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If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the other projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the future projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the other projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the other projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Lustre Zeal Prologue Page One

This . . . is going to take some getting used to. And I don't just mean the formatting and editing which is its own thing, but rather the existential anxiety and fear that surrounds the creative process when starting out on a project because if people think writing the first word of a novel is hard, try drawing the first page of a comic. There are a million and one decisions to be made, many of which feel as though they will never be good enough to satisfy the nagging dread that somehow something is missing or that maybe if I tried to draw it again tomorrow I could do it better. There's also the feeling that if your work isn't good enough that its that much easier to dismiss, but mostly it comes down to the lack of experience that allows us to feel secure in our sense of our selves because once we put something out in front of others we risk both the pain of rejection and being misunderstood. People's taste in art being as subjective as it is certainly doesn't help matters much either as no matter what your intent as an artist may be, the limits of the medium and the visual language that people are familiar with are often used to measure a work's overall appeal, rather then any objectively definable determinator that can in turn be used to establish value. To put it another way, drawing a comic, writing a book, directing a film, or any creative endeavor really, is a bit like standing between two very different worlds as what the audience wants and what the artist desires to create often stands in direct opposition to each other. It goes something like this; as a writer my goal is to establish a narrative framework as quickly and coherently as possible, where is the story taking place, who is it happening to, why should the audience care, what is the setting and so forth. All of which sounds like advice you'd get in any first year writing course, but as an author, I have to take it a step further and separate those questions into various layers of metacontextual awareness and that means asking what does the writer know, what do the characters themselves know, and what is the audience aware of. By asking these questions, any text or dialogue that seeks to establish the narrative has to be weighed against any present and future context in order to maintain an internally consistent narrative otherwise you get plot holes you can drive a semi-truck through. Its not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do and can run a foul of things like absolute statements and ontological paradoxes but a good writer can work around those things. A bad writer uses them as a platform to espouse their own personal or political ideologies. Anyway, communicating that intent as an artist is a hell of a lot harder because it means I can't tell you what's happening without directly spelling it out and removing all sense of mystery or ambiguity, or actually showing you which removes all sense of context, obviates the need for a set-up, and ruins the potential catharsis engendered by a reveal. And suddenly the words 'show don't tell' sound's like a profoundly idiotic statement due to the fact that its applicability is wholly irrelevant as it removes cause from correlation and renders any anttempt to communicate visually moot. A fan of that particular idiom I am not. So how does narrative structure inform the experience of the audience? Well that's the flipside of the coin, because if the artist is doing their job well, the audience will never need to question the narrative framework being employed by the artist and simply be able to immerse themselves in the experience. But that means stepping back from a work and recontextualizing our priorities and goals by focusing on satisfying the needs of someone other then ourselves. Which means asking a completely different set of questions such as, who is the audience supposed to empathise with, what makes them a likable character, is the setting familiar enough that they can see themselves in it or does its alienness create a sense of cognitive, emotional, or cultural dissonance. As Walt Disney famously said, "We need to make our characters identifiable enough that a child can recognize them in five seconds. After that we've lost their attention." Which is a tough standard to live up to, but it helps to inform some of the aesthetic decisions that we as artists have to make as whether we're starting In Media Res or Jo-Ha-Kyu, we still have to work to establish the concept of the world the narrative is taking place in in the audience's mind. Whether I can do that effectively or not still remains to be seen as all of the narrative techniques I'm used to working with don't exactly translate well to comics and learning an entirely new set of visual aesthetics is going to take me a while to master. But at least I've gotten the process of inking and coloring organized enough now that keeping everything documented and on track is a realistic endeavor, instead of a soul crushing exercise in absolute futility.

If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the other projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Lustre Zeal Cover Art

Now I know why cartoon shows spend over eighty percent of their animation budget on the intro, if its the first thing people are going to see you want it to be as memorable as possible. That said, holy hell its actual cover art. Its almost like all the years of practice are finally starting to pay off.

As for my actual thoughts on this piece, well, they're complicated. To start with I had to draw fairly heavily from a lot of my influences just to anchor the image as bringing that many separate elements together in one place is no small task given the fact not only are many of them overlapping each other but also conveying a sense of depth at the same time. Then there's the fact that they're supposed to be both representational and symbolic  of events within the story itself and frankly I'm amazed the colors came together as well as they did given the fact that there are so many of them. That and I think the program I use to draw started to hate me towards the end given the fact that every color transition and element was on its own separate layer and when your brush starts skipping strokes its time to do so compression. Still, putting aside the bizarre logistics involved with even trying to plan out each section of the image, there were times that I was working on this where I actually felt like a comic book artist. Strange I know but given that I didn't have to stop and do more research, or try to figure out how to make something look like what I intended it to be, it was nice to be able to just focus on making it look as appealing as possible without worrying about whether or not I was even going to be able to finish it. That part came at the end when the program started to stutter but once you've spent a few years writing a novel only to have a cat come along and walk across your keyboard and effectively wipe the entire thing out by stepping on CTRL+A and then F you learn to create multiple backups of everything. EVERYTHING. Anyway, now that the cover is done I can start working on the actual prologue. So if you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the other projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

The Compass of Balance and Order

More concept art for Lustre Zeal. While attempting to try and develop the look and feel of the world the characters interact with I've also been trying to learn how to balance the aesthetics that I enjoyed while growing up with more modern sensibilities as copying the past because it was a simpler time won't necessarily make you a better artist. If anything it just makes you look dated. Also development log.

