#that just means i need to improve on my visual storytelling
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odd little comic that’s been in the drafts for a while
#ichiruki#kurosaki ichigo#kuchiki rukia#artist life#bleach art life#bleach fanart#bleach#the vague idea behind this was. the first three and a bit pages#before the very long vertical dash#that's all rukia dreaming#but the last two pages is real life#and the irony of rukia dreaming that ichigo will do and say all these cruel things to her#and she just thinks. ah yeah that's normal. that's reasonable#but the moment he tells her he loves her#that's what she thinks is a fantasy....#the idea that nothing ichigo can do or say to her will be crueller than. i love you#idk im doing a spectacularly horrible job at explaining it. i believe in death of the author anyway#if you didn't get what i meant to convey with this through the pictures alone#that just means i need to improve on my visual storytelling
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(About the Dana post)
ALSO LIKE. THE WAY HE WAS PROBABLY IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING ELSE AND THEN JUST. DID THAT.
Like he's holding a clipboard! I'm willing to bet Willow just slid under him with some encouraging chant to hype up the team, and Hunter just went "ah yes spot for me"
What if I explode
YEAHHHHH!!! Talking about this sketch and the implications makes me very unwell. Also the little gesture of happily resting his chin in her palm is just like something a sweet doggy would do before looking up at you with confused yet earnest eyes and then wagging his tail hopefully. He's so doggy like to me. Do you know what I mean? You know what I mean <333
Agsbdjnk the clipboard. A silly little sketch but with visual storytelling. It's absolutely tryouts or something similar. I imagine that Willow is the only EE player that is dedicated to playing longterm while the others have a lot of fun during their time on the team but eventually move on to other ventures after a year or two. Once Boscha improves her behaviour after FTF, I could see Skara wanting to return to playing grudgby. She seemed to really love it. So Willow and Hunter are on the ball near immediately to find a replacement. And with the Flyer Derby renaissance Willow has lowkey started at Hexside, there's a way bigger turn out than the last time she needed recruits.
Judging by Hunter's level of relaxed contentment and Willow not giving it much notice, a good chunk of time has passed since the events of W&D. They're very attuned to each other, having probably been joined at the hip for a while now.
(We're gonna ignore the fact that Hunter doesn't have his post TTT scars. Presumably Dana just forgot agsbdjk.)
Definitely post grom I imagine. If you compare Hunter's body language in both pics
In the left pic, I don't think he's unwilling to be touched. He's definitely excited about wherever the FUCK this is going. But he looks stiff and his smile is twitchy, clearly nervous. Which implies that he's not that used to Willow being so touchy with him and he's a little out of his depth. My headcanon is that grom was when they officially got together, after months of situationship shenanigans. With that little idea in mind, this is just the beginning of their relationship.
When it comes to the pic on the right, I imagine it's also quite early in the dating stage. Early enough that they've only just broached the exciting world of more intimately affectionate touches. Which Hunter has evidently not built up an immunity to yet. Still melts every time.
Yeah that is definitely a boy who has only been in a relationship long enough to discover that he loves the feeling of his face being held, but also a boy who's so comfortable in his relationship that he's not shy about seeking out affection when he wants it. Even in public.
So he's still swoony but not shy about it anymore. So I'd say a few weeks-a month or two into dating.
(Also the haircuts align with this little timeline I've made up in my head. Willow has cut her hair short for grom, while it's in the season 2 short stubby braids during tryouts. So it HAS grown out but only a little. Meanwhile Hunter's hair has grown out a bit during grom, but looks recently trimmed during tryouts. There's no real significance to this. I watched a Dana livestream once where she said she'd rather just draw short hair Hunter because the long hair noodle is annoying to draw. But asgbknk! I like to make up implications where there are none. Anyway my hc is that Willow and Hunter do not just decide on a signature hair length and keep it forever. They spend the next three years bouncing back and forth between long and short styles.)
ANYWAY Willow is absolutely hyping Hunter the fuck up as the Golden Star of her team!! The best and the brightest!! Her pride and joy as a Captain. The purpose is to get the candidates all excited to do their best to get a spot on this epic team so they can play alongside him, but Hunter misinterprets Willow's praise as sweet talk and smiles and blushes appropriately.
Agsbdjnk it's so funny. He totally understood that the goal was to get their potential players PUMPED and he was excellently playing along with riling them up. But that glowing review of his character distracted him and now he thinks they're flirting. So the super cool badass disposition he had adapted for the newbies was promptly thrown out the window because hehehehe my girlfriend is so nice to me 🥰 Bro has forgotten where he is. Head empty.
So when Willow juts out a hand to aggressively present ✨️Him✨️ to the audience, Hunter's already gooey brain just says put chin in hand because sweet girl soft girl my girl.
Willow is a little thrown off but when she feels the weight of his face but just rolls with it and keeps going. She even gives him an affectionate little caress. I think she recognizes that he's misunderstood the tone a bit and has decided to not tell him. He usually gets very embarrassed when its pointed out that he's made a social error and she doesn't wanna do that to him. It's harmless and its cute, who cares? He's a little confused but he's got the spirit.
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As a writer for this comic, scripts for videos, or what have you, have you found writing ever gets easier?
Like with visual art you can study references or practice and eventually see results but just throwing more words on a page doesn't feel like it has the same tangible improvements. There are clearly authors out there who can certainly fill pages and either could not or chose not to improve things my favorite examples being from "men writing women".
So yeah part of it is knowing what not to write I guess, but is there a way of seeing writing improvement you know of?
I think it's certainly harder to see, but writing absolutely does get easier with practice. Like most art forms, it's a matter of figuring out how to translate what's in your head into a tangible thing on the page. That can be very difficult and counter-intuitive. For instance, because I think of storytelling in a very visual way, my first instinct on prose writing is to describe everything in terms of visual detail, but the problem is, this does not actually work in writing.
The greatest strength of prose writing is thoughts and feelings - to communicate exactly what is going on in a person's head, and to inspire the audience to internally craft an image that matches the feeling the story is communicating. This is something no other art form can communicate so readily, because every visual art form is on a certain level on the outside looking in at the characters. And frankly prose writing is not very well-equipped for detail-oriented visual description. If you try, you often end up with something that doesn't really paint the sort of word picture you might be looking for.
"I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow."
(from My Immortal, natch)
This, detail by detail, is very clear about what the character is wearing, except if you read it you have to mentally arrange all the pieces yourself. Black corset, okay. Black leather miniskirt - really? Okay. Pink fishnets - cool. Black combat boots, all right, great, that's the clothes done. Oh god there's more-
But the exact specifics of what this character is wearing really don't matter, do they? It matters more the feeling they're inspiring by their appearance - what their appearance communicates to the audience, what their character is. Compare to how Terry Pratchett characterizes a different goth-trending young woman in his Discworld novel Thief of Time:
"Miss Susan wore black, which the headmistress disapproved of but could do nothing about because black was, well, a respectable colour. She was young, but with an indefinable air of age about her. She wore her hair, which was blond-white with one black streak, in a tight bun. The headmistress disapproved of that, too — it suggested an Archaic Image of Teaching, she said, with the assurance of someone who could pronounce a capital letter. But she didn’t ever dare disapprove of the way Miss Susan moved, because Miss Susan moved like a tiger."
