Coochie coochie coo!

Little Tab'rin likes the tickles:

Test frame.

I've drafted over 15 pages this week, and it feels great. Things are coming together nicely. Once in a while, I'll occupy a page with test coloring. Here's a conceptual coloring of the Spirit Ocean, full of mistakes, but, well, that's why I post it here, right?

Atlatls!

I've been trying to expand the weaponry horizons of the cultures on my world. The meteor hammer was a delightful discovery that I'm excited to implement with the warrior class of a central city-state. One day recently, I remembered a neolithic spear thrower, also known as the precursor to the bow and arrow. Some research was met with an atlatl sporting community and tons of great information. It's a weapon that's conceptually simple to make - with a lot of room for custom design - and lethal in the right hands.

I have yet to really nail the atlatl posture. Here's a tutorial on the proper throw. As with many - and really the goal of any - tools, the more balance and less effort used, the better. But that doesn't invite as much interest as an over-exaggerated, super-dynamic ACTION POSE! So, currently, I'm attempting to figure out how to make it interesting without pulling a Catwoman. Perhaps my rendered atlatl proteges will develop their own techniques. (My third grade teacher scorned the way I held a pencil, but I've stuck with it. Apparently it's unusual. And my writing is super tidy. So sometimes there are unusual but effective ways to do stuff.)

Fwoosh!

My husband used his fantastic woodworking skills to make a test atlatl out of two hardware store dowels - a very, very basic design to test out the concepts. My first throw left my fingers easily and stuck in the ground. Very exciting! However, the spears/darts/arrows/whatever were also made of hardware store dowels, so 30 feet (which is what I could throw manually) turned out to be the distance cap right there. A proper spear needs a lot of lightweight bending potential; that's how you achieve good, long, mammoth-killing throws. Still, I couldn't help but decorate my first spear, fletching it with goose feathers, painting it with India ink, and whittling the tip myself. (A manual pencil sharpener is much faster and more even.)

I love researching to try to bring as much depth and human history into a fantasy genre that is commonly based on middle-aged European settings. Yawn. The irony is that the more research I do into cultures of the Earth, the more fantastical I find it. I can't imagine thinking up a bow and arrow, Persian loom, or goldsmithing over a meager fire made of yak dung. Arts and technology, man! It's nuts! Creating a "fantasy" world becomes hard to do in the shadows of thousands of years of human civilization. So much of it is completely amazing and diverse. It's hard to wrap one's head around.

Caste.

2/3 are of the high caste, but a different 2/3 are going to the festival in their lifetimes. What's the deal?

A rough tidbit of a scene I'm working out. Also: FABRIC.

More wrinkles! More!

I am really having fun with this. Despite the fact that each one takes SEVERAL HOURS of nit-picking.

1) Matronly figure! She's supposed to look like a kindly grandmother type, which is why I went with a model that was looking down - as if she's greeting little munchkins. While the photo was of a Mexican woman with an "oh God, I'm being photographed" grimace, a little tweak gave her a full smile. One gray pixel means a gap in the teeth. Phew!

2) Grown-up Tabrin. Thanks to Ms. X for the modeling! Here it is! It's not a precise match because I only have, really, 3 colors with which to cover the skin tones of a young person, and the photo was taken under fluorescent lights of death. But, all things considered, I hope it's OK!

3) A vastly improved seer. I was scared to go with the crinkly eyes at first, but seeing the weird clown-looking face changed my tune. So I let her wrinkles go wild, along with some pursed lips and better-defined face paint. I mean, come on. She may be old, but she can apply her makeup!

Talking heads.

I've been on a tileset-making blitzkrieg the last several days, including character portraits!

Young Tab'rin (modeled after me, proportionally adjusted for a child's facial anatomy), the Seer (modeled after an old Mayan woman) and grown-up Tabrin, which was also kind of modeled after a Mayan girl, but looks more like my neighbor. So I think I'll scrap that one. But, still, here's a few hours' worth of pixel work.

Today I was getting my script filled when I looked up at the pharmacist and thought "IT'S TAB'RIN!". Through all the awkwardness that a flaky artist can muster, I managed to get permission for a few camera phone snapshots so I could try the portrait again. I then learned that this pharmacist has an Aztec name! HOW AWESOME, and a true sign that this face belongs in my story that likewise features huipils and stone temples. I'm excited to have Tab'rin that looks more like the Tab'rin in my head than the pictured Tab'rin that cat-sits for me.

So if you're reading this, Ms. X, hi! And thanks for contributing for my nebulous science fiction project. E-mail me sometime! Otherwise, thanks for the bipolar medication. (The irony is that my project probably makes the most headway when it's NOT working!)

Pixel art!

I started by modeling a few things off Dragon Warrior 4 (which I have been playing for like 3 hours a day) and I'm hopeful that I can end up with a nice tileset.

True-to-pixel size:

300% size:

It'd be fun to use some game editing software to create a little mini (very mini) RPG. I just adore these '90s wonderlands.

Dusktime friend.

Oil.

This thumbnail is a general idea of a visual I'm trying to solidify. It's a dream sequence of sorts - very Miyazaki (gooey) in nature. As such, I have been studying jars of canola oil, water, and india ink in an attempt to work out the metaphorical bugs. Hit and miss in execution.

Character designs on both fronts!

You know, I feel like every time I post Long Tom here, I need to make a disclaimer that it's meant to be an outdated black stereotype. Oh, the other disclaimer is that smoking isn't as hip as those new-fangled moving pictures makes it appear. So if you decide to become a racist or acquire lung cancer, please don't send me nasty e-mails.

I'm getting a .3 mm Copic gray in the mail any day now, and I'm happy to say that 0.2 mm less nib will allow me to do tons more detail work – at least in something far less damning than black.

Tab'rin with blue face paint.

My markers are itching to make some comics. Above is a design for my flagship character, Tab'rin, in traditional garb.