Week 6

" I find it’s so important to keep jotting down ideas, even if they’re the worst ideas in the world, because each one leads to something bigger and better. Everything derives from that little scribble jotted down on a napkin or in a sketchbook."

Erica Bohanon

The last few days I've been idly working on the comic Black Feather Gospel, Coloring away, each page a 3000x4500 file at 300 DPI, on my tiny little macbook with minimal processing power. and Trying to use the smudge tool on top of it all has turned my process into Lag-Central. It is a slow, painful process. I can plan plan plan away and plot and 'ideate and process' until my hands turn blue, but there comes a point when I just have to buckle down and do the not-fun work. nitpicking and getting things like Lighting, shadows, reflections all right, which takes up a lot of time. A lot of dead time.

When I reach this point in the artistic process, I plug into music. Not only does music drown out the noise of my household (mom on the phone, my little sister throwing tantrums, lawnmowers and dogs barking outside), but the moods and lyrics of certain songs can help me to work better, and give me ideas for new illustrations I want to do. Far too many times have I gotten some sort of mental image inspired by a piece of art that makes me say "Oh I wanna DRAW THAT!!!", and if its lucky, it gets sketched, but never anything more than that.

I suppose in a way I've forgotten that this comic is for fun, and I shouldn't have to sacrifice my creativity and artistic drive in order to meet an unofficial deadline at the fans' whims.

So at this point in the class, while I am working on getting shading and lighting and things like that all accurate in the comic, I also want to allow myself to take a break. as of Midnight, Owl City's new CD has been released, the first CD I've eagerly anticipated every single day for months since the Spice Girls' Spice World CD back in Elementary School. Owl City, among other bands, have become my chief soundtrack when working. I want to be able to tell myself to just shut tup and draw whatever I FEEL like drawing. If I'm shading and I get an idea for a drawing, I want to stop what I"m shading and DRAW my idea before it fades into nothing and I forget all about it. Far too many picture ideas have escaped me this way.

So am I taking my journal in a new direction? No, I think its more like switching gears for awhile. When I feel like I can be a little bit more creative with some aspect of my comic, I'll bring that back into the spotlight.

One piece I KNOW I want to do, is in response to the "Ikana Valley Soundscape" by Project Zreo (Zelda Reorchestrated), I left it playing one night and it actually helped me to rest. But the wind, crows, singing and instrumental is a little creepy but awesome cool. You can listen to it here ....I have it playing every night now.

To Accompany this entry, here is some recent work I have done to, relating to, or in response to my recently most-played musical choices.

Victorian Character Design - a Character design I got the urge to do after hearing "The Headless Waltz" by Voltaire, I would love to finish this and color it. Its not for anything in particular..just for the sake of designing!

A Panel from the next installment of Black Feather Gospel I did today - I did this panel while listening to Owl City, my absolute favorite band in the universe.

And because it is essentially the focus of my artistic career right now..here's some mini previews of the comic. here and here.

MY QUESTIONS FOR YOU ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Will Incorporating lyrics-as-text be a little..well, campy? Should I avoid it in the obvious ones (Like if a song is about being a hot air balloon, should I avoid text about hot air balloons there?)

Would it be better to use characters from the comic in the hopes of incorporating the image later on, or coming up with new people to use in drawings?

Also. I'm primarily a digital artist during the summer here at home. Digital Illustrations mostly. ....Dare I venture into using photography/Collage/Traditional media? I suppose a trip to Michaels is just 15 minutes away. What about Mixing traditional and Digital? (For instance, coloring something with marker and then adding sweet effectz in photoshop)