What exactly is Susan wearing? What is her makeup situation? What's her bone structure, her hair texture, her build? We don't know, and yet we can clearly visualize in our mind's eye exactly what she looks like. Except that visualization will be different for everyone, because it draws from the reader's internal knowledge of what these various things might mean. She wears black, she's young, she's a teacher, and she moves like a tiger. We don't need to picture it the exact way Terry Pratchett visualized it to know exactly what that means. And because she's being framed in the context of being disapproved of by a character in authority who nevertheless clearly can't do a damn thing about it, we learn a lot about this character just by the way the story narrates around her.
This is the kind of thing that a writer figures out with practice - what actually needs to be communicated to the audience for the story to have the impact it needs. And what doesn't need to be communicated, because the audience can be trusted to fill it in on their own. A writer doesn't need to spend three pages describing the luxurious embroidery on a beautiful ball gown if "she was wearing a gorgeous confection of satin and lace" or "she had been carefully zipped into a very impressive bodice" or "she was looking beautifully miserable in her ball gown" or "she sat with the grace and poise of an empress enthroned in her satin skirts" would do the trick in terms of helping an audience get the point.
And once a writer has gotten a feel for how to communicate what they want to communicate cleanly and simply, they can start figuring out how they might want to get weird with it.
"Arthur Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath."
(From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)
There are so many ways to describe a character on the verge of unconsciousness, and this is a buckwild variation, because it doesn't feel like it should work except that it totally does. We don't need to know what that looks like because we know exactly what that feels like, and we're readily invited to extend that metaphor into Arthur Dent's slippery grasp on reality.
"Lady Ramkin’s bosom rose and fell like an empire."
(From Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!)
What does that mean? What does that look like? It doesn't matter, we somehow absolutely get the point. This is a woman who moves with the power and gravitas of a battalion of soldiers and is often described in terms like "a galleon." We know how we're supposed to feel in this moment.
Words and language are incredibly precise and powerful tools, and what you need to use them for depends entirely on the kind of story you're telling, so the more you write, the better you'll get at using words for your specific purposes. This is why legalese is functionally its own dialect of English - lawyers try to use words to create completely precise, ironclad statements that cannot be misconstrued or manipulated, and it's pretty much incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't been trained in it because that is not what English is usually for.
The progress might not be as easily visible as art improvement, but it'll be there when you look for it, or when you revisit your older writing. You'll wonder with hindsight why you made certain decisions, or be frustrated with how inefficiently or blandly you communicated the point you wanted to make, or how much you undercut your own intentions because you weren't confident in your style. The more you write, the more easily you'll move through the medium of language and the better your work will become.
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MHA's River Scene Symbolism - How to Build a Narrative Around a Simple Scene
As the My Hero Academia manga approaches its long-awaited final chapters, I thought it would be good to talk about one of the most important, but also most generally misunderstood moment of the series - Bakugou falling into the river as a kid and Deku trying to help him.
Let me start off by saying that Kohei Horikoshi is great at visual storytelling. In order to understand why he can write redemption stories so well, one has to look at the literal meaning and symbolism behind his panels. Bakugou and Deku's childhood memory, while being the start of their broken relationship, also serves as the first core symbol in the manga that later takes on many different forms. Hands- as Horikoshi says - are very expressive and tell a lot about a person. Shigaraki, for example, has hands all around his body which are tragic reminders of his origin. But what about the panel that started it all?
Bakugou and Deku are intertwined narratively
First of all, we have to talk about just why Bakugou reacted the way he did. Horikoshi's message in the story seems to be that if there's something wrong on the level of society, personal relationships can reflect that same state. The hero society favors those who have powerful and flashy quirks, making them heroes who fight those who were born different than the norm and went down on the wrong path a.k.a. the villains.
Even before getting his quirk, Bakugou could feel that he was different than Deku. He was naturally gifted in many areas, lived a comfortable life, and was praised for the smallest of things by the adults and children around him. If we add his natural brazen personality that he inherited from his mother, Bakugou was a kid both gifted and appreciated by the society. On the other hand, little Deku who lived in the same neighborhood was quirkless, plain, not outstandingly talented at anything and naturally shy and introverted. For Bakugou, who gained the ego of the size of the Moon, it made perfect sense that Deku ended up being quirkless - after all, Deku was unremarkable even before that from the perspective of the collective whole, and him being quirkless only reinforced the idea that Deku was below him. He wasn't outright hostile towards him, but he made clear Deku was someone who should always walk behind him because Bakugou is superior than him.
Until little Katsuki fell into the river. It was a simple moment, but changed their relationship forever. Because little Izuku who was supposed to be a loser ended up the only one who tried to help him. Because Deku showcased that he had the heart and selfless nature of a real hero, something Bakugou didn't have. But Bakugou was supposed to be the remarkable one, so was Deku mocking him by trying to help him? Was he saying that Bakugou needed help because Deku was better? Because this was what Bakugou started to think and became the source of his inferiority complex - he had to prove to himself that he was better by belittling Deku. Not a nice thing to do by any means, but a natural response from a kid whose whole world was shattered in that single moment.
The funny thing is, Deku and Bakugou's reactions stem from the two sides of the same feeling - when you realize someone has something that you don't. Izuku admires Bakugou because he's talented, brave and strong, something which Deku aspires to be (that's why he calls him his "Image of Victory"). Bakugou is afraid of Deku because he's naturally selfless and kind, so he wants to push him away in order to feel better about himself. Bakugou doesn't hate Deku, he hates what his presence in his life represents - that he's not the center of the universe and has to learn as a hero.
Bakugou and Deku both learn from each other in the story in order to become the best versions of themselves. Deku imitates Bakugou when he wants to be brave and improve his moves, while Bakugou's redemption journey is centered around his regrets about Deku. Interestingly they are also both each other's first "save" when their bodies moved without thinking.
Reaching out a hand
The river scene is the core of one of the most important themes of the series - helping those who might not need it and accepting the help that is given to you. Bakugou regrets not taking Deku's hand and not seeing his kindness, the same hand that is able to reach many others and inspire them, like Uraraka, Iida, Todoroki, Kota or even Shigaraki. Deku doesn't believe that Bakugou would ever want to receive help from him. Horikoshi visually paires this idea with the transfer of OFA - we see the users reaching out a hand to pass on the power.
