Fowl Skies takes off!
We want half of the profits to go out and help fund the Compel Crosby orphanage in Webuye, Kenya. Check it!
Origins Tag
Ask and ye shall receive... but don't say I didn't warn you.
Q: How old are your projects, and if you want to tell, how did they start?
A: Some comics come from movies. Some come from books. Mine came from a long poem written by a brooding teenager. At the time, I was enamored with classic epic poetry like The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy. And, to be frank, I wasn’t a very good poet. I wish I could remember exactly where the idea of creating a comic came along, but it probably started growing from the little stories and comics I would write after school to amuse myself. Its name escapes me, but I recall a bunch of personal mini comics I would make about a silly group of “villains” who were trying too hard to be bad. Likewise, the art was so bad that I refuse to post it in this journal. And none of my weird old poetry either.
Great writers like Jeff Smith and Kazu Kibuishi were my inspiration to how I wanted to try to approach comics. I try to walk a fine line between the artistic style of Western comics and sensibility of manga (sometimes tilting toward one end of the spectrum at times). Emotion, to me, is very important in storytelling. In movies and books, you can hear or have described how a character feels at that moment, but in comics, you don’t really get that, and it's not something to skimp on. Take a panel to show how your character is feeling at that moment.
I don’t consider myself a writer. Sometimes I get really existential and wonder if I’m actually an artist, haha. I’ve never really studied writing or art, so I tend to fly by the seat of my pants a large majority of the time. Hence why the script for Nightbreak is sometimes worked on simultaneously with the art. Some a lot of scenes and pages end up being planned out individually or even spontaneously, with no link in between and sometimes with no definitive ending. Which is why the earlier chapters may feel and look pretty jumbled. The character Shad was literally conceived one weekend while I sat around listening to City and Colour, one page before he would have appeared in Chapter 1; I had no intention of making him last longer than a chapter or two.
2013-2014ish art.
But let's back up now.
The earliest draft of Nightbreak that still went under that title was about a “chosen one” girl (plot twist: she wasn’t actually the chosen one), a shepherdboy, and the occasional minor character wandering a desolated world, searching for redemption for their people. 
It was hand-drawn and topped with a heavy helping of good vs. evil and swordfights and stuff. Disturbingly, elements of it still exist in Nightbreak now. Doesn't this guy look very Rei-like?
Then Manga Studio struck and this stuff started happening.
To create my characters, I more often than not draw from people I’ve met in real life. I love observing people, and if you’ve come within five feet of me some incarnation of you is likely to appear in a drawing. Along with lots of personal references and jokes. But, of course, there’s often aspects of fictionaFiver in Richard Adams' Watership Down. My initial idea for him as we know him now was to basically take the bizarre and cryptic lyrics of Falling Up songs and make a character just talk like that (haha).
Cerus’ character was spawned after a road trip I took with my wacky bird-hating uncle, and a not-so-nice history teacher I had once.
Shad’s father, Shahed, was based off of the prophet Hoshea.
Nieve has existed for a while because I knew I wanted to write a story with an optimistic, kind female as a lead, and I took mental notes while observing girls in real life.
Shad’s design/appearance was also initially based on a real person, but I feel like his character has ended up on the receiving end of some of my own personally traits, haha.
The very first Shad ever vs. sketches from last week.
I love making characters who act as foils to each other, but not necessarily in a hero vs. villain way. An example of this is what I’ve been trying to achieve with the characters Nieve and Shad, who are very much opposites of each other; but because of this, they bring out each others’ best (or worst) traits.
Some of the places and backgrounds were also drawn from real places. Anyone who knows me in real life might see my love for deserts, and how they're such lonely and weirdly spiritual places. I like to contrast cramped, cluttered spaces with wide, vast ones. The world of Nightbreak has always been intentionally constrained, at least in the sense that it’s just a city in a mountain stuck out in an endless desert. I went through a few names before coming to “Kiriath-Rapha” (a cheap, not-so-subtle Hebrew cheat), including “Andela”, “Sheimaor”, and “Rim”, the latter which became a term of the outermost circle in Rapha.
Taking cues from the melancholic works of Don Bluth, I'm a big fan of desaturated, muddy color palettes, with the single burst of color.
2012/13ish vs. 2016/17
There is a flashback scene back in Chapter 5 where Shad’s father tells a young Shad a story, recounting the history of their little world.
“The world is dark, and full of more sadness than you can fathom… and light is very precious,” he says.
It would be the greatest honor to me if you thought of me as a friend telling you a story in the dark. Telling it straight from my heart, to escape the sadness and the darkness, and hoping that just one person will also find some light in this disjointed little comic.
The Essence of Humanity
This is a definite must-watch for any aspiring storytellers out there.
Meanwhile, it's the first day of Hanukkah + Christmas Eve!
I'm off to make terrible decisions regarding food.
Bless anyone who reads this, and to all a good night!
Taggedy-Tagged Tag
Tagged by
Rules: Tag 8 people you want to know better!
Name: D. Elaine Dezsö
Star sign: January 20, Aquarius and/or Capricorn. Depends on which zodiac you’re looking at.
Average of hours sleep: I always try to get 8 hours. Midnight-7:30ish is my usual schedule. I’m an unfortunate night owl living in an early bird society.
Lucky number: 7. Not exactly original, but it’s special.
Last thing I googled: “do geese have teeth on their tongues” and it was frightening.
When I started this account: Some time during 2013, I think.
Amount of watchers: 88.
What do I post: Mostly Nightbreak stuff. Occasional fanart of things that make me nostalgic.
Do I run any more blogs: I keep bouncing the idea of posting the weird and random things I do with my life somewhere. Maybe some day.
Do I get a lot of comments: Not really.
Why I chose my username: Take into account that this was back in 2013, so I named myself after after Talis of Leylius from Nightbreak. *intense facepalm* I’d really like to get a Core account just to change it to my actual name.
:bademoticon:Do it.
(If you want to, no pressure.)