Plugging Away

The semester has thankfully not been utterly brutal.  I've made handy progress on the script for Nwain, and should have more once finals are over.  When I do finish the script, I'll have to figure out how the heck to thumbnail/storyboard it.  An animatic may be necessary later on.  Is there such a thing as an interactive animatic for an e-comic-book?  Hmm.  Even if there isn't, I'm sure I could make one.. or try to, anyway.

At least the Hobbit is coming out soon, so when I'm lurking in the halls and muttering, "My processss..." people will just think I'm an inaccurate fan of Gollum.

Website Etc.

Hello Internet Friends and Passers-By,

I'm fixing up a website, google+ page, tumblr, and other social web funtimes.

TerranaCliff.com - My portfolio site, which I'm also trying to make my social network hub.  By the time I'm done, you should be able to check it to see any official news I post anywhere (if that's possible given the site builder I'm using).

Official Google+ page - Where I will make professional-style announcements, such as publishing things or attending conventions.

terranacliff.tumblr.com - A tumblr, which will have process sketches and act as a casual means of contacting me.

twitter.com/terranacliff - A twitter, where I will pretend to be human.

That's it for now.

-Terry

Working All Summer

Hello, Internet!  I haven't been away, just busy.

All summer, I've been working at Nation9, assembling numerous things which have not been officially announced for a partner who also remains unannounced.  Fascinating news, I'm sure.

But now school is here, so I get the joy of juggling an internship and five classes.  As always, progress on Nwain will be slow-to-nil during the school year.  This is basically an update to say there won't be updates for a while.

Cheers,
Terry

Character Arcs

I was expecting to work more on Nwain this summer, but I suddenly became employed.  At least I have more free time than during the school year.

I managed to get a picture out.  I'm still working out the kinks on the Margravine's design, but I'm happy with Nwain and the Magician.  Writing-wise, the story is coming together in my head.  I've got a plan for two out of three character arcs, although I'm not entirely sure where to put them all.  The Margravine's story will be the shortest and soonest to resolve--but I can't end the whole story there, as much as that would make my life easier.  Nwain's will be the longest and most subtle.  The Magician's is still unclear to me; I'm not sure how he'll grow as a person yet.

That's about all I can talk about right now without spoiling plot points.  I've been thinking about those, too.  I should probably start writing them down.

Lacefort

Hello again!

It's presently spring break, and I've been busy!  Sadly for Nwain, I've been busy 98% of the time on school work, with the remaining 2% on opera and board games.  I suppose, technically, there's also been a significant amount of time spent staring off into space, but that's just a natural hazard.  One stumbles into staring like one stumbles into traffic.  Purely unintentionally.

I did, however, manage to come up with a preliminary look for Lacefort, the Margravine's cloud castle.  I'm shooting for a sort of Mogul/Baroque blend of architecture.  This is a functioning fortification, but under the rule of the Margravine's predecessors, it has grown more and more ornate.  The Margravine herself made requisite expensive additions to the palace early in her career.  But now, the ornamentation has come to a halt.  A crash in the cloud market caused drought in her border kingdom, and the Margravine's rain brokers have been left scrambling for any drop they can find.  The farmers on the ground below grow restless from hunger, and it's only a matter of time before they rise to claim the water they require for their crops.

Nwain and her monastery cousin will arrive at Lacefort expecting a run-of-the-mill courtly tournament.  What they will find is the Margravine's last-ditch effort to attract investors: a lavish festival with outlandish prizes.. held while her subjects starve below.  It's an impossible mess for those involved, but perhaps an outside perspective can prove to help.

Beyond the current crisis, there remains the edge of the Dream, the border which the Margravine defends.  Past her kingdom lays a great chasm that cuts low into the underworld, where demons prey on old ancestral souls and nibble their names from living memory.

...

Yeesh, I want to write this thing already!

Bonbon Voyage

This semester, I am Lead Artist for Gingerbread Games, a team of student artists.  Our game is Bonbon Voyage, a fairytale story of Siggy, a greedy little boy who abandons his chores and discovers a candy maze.  We're using the Unity engine to make the game, and, if all goes well, we will be able to publish to the web with Flash.

Of course I haven't forgotten about my comic book project, but it's relegated to the back burner while school is on.

Mad Science!

Okay.  So.  Fall semester was as deadly as predicted, and I spent most of winter break recovering.  That time also included a few experiments regarding how traditional lines and photoshop color can interact.  The intent was to preserve pencil lines, which can have more texture to them than ink.

Generally, scanners have a hard time picking up the subtler lines that pencils make, and this was my initial problem.  It's one everyone faces.  But I found a solution!  I reasoned that due to the exposure settings on my scanner (which I'm not sure I can change) the bright whiteness of standard printer/sketchbook paper may be what's drowning out the lighter pencil work.  So I tried drawing on light gray paper and scanning that.  It was a noticeable improvement.  Much more of the information was preserved.

Anyway, here's some pictures.

1.  Nwain.  Traditional: Pencil.  Digital: Ink and color.
Used gray paper.  The paper and pencils were color shifted in photoshop, using hue & saturation set to colorize.  The paper/pencil layer was then set to linear burn and moved on top of the painting layer.

 2.  The Margravine.  Traditional: Pencil and ink.  Digital: Color.
I like to ink traditionally.  It's fun.  So I thought I'd try inking directly on a pencil sketch.  That wasn't fun.  It saved me about two seconds (the time it would take to grab a new sheet of paper and scoot over to the light table), and it cost me a bucket a sweat.  Not doing that again.

3.  Nameless Fire Sprite.  Traditional: Pencil and ink.  Digital: Color.
Here, I penciled on gray paper, got a fresh gray page and inked on that.  One problem with this particular gray paper is that it's not as transparent as regular printer paper.  That made inking difficult.  I could hardly see what I was doing.

4.  The next step will involve finding and testing various light weight toned papers.  I'll start with vellum, as soon as I figure out where I put it...

---

This picture is somewhat unrelated to the others.  It's inked traditionally and colored in photoshop.  I wanted to try out a new set of pen nibs.  They, at least, work well.

That's it for this entry.  Spring semester is fast approaching, and I'll be just as swamped as Fall.  See you around spring break!

-Terry