The first OFA user is saved by the second who offered his hand to him. Funnily enough they resemble Deku and Bakugou, even AFO notes it. Whether it's the reincarnation of their will, or just visual parallels, the first OFA transfer happened because a person reached out to another. The manga's message is that one's soul can be saved if they are willing to accept the help others offer and are willing to change themselves for the better. Endeavor and Bakugou both died symbolically to reborn as better people. Shoto was able to reach Touya in order to save his soul. it doesn't mean the villains will be model citizens after these acts, but it's more about the spiritual cleansing of their souls, even if they die.
Deku offered his hand to Bakugou who refused to take it and went down on the path of bad. Years later, Bakugou understands that even if they are the ones who know each other the best, both of them misunderstood the other and regrets not accepting Deku's kindness. He apologizes surrounded by rain. a great call-back to how he was drenched in water and Deku willingly did the same to help him - now Bakugou lets the water cleanse his soul while he shows his most vulnerable side to the person he was afraid of and hurt the most. It really shows how Horikoshi was able to build a great narrative centered around one simple, seemingly unimportant moment that happened between two kids. It has become a great scene that highlights the problems of the hero society, how characters become heroes by offering help to those who need it, and how one can change by atoning for their sins (like what we see with Endeavor as well).
And most importantly, the river scene tells us how one doesn't need a quirk to be a hero if they have a selfless heart, and how Deku has always been and always will be a hero even if he loses OFA.
#mha#my hero academia#manga spoilers#bakugou katsuki#katsuki bakugou#izuku midoriya#midoriya izuku#discussion#mha spoilers#mha manga spoilers
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Not-a-tutorial - Camera shots: Part I
Absolutely nobody: ...
Me: I’ll share with you tips and tricks about Sims storytelling and camera shots!
And this is how it all started.
I’m far from being an expert and this probably won’t be new to many people, but I just felt the drive to ramble about camera shots because I think it’s such an interesting topic. (warning: long – see under the cut)
I sometimes have a feeling that we, as simmers, tend to repeat the same angles over and over again when telling a story. And I think that may be because we still adopt a player’s perspective. We may want to show how the Sim is dressed because we spend one hour in CAS dressing them up. Or we want to see the Sim but also the background because we spent hours decorating the scene. Or simply because we like the background and think it deserves to be shown! Zooming up on a Sim’s face is uncomfortable because that’s not how we play the game: we zoom out to see what we are doing. I know, because that’s what I used to do too in the past. Many of my screenshots were taken at hip/knee level.
And at shoulder level when I wanted to “zoom in”.
That was okay, but not necessarily very engaging. The thing is, I started using more and more screenshots in my story, dropping descriptive text entirely and using only dialogues. Soon my story became a graphic novel. Telling a story using mostly visual means implies that 1) I have to shorten the dialogues as much as possible to keep it dynamic, and 2) I have to find visual ways to express what characters are not saying but what I want the reader to understand (note that my Sims are no longer Sims but characters xD). This comes very close to storyboarding and it is what I’m doing now. It is much more planned and requires more work. But it pays! (at least according to me: I rather like my way even if there are many ways I can still improve!) So I'm going to show you a few concrete examples of how I apply to my shots some techniques from photography, comics, mangas and filmmaking.
First, I use wide, establishing shots to show the reader where the action is taking place.
Sometimes to express an idea, like that of a crowded place for example:
What I do A LOT is use a random landscape or zoom in on a detail to indicate the passage of time, like for transitions within the same scene: we find the same characters in the same place but they are leaving, or they are now seated, or they are still in the same building but not in the same room, etc. I often use sky pictures because I like them, sue me. :D
I use full shots when there are several characters in the room and I need to show whom and where they stand in relation to each other.
It is actually quite important for the reader to be able to locate a character in space. It sounds pretty basic, but we as authors tend to forget that the reader is not in our head. The reader needs to be able to follow your story every step of the way, even (particularly!) at the most basic level. The more characters in a scene, the more important this step is. A wider shot is perfect for this.
Or a bird eye view.
This is a standard shot of two characters having a seated convo:
What I I try to do is vary the angles as much as possible in a single conversation. It’s easy to use only an “over-the-shoulder” perspective but if the conversation is long, using only that kind of shots can give an impression that it drags on and on.
The character that is talking should be to one to which the eye is attracted to. If I used only that kind of shot, the eye would quickly get bored going from one character to the other, and since the conversation here was long, I used different angles to make it more interesting and play with different effects depending on what the characters were saying.
First, I reminded the reader of where the characters are in space:
Then, I got some close-up on small details while the characters are talking. This one shows that they have finished their meal.
I used an overhead shot for variety, but also to suggest that my characters are confronting their points of view, with the table separating them.
When a character is having a long monologue, I like taking my time to show a bit of the décor. It allows to break a long block of text into several more digestible parts and it gives the eye something more relaxing to look at so that it can focus on the text.
Doing a close-up on an interesting detail works too. It can add an emotional impact as readers do not see the character's face and will try to connect what the character is saying to what he does not say.
Same idea here, more experimental. You like it or you don’t. I chose not to show the character’s face while she’s asking a personal question. It fits her and it fits the story.
In general, I like cutting off part of a character’s face to maximize impact.
Another way to show emotions is a close-up. Like here, Anh is shocked so I chose a low angle to emphasize it.
I use close-ups for the reader to better see a character’s emotions. This close, emotions can be read and interpreted right away.
On to Part II!
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What have been some of your big inspirations/points of education* with your comic work?
*could mean learning resources but also just, good advice you got once or improvements to your workflow you figured out
Thanks for this ask!! :]
I went to the School of Visual Arts, where I majored in Cartooning! A lot of what I learned, I learned from Indie Cartoonist Jason Little and DC/Marvel Editor Joey Cavalieri, both of whom taught multiple classes I've taken (mainly fundamental stuff but there were also some extra classes with them like Jason taught my Digital Comics course and Joey taught my History of Cartooning class). I learned how to draw trees from Jason. And from reading Pogo.
I've drawn a lot of inspiration in my storytelling from both Bone and Hellboy, mostly! Both Jeff Smith and Mike Mignola are masters of pacing in comics, and if you happen to be unfamiliar with their works, I can't recommend them enough. Besides those two, the rich, moody internal monologues of Spider-Man: Blue and Spider-Man: Evolve or Die are things I often think about when it comes to dialogue writing. That and (at least when it comes to writing Rouge's dialogue) my older sister. Just, like, in general. Pay attention to how the people around you speak. It helps a ton when figuring dialogue.
Hellboy is getting mentioned again because Mignola's heavy inks are something I like to look over in order to learn from and improve myself. Hellboy, Carl Barks's Donald Duck comics, Asterix & Obelix, Will Eisner's various works, Calvin and Hobbes ALL have this beauty in their inking that can really inspire. Personally, I'd like to get a bit messier with my inking. Messy inks feel so alive. They're so visually interesting.