Development Log 7.21.17

So between working on various pictures and time spent trying to piece my psyche back together, apparently the development of the self and the deconstruction of the ego can be arrested at various stages in the individuation process leading to psychoses that I've no doubt Freud would have had a field day with, I've been developing a model of thought based on the nature of the Artistic Identity, the use of Inner Vision and our relationship  to the social forces present in Emotional Economies to achieve what Jung would term 'a level of psychic functioning' that allows me to 'try and reach for an idea' without relying on the Extension of Self, Embodied Presence, the Avatar State, or the Panopticon Effect.  

Don't know what any of those things are? Good, that saves me the trouble of trying to explain them because doing so would involve talking about higher-order thinking and metastrategic knowledge and I don't feel like being here all day. Suffice it to say that the two most prevalent processes I've come across in terms of communicating the means by which an artist experiences the creative forces analogous to the ones they seek to convey is Method Acting and Stanislavski's System, and I don't think I need to tell you which is the one that I prefer. Or maybe I do because quite frankly Method Acting has some very scary side effects and has caused many an actor to come back as something other then themselves. Think Alia from Dune when she gives Baron Harkonnen a place in her mind after speaking with him in other memory. Yeah, not pretty. Anyway back to talking about Artistic Identities and whatnot. Because working on Lustre Zeal has involved making so many freaking design decisions, I've lost count at this point as the sheer complexity of the processes involved has forced me to seek out even greater levels of organization then the one's I already rely on, I've had to focus more on a core set of techniques rather then my usual experimental and iterative explorations of various form languages. Good god that sentence was an absolute mouthful. Let's try that again shall we. Because I prefer to draw characters with more realistic looking anatomy and proportions, I've had to focus on things like the Reilly Method of drawing for my use of construction, gesture drawing for establishing the pose, Frazetta's Emotional Core for my relationships and blah, blah, blah for everything else. Seriously, do you think I'd actually sit here and list off every single artist, actor, animator or director whose work that I've studied in order to form the very foundation that I reach for when I sit down to draw? Well, I could, but it would be a fairly long list and a lot of the names would be Japanese so let's just stick with the whole Artistic Identity and whatnot as the degree of knowledge involved in achieving the level of realism I desire is fairly high and requires an obscene amount of investment in terms of time and energy to actually learn. Having said that, because of the desire to establish one's self both emotionally and mentally is a process of self-actualization, I figured that something similar must be happening whenever artists sit down to draw, writers write or musicians compose, if not only because such an identity allows us to establish our own individual presence in an Emotional Economy but because it also allows us to recognize the visual appeal of our work as well as further understand and define the form language we use to communicate our ideas with both our audience and our peers. A matter which is not helped much by the fact that the rites of passage artists undergo and the harrowing that we experience while setting out on such a path tend to have the unfortunate effect of either destroying our egos utterly or leaving us completely disillusioned by the nature of the realities we choose to engage with. The fact that I scare the absolute shit out of most people when I talk normally is something I've had to live with my entire life, so imagine my surprise when the art that I sought to create and the stories I started to tell became a reflection of the self I'd long sought to hide in order to pass off as normal. I don't doubt Jung would refer to that as the Shadow seeking to express itself in an otherwise healthy way, but then again my pursuit of finding my own Self amidst the ruins of a life ruled over by the fear of what others cannot possibly imagine has been motivated more by a desire to end such intellectual isolation then anything else. Anyway, as an Artist and a Writer I have the freedom to act and think as I want without hindrance or restraint, but balance that with the need for a Persona which to embody and the need for an Artistic Identity becomes both an ego defence mechanism and a means of self expression. There are of course countless downsides to this as dissociation and supplantation can and do occur, watching that happen to celebrities is disturbing to say the least, but then knowing  the risks lessens the dangers so there is that. That said the purpose that I had in seeking out the concept of the Artistic Identity was because I wanted a way to discuss the idea of developing one's own Inner Vision without having to rely on the words 'feeling' or 'style' due to the incredibly vague connotations already associated with their use. Seriously, I hear those words used to describe everything related to art and it just grates against my mind because of how hollow and meaningless they are because if Art Deco is a style then no matter how much I may love it it isn't my 'style' its a style that I 'identify' with. Don't even get me started on 'feeling,' hoo boy, sensation is a much better word because not only can I externalize the concepts involved, I can internalize the information being gathered without harming my psyche in the process. But back to what I was originally saying, if we have an Internal Monologue, which can only be reported to exist as I know of no actual means by which to prove it exists save for maybe some form of telepresence or mind to machine transfer system, which in turn begs the question of machine learning and machine consciousness, it stands to reason that we also possess some form of Inner vision. By definition that would mean that if an Internal Monologue is about thinking in words, then Inner Vision is about thinking in pictures. Oh screw trying to dumb it down, there's a mode of meditation used in Vajrayana Buddhism that uses fully realized forms and sophisticated visualization techniques to create art. The fact it can also be used to achieve a substitution effect using imagined experiences that evoke the same cognitive and phsyiological consequences as their corresponding real world counterparts is in my mind an unintended bonus. Though not one I would personally prefer to try and teach someone as you can see by anything I try to draw, its a process that leaves little room for error and can seriously mess you up if you aren't aware of what the hell you're doing and what's going on. Seriously, ten years spent practicing a technique to achieve what people can experience in five minutes after eating a handful of mushrooms. Grumble, grumble, grumble . . . anyway, in order to differentiate one's own Inner Vision from, say, Mental Images or Mental Representation, its important to begin by distinguishing the idea of Inner Vision from the mathematical models and the spatial awareness skills we use to visualize objects as when attempting to represent an imaginary object rather then say, trying to recollect an object from memory in order to construct it, we rely on different visual processes to access and interact with the information in question. Which is to say that copying, transferring, transposing and transubstantiation all describe varying levels and degrees of the qualities we wish to ascribe to an object or form. Or in other words a sword can change its appearance to match its setting without altering its basic properties and still be recognized as a sword in spite of the differences between the artist's mental image of a sword and the way it appears in their own Inner Vision. And if that sounded confusing try applying the concept to architecture and you'll start to understand why so many artists default to the known forms that they've grown up with if only because doing so prevents them from experiencing the kind of trepidation and fear that comes from crossing through Liminal Space. Even I struggle with that one as the number of social constructs and intergenerational gaps that have created new and unprecedented chilling effects increase I find myself wondering what fresh new hell the masses have decided to pass off as popular opinion and commonly held belief. But then again the conflict that exists between attempting to establish one's own identity by rejecting the value systems of those who came before and the realization of one's own agency in a vanishing world is nothing new, its simply happening much faster now. Anyway, back to my point about developing one's Inner Vision, when we look for the primary influences that serve as the basis for the way we attempt to visualize objects, I found that focusing on those experiences that serve as our introduction to a work tend to form the foundation  we unconsciously reach for when we draw as not only do they often have largest amount of emotional investiture but the degree of familiarity with the subject matter cannot be matched by the increasingly complex mental and emotional needs imposed upon us by the realities present in an adult world. Or in other words, the reason why the things we enjoyed as children absorbed us so completely is because the fabric of the social realities  they presented us with served as a means of translating the elaborate social constructs of the adult worlds around us in a way that allowed us to relate to the events and forces that were shaping the geopolitical landscape of the time. The reason that I say this is because when I look back at many of the cartoons I grew up with I find myself seeing references to things that only those of us who were adults at the time would've recognized or even cared about. And this is in no way an isolated phenomena as not only is it present in my own work, but a few of the more recent cartoons that I've seen seem to be trying to reach a point where they appeal to both children and adults in a way that encourages parents to watch them with their kids so something to root for I suppose. That said, whenever I try to reach for an image in my mind that fits the parameters I've set in terms of design, I've found that comparing and contrasting it against things that already exist in reality is the only way to anchor the idea in a tangible way as asking myself to try and direct my own attention towards a certain emotion, theme, mood or even concept is all but impossible without associating my intent with some other established work. I suppose if I were to try and put it into words, its basically the difference between drawing, designing, and development. When I draw, I work from memory, when I design something I work from either an emotional intent or a previously established concept, when developing a novel or an illustration, I work with either a composition in mind or a set of parameters that in turn serve to define the work. Case in point when trying to visualize the Tower of Zeal I needed something that was simple enough to draw over and over again, and yet different enough from the rest of the surrounding architecture that no one would ever mistake it for having been built by the local population. Seeing that in my own mind on the other hand meant I couldn't rely on simply trying to copy pre-existing objects or styles even though doing so helps to familiarize us with the form language that human's use to try and express concepts like reverence and worship. That and ornamentation, people love ornamentation to the point that it is rare to see a truly blank surface anywhere in art or architecture. Anyway, I think that's enough rambling from me. As I said I'm still trying to develop the concept of the Artistic Identity and the function of Inner Vision so if I'm even less coherent then usual that would be why. Until next time folks, have a good one.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Sketch Work 7.13.17

