New Year, new... something...?

Hi. It's me.

If you actually follow my nonsense... you might have noticed that I have ultimately failed my goal I claimed exactly one year ago. ^^; You are correct, I am no closer to finalizing my comic plans.
Admittedly, I only slowed down because I began working full time... but then I never caught back up. That and other major things came up at various times during the year. But yeesh... I even failed my attempt at getting it together with NaNoWriMo. My comic is looking a little more distant these days.

I have many MANY plans for this year, however... I tend to optimistically over-book myself at Resolution/Goal time. Some things on my plate:

• More freelance work or (and?) steady employment
• Portfolio makeover for obtaining these
• My OWN place ~_~
• MOAR crafting... maybe for a small Etsy shop?
(I actually started a tumblr for my crafting. We'll see if I keep it up.)
• HUGE, involved cosplay for Dragon*Con in September
• Still... workin' on that comic pipedream. *sigh*

Those are just to name a few. Very reasonable, I think... but I don't have the best track record for declaring and then maintaining goals.

Well anyway. Comic-wise, not much is going on at the moment. Sadly, I didn't finish my 10k-word draft for NaNoWriMo, but it did make me want to continue and do some serious character development.
While the cast on the fantasy end is pretty tacked down, I had to do a major overhaul to those of the modern setting, ie., Tavé and her friends. The characters have actually existed for a long time... a good 9-10 years, apparently. Have a look. I realize I haven't depicted these guys visually since then. XD Their names and looks have certainly evolved and changed from their creation in a 15-year-old brain. Remind me to get on that.

I did finally update lil miss Tavé, however. Click her picture for the deviantART link, along with some fun character info... that I really should post here. Ugh... remind to get on that as well. Eventually every character should have a page.
ANYWAY. She's certainly come a long way appearance-, personality-, and role-wise. I'm also really liking the style development I was experimenting with. Her facial features and expressions are much easier to reproduce and give a much more distinctive, stylized look.

More character stuff... eventually. I'm really not sure these days. I have so much I'm trying to tackle, I'll have to see where things like this fit in. Since I plan on doing some portfolio work, I might throw in some turnarounds and expressions studies for Tavé and crew. All things I've needed to do anyway, lol... but portfolio fodder never hurts. So... if you're still around and interested; things will be slow. But still coming. I promise. Mmmm.... don't hold me to this one. XD

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PS: Check my new navigation bar up there. :)

Uh. Novel Fail...?

NaNoWrimo Day 15-16: The Halfway Point.
Word count = WAAAAAAY behind. I should be past 25k. I'm nowhere near it. Naturally. But seriously, I'm like... chapters behind. It's not a good look.

I blame the editor in me. Well, so says my NaNo mentor. But I really am thinking too hard versus just writing. I need to get things down on paper [in type] and THEN worry about how it flows and what makes sense and where the foreshadowing is. But I am trying to do this as I go. Which is great in a quality-over-quantity situation... But this is not one of those, lol. The point is to get a first draft down and done during the 30 day event. Then one can do what they please with it.

That being said.
I'm not so sure I'll make my 50k during November, lol. When I haven't been stuck or moving extra slow, I've had to deal with bigger issues outside of internet land. Now that a few things have died down, I'll push forward with what I can, but realistically, I'm not sure it's possible to catch up to where I'm supposed to be and THEN keep up and cross the finish line in the remaining half of the month.

This DOESN'T mean:
That I'm giving up this novel. Not by a long shot. I'm too sucked into it to let it go unfinished. Lol, yes, sucked into my own novel. I'll own it; as I've been looking for the kick in the pants to get it going for years. Nothing's really stopped me, but NaNoWriMo was the perfect chance to sit down and push myself to get started. So even if I don't cross the finish line this event, I want to continue. Because novel will lead right to other yummy things. Like, y'know... maybe that webcomic I've been jabbering about.

We'll see how this goes, lol.

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Doing it Wrong. =P

So. NaNoWriMo Day 1-2: word count = 0.
I am definitely doing it wrong, lol. Speaking with other writers, I should at least have 1,667-3,333 words by now. And that's at the minimum per day to hit exactly 50k words on time. That's a realistic and very achievable amount for me... I simply haven't put pen to paper yet. (Okay, fingers to keyboard.) But would you like to know why?

Don't EVER tell me "Make sure you have a blueprint for your novel!"

