#storysafari

[claire-sketches]

Another music inspired story board. I’m headed to Scotland and Ireland soon to see where my family lived. The stag is my family symbol so this board was driven by that! Do you think she’ll cut the stag free?

Music- “The Wedding” by Bear McCreary

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Marshmallow dinosaur 

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A comic I did about a recent eyeball condition I had that required drops every two hours. Felt like my baseball eyes shrunk to pea eyes. 

[claire-sketches]

Lately I’ve been doing an activity every Friday called “Next 5 Friday”. I heard about a storyboarding activity from Emma Coats where you find a photograph and storyboard the next 5 panels as if it were a scene in a film. I’ve loved her boards for so long and I’ve been wanting to become better at my own boards, so I decided to do one of these every Friday and call it #next5friday . Feel free to join in on the fun and hashtag your own boards! 

Thanks to Jeff Dotson for his beautiful photography. I found this image of his on Pinterest and it really captured my imagination. I was heavily inspired by a recent camping trip as well as tales of the English ghost dog Black Shuck. 

Feel free to follow along on my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storysafari/

[claire-sketches]

Here is one of the pages from my Japan travel journal. Tokyo snacks!

I’ll be compiling all of my sketches and stories into a travel book and selling it soon. Stay tuned. 

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Sakura dragon!

 I really miss Japan. 

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It’s National Cartoonists Day and also Mermay! So I paid homage to one of my most favorite artists, Hergé.

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Here’s a recent commission I finished for Fatescanner of his fursona in Zootopia style. I had a ton of fun with this! 

Character belongs to him.

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“If you must go, take my lantern. It will protect you from the Shadows.”

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I did Hourly Comic day this year for the first time! It was crazy how quickly the day went (and how un-boring I thought my life would be) when recording every hour of the day. 

Thanks for tagging along! Hopefully you learned something about my life- like how much I eat candy and how much I love foreign backpacks. 

ALSO thank you to all the new followers! You’re all so awesome. Maybe I’ll do a giveaway? 

[claire-sketches]

Just a reminder that I don’t use Tumblr anymore and won’t be in the future. I’m jumping this sinking ship for good! 

You can find my art here on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/storysafari/?hl=en

Or on Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/storysafari

Bye, friends!

[claire-sketches]

HELLO, FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT YOUR ART IS AWESOME AND I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY ISN'T IT GETTING ANY MORE NOTES BECAUSE YOU DESERVE SO MUCH MORE!!! btw, do you have a twitter?

You are SO NICE!! Honestly, messages like this make me so happy. I love drawing, but I love making people laugh and smile even more. So if my art does that, then mission accomplished! I’m glad you like it! Thank you for making my day great! 

I DO have a Twitter, but I’m still not sure how to properly use it?? I use my Instagram the most! 

Here are links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/storysafari

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storysafari/

Thanks again for the comments! You’re great!! 

[storysafari]

On Alfred - Part Two

It was on one such walk I encountered Alfred. In the middle of my excursion, as the colossal trees loomed overhead and the 8:02 am luminous sun touched the brown bark of the elderly trees, I peered to my right. Perched upon a log was a creature that seemingly inspected my essence. It had short, smoky fur, and its countenance exuded an aura of inquisitive kindness. Out of compulsion, I immediately interrupted my walk to look upon this creature more, as how could I not in the name of ADD? The creature gazed into my eyes, its annular head tilted at a 45 degree angle, its hands clutching a rather large hazelnut, and it seemed to invite me to converse with it.

“Fellow,” I began. “What brings you here?” The creature’s head moved to an angle amounting zero, and it jumped from its stately log, dropping its hazelnut, and took a cautious step closer to where I was standing, its right paw outstretched before it. Its tail twitched, and it looked at me. Its tail convulsed yet again, and it was at that moment I realized that the creature’s tail was its means of confabulation.

“You must be looking for food, I presume?” The creature’s tail twitched twice, and I took that to mean a “yes.” I rustled around my pocket and found three jellybeans, one of a golden hue, the next vermillion, and the final of a chartreuse shade. The make of these jellybeans were of a company called “Starburst,” and being a connoisseur of such delicacies, I knew these jellybeans to be the finest of their kind. I placed these delicacies upon the ocher forest floor, and the creature twitched its tail twice more. I immediately presumed this was the signal of thanks for such beings, and I nodded my head and smiled eloquently.