I'm almost certain muscles don't work that way, but eh, between trying to develop the manual dexterity to control the direction of the line and the understanding of tone and value when working with inks at least I can say it didn't turn out horribly. Now if I could just figure out why I experience a sense of cognitive dissonance whenever I look at it without the emotional overlay in place that would be great.  

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Development Log 7.7.17

Still working on developing Lustre Zeal. I managed to write a script for the first couple of pages that serves to establish the setting and the primary conflict, but when it came to laying out the panels and introducing central themes and concepts I ran into issues with the pre-production side of things because I still need to work out character and concept art for things that while hinted at early on don't become relevant until much later in the story. So I tried drawing some characters who could appear in the prologue while at the same time have no relevance to the actual plot. I know that doesn't say much but since I can't talk about the development process without divulging details that would give away the ending trying to dance around the issues involved would be absolute nightmare fuel. Suffice to say, a lot of the logistical challenges that I'm dealing with now are related to things like artistic identities, self censorship and tonal dissonance. Not exactly the most delightful of subjects to try and research as they either tend to come loaded with various emotional triggers, psychic landmines and killer PTSD flashbacks or they lead to heated debates, shouting matches and all out flame wars. Asking people to discuss such things like reasonable adults is as far as my experience has proven, simply not possible, as the problems involved tend to lie somewhere between emotional investiture and the super normalization of socially appropriate expectations. All of which I prefer to observe from as far away as humanly possible because having that level of intense emotion directed at you isn't only unhealthy at the best of times, when you're still trying to establish the kind of work you want to speak for you it has a tendency to distort your worldview. Suffice to say that no matter how dark some of the themes of my work may be, or how emotionally challenging some of the scenarios I write tend to turn out, my focus has always been on finding the humanity in such moments as to quote Jean Jacques Rousseau: What we see too much of, we no longer imagine; and it is only imagination that makes us feel the ills of others.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Well, we've reached the end of Legacy's first act, and before I get into my thoughts about managing a project like this I'd to thank everyone who's read, subscribed, liked, upvoted, commented or supported the series on Patreon thus far as its been a hell of a ride and its taught me more about an artist's relationship to their work then I ever wanted to know. Seriously, when people say writing a book is easy, publishing it is the hard part, there is more truth to that statement then even I care to admit as no matter how much you study or how long you practice, the passage of time is relentless, and no matter how fond of an idea or familiar with a concept an author might be there's no guarantee that the audience will share those same sentiments let alone be invested enough to read through to the end. And this is coming from a guy who used to read serialized works day in and day out on a fairly regular basis. Now with the majority of my time being taken up by the logistical challenges of developing a webcomic, managing collaborations with another artist, and  wearing as many different hats as possible, I can say with no small amount of conviction that life happens, and the fact that people are willing to spend their hard earned leisure time reading my work of all things is nothing short of awe inspiring. Long story short, you guys are most excellent. (Insert air guitar riff from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey here)