I mean, it is common practice— often a necessary step to writing a structured... ANYthing, really. Make an outline, use the snowflake method, bullet points, whatever. In this case, you do want some kind of guide so you're not rambling for 50k words. But I shouldn't have waited until now to hammer out some of the details I'm dealing with, for sure, haha. Figures I try to be as thorough as possible when it's most inappropriate. How thorough?
THOROUGH.
Well. I guess you can see this story is a cliffhanger. =P
This plot is actually an abridged and cobbled-together version of the first couple arcs of my comic. I'll probably blab plenty about it in posts to come. Done right, it makes a fun little stand-alone. And to note, you may know Tavé; but Kha'mu/Khadomu = "Mu." I chose to shorten her name for simplicity. Which actually is canon, as she was called this in childhood... but I didn't want to deal with having to explain what's with her unusual name situation for this shorter story.
Fun Character fact: Kha'mu/Mu claims that she has no proper name, simply her title of "Khaoton do Museyia." Only one other character in the story actually knows her real name.[/teaser]

So anyway. THIS is what I have been doing as opposed to hacking away at my 50k-word target. It's not necessarily a good strategy, and I don't recommend it. XD Well... more like get this crap out of the way before trying to take on a writing challenge, lol. Shame on me for not being on top of this stuff over the last... *scrolls down* nine months. x___x

Anyway... off to attempt putting words on paper. Oh, and all the other actually important things I should be doing.

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NaNoWriMo! (and an explination, lol)

So. I am AMAZING at keeping up this blog. amirite? :D
I can't even say that with a straight face, lol.

My absence comes from failing so hard on my one-post-a-week goal while I was working; but by the time my schedule had evened out I was too far behind for it not to be a positively DAUNTING task to catch up. Lame.
In all honesty, it's quite realistic to say my year's worth of planning in preparation for launch has failed; but I am far from discouraged, disinterested, OR distracted. I'm doing this thing! Some...day.....

That being said. I am taking the month of November to do NaNoWriMo! Or National Novel Writing Month. It's a personal challenge event that I have been sidelining for years and have now made the decision to jump into this year. The challenge is to write a 50k word novel by the end of November; and to non-writers I'm sure sound pretty daunting. Heck, I'm sure to those who do write it sounds pretty daunting. Frankly, I am up for the challenge SO HARD. *gung-ho pose* There's no doubt in my mind I have novels UPON novels of content to draw from.

So. MY personal challenge is that, yes; I am using the world, concepts and characters tied to my webcomic for this. This entire thing did begin in writing, after all. But I figure that returning to basics will help me pin down some elements and details, or at the very least set things in motion toward actually launching this this overgrown brainchild of mine. Where's the actual challenge part, you say? Oh allow me to explain.

You see, the world of Reverie is such an intertwined continuity of characters, worlds and events that no— it can't be told in one simple novel. That's why I was planning for an ongoing webcomic; or at the very least, a series of [graphic or written] novels. My self-imposed challenge is to see if perhaps a piece of the story can be told in a doable novel... or maybe just writing something "new" within the continuity (like a spin-off.) This might require much more planning and finalization of details than I thought. But still eager and excited.

SO! All this blah-blah to say. This here blog will definitely be active in the next month as I track my progress and, essentially, think aloud as I have been doing, lol. If I hadn't been such a loser and abandoned it for so long, I wonder where I'd be, progress-wise. :< Anyway, wish me luck; I aim to finish the challenge and THEN some!
To note... it's not a contest in any way, lol. Even if I don't finish my 50k in time, I will walk away with an excellent start to finally kick off this project. So. Revving my typing fingers!

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Style Experiment

Another nerdy post... but it does have relevant artwork!
In fact, that's kinda the point of this one. I've been trying to post it for days now... but it's lengthy and I've been rather busy doing insane hours at work @_@ (last post if you care).

Okay so.
While drawing my main character, Miss Tavé Deveaux... the same way I've been drawing her for years.... I discovered she could really use some work. Design-wise.

Granted that there shows my awful drawing skills from early high school. XD But still. Even in her later incarnations, it's just not working. For such an interesting and exotic personality that I've written her to be... her look is suddenly rather boring to me. Not only this, but the look and style I had fallen into rendering her with is pretty bulky and inefficient. Great for illustrating; but if I plan to make this a comic (ie: drawing characters over and over from various angles...), my style needs some streamlining. And not just on a character-by-character basis.

What I am trying to avoid, though, is changing my style completely. People have pointed out that my current style and look is unique, which is awesome. X3 But I really like it as well— I don't want to lose some of my trademark elements, but sadly, there are some problems with certain things.
Now I could sit and pick apart my own art forever (which I will try my best to avoid, lol), but I suppose some examples are in order. Here, have an experimental Tavé.