For colors, I highly recommend this book. I've read it and re-read it as much as possible. It may be for painters, but cartoonists can and should learn from all kinds of art forms. The works of Moebius were also mega foundational for me in learning how to color my comics. The man knew his palettes and how to not confine himself too much to what's "realistic". Speaking of painters (you may roll your eyes at this one) I'm also a fan of Frank Frazetta.
For panelling, I only have one true inspiration, and that's the work of Tess Stone. I grew up reading Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name. It changed how I viewed the limitations of panelling forever. Of course, it may be harder to find that comic these days, so here's a snippet:
Basic advice: really really take your time taking in art that you like, and try to reverse-engineer how it was made in your head. Heck, even if there's art you DON'T like, overall, but has elements you DO like, you can learn from that, too!
Okay! Sorry for rambling! Now here's the thing you're actually here for:
How To Think When You Draw collection of REALLY GOOD tutorials for whatever you need, these guys helped me out a ton when I was figuring the jungle scenes early in Infested.
This Pinterest Which Has Absolutely Everything You Can Possibly Think Of For References And Inspiration Sources.
An Extremely Good Font Site That Is Used By Professionals In The Comics Industry To Letter Their Comics.
The Most Important Book Any Cartoonist Can Read
A Different Book By The Same Man About Making Comics (for free, thanks Internet Archive)
Perspective For Comic Book Artists, thanks again Internet Archive
As for workflow... Man, I wish I could give you any kinda advice on that. I'm struggling with it, myself. I guess I've got two things?
If you have multiple deadlines for, say, multiple commissions or something, or you're trying to put out a weekly comic, but you're also doing something else, break the day up into time slots for each project, and switch the moment it's time to. Keep yourself on that schedule. I'm not very good at this.
I draw pretty detailed thumbnails, so sometimes I'll skip the penciling step in comics and blow up the thumbnail to ink over that. It's faster for sure! It's not always the right solution, however.
Thanks for reading! I hope any of what I've said helps at all!
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very random question but making the whole recent animatic you did (which was AMAZING btw) how do you feel about it in terms of progress you've made on your art skill? because like I've also very recently started getting into making animatics and it seems like a constant flow of working on the art and personally I've felt a shift in how I approach making normal pieces of art, so I was just wondering how much of that feeling would be there for you after finishing such a big project? I'm sorry if that didn't make sense lskdjfal i just kinda want you to talk and ramble about your thoughts and all during making the animatic sjskla
-🍪
no one's ever asked me about this stuff before, so buckle up because this might turn into a lengthy fucking ramble
to start, if we were to talk about progress, I'd have to talk about it more in retrospective than just my latest animatic. it's been three years since I started animating, and this particular animatic was more of a silly and short side project, I didn't put much thought into it really.
before diving into animation, I had a foundation in graphic design, four years at a tech school. this gave me a strong grasp of the basics and by that I mean visuals, colours, composition, and more. but yeah, when you transition to animation your view on art definitely shifts, at least mine did. because animation, at its core, is storytelling through visuals. so you're basically delving into film, and now you're not just thinking about static elements, you're considering movement, pacing, cinematography, even sound design. and as an animator, you're the director, the cinematographer, the storyboard artist, and the editor. each role requires specific skills. you need an understanding of visual storytelling, character design, motion graphics, timing, and so on and so on! and you're learning them along the way as you work on your projects. I'm learning all that still, and if you take a look at how my animatics looked in 2020 and now it's so much progress. HELL, both in my animation AND my drawings.
if you really think about this riptide animatic in retrospection you're basically seeing 10 years of my hard work on perfecting those skills combined into one silly video lol BUT without it, for me it's just silly thing that I did and I'm just glad people seem to like it, I'm not dwelling on progress here
now, when it comes to how I feel after finishing a project? in general? it's a mix. there's a sense of achievement, sure. like here I have to mention my short film again. I spent a whole year on it, mostly working on my own but with some guidance from my thesis supervisor. the film is 7 minutes long, and I worked on animating it from march to august. and when I compare the start to the finish, I can SO clearly see the improvement, both in terms of skill and artistic vision. BUT I also tend to look back and think about what I could've done better or differently. and while I see areas for improvement, this self-critique pushes me to get better with each project. eeeh it's a bit of a love-hate relationship with my work really. that's how it always been for me lol
#ask#a lenghty fucking ramble#i hope i anwsered your question?????#i lost myself in the ramble sorry lmao#I didn't include my thoughts I had during making the animatic#because it was basically no thoughts head empty for an entire month#there's a point where things come to you naturally and you don't think about it really#i just drew the sillies
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As we’ve all been waiting for Hazbin to release, I think I’m honestly done with saying “I hope Hazbin will this— I hope Hazbin will that”- because not only is it tiring to say over and over again, but at this point, I realize that most of what I expect from the show are WAAAY too high, especially for Viv’s writing chops. There’s also the visual animation aspect part, like I had hoped the characters would actually pop out from the backgrounds instead of melting right in, but knowing that the main six characters all have fucking red in them, all I can say now is that I hope the composition and backgrounds can help set the scene of where we’re supposed to look and whatnot ect, since that was another area the pilot struggled from. Other than that however, when it comes to begging about what I think the writing and storytelling SHOULD be, I’m going to just stop saying “I hope” because I know it ain’t ganna happen.
There were so many things I wanted the show to improve on when you actually look at the pilot without nostalgia goggles or rose tinted glasses of being a Viv fan years before. You can tell the problems with her when you watch it. She’s too ambitious, she wants to introduce SO many characters and so many ideas to the point where it’s overwhelming, she moves WAY too fast, the pacing in the pilot is some of the worst pacing I’ve ever seen, you can barley take anything in or let anything linger, hence why the second act is clearly better paced while the first act is just pure agony with too many sound effects and fast moving animation. Then there’s my biggest problem, the fact that Viv lacks subtly, she has a shitload of “This is HELL” signs waving in our faces to show the audience that this is in fact Hell despite not looking like it, she has a gay drug addict character who’s named after the fucking drug that he’s addicted to, a “scary” powerful overlord demon that needed an exposition dumb about how powerful and not trustworthy he is despite the fact that you could have just let the audience pick that up by theirselves, like…Viv really likes bonking us on the head with facts and making EVERYTHING so damn obvious without letting us think for ourselves and it’s aggravating, especially since we now know that Heaven is so obliviously evilly corrupt and strict. I get that Hazbin is a cartoon but that doesn’t mean you should treat your audience as if this is a kids show. Hell, KIDS shows have done better at these things.
But with all that said I’m not expecting Hazbin to be good. I know now what to expect out of Viv at this point and the show is definitely ganna be a trainwreck with PAINFULLY unfunny writing, biased viewpoints, too many characters ect. I’ve already seen the dialogue leaks that were clearly written by Viv and my standards for the show are low. I don’t really have hope anymore unless Viv got help with other writers OTHER than Adam, but I know even if she did the show is ganna have her finger prints all over it. What I’m expecting is for it to be bad but POSSIBLY better compared to Helluva, that isn’t a high bar though. Still, I know it’s going to get praise, like…we’re ALL expecting fans to treat it like a groundbreaking magnum opus yada yada, and it’s definitely going to get good reviews from critics. Even though I know Hazbin won’t be great, I’m still of course going to watch, so I can’t wait.