Now as for what my thoughts are on managing a project this size . . . sweet holy mother of expletive, expletive, EXPLETIVE! Do you know how tempting its been to respond to people's comments only to have to keep my damned mouth shut because as the author of this work anything I say to someone could potentially be construed as a freaking spoiler!  Seriously, I've had to debate even saying this much because one of the essential elements of reading a mystery is the frigging mystery! Being able to come up with crazy theories, or trying to figure out the villain's motivations only to have those suspicions proven or disproven is a key part of the core experience, and having the author hanging around in the background confirming or denying those suspicions is like taking that experience, throwing it into a dumpster and lighting it on fire. The instant I realized that was a holy crap moment let me tell you. And since a narrative like this was never intended to have the author's fingerprints all over it, let alone be doled out in weekly chunks, I've had to seriously watch what I say lest I ruin the impact of the reveal or inadvertently send any future readers off on a wild goose chase. Which isn't something I was exactly prepared for as not only has the artist's relationship to the lifecycle of the media industry changed dramatically from the time when I was a kid, but the artist's relationship to the audience has as well. Which is to say that running commentary such as this is a new experience to me and not one I'm entirely certain of as it can come across as either self-congratulatory or downright pedantic, but then again I'm from a generation that lived in a world before the advent of the internet and I can still remember a time when encyclopedia's were a thing you bought whenever you wanted to fix your favorite chair so, live long enough and you become the very thing you fought against growing up I suppose. Either that or I've watched enough of the world change that I no longer care about which generation claims to be the greatest (it was the eighties) and am far more concerned with preserving whatever techniques and aesthetic values from my developmental years as I can. Seems a worthwhile enough goal right? Right. That said, beyond this point is where I'm going to talk start talking about things like metanarrative and the events I personally consider to be significant in terms of literary theory, so if you haven't read or finished reading the first act, consider yourself warned.

Epigraphs, the limits of linear narrative and closing the circle.

To say that Legacy as a whole leans heavily on metanarrative in order to convey its ideas and concepts to the reader would be a gross understatement. You see part of what got me into writing epigraphs in the first place was the fact that a great many of the stories I was exposed to in my formative years were speculative science fiction or humanist fantasy that dealt with ideas too fantastic to simply talk about outright or completely cluttered up the page with nonsensical jargon, techno-speak and whatever made up nonsense language the author felt like throwing in for good measure. I swear only one author has ever made me want to hit myself in the face with their book and that was after trying to pronounce gtst, gtste, and gstso for the umpteenth time. (And if you know what that's a reference to congratulations, your tastes in fiction are probably as strange as mine.) And since I adore tangential learning more then words can ever describe I soon found myself falling into the habit of trying to come up with ways to expand my own narrative abilities without having to type up an entire dissertations on subjects that would either bore the reader to tears or completely derail the narrative. The problem with this as I've discovered is that using epigraphs as a source of vital information or even a second parallel narrative has the unintended consequence of lessening their impact on the reader as linear narrative tends to emphasize causality over circumstance and when dealing with a mystery, the circumstances are only ever emphasized at the end of the narrative, or when the author needs a convenient way of distracting the reader while they narrow down the list of potential suspects. This also means that when you mix multiple genres together, it can leave the audience wondering where the hell certain concepts essential to understanding the plot were even introduced as some readers will outright skip the epigraphs altogether or if they aren't yet familiar with an author's narrative voice, treat them as they would an interesting if unnecessary aside. This is of course a bone of contention for me as I find the limits of linear narrative to be too constricting and so tend to prefer, French, German and even Japanese narrative philosophies to the ones that are predominantly used in the west. But hey, I'm not here to argue for or against one artistic ideology or the other, I'm simply trying to reconcile my position as the author with the reading habits of potential audience members because when it comes down to it, stories stop being told when they cease to be interesting, and a big part of my job is to make the story as interesting and engaging as possible. Now having said that, one of the underlying themes espoused by the epigraphs scattered throughout the narrative has to do with the nature of identity as well as being symbolic representations of the thoughts, attitudes and opinions of many of the major characters, only one of which is actually referred to by name as all of the others are deliberately left ambiguous because they are intended to reflect a constantly changing political landscape. The character I am referring to of course is King, who only takes forty-five chapters to finally show up for all of two sentences. Man, the setup for that reveal alone still blows me away. Mostly because its intended as a total mind screw for the reader but also because it goes even further then that by combining the elements of an epic tragedy with existential nihilism, surreal symbolism and a jigsaw puzzle plot that will have even the most devoted of readers calling me an absolute bastard when the final piece falls into place. Something to look forward to I know. But hey, at least now that I've learned that there's an audience for this sort of thing I can focus on turning the ambiguity up to eleven without fear of turning my own psyche inside out in the process. Which is something that learning to draw has me doing in spades. IN SPADES!

