Practice.

Meteor hammers.

Of tabs, paperclips, and dividers.

Had to organize some papers today. They've been accumulating on my desk for over a week.

Up to 10 pounds of story and reference materials!

Breaking down barriers.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my story, namely from a "what will people think?" perspective.

I have known for some years now that my main characters are really just reflections of me. Whose aren't? I come from an apparently pretty abnormal background of well-concealed emotional abuse, mental illness, and the struggle of separating sexual identity from personal worth. Then, the ensuing rebellion and looking to the other extremes to find something better. This is some heavy stuff, and it comes out. How will it be interpreted? I hope some background information can save me from looking like a very, very strange person. Or at least explain why that person is very, very strange.

Melodrama is a tone I'd like to avoid in my storytelling, but I guess I've felt pretty melodramatic at times.

See, my father was a fanatical atheist Darwinist. Growing up, I heard a lot of talk about who was and wasn't fit to survive, who "deserved to" or "should" breed, and explicit rules about who I could and couldn't date (women, as well as men of color, being on the "you can never come home" list - and I better have white grandkids, or else). He pointed out every biracial child on television, made it pretty clear that women were subservient, and freaked out about recessive genes - namely blonde hair and blue eyes - being lost in the gene pool because they were marks of superiority. There were also a number of conspiracy theories and firm words about my not supporting mass genocide of an entire region (that I was actually secretly researching and finding artistic inspiration from). I experienced a lot of anxiety, repression, guilt, depression, anger, and fear as a result.

So I think it's no surprise that one way I cope with and challenge all this extreme thinking in my fantasy macroculture. Homosexuality is pretty widely accepted, women are more free with their bodies, bloodlines are considered secondary to the forces of reincarnation, mutations happen fairly frequently, and there's tons of interbreeding between the races. We start off with folklore of peoples of specific colors and, due to the melting pot, everyone gets mixed up and we see a lot of different skin tones, eye colors, etc. I intentionally took a lot of different features from races here on earth and mixed-and-matched them. I can't ignore the way I intrinsically notice racial features and genetic lineage, but I can at least channel it into a world where the interpretations are not so hateful and negative.

And when racism, genocide, homophobia, etc. does happen, you'll see it through the eyes of characters that are struggling to find their way through it all. The conflict is going to be intense and with pretty steep consequences. My childhood was definitely that!

A biracial couple from a tribal region. Because of this match, the child will likely be sterile, but neither of them cares. The spirit lives forever. That's the world I "live" in when I draw.

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.

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!

I love organizing my drafting table. It's now in a nice, sunny corner. Potted plants on one side and an aquarium on the other. The hubbs cut up some corkboard for me and mounted it quite creatively to maximize space for actual posting. I also got a hand mirror to test out expressions without running to a door-mounted frame. Domo is there for motivational purposes.

Also been filling up my worldmaking binders and making a real push toward having enough background to arrange a real draft. (But WHICH CHARACTER. OH NO. I really cannot choose!) I think one of my main hangups has always been trying to start from the beginning. It's important to sketch out scenes that occur throughout the story so you can identify unifying themes and styles - and potentially find those plot holes! So I've been doing that. Anyway. Rings, tabs, stickies, highlighters, notes, xerox copies... takes me back to school reports. Except this is more fun and its application actually makes sense. Thanks, eighth grade!

This stack weighs over 7 pounds now. And there's oh so much left to do.

I recently discovered the ao yem and I love, love, love it. As much as I love huipils, saris, and turbans? Probably not. But it's wonderful coming across ethnic (I'm still allowed to say this as a homogenized white person, right?) fashions. The way cultures use fabrics to achieve universal goals, sometimes so different and sometimes very much the same... super intriguing.

Here's my Giftmas present. Are you shocked that I didn't own it before now? Me too. It's already littered with Post-it flags like an evangelical's bible. And that's basically what it is, really. DOES ANYONE WANT TO BORROW MY COPY. BECAUSE IT WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD. That said, I'm extremely happy to have it. I've already pinned one choice page on my board for reference.

More hypomania!

I've been rapid cycling this past week. At times I'm sobbing into a bowl of ice cream; at other times I am exclaiming "I AM AWESOME!!" and coming up with a dozen new ideas for artwork - faster than I can write them down.

It's exhilarating feeling the charge that I did when I was 16... notating a jazz piece, not even really knowing anything about jazz. Or 20... decorating my wall with Post-it notes detailing the plot structure of my latest epic. It's not all glorious, of course - for example, the alternate days spent in bed crying, refusing to eat, and thinking that I am totally worthless and just want to die. But when I'm sitting at my art desk and there is magic in my fingertips, I wonder what the hell I've been doing trying to level my moods in the first place. (Don't tell my psychiatrist I said that.) Could all the suffering be worth it just to have that occasional spark? Today, the answer seems to be "yes". If I can just learn to harness it and think through the proper stages of a project...