#vivziepop critical#spindlehorse critical#helluva boss critical#hazbin hotel critical#helluva boss critique#helluva boss criticism#hazbin critical
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it's wild to me that some aphantasiacs identify so strongly with Being An Aphantasiac that they build their entire online brand around Aphantasiac Awareness and Having No Visual Mind but it's even wilder to me how some OTHER people talk about aphantasiacs. ended up on an informative yt short where the guy was like "some people can't picture their own apartment, their wardrobe.... or even their mother's face :(" and i legit got kinda offended. like. literally why do i need to be able to picture my mom's face. i can recognize her when i see her and i can tell you exactly how she feels and what she means to me and the reason i can do that is..... Because i can't picture her face. because my internal processing sounds exactly like my external storytelling, it's All Words, there's no visuals to quantify or translate. finding out that most people Don't have aphantasia has explained a lot about 1) why tricks like a "mind palace" have literally never worked for me even though i can remember ANYTHING by setting it to music, and 2) why my written visual descriptions improve when i'm drawing from setting or picrew or photo refs. other than that i'm like. i'm doing just fine dude. you are the one being extremely weird about this.....
#aphantasia has 100% shaped who i am as a writer and why i gravitate so much more toward writing than visual art#but it's not like.... a thing in and of itself for me you know#like i'm fascinated by hearing other people describe what THEIR ability to visualize is like#since i really can't picture it. everyone has been super willing to explain whenever i go 'what.'#but i'm not constantly thinking about What I Lack or anything. how am i supposed to get upset about not picturing my mom's face when i#don't need to. u know.#started thinking about this bc i'm in a car watching a lovely sunset and jotting down key words about it to remember it by#GREAT for writing refs. but most people can apparently just remember strong imagery without doing that!
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How to Use Sensory Details in Fiction
The five basic senses are powerful tools for writers.
They're how readers experience stories instead of just reading about them.
They're the secret to showing, not telling.
These are a few ways you can wield them like an expert and improve any story.
Seeing
Visual descriptions can have layers that describe your protagonist's world while telling the reader about more than what your character can see. Here's an example:
Example: Rain fell outside her window.
Revision Example: Rain fell outside her window in heavy sheets of droplets that hid the world past her porch.
In the revision, it's easier to see how hard it's raining. The difference sets a unique tone. Maybe the sun is setting and it's the protagonist's first time home alone, so not being able to see the street in front of her house makes her nervous. Maybe she loves that rain because she wants to hide from the world. It depends on the story.
Descriptions can also add emotional weight or understanding via:
Colors
Adjectives ("angry" sheets of rain; "comforting" shower of droplets on her roof)
Personification (making the rain "angry" gives it a personality/emotional intention)
By all means, every visual description shouldn't be this wordy. Your readers will get overwhelmed, bored, or annoyed. But restructuring visual descriptions here and there will add depth to your storytelling that your manuscript might lack.
Hearing
What your character hears can also strengthen your story. Think about what a scene calls for. Should your character feel some kind of tension? Do they need to relax? Add that into your manuscript via sound.
Example: Their foreheads pressed together, Marcus said, "I adore you."
Revision Example: Their foreheads pressed together, Marcus whispered the words Henry's heart ached to hear. They slipped past his lips, soft and hesitant. "I adore you."
Using auditory descriptors can make your writing better when you need the reader to feel a specific way about dialogue or something happening around them.
Some other details you can focus on besides the sound of someone's voice:
Environmental sounds (birds calling, trees rustling, the wind, cars on a street, etc.)
Interpreted sounds (what the protagonist thinks they hear happening in another room, etc.)
Emotional sounds (add a line about the fear your protagonist feels when they hear footsteps in the middle of the night or the comfort of a crackling fireplace)
Tasting
People learn about the world through their sense of taste from the moment they're born. Good flavors create great memories and emotional connections. Tasting something terrible ruins your mood. These things are all important in fiction.
Example: The first sip of morning coffee always takes care of my morning grumpiness.
Revision Example: My morning grumpiness doesn't stand a chance against a cup of my coffee. The amount of sugar and cream I consume in a single cup should probably be outlawed, but a single sip never fails to make my day seem brighter.
Taste can also set your characters apart from the known world. If your character accidentally bites the inside of their lip and scowls at the metallic tang of blood, you know they're unhappy. If the same thing happens and the blood carries a sweetness that makes them want more, you know they're a vampire.
Think about adding factors like:
Flavors
Textures
Emotions/memories/cultural significance of a flavor
Smelling
The sense of smell may be one of the first ways people understand the world around them. You use it before ever opening your eyes. It sets the tone for a scene and can change the dynamic between two characters.
Example: Their first date was perfect until she hugged him goodbye. He smelled bad.
Revision example: Their first date was everything she'd hoped for until she hugged him goodbye. His sour body odor slammed into her, shattering the idea that he could be her prince charming. Instead, the reeking musk promised a lifetime of reminders to shower and use deodorant. She was not dating to become a grown man's mother.
Smells affect how someone feels, thinks, and responds to others or events. You can also add smell descriptors for things like:
Universal scents any reader can relate to
Mood-related scents
Scents that affect tension (smoke coming from somewhere in the protagonist's house, something rotting behind a wall, etc.)
Feeling
People are constantly experiencing life through their sense of touch. Without it, any story or scene will feel like it's missing something crucial.
Example: The kids jumped into the lake that summer afternoon.
Revision example: The kids plunged into the cool lake water to escape the summer heat.
The simple addition of describing the temperature of the lake water gives the characters and reader some relief in a summer story. The reader knows how refreshing it is to swim in cool water when the day is super hot. This description likely changes the character's moods, their outlook on the rest of the day, and the tension caused by environmental factors like stuffy hot air.
You can also write about the sense of touch with:
Physical situations (a soft kiss, a painful punch, a back-cracking hug)
Similes ("The grass was rough beneath his feet, like an unshaven face.")
Inward sensations (a heartbeat, a deep breath, an anxious stomach knotting up)
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You'll know you're overdoing it with your sensory descriptions if you have dense paragraphs with extremely long sentences. You may also re-read a chapter/short story and feel like the pacing is too slow due to wordiness.
Sometimes you only need a few words to utilize a character's senses and enhance your story. The best way to find that middle ground is by writing, revising, and reading your work out loud.
With time and patience, your work will shine because you put so much thought into the sensory aspects of your world.
#writing tips#writing advice#writeblr#writers of tumblr#writing community#writing help#creative writing#writing sensory details#descriptors#setting a scene
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Live Action: Thoughts and Etc. Episode 1
Whenever some new AtLA surge happens, whether animation renaissance or new series, I rise again from the grave and this time is no different.