“My friend,” I continued. “Now that I have gotten to know you more, I must conceive a name for you.” The creature’s tail twitched thrice more, in a slow, then rapid motion, and it appeared as if the creature agreed. Gazing upon its countenance, I knew the name must be something magnificent, something to fully encompass the grandeur of this tiny being, this chivalrous knight, this prince of the forest floor, the tiny one who mightily dashes into the frightening boscage of trees to gather food for the coming tempests of life, to bring to his castle and to his other grey-furred, fuzzy companions something upon which to survive. Pondering upon this for approximately three minutes, I realized there was only one such mighty name upon which to call this tiny creature. I dubbed the fellow Alfred, after the great king of Wessex who gallantly defended his kingdom from the Vikings in the year of 871 anno Domini. The creature seemed to like its name, as it fervently twitched its tail a countless number of times. It was at that point that I realized my watch read 8:14 am. (I only glanced upon my timepiece because I could tell from the shadow protruding below the creature that a significant amount of time had passed.) Realizing that my excursion was well near its end, I bid Alfred farewell, and continued my walk until I reentered my domicile.

Once in my domicile, I could not divert my mind from this creature, and I resolutely decided to inquire as to what species this creature was. After using the unnaturally perplexing infobahn called the internet, I came to discover that this marvelous creature was formerly known as a squirrel, or Tamiasciurus hudsonicus for short, of kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Sciuridae.

And so was the story of how I first met Alfred the Squirrel.

Note to the reader: This is the second part of a satire on Thoreau's Walden.

Hello! My name is Tyler, and I'm the type of guy who believes that stories can change the world. In my spare time, I love to write stories, find solutions to problems, and explore ideas. As a fun fact, I created StorySafari!

Visit Tyler's site or View another story

[storysafari]

On Alfred - Part Three

The subsequent morning, when the 8:11 am morning sun was veiled behind minacious charcoal clouds, I set upon my excursion to find my fuzzy acquaintance. As I hastily came to the area in my walk where I first encountered Alfred, I promptly came to the realization that my small benefaction of jellybeans was missing. After cataloging that fact in my leather notebook (of which was filled with parchment I had gathered earlier from a perilous contraption called a “printer”), I peered to my right, like the day before, and found Alfred sitting upon his partially dilapidated log. Upon eye contact, Alfred immediately jumped from his log and took a step closer, his tail twitching once, then twice, in a brisk manner. I squatted to the ground, setting my notebook on two maple leaves, and began to converse with the creature.

    However, as the conversation developed, I came to the realization that there was something anomalous in his responses. His demeanor had changed from the previous day. Each response he had was virulent, the pupils in his eyes truculently narrowed, every tail convulsion exuding an aura of hatred. Upon further observation, I found that his tail had moved 0.09 seconds slower than before when responding to an inquiry, and I also found that his tail naturally rested at an angle of merely 27 degrees, opposed to that of 30 degrees which I had recorded the previous day. That - and the fact that upon his silvery back lay ridden a globular patch of hazel fur - made me come to the realization that this creature was not the same creature I had talked to the previous day.

    Yet, I know it was unlike Alfred not to be at his post. I could tell from the look in his eyes when I first met him that the true Alfred would never abandon his domicile. As I pondered the situation, I, crestfallen, came to the realization that I was the reason Alfred abandoned his chivalrous post. I, the outsider he so magnanimously welcomed, the foreigner who invaded his tranquil abode, who trampled upon his well-kept grasslings, who defiantly stepped into the bellicose woods that had tried so mightily to halt my advance with thorns and perilously sticky spiderwebs, had catalyzed Alfred’s demise. It was the jellybeans, I surmised. The jellybeans must have poisoned Alfred.

    Lo! Oh! Why! Ay! Oh! Lo! Is it not like life to give me something wonderful and then to take it away? Is it not like life to bring about the demise of something I enjoy only by myself? How I knew the wretched woods would cause me to wander further from the wonderful fortune of finding ebullience. Alfred, my fuzzy little friend, how could I have committed the terrible treachery of mistaking you for another of your kind? If you were still out there, how you would most probably - nay, certainly! - not forgive me. Yet, I must continue my now-mournful excursions, with or without you, Alfred. In the name of ADD, I must continue to steadily push forward.

Hello! My name is Tyler, and I'm the type of guy who believes that stories can change the world. In my spare time, I love to write stories, find solutions to problems, and explore ideas. As a fun fact, I created StorySafari!

Visit Tyler's site or View another story

[stellarisjay]

#storysafari #vscocam #latergram (at Backbone Road Bluffs)