Before you sit and wonder what's different (beyond the obvious), a lot of my character design knowledge went into this experiment. I do actually claim to draw for animation, so I applied many of these principles in the redesign:

• Simplified anatomy
• More expressive features
• More aesthetic shapes
• Stronger silhouette

As an added challenge, I tried for repetition of shapes in certain elements like her eyes/glasses, eyebrows/hairline (yeah, Tavé has rather thick brows, lol), and quite obviously her hair. The little curly-cue dealy I want to carry into things like her clothing and maybe poses, as it's awesome base a character on a central shape like that. I could see her posture as... swirly. Lol.

I am hoping this is an okay look, however... Because this is still a fantasy comic. It just feels to me that the magic can be lost if it looks too... toony? Hmmm. See now... this is where I need feedback. XD I might cross-post something to this effect in my deviantART journal, since there really isn't much traffic here. <.< *ahem?*

Anyway...
I hope I can keep this up with my crazy working hours, lol. I would really like to draw and experiment more, but I've not had the problem of finding time for it in quite a while, lol.

So stay tuned.

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Overdue... but good news?

I must apologize for two things:

One; [To myself mainly], this post is late. I was doing so well with my once a week.
Two; this blog is supposed to be about my artwork and/or webcomic. But the subject of this post is relevant.

Things will go very VERY slowly for a few months, because I am quite suddenly and unexpectedly employed full time. Oh yeah-- at a lil' old animation studio.

Currently working on an online-onair thingy for a show on PBS. I am very excited to be living my dream for a little while (the project I was hired for ends in March. awwww.), but this definitely means a tad less from me comic-wise until I've adjusted to a drastic change in habit and lifestyle. XD I went from being self-employed [or unemployed] to working crunch time with long, long hours. Don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing... but the transition hasn't been easy.

I've been trying [and failing] to make a very interesting post concerning character design. I had a super-nerdy epiphany about my art style recently and am itching to share. But I've not even had time to sit and finish my rather verbose musings about it, lol. I'll get it together soon, heh.

Oop... another apology: this post is definitely art-less. ;__; You can enjoy some material from my studio, though. Check their Demo Reel for some awesome (and familiar) things they've done. :)

Until next time!

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Eureka! (Writing Mumbo-Jumbo)

(inb4 the week's up! LOL)
Warning: Literary Nerding ahead.

I solved my plot problem.
Arcs. Duh.

I'm not sure why I was trying to think in such a linear, 3-Act fashion, lol. Likely because when I was trying to write this, the novelist in me took over and that traditionally how stories are written.
But because this is a series of events that all lead up to a master plot... it should be broken down into arcs. The perfect solution. *facepalm* I feel silly for not recognizing this right off; but I am glad I've finally started thinking like a comic writer and not such a set-in-stone novelist. Plus I DID say this was going to be webcomic. Soooo.... really, wtf, Me? Get it together.

So. Story Arcs. This will be so much fun.
To tell the entire story (which will still be a pretty long ride, heh); I've broken it into 6 or 7 major "chapters," it looks like; with each being either a large arc itself, or consisting of several smaller arcs.

NOW.
The challenge will be telling two stories at once; as there is an underlying plot being recounted by a main character as the main plot goes along. The mini-plot and main plot later begin to intertwine, until the reader discovers how the two are connected just as the characters do. Perhaps it's been done, but I personally think this makes for a deep and interesting story and can't wait to give this type of storytelling a try.

Now here is where I would attempt to ask for input; but I am quite aware that this blog only doesn't exactly have hordes of traffic, lol. I will present my musing anyway.

So... a really good story still, to some degree, follows dramatic structure:
Cheesy enough; I do still stick by this. It's kind of a given. My musing is; how does one effectively break up a SUBplot to be inserted into a main plot without shattering this model and STILL having it correspond with the events of the main plot? XD
Ironically, it would be easier if I were still going with a linear structure. But now my "linear" design has its own little peaks and valleys (like the model) in the form of arcs. So now I have to find graceful ways to insert the subplot in ways that it's [at least somewhat] parallel... but still in order... without losing readers. @__@

Like I said. This will be so much fun.
I hope you didn't mind the nerd in me coming out this rambly post... but boy am I excited.
Also... I DO have artwork to possibly post; but you have to wait for eet. Hehehehehe. Meanwhile, have another chibi character. This is Soleia. Yes, I know; she looks VERY familiar. *tease tease*
Stay Tuned!

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