This isn't anything formal, but I wanted to collect my thoughts as I go through rewatching episodes. I'm still not done with an initial watching of the new live action, but I've started rewatching the first couple of episodes anyway to note down what I liked about what the new series is doing and also where I think the narrative could have been stronger.
I don't mean this as a critique of the show on any other level other than on a narrative level—I'm not a film or visual studies person; my forte is in storytelling.
I also didn't want my reactions to just be seeming criticism, because there is a lot that I really like about the show (especially as I get deeper in episodes), so just consider this an initial reaction & thoughts on what could have been improved upon. So far, the first two episodes have been the weakest to me, which is really unfortunate because I worry a lot of people won't get beyond them. I know my opinion and thoughts don't matter because a) I'm not part of any kind of decision-making group that could actively affect this and b) it's already done with and out and it's not going to be changed, but we all love meta and thoughts around here, right? Right.
The format of these I'm imagining as follows: I'll go over what I liked or loved first, because there's more and more as episodes go on, and you should always, always start with what you appreciate and enjoyed about a work first before going into what might be improved upon. Next, I'll go into where I felt the narrative could have been improved upon, just from what I know with my Literature™ and in-progress MFA™ eyeballs. Finally, if applicable, what I personally didn't care for that doesn't actually impact the narrative one way or another. This final section will be potentially be under a cut if the post is too long. Everything will be noted as I do my second watch of the series, and will be in chronological order. I don't know that I'll have time to do proper paragraphs, so I hope a list format will be acceptable to anyone who's made it this far and remains interested in my thoughts.
Of course, this will contain spoilers for each episode, and all posts will be tagged "atla la ep#" and "atla la ep# spoilers" (where the # in each tag will be the corresponding episode number) so folks can blacklist as needed.
Now, on to the main event—
What I liked:
-The settings are lush and gorgeous! Holy moly!
-The costumes are phenomenal so far. Absolutely fantastic.
-Even if some of the actors are a little stiff, I am loving all of them.
-Loved the airbenders fighting back. No notes.
-The dialogue between Iroh and Aang in the brig is actually perfectly nuanced. I really like it.
-REALLY love Aang pilfering Zuko's Avatar journal
-Also love Katara being the one to extinguish Zuko's final fire blast with her waterbending. Setting up that good rivalry between them in s1.
-I like the expansion of the SWT village and Katara being in the old FN ship in lieu of the otter penguin sledding scene
-Love Zuko being an artist. I like to think it's a nice, early nod to learning under Piandao
What Could be Improved Narratively:
-Stop the Sozin scene right after he burns the earthbender
-When Gyatso has Aang in the room with Yangchen's statue, the exchange should have stopped with: "You have always been special." "I never asked to be special." "But you are," and the writing should have allowed Aang to put together that he is the Avatar without explicitly saying "Aang, you are the Avatar." If they took that line out and let the silence hang and then taken out all explicit statements of "You are the Avatar," so they would have been talking around actually saying it, it would have improved the scene.
-Remove Aang's little monologue with Appa before the fly off except for maybe hugging Appa and saying, "I'm scared"
-Show Aang and Appa getting caught in the storm. There's a very small missing piece of that scene.
-Could pare down the exposition in Zuko & Iroh's argument about following the light to not explicitly say "and take my rightful place as heir," as Iroh saying "it may be time to consider the throne isn't everything," and Zuko replying, "Maybe it wasn't to you" does that work. BUT I actually don't think this is as clunky as other dialogue-exposition parts.
-Either excise Aang's flashbacks to saving himself with the Avatar state before he wakes or remove it from earlier in the episode; we don't need it twice.
-the WT kids running outside of the village to play is awkward. Why wouldn't they play inside the walls? If it's so Appa wouldn't land inside the village, this is easily solved by having Aang airbend over the walls when searching for Appa.
-I know Kanna's monologue about the FN attacking is an homage to the original, but it feels hamhanded. I would excise it. Remove everything she says in this scene in the tribe meeting except, "The last time a comet was seen was 100 years ago."
-Honestly, excise most of Kanna's dialogue. It's all hamhanded exposition; we're seeing the "hand of the author(s)" here. When Zuko's ship arrives all she has to say is, "They're looking for him." Let the reveal be Katara saying it to Sokka when he's going to give Aang up.
-Replace the repeated scenes with Gyatso when Aang discovers his skeleton with other memories. We don't need a rehash of something in the same episode.
What I Personally Did Not Care For:
-I want bigger fire from the firebenders. It's a comet that powers them up ffs.
-Katara needs to express a great desire to learn waterbending in this episode somewhere
-Sokka and Katara being caught in a current should have been from Katara's angry paddling to echo her angry waterbending from the original
-I also wouldn't reveal Kya's death in flashback flashes so early
-When Zuko sees Aang for the first time it's a perfectly missed opportunity for "You're just a kid!" "Yeah, well you're just a teenager!"
-Unsure why Katara said, "The thing about losing everything is that's when you find out how strong you are" instead of something like, "I can't imagine how this must feel. But you don't have to be alone. We're here with you."
#atla la ep1#atla la ep1 spoilers#i hesitate to tag this#atla meta#or#atla analysis#because it's not really either but for internal blog searching purposes i'll do it#i'm not at the point where i'm ready or prepared to do a close reading of the text yet
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Hello! I've been reading your Alastor series closely and I absolutely adore it! Your writing is phenomenal, and so far your depictions of the characters are pretty spot on. I'm here to offer some feedback, as you asked at the end of chapter two. The only thing I can think of is to dial back the amount you describe the characters. The visual description is appreciated, but there is a LOT thar you've said about their appearance. I recommend that after you introduce them, mainly focus their movements and facial expressions when talking to main character (for note, often referred to as MC). Offer more of a look at how the characters are talking, their tones mostly. Aside from this I have nothing else to report. Wonderful work, and I look forward to the next chapter!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback and for being such a dedicated reader! Oh gosh, I don't quite feel deserving of such high praise for my writing, but your kind words truly mean the world to me 🥹 Maintaining their canonical accuracy is a priority for me, so it's incredibly gratifying to know that you've noticed and appreciated that effort 🥰
Your advice to scale back the detailed descriptions of their appearance in favor of highlighting more subtle aspects is incredibly insightful! With that in mind, I actually cringed at the realization that I dedicated multiple paragraphs solely to Alastor's appearance 🤦🏼♀️ Womp womp. I guess I'm just a simp at heart. From a writer's standpoint, I suppose it's easy to become absorbed in unnecessary intricacies of the story, often without even noticing until it's brought to attention by someone else. Just another case for why I desperately need a beta reader, haha. I'll certainly keep your words in mind going forward to adopt a more balanced approach!