 If you feel like if you feel like supporting Legacy or any of the future projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Layout test 6.25.17

Ever get the feeling when you sit down to write or draw that your fears and doubts are trying to creep up on you? Also weekly development log!

Development Log 6.30.17 A week in review.

Too many choices on the table makes it impossible to understand the possibility space. -Soren Johnson.

Damn, I wish someone had told me that when I first started learning how to write and draw because it perfectly summarizes how I used to feel whenever I would sit down to try and compose a narrative. Yes, choice paralysis and decision fatigue all play their role in understanding the heuristic processes we eventually develop in order to define the boundaries of our own creativity, but in the more technologically integrated world we find ourselves in today the space in which we are able to interact with those possibilities  is infinitely more vast then it was ten or even twenty years ago. As an example of this Just think about the limitations that game designers and film directors had to work before the rise of computer generated graphics, or when design space was at a premium and including text in a game meant imposing character limits on the player. Great for Japanese which requires far less characters to tell the same story, terrible for translators who then have to try and make the same story work with less room to tell it. (Ironically enough I only came across that quote five minutes before sitting down to write this so since I usually find information or ideas that confirm my own hypotheses on the nature of creativity only after I've spent an inordinate amount of time or effort trying to codify it all I consider this to be par for the course) But apply that same quote to layouts for a comic or narrative conventions for a novel and suddenly you bring into sharp focus the very thing that those who are just starting out as artists tend to struggle with because as is so often repeated, a writer learns to write by reading the works of other. This is of course patently ridiculous, a writer learns to write by actually writing, reading the works of others merely exposes us to a wider range of possible choices then we might have otherwise been aware of. But because it sounds good to say it it sticks to the surface of people's minds and appeals to the mass consciouness in a way that only the commonly held beliefs of conventional wisdom can. Having said that however, being introduced to such a wide range of possibilities is not always to our benefit because as the possibility space expands, so too does the number of choices that need to be understood in order to navigate it effectively. Hence the reason why design philosophies exist, and why artists tend to adopt creative ideologies or develop schools of thought that serve to section off their particular area of the creative spectrum, as it not only redefines their relationship to the art that they create, but allows them to more easily adopt an artistic identity that others can then use to identify them or identify with. So what does that have to do with learning to draw layouts for a comic? Well to put it simply, a whole hell of a lot. You see when I first sat down to try and learn to draw layouts for comics, not only did the order of operations proceed to kick my ass, but the sheer number of choices that I was already aware of from having read comics for over twenty years meant that the possibility space I was engaging with was extraordinarily vast. So vast that even I have a hard time trying to comprehend it all. And while I'm still trying to work my way through all the raw data, the fact I've written more then a few novels over the years at least gives me some kind of lens through which to view it all. (The unfiltered psychological and phenomenological qualia that I've based my own assertions on can be found below) This is of course where the subjectivity of art and the limits of our own experiences comes into play as knowing that something is possible is not the same as knowing why that decision is being made, or even why it works the way that it does. You see having spent the better part of the last week trying to figure out where to start developing the layouts for my comic I found that the sheer number of questions I had to resolve simply to establish the narrative in a way that would work both visually and structurally meant I had to recontextualize the method by which I deconstruct, translate and then reconstruct the images I visualize whenever I seek to compose a narrative. Which meant goodbye grammar and so long syntax, hello chunky blocks of inelegant text that takes the place of exposition and reads like someone  looking through the lens of a camera were describing their path through space. Ugh, as a form of ideation its . . . devoid of all the emotional payoff good prose tends to provide as it delays gratification by a significant margin. On the other hand as a means of codifying the information involved in a timely and concise manner it works. Which is important because as I found on my first attempt at writing a script, a comic relies the presence of two or more people exchanging dialogue in order to function because even if you write a thousand words or more about the political realities of a world where magic is a real part of people's everyday lives, it won't move the plot forward a single bit.

Anchor Points are the places where ideation and conceptualization come together in order to form the path between the intended destination and the point of origination. In terms of a written narrative these often take the form of chapter headings, character descriptions and text. In terms of more visual narratives concept art, character designs and plot synopsis serve to codify the information in a way that allows artists to ground the visual identity of an intended work by creating clear and concise delineations between the mental scaffolding and the emotional framework.

Mental Scaffolding comes into play when events that are scripted give the artist a place where the narrative enters into either an open or closed state. It is also determined by the nature of the artistic medium and means of communication being employed by the artist as the familiarity with the task being undertaken often determines our ability to maintain a state of flow. Learning to identify each of the steps in the process will then strengthen our ability to realize our intended aims as the development of the schema progresses apace.  

Emotional Framework deals with our ability to directly affect things like mood, tension, catharsis and denouement. Much like the Aristotelian Unities the emotional framework of a given artistic medium concerns itself primarily with the Unity of Time in relation to dramatic acts. Fear and Tension do not necessarily follow each other well because of the audience's ability to become inured to tragedy. Thus each act or scene within a narrative relies heavily on the Unity of Action and the Unity of Place to carry with it the cultural context or symbology that the artist intends to convey. What follows this is the formation of a Heterotopia occupying the space of a physical medium that is in turn engaged with by an audience. This in essence completes the path first forged by the author or artist of a work as the bridging of the Apollonian and Dionysian Dichotomies in turn serves to anchor the idea in a more tangible way.

