Wow... has it really been that long? This entire last semester I spent a good number of assignments working on SHEDYRA stuff. I finally have the facebook page up and running! check it out at facebook.com/shedyra. Most of my current updates will be on there...honestly the facebook page is like a blog anyway and I wonder if I have time to effectively run it and keep this blog updated as well. Time will tell I suppose. This summer is kicking off quickly but I plan to get a lot of art and news online so look for it! have a great summer.

last week before Finals!

Here we are. I have a little over a week until I am to present my SHEDYRA project to Garry for final evaluation. I am working on the cover right now and printing the penciled art so I can put it on Bristol board and ink some of them. It has been an incredible journey thus far, fraught with missteps and learning experiences. Looking back, I might not have chosen to try to do this much of a project so special to me in the context of an academic deadline, but I know that I wouldn't be half this far if I was relying on free time alone to get somewhere with it. Now I am closer than ever to getting issue one in the hands of the people, which I hope will be the first major step to getting my foot in the door in the world of comics.

Running the Gauntlet

Well...It's only three weeks until finals. I can't say I'm remotely as close to being done as I originally expected, but with perseverance, patience, hard work, and a lot of patience and help from my sweet wife, I am running the gauntlet. What I have learned so far is that comic art is extremely difficult to rush, but more importantly, time must be allowed for mistakes, processes, and just plain work. I've also learned that finding individual style can be simple. It takes a long time for personal style to be obvious and natural, but having read dozens of comics by dozens of artists and writers, I can truly say that I have gleaned what I liked in terms of style and attempted to throw my own twist into the batter and push blend. Though I feel often inadequate, inexperienced, and prone to mistakes, what has begun to peek its head out of the ashes has startled me with happiness. It will take longer than originally planned, much longer it seems, but each time I put pencil to paper I'm shaping the world of Shedyra for others to enjoy, and that is a blessing and a personal dream of mine. Not everyone gets to fulfill their dreams.

Pumpkin Art

I hope everyone had a good halloween! Each year, the jack-o-lantern art gets more and more complicated and fantastic. This year, my wife and I decided to attempt some SHEDYRA characters! I did the sketches, and then my wife transformed them into pumpkin stencils! The piratey one you should recognize from the artwork on this blog, the blue-skinned buccaneer, NARM! the demony looking one I carved, RINDIS, the flame master. You may or may not see both of them in Issue one, but don't worry they're both important characters that I have been refining since tenth grade! Happy Holidays everyone! more updates and some ART real soon!

Realistic Goals

Hello Everyone. It's been a little bit. Things are so crazy! This Comic project is taking a LOT more work than I originally anticipated. Garry and I worked out a schedule that will allow me to finish a healthy amount of work and go through the complete process, but the original vision of completing an entire 24 page comic in one semester with three other classes and working part time will ultimately not be realized. What will be realized is 13 pages of penciled art on bristol board. Five of them inked and ready to scan and color. And a full color, printed cover! This experience so far has been amazing and I am so grateful for what I have learned so far. Comics are a lot of work but I know it will be worth it!

Update: Drawing for REAL

Well, it's been a few weeks since my last post. Life has been kinda insane, but things are fairly even keel now. So great news! I finally finished the render of the VINE BLOSSOM INN on Sketchup and wow did it take a lot of work. But it was worth it. So now I am drawing the scenes in the opening where Jakayla is working and talking to all the sailors that are trying to flirt with her. When I drew the first shot of Jakayla where you can see her face expression and outfit and everything, I freaked out because she looks really LEGIT. I was drawing her for real, in a comic book panel. It was really special! I am really glad to have my wife helping me too. She notices so many things that I don't. She really makes my project go so much better than it would normally. So its slow but happy progress. Now that I have the tavern done, the drawings can happen a lot faster. And once I get out of the tavern, the jungle scenes should be pretty easy. Then we get to the Temple....whew! Well, let's get out of the tavern first.

Shedyra Project: week Two Update

Another week has flown by, and another meeting with Garry, which means another blog entry to let you all know what has been going on. Well, some huge advances in storyline and scripting. I won't reveal it yet, but with the too-often overlooked brilliance of my wife and some fundamental ideas that we both had, we arrived at some amazing developments for the storytelling narrative style of SHEDYRA and paved the way for many more issues to come!

In regards to scripting, I would like to mention some fun and important elements of scripting and more about the process I went through. First, I produced a narrative, train of consciousness piece based on Jakayla's journal entry, as if she was telling the whole story how it happened, including her thoughts and feelings. I then wrote out a list of all the major scenes and what elements of story and visual identity had to appear in the script. Then, my talented wife took these and began developing dialogue and scene setting in terms of a stage play, since I am not sure what each panel and page is going to be yet. Then, I took these materials and am writing the script, as a stage play, with descriptions of characters, behavior, and dialogue. It sounds like a lot but it goes quickly. The Stage play works because it, like comics, is a visual narrative. The story relies mostly on dialogue and context for character development. We're cheating a little with Jakayla's Journal, but more on that later.

Now, the fun that I mentioned earlier. To make a script sound natural seems easy, but when your story takes place in Shedyra, things have to be different at every level. To help my script and art be original and authentic, I have come up with some phrases from the ancient languages that exist in Shedyra as a way to add cultural context to otherwise merely visual differences between races. If you think about it, the slang and phrases you grow up with that are part of your culture tell a lot about who you are and where you come from. So the people of Shedyra now have phrases like our "Mama mia!" and "Oy vey!"

Another fun thing has been inventing what type of foods and drinks you would see in a Shedyran Inn, since that is precisely where the first big scene takes place. Inventing has always been the fun part for me, whether its history, creatures, or delicious beverages.

I also talked with Garry about style, and how we are going to break the comics plane in terms of panel layout. More on that later. I am really excited with the progress that has been made, and the best is yet to come!