I'm truly grateful for your encouragement and constructive feedback. Your insight will undoubtedly help enhance the storytelling in future chapters. It's readers like you who help me improve as a writer and in making the series even more captivating😍 I truly appreciate your support and can't wait to share the next installment with you! Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts! 💜💜💜
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Just some thoughts about my experience with arts and humanities
Something I realised recently is that like...my high school self had no sense of anything outside stem. Like I could not comprehend any kind of art.
Like I would look at a painting and just be like...ok thats a depiction of something. So what. If it was abstract I'd just sort of look at it and be like ????
I would look at dancing and be like...huh I guess they really are moving around. I remember being so confused why people danced.
I would hear music and just not really pay attention, or when I did it was at most because I found the lyrics funny or catchy. I didn't really listen to music in high school, or dance. I knew a load of epic rap battles of history though. I certainly didn't appreciate music at all.
When I read fiction as a young child it was mainly plot related. Which sure, is a valid and normal kind of thing to enjoy, but I don't know if I'd call it "art" as much as generally "culture". I didn't love any storytelling techniques or anything or read into meanings. I didn't love certain characters or anything.
When I was forced to read and analyse books and plays for a while I literally thought counting your analytical devices was the purpose. And at another point I thought that nobody could REALLY believe what we had to write. It was just made up stuff, or at best just using language devices for fun while explicitly saying something. Why people used language devices was kind of foreign to me, but I knew I got points for identifying them.
I didn't really watch movies or anything either.
I understood geography and history somewhat well as a type of science, or at least an inquiry into how reality works if you think its not science. And I understood things like economic politics from a similar lens. But I think there is a significant difference here between what I mentioned before.
And yes, you don't need to be able to analyse and write essays about a thing for it to be art but I wasn't feeling anything at all. Which is just...confusing to me? How did this happen? Because now I listen to music because I enjoy it. I watch TV shows when I have time. I'm super into reading about philosophy, politics, and economics. I dance to my music when I'm at home and can feel some sense of satisfaction watching dancing. I still don't really get visual art but whatever. How did I go my entire childhood not understanding art? Was someone meant to tell me or do you guys just figure it out on your own? I feel behind now when I listen to people gush about certain lines or characterisations of people and I'm just like ???? oh I guess now you point it out I see it. Huh.
This vaguely reminds me of how I basically didn't care about people as friends for all of primary school. I had 'friends' but it was more of 'oh lets do stuff with these people' and not like 'i care about this person as a person'. At the end I remember just being like "yep ok don't need to see them again, bye..". Only in high school did I start to care about people as humans and want to spend time with them and know them and care about them.
I don't know if this is some kind of developmental delay or something. At least it did wonders for the stem part of my brain because I basically never had to try hard to understand any stem subject. I instead focused all of my trying into improve test performance, which i fucking DESPISE. what a waste of my life. At least at the end I started teaching myself chemistry at a pace I enjoyed.
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As a fan of D&D and animated shows, have you been keeping up with the legend of vox machina?
Yea! I haven't seen the very latest episode yet but I've watched the first five.
I continue to enjoy how it's treating the original game as a first draft and doing some rearrangements in the adaptation to improve pacing, flow, and general sense-making - like how Vax's extremely busted Boots of Speed have been integrated into the functionality of his god-champion-artifact armor, and why they changed Vex's near-death experience last season to Keyleth taking the bullet for her because Vex's actual-death experience this season was going to be very important story-wise but mechanically played out very similarly to the first one (one-shotted by dark magic in an area that suppresses magical healing) and having it happen twice would've weakened the impact. Personally I think in an ideal world we'd be getting a lot more time per season to let the characters breathe - the pacing of the original series is frankly very slow, bordering on unwatchable for certain attention spans, but the pacing of this season is kinda breakneck in comparison and characters are getting big upgrades and moments of revelation quite often, which isn't bad but feels like it could have a little more punch if they had a longer windup. Still, that's the nature of the level-based beast and it's not a complaint, just a little tickle in the back of my head.
The animation continues to be gorgeous, and while the 2D-3D blending of the visuals feels a little weird sometimes, I think it works in-story that the 3D-rendered dragons look very different to everyone around them, since it makes them feel more otherworldly and terrifying. I also like that they don't really look like their Official D&D Counterparts, and the way they've respec'd their breath weapons into things like "wings constantly leaking acid" is really neat.
I also think the way they've shifted the magic system is very interesting. D&D has extremely hard-magic rules on who can cast what spells at what time based on what they know or have prepared. The show dials that way back and treats it a little more hand-wavey, though they'll still hint at the spell slot system with casters being like "sorry I'm out of juice" or "I think I can only do it once a day" which is cute. But this shift to a softer magic system does mean the more versatile casters, mostly Keyleth, seem like they can kind of just do anything depending on the needs of the scene - which is obviously not what is mechanically happening, but because we can't see her spell list or class features it's kind of what it feels like. She has all the standard element-manipulation and druid shapeshifting/treehugging stuff, but we also see her bust out the power of the sun and turn into a giant fire monster, which doesn't feel quite as connected to the rest of her powerset - it makes sense if you squint, but in the moment there's a little lurch of "where did THAT come from?" Now that's not bad writing on the show's part, it's a holdover from the inconsistency of D&D's spell lists. It DOES feel weird that a wind magic specialist could cast Sunbeam just because they hit level 11. Narratively what this indicates is that Keyleth is frankly ridiculously reality-warpingly powerful and doesn't really know her own strength yet, which is top-notch characterization and very consistently demonstrated in-show, but it does invite that one storytelling bugaboo of "how are the heroes gonna solve this one? …………magic." It's subletting a townhouse in the suburbs of The Power Was Within You All Along.
Overall really liking it so far!
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heyy i think studying the trend of ts4 stories editing style will really help you improve your visuals. I know that picking an aesthetic is a choice & i honestly think you should stick to what you like instead of following the mainstream but popular stories are popular for a reason & you might engage more readers by following their storytelling formats (ex: using captions instead of text bubble, using different reshade/gshade based on the mood of the scene, show your sims moodlets, etc.) but ofc popularity isn’t everything and you have loyal readers already so i’m just gonna root for you & wish u good luck❤️
Hi anon, and thank you for your message and recommendation!
I hear you and you're surely right about what is popular, but I see how most TS4 players do their storytelling, and I personally find those visuals rather standard and uninspiring. I believe the word that you used is key: it is a trend. Which means, for one, that it can be a temporary thing, but above all, that it isn't necessarily an improvement.
Typically, captions. There is a reason why speech bubbles or their equivalents are widely used in comics and graphic novels: they are easy to understand at a glance for the reader, and versatile enough for the author to convey the proper tone. Captions hamper creativity and readability, imho.