Since visualizing a story or composing a narrative is a Stochastic Process and rarely if ever occurs sequentially the simple fact that art as its created in turn follows an Order of Operations means that Heuristic Models employed by artists to shorten or sublimate the decisions involved will often create a sense of internal tension as until all aspects of the process are fully understood and resolved the ever increasing degree of complexity that is in turn engendered during the ideation process means that either transcription errors cause ideographic drift to collapse the morphic resonance field into an unstable pattern or the emotional impetus that serves to inform our initial sense of eudaimonia loses its appeal.

Limits of the Artist's Personality, no matter one's learning style or individual artistic process there are ways in which the psyche refuses to bend, so as we find ourselves dealing with or involving ourselves in an increasingly complex emotional and socially connected world, the art we seek to create in turn becomes an outward reflection or manifestation of this milieu. Key examples of theses trends tend to express themselves as either symptoms of our core desires or through ego driven forces such as seeking to preserve the past, a return to a state of childlike innocence, the subversion if not outright destruction of established convention or the always popular return to more traditional values. As social expectations change and familiarity wanes however, it is easy to become increasingly alienated by a constantly changing mental landscape that is striving to shape and define itself by always pushing itself forwards. Hence the dichotomy between destruction and preservation as both are acts of creation albeit with different ideological aims.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Development Log 6.16.17 A week in review.

So between bouts of real life kicking my ass and days spent helping out as a creative consultant, which is quite possibly one of the most bizarre tasks that I've encountered while managing an art studio as it somehow combines development hell and editorial duties with design work and crunch time as more often then not you don't get called in until after all other options for the project have been exhausted, I've been working on either developing the world of Lustre Zeal, its characters, its politics, its architecture, or filling in the gaps in my artistic abilities by focusing on the fundamentals because as I've become painfully aware, the difference between learning how to draw and learning how to communicate visually is vast. Hellishly vast. Moreso even then learning how to write a novel because all the things I've learned as an author either contradict working with a visual narrative or because the methods I've come to rely on simply aren't applicable and thus I've had to transition from using a Narrative Transportation Model to come up with the various scenarios I work with to an Extended Transportation Imagery Model which at the moment is harder to work with as it requires a level of information density on par with that of the finished work itself in order to function. Also transitioning between the point of origination and the intended destination can be markedly difficult without a clear goal in mind which is why having a foundation on which to build is so important as simply learning to navigate the process involves far more time and energy then even I care to admit. To give an example of this when I was first learning how to write I would sit in front of my keyboard for hours on end until I was able to 'find the feeling' and 'hear the words' which is a terrible way to try and explain something and no doubt part of the impetus which spurred me on to study neuropsychology as I absolutely cannot stand the new age hand waving hippie woo-woo that passes itself off as advice for anyone who is an aspiring author or artist because as a neurodiverse individual I can't draw whatever I feel if I can't 'feel' anything to begin with! Bloody stupid Sighted Paradox passing itself of as common knowledge that's what that is, better to try and explain Plato's Allegory Of The Cave to a blind man then to try and comprehend that nonsense. Seriously though, sitting in front of a blank screen for hours at a time eventually started to work, and the only reason I say eventually is because the gradual accumulation of phenomenological qualia and development of the schema tipped the balance from a scattered semblance of awareness to a precise laser like focus. Also I started practicing oratory, the manner of speech, not the prayer, so whenever I set aside time to write I would start off by reading the things that I'd already written in either the most dramatic and often overly emotional way possible or by going from sotto voce to haupstimme as its easier to establish mood and presence when working with sound then it is a flat dialectic. The rationalist in me reels at such an admission while the humanist rejoices. What a delightful contradiction that is. Anyway, the point, which I've no doubt buried beneath a wall of rhetoric several feet deep, is that engaging with one's ideas in a visual format requires an organizational structure that supports how we receive information rather then how we perceive it. This conclusion has of course led me into the world of aesthetic choices as in order to change the mood or shift the scheme relying on sound in order to perceive the narrative is no longer enough to anchor the idea in reality as the transposition of elements must be both familiar and recognizable in order to achieve the intended result without causing either cognitive or emotional dissonance. The underlying problem with this idea though comes from its reliance on the ego and its interactions with the extension of self because as we engage with other similar works in order to increase our familiarity with an idea so too does the risk of becoming derivative rather then innovative. Or in other words, knowing what I want the world of Lustre Zeal to look like is not the same thing as understanding the philosophy behind those designs or the feelings they're intended to evoke. A fact that is made all the more evident when you begin to research the various movements in art and start running into the ideas that have had a long lasting cultural impact and have in turned served to shape not only people's expectations, but their entire understanding of aesthetic narrative in the first place.

The other thing that I've been working on is learning is how to develop an idea once I've come up with it rather then simply trying to make it work right from the word go. With writing you can develop an idea as you go along, with drawing there's a point where its just easier to start over from the beginning then it is to try and make something work if when you go to ink or color it all that ends up happening is emphasizing the flaws in a way that makes them stand out. My own lack of experience notwithstanding it really is a difficult thing to maintain a state of flow when you're constantly being hammered by the curse of knowledge and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Inking test 6.13.17

Between trying to develop the look and feel of an entire world, learning various framing devices, and acting as a creative consultant and editor at another studio I somehow found the time to try out some more inking techniques. Not quite what I'm looking for but at least I understand working with solid blacks a little better now.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Chronoworks

Whelp . . . that's a dramatic level of improvement. Still need to work on color theory and construction but at least the ideas are getting interesting.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Well, the good news is I managed to find books on how to draw manga that actually go on to name the techniques that Japanese artists use and the reasons for them. Now I just have to work on implementing them and I should begin to see some improvement in my workflow and decision making processes.