I'll feel differently tomorrow, of course, like I always do. It's just been a few enchanting days of glimmering hopes, changes of heart, and grandiose plans. I'd like to at least allow myself to feel some joy. I'm getting somewhat closer to making sense of how to ride those waves without being pulled into a rip tide. At least, I'd like to think so. I would so love to figure out how to channel my energy into actually getting something done. There are so many stories I want to tell!

Here's a dancing silver woman that appeared on my paper.

Sho's Inn concept art.

Just like being home.

For those who haven't already been informed by the other 3,000,000 social media I use, I have been experiencing a killer withdrawal from one of my psychiatric medications. It makes me do things like sleep until lunchtime, eat chocolate at every opportunity, and run away from home like a 5 year-old. Not kidding. I went to the park and sat in a tree for about 3 hours. Or maybe that's more like running away from home like a cat?

Anyway, I am finally on the up-tick, at least for the time being. Let me tell you, it's N-I-C-E... like, actually being able to experience happiness when it's warranted. NEW CONCEPT. In the midst of this new energy, I recently decided to try some more game/world design. I love terraced cities. So I'm trying to design a small, self-sufficient mountain community fed by an aquifer and/or glacial melt that begins at the temple, traveling through a system of canals. Caste clusters receive the water at different stations, and with varying degrees of contamination from higher castes. Sort of like the concept of a family bathing in the same water, with the head of the household receiving the fresh water and the youngest getting the skunky leftovers from everyone else (hence the saying "throwing the baby out with the bath water"). THE HIGH PRIEST HAS PEED IN YOUR WATER. DRINK IT AND BE GRATEFUL. There's also a cemetery and a couple pastures for grazing rotation. Did someone say yaks?

The fun little sketch that makes my designing chops probably look more impressive than they actually are:

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.

Yakety yak.

Sheng and the wolf.

Very quick trials. See! I draw men!

I am growing more and more fond of the look of an inked subject with the original pencil lines still intact. I think it's sort of a training wheels thing, but also a stylistic thing. My pencil lines flow freely, but when it comes down to the white-knuckled, where's-some-diazepam, unforgiving inks, the resulting art is often vastly different, and vastly more ugly. I like the depth that remains in a blocked-out ghost figure.

Spunky future chick.

I am planning a storyline set far in the future from my others. On a totally different continent. With totally different cultures. And by "planning" I mean "I have a vague idea of what's going on". It's not nearly to the same grueling extent of R&D I've done for Tab'rin, Mae'houn and the like.

So, I bring you spunky future chick.

This is a borderline Final Fantasy character design, I realize.

Something I am really trying to do is take different skin, facial, hair, and other cultural features and put them in a blender for the races on my planet. I think part of this is because I grew up with a very racist parental figure and resent a lot of the stuff that's been drilled into my head. Why not give people with white skin nappy hair? Why not give people with dark skin big Roman noses? It's fun. And hopefully not too politically incorrect? I am not sure; I've never really talked about this before. Anyway, like I said, it's fun - especially breaking out of common racial archetypes. (Yes, the heroine CAN have dark skin without it being A Thing.)

We took the boats down to the shadow forest.

One of my many creative friends is a musician. She recently sent me one of her songs, a 6-minute epic. The lyrics were so bizarrely, wonderfully, symbolically parallel to my own epic that I began sketching up a movie trailer of sorts, set to her song. It's a pipe dream, of course, as I've hardly ever animated - and I have learned not to commit myself to massive projects that simply look good in my head - but it's at least fun to visualize.

A bit of trivia that I like to tell people is that movie trailers make me cry. (The E.T. one kills me.) They are just one of those visual media that is potent, intense, and perfectly-crafted to elicit a gut-punch emotional response. Being an empath, I am absurdly vulnerable to such onslaughts. So I dream up my own movie trailers because they are a wonderful imagination exercise, allow me to stretch my emotional muscles, and spark me to daydream of fame and fortune... even though such things would likely make me into the kind of celebrity that gets hooked on a cocktail of pharmaceuticals and tries to assault paparazzi with kitchen utensils.

So I stick to simple sketches. It's safer.

Creature design.

The concept is that birds evolved from mammals. Accordingly, I threw lemurs, squirrels, bats, etc., in a blender.

Yakmas tidings.

Those who have known me for a few years probably know about a fantasy creation of mine called Yakmas. It's a holiday that basically exists to worship livestock. You can celebrate Yakmas in your own home by giving your pet a can of snooty, extra-yummy food, brushing their fur, and maybe pretending you'll have to eat them if your family gets hungry during the winter. If you're not into all of that, there's always Yak Shaving Day.

This is actually something I'm sending out for the Postcrossing project - something I haven't done in a while, but is a lot of fun.

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.