I do like the effect of Reshade or Gshade or other -shades. I tried installing it, wasted a whole day, failed, was disappointed, uninstalled it and never touched it again. And then I thought: I spend a lot of time selecting my decor and background. I want them to be visible, not blurred. I want the details to be seen in their entirety. It's true that blurry backgrounds and dreamy filters make for pretty, atmospheric pictures. But do I want my story to be atmospheric? No, that's not my purpose. I want my story to be emotional, gripping, interesting. I'd like the reader to focus on the dialogues, the characters' face, the actual content of the story, not the feel of it. To me, visuals enhance a story when they explain by themselves who the character is and what they think. They don't need to be sophisticated to do that.
(Not to mention that Reshade is capable of putting a strain on my computer and I don't want it to overheat. The game already crashes enough as it is.)
I know it's just an idea among others, but showing moodlets is not something I will ever do because I don't do gameplay. I just tell a story using the Sims 3 as a medium. Many of those popular trends do not apply to my style, in fact.
If anything, I'd like my story to be read like a manga, not watched like a Netflix series. My stubborn use of speech bubbles and detailed backgrounds is what makes me different, and maybe that doesn't coincide with popular.
Because in the end, "popular" is just that: defined by prevalence but bearing no guarantee as to quality or innovation.
I thank you for rooting for me and thank you again for taking the time to send me a message, because somehow my head is clearer now about what I want and do not want for my story. I have no idea whether or not my visuals are globally appealing to other people, but *I* like them as they are. I'm willing improve technically, if I believe it will bring something essential to my work as a whole, something I'm missing for it to make sense. I get that my aesthetic may seem outdated to some, and it is unfortunate that so few people are ready to give my story a chance, but just like you said, I have a bunch of loyal readers and that is priceless!
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AN UPDATE REGARDING MY PROJECTS
Hey guys, it's Zen! Remember how I said I'd update you all every week on process regarding Hanashima's Advanced Class?
Haha- uhhh, obviously that didn't happen.
I mean, heck, aside from reblogs and the occasional post, I've been practically dead on this tumblr.
If you're actually wondering as to what's up, prepare for a long post! I wanted to explain this and my next course of action, alongside another project.
Press "keep reading" for more!
Okay, so it'd be best to divide this into sections.
(Apologies if I fail to articulate anything here)
WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH HANASHIMA?
As you know (if you came here for my original art and projects), Hanashima's Advanced Class is deemed to be my main project on this tumblr, as most colored OC posts (and OC posts in general) have been dedicated to this project of mine. And I vowed that I'd work on it and update everyone every week. However, I've decided to put this on hold. I'd like to be transparent regarding such reasons.
Long story short, IRL responsibilities have been making it difficult, and this project is a high-stakes project that I want to do when I'm ready.
For a longer explanation, I've started college and that's been taking up a good portion of my time, as I wish to put academics first. Sure, I could just write it in my downtime, but such times are scarce. In addition, there's a lot of things I wished to do with Hanashima.
Putting it simply, Hanashima's Advanced Class is my most ambitious project.
Firstly (and most importantly), there's a lot of heavy matter that I wish to discuss within this particular storyline, and some are insanely sensitive topics that need proper research. Not just regarding how these topics or concepts work, but also representation of said subject matter, how it would affect character behavior and foreshadowing, how to represent these issues with sensitivity and tact- you see where I'm getting at here?
I fear that with college work, it would affect the way I research these matters. It could be my perfectionism, but when it comes to representation of very real matters, I want to put in my full effort, and I'm unable to do that with multiple things on my plate.
Especially when it comes to representing these matters, the last thing I'd like to do is not research carefully enough and end up misrepresenting such issues / reinforce certain things (or even worse, offend or harm the very people that have gone through said events). Admittedly, my fears about this have been somewhat stressing me out on top of school. I can't research because of school, so when I write down anything regarding this project, I find myself second-guessing or even wanting to constantly scrap my works in progress. It's for this reason that I believe that putting this on hold would be beneficial not just for the sake of future audiences but also for peace of mind.
Secondly, my art at the moment, is not at the level needed in order to finish even planning this series. I'm currently taking an art course at my college so that's been assisting, but with what I feel is my best storyline (and most meaningful one), I want to make sure that my ability is where it needs to be. I want to be able to properly convey the emotions of the characters, the beauty of their world, and implement all the visual motifs and/or aspects that I've imagined, but I can't do that until I improve as an artist first. In addition, I feel that I'm not experienced as a comic artist yet- I need more practice with my visual storytelling, but I don't want to make a crapton of mistakes right off the bat with what I (personally) deem to be my "magnum opus."
So! What do I deem to be the solution?
Number one, putting this project on hold.
Number two, I'm going to work on my other project titled Madeleine Macabre's House of Monsters.
But wait...
BUT WHY THIS COURSE OF ACTION?
"But Zen! You can't handle the Hanashima project! Why do you think the solution would be to work on ANOTHER project instead?"
Well, I have my reasons.
This project is significantly easier to write for compared to Hanashima's Advanced Class.
As I've mentioned, Hanashima's Advanced Class is what I deem to be my magnum opus. I feel that Hanashima in particular has the best characters I've written, and there's a lot of arcs that I'm excited to put into action -- though these arcs and the storyline in general require lots of research due to lots of sensitive subject matter.
Madeleine Macabre's House of Monsters, however - is the complete opposite.
I'm not saying that I think lowly of the project - not at all in fact! This project is fun to work on because I get to be more creative with its world and characters, especially since it's a more supernatural-based environment (whereas Hanashima's is more like a mirror to our reality).
I will say, however, I'll say that Madeleine Macabre's House of Monsters is significantly more lighthearted and self indulgent than the other project. I don't feel as stressed writing it, and admittedly, writing it feels more natural in regards to my current skillset. That in mind -
2) I'm able to practice my craft with this project!
Here, with this project, I'll be able to further practice comic layouts and backgrounds and whatnot. Also, characterization and just my ability to tell a story through visuals (and in general)!
Consider this project to be my little "guinea pig" of sorts when it comes to my work.
TLDR for this section; Since this project isn't my magnum opus, I feel like it'll be easier to release and practice with, and I won't feel too pressured to avoid making mistakes.
HOW WILL UPDATES WORK?
I probably won't update often (like I promised previously), as it's almost certain that'll be a promise I'll fail to keep.
If anything, I'll only update when I feel that I've either made significant progress or if I'm proud of something in particular. I mean, you can expect doodles of some of the characters every now and then, but I'm definitely attempting to set more reasonable goals and expectations for myself.
Most likely, they'll be tumblr posts. That, or videos good for either a TikTok or Youtube shorts format. Maybe once in a blue moon, I'll make videos about these characters (though I highly anticipate these won't come until I'm nearing the actual comic's release).
Anyways, that's all! If you managed to read all the way here, thank you so much! I hope you'll stick around to see what I have to offer with this project.
Stay Zany, everyone!
~ ZanyZenpai
#zanyzen speaks#ZSA: Zen service announcement!#hanashima’s advanced class#madeleine macabre's house of monsters#zanyzenspeaks#zanyzen updates
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