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Some of the things I've learned from working on comics in the last week alone . . .

1) Consistency is key. Art evolution is great when it means your work is improving, decisions are being made faster and the workflow is smoother etc, but if you aren't at a point where your work has a consistent look and feel that you yourself enjoy, the constant change in direction creates a very unsatisfying feeling that can leave you scrambling to try and make up for your own artistic shortcomings.

2) Control is everything. Art that exists in the abstract is not the same as art that exists in space, so when it comes to drawing characters from different angles the ability to control an object in space is needed in order to keep the art from melting. Basically this means that many of the character designs that I've done until now have a serious and ultimately fatal flaw. They all exceed my ability to control their movements in space. A lot look great as concept sketches, but just trying to get certain poses and angles to look right, absolute nightmare fuel because trying to track that many colors, details, folds in clothes and whatnot takes years of practice. Trying to learn it all in a week, heh. Not to mention the fact that I tend to draw characters who have a mix of human and animal features, so the internal logic behind certain aspects of form tends to get really freaking complicated.

3) Have a vision, stick to it. The most hated phrase I ever heard growing up when it came to art was, 'Just draw whatever you feel.' Yeah, no, that's not an actionable goal or a realistic statement. When it comes to drawing a comic, yes, you can draw whatever you feel, put words to it, and still call it a comic. But if you want to work within specific genres, make use of various ideas, or convey certain themes, then before you sit down to draw you need to know what you are and what you are not willing to draw and how you feel about drawing those things. Committing your time and energy to a project only to find out that certain scenes in the script call for you to draw objects you are unfamilliar with is one thing, but suddenly finding out that you are uncomfortable portraying things like violence or nudity even in an artistic setting doesn't just bring you into conflict with yourself, it can bring you into conflict with the standards of your own community and the acceptable cultural practices of the society in which you live. And that can be a far worse thing then just the chilling effect, because when you begin to consider the legal ramifications and the ways in which people can and will attack both you and your work, your art becomes less of a form of expression and more of a legal liability. Which also explains why comics have been laboring under that particular stigma for years, because not only is is it hard to argue that comics qualify as art in terms of legal protection, but the moment you start using it as an umbrella term you open the door to potential abuses that few if any people want to deal with.

4) Develop your ideas, implement your decisions. This one can be summarized as, good composition focuses our attention on an artist's strengths, bad composition emphasizes an artist's mistakes. After looking at my own work and having to go back to the drawing board again and again, what I found was that when I went to color an image, the things that were off about it became more and more exaggerated as time went on. So rather then come together seamlessly, the contrast between them only served to create more conflict. Not something you want to find in your work as its not a pleasent experience for either the artist or the audience, but it does serve to illustrate the fact that while a lot of things worth experimenting with, knowing what works for you as an artist is far more valuable then trying to come up with solutions on the fly.

5) The one who controls the narrative. Coming into comics after having written multiple novels, you would think that would've given me a greater perspective on developing my scripts and characters. There's only one problem, well actually there's quite a handful of problems and many of them relate to narrative decay, but the biggest problem has to do with the hidden hand of the narrator. Now a lot of artistic mediums have managed to find ways around this, either by asking the audience to act as though the narrator simply isn't there, or to hide them through the use of artistic conceit. This simply doesn't work in comics because its the characters themselves who are the ones that narrate the story, not the author. That . . . can definitely be a weird one to try and wrap one's head around, but when you look at it from the perspective of the artist is just an actor without a stage, while a writer is someone who gets others to build the stage for them, you can begin to understand how the characters in a story become a window into their world. In a novel, we only ever see what the narrator wants us to see, or what they choose to reveal. But in a comic, our perspective is limited to that of the characters themselves. Which means that while a novel can rely on exposition to convey information, a comic depends almost entirely on dialogue to inform the reader as to what's going on. Or how things works. Or how they feel. Which also means that for a character to differentiate themselves from the author, their personality must be recognizable enough that they are themselves a separate entity, rather then simply a mouthpiece. This can be challenging enough when it comes to writing characters in a novel, but when it comes to portraying a character visually, its a whole different world as subtly and nuance are not necessarily iconic attributes and since recognition is key when it comes to almost everything in art, characters who look too similar to one another either in types of clothing or color pallettes risk either being utterly forgettable, or confusing and messy.

6) Know yourself, know the kind of story you want to tell. Easy to say, much harder to try and build an audience around. Especially if you're only releasing one page at a time. The thing is, the more I draw, the more I ask myself what are the ideas and themes that I resonate with. And the more I ask myself that, the more I come across aesthetic values that seem to have no real english equivalent, yet have had a profound impact on my life and have served to influence my own work in subtle ways. Now the difference between making those decisions consciously and with full awareness often comes down to being able to put a name to them, as well as understanding the audiences relationship to them because as much as I enjoy a good Shonen manga every now and again, the ones that I identify most strongly with are Seinen and Josei. So when it comes to marketing an idea as well as describing it to others, its easy to find myself in conflict with popular opinion when I say that for me, tragedy is the highest art form, if only because Mono no Aware and Otoko no Romans can have such a profound impact on the dramatic structure of the narrative. That and I do love a good Jisei, so, yeah.

