can’t seem to sleep. It’s never bothered me as much as it has this particular week.
If you have ever experienced insomnia — not for a single night or even two, but real, seemingly unending insomnia — then you’ll know what my life has been for this past week. Focus is out the window, creativity is dead in the water. My only thoughts are Oh God, please let me sleep tonight. Naps are a ticket straight to an even longer problem, I’m stuck in a half-wakefulness until it resolves itself.
Insomnia is a waiting game for me, it’s putting my life on hold and I can’t do a damn thing about it. Believe me, I’ve tried.
I honestly can’t say if I can finish NaNoWriMo at this point. I would be doing the last half in the final week, and it’s not out of line to say that’s simply too much.
It’s possible, sure. There’s a faint glimmer of hope for the possibility of my winning this but I would have to put other projects aside. Plus of course, that’s all assuming that I’ll be able to sleep tonight or the next night.
Alongside NaNo I’ve been working on a contest entry for deviantART. The theme is “Dreams”, and I’ve only got a few hours in on the painting so far. It’s due December eighth.
I don’t have time to do both. If I finish NaNoWriMo and reach 50K in time I’ll probably be too creatively exhausted to paint all hours of the day the week before the contest closes like I would need to to finish this in time.
I’m going to be running a week long sprint either way — that’s assuming I can run at all.
Run Far, Far Away From The Comfort Zone
September 29th, 2009
I have been painting a lot lately. I mean ten or twelve hours a day, sometimes without much of a break at all until I realize I’ve missed dinner.
This is what I mean when I say I’m a binge worker. The same thing happened while I was writing and editing Summeryear before I fell into that unfortunate slump. But the slump served one good purpose, it forced me to either be productive in something or become depressed and mopey for getting nothing done. Luckily, I chose to do something.
And so I pulled out an old painting I had started a few months ago and have now nearly finished it. That’s Suntamer, if you’ve been keeping up with my news lately.
Suntamer scared me a little. Well, no, it scared me a hell of a lot. It’s substantially outside my artistic comfort zone. I’m used to doing fairly simple portraits which, while they have certainly gotten better over the years, have remained just as dull and unimaginative.
So I had started Suntamer. It’s a figure of a woman holding a phoenix. Not looking straight ahead blankly, not with no real degree of actual design involved. I am tired of just painting faces, and I doubt I will again for a long time now that I’ve started experimenting.
While I was taking a break from Suntamer tonight, I sketched up this:
I am going to paint this. I don’t care how freakin’ long it takes, how much I want to gouge my eyes out by the end or if my tablet pen erodes down to nothing but an eraser sized lump. I am going to paint this.
We’ll see how it goes, I suppose. For the time being I’m still working on Suntamer, two art trades with two of my best friends which won’t be quite as detailed (probably) as Suntamer, and thus shouldn’t take months to complete like this has.
I think this is important. Just as important, maybe, as having decided that one day so long ago to sit my ass down and write a novel, and then actually doing it. This is my novel in digital painting, it’s my mountain to climb, a be-all-end-all test of how serious I am about art and getting better at artsy things.
Funny thing is, I said the same thing about Suntamer and now that it’s almost finished I feel I could have found a higher Everest. So, here we go. I expect this piece (calling it Zaxamara Stone for now) will have the same feeling once it’s done. Just the nature of improving.
And so the thoughty in today’s thoughty gobbet is this… do not believe in comfort zones. They are simply cages. Experiment more. In whatever artistic endeavor you feel connected to – experiment more.
That’s all.
Cheers.
New Painting: Fiona Breens
September 22nd, 2009
Contrary to what you might think when you look at my deviantART page, I have been painting a lot lately. I just haven’t been finishing things, because I’ve been trying to spend more time on each work. And thus, I have not posted something new in a while.
But now, because I wanted to damn well finish something, we have a portrait of Fiona Breens. I was trying out a new style, and I think it was a moderate success. It was a very quick piece, but altogether I think I’m happy with it.
http://amorebravekitten.deviantart.com/art/Fiona-Breens-137932907
For those interested, Fiona is a character from a Harry Potter fanfiction I am in the process of outlining. I’m going to write the first half of Rusalka for NaNoWriMo, and then start writing this fanfic (titled Novem Ursus for the moment…I seem to like non-English titles) in December.
Graphic Novel? & Suntamer
September 16th, 2009
Been quiet for a while, oops!
Most of this week has been spent brainstorming on the potential of a graphic novel alongside my other projects as well as painting through the days.
I’ve been trying out a few cartoony styles, varying from not-quite-anime to not-quite-realism, and I haven’t really found one I’m comfortable with yet. I do want to tell this story (it’s one that’s been in my head for the last four or five years), but a graphic novel might just be outside my talent. Or else, I’ve just spent too much time working on realism that I need far more practice with comic styles before I can put it together. Maybe it’ll end up more like a heavily illustrated novel than a comic, only time will tell.
I’m going to be out of town Friday to Sunday(ish), so I’m trying to get the Suntamer painting finished before I leave. I think I’ve been working on this on and off for about a month now, with something like fifteen hours put in and probably about halfway complete.
Even if I do manage to finish the painting before I leave, I doubt I’ll have time to put together the tutorial. That’s a project for next week. I’m planning for the tutorial to mostly cover colour tips, detail, and textures, but that might change. I’m absolutely not qualified to discuss anatomy just yet, as I tend to spend half my time fiddling with my sketch until it looks at least almost properly proportioned. We all have our strengths.
I’m sad to say I haven’t been working on Summeryear much at all lately. My creativity tends to come in bursts for each of my projects, so once this Summeryear slump ends I’ll zoom through it. I suppose I’m a bit of a binge writer.
Just a quick update to show I am still alive and working.
Cheers.