7) Work with a double page spread. Here's the thing about working from one page to the next, it doesn't work as well as you'd think it would. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say it doesn't work well at all. Visual flow is a thing, layouts are a thing, panelling and sound effects and especially lettering don't just magically appear, so if the design isn't there from the beginning, it isn't just going to just show up halfway in because once you're in damage control mode, it doesn't stop until the flames die out.

8) Over extending yourself is a real thing, know how to step back from it. Trying to pull together a script, character designs, color pallettes, storyboards along with god knows what else is required to make a comic function as something real and solid, rather then just as some crazy pipe dream you've been working towards for who knows how long in only a few short weeks is not the same as being able to manage a project long term. Off all the things that hit me while putting everything I thought I needed to know and tried to learn into this project, this is the one that nailed me to the wall. I've managed large scale projects before as a full length novel is not something that you can just throw out there in a matter of days or even weeks, more like a year, maybe year and a half. Add the whole editing, re-writing, manuscripting, marketing, distributing, promoting, working a full time job to support yourself all while learning to do the thing you love as a career rather then as a hobby and disillusionment can hit you pretty damn hard when it feels like you finally made it to the starting line only to find that you're right back at square one again. Only now you're a little bit more cynical and jaded by the experience of having wanted something only to find that it wasn't what you expected it to be. Life is funny like that but you either come back from the experience better prepared to make another go of it, or you join the ranks of the disillusioned and the dispossessed. Basically what I'm trying to saying is that while I still resonate with drawing comics, now that I know what's needed to make it work in the long term, I have to step back and focus on mastering the skills that will allow me to do more then just talk about my ideas, but act upon them in a way that keeps my life from falling prey to the belief that what I'm doing is just some crazy dream that will never amount to anything.  

[wolfwalkerstudios-blog]

Sweet Holy Mother of Crap on a Freaking Crutch! Scuse me while I get that off my chest but I was not expecting it to take me as long as it did just to finish a single page. I mean I know that a lot of work goes into making a comic, but only now that I stand on the threshold of making it a reality has the full weight and gravity of the task at hand decided to smack me upside the head with the sheer ludicrousness of what I've taken upon myself. First, there's the level of organization and development that's required in order to even coordinate one's efforts effectively. When I was writing novels, it was easy to just let the characters and scenarios evolve organically. If I needed to do additional research, it was mostly a matter of finding the right book on philosophy or historical treatise. But when drawing a comic, you need a reference, for everything! Character model sheets, clothing and design templates, color guides, texture maps, holy crap the list goes on and on. And I . . . I didn't know any of that when I started. Now I have books on my desk, books on drawing comics, books on figure drawing, books on perspective, design, fashion, architecture you name it, and do any of them talk about how many god damned layers of paint you need to put down to make a tree look like a tree? Probably the ones by James Gurney, but I'm too lazy to check. Anyway, without going into the whole tacit, implicit, and explicit levels of awareness debate and why people can't see the forest for the trees, or the frog in the well knows nothing of the ocean, to borrow a japanese proverb, as a self-taught artist much of everything that I do is completely new to me so gauging the complexity of the task is sometimes hit or miss. And on this one, boy did I miss the mark. But that's okay, because the knowledge and experience that I've gained leaves me better prepared for the next attempt. Now I know what kind of a script I need to work from. Now I know that I need all the settings, locations, characters and designs worked out in advance so that whatever changes need to be made can be made without throwing the whole process completely out of whack. Seriously, having to stop every few minutes just to try and work out a solution for things like, where do the sound effects go? What do they look like? Why don't I have a master file with dozens of the things already laid out in advance so I can just copy and paste and not have to wonder what kind of font works best for things like wham, pow and zing! I swear, trying to run an art studio single handedly is like herding cats. Halfway through laying out the flats, part of me wanted to hand off the comic to the guy who I hired to paint trees, and then I remembered, oh wait, that's me! Then there's the whole isssue with 'Sekaikan' that threw me for a loop once I started getting to the point where the illustration started to come together. Now I will be the first to admit that I love scenery porn, don't know what that is? Tv Tropes. Enough said. But actually drawing it in every single panel? Strangely enjoyable if you like painting backgrounds. Explains why so many of Makoto Shinkai's works are filled with clouds. However, as a fan of the rich and lushly detailed work of Kazuo Oga, I can honestly say that the sheer number of aesthetic design decisions that need to be balanced against the realities of each artists specializations in order to bring the initial vision to life truly highlights the differences between the Japanese approach to art and animation and what is seen in the west. Not to go too far off topic but the more I begin to understand what it is about the aesthetic ideas I was exposed to growing up that are now serving as my primary influences, and the actual limits of the medium that is art, its a wonder I managed to make it this far at all. I mean its one thing to learn through exposure and osmosis, its another thing entirely to sit down and do something thinking that now of all times you're finally prepared enough to be able to just sit down and make it happen, only to find that once again, there's yet another layer of technical issues to be resolved before the system that you've built will really truly work.

And on that happy note, this project is going to be fairly sporadic until I can get all of those issues resolved, because this 'sekaikan' thing, its pretty much the key to the door I've been trying to open for the last ten years.  

 If you feel like if you feel like supporting Lustre Zeal or any of the future projects I have in store then check out my Patreon page, the link can be found here: http://patreon.com/user?u=3705901