Birthday Vow: Brainstorming Styles

Right now I’m still in the process of brainstorming a script together.  I’ve been working on it everyday, as I  definitely feeling the clock ticking as July 22 slowly creeps up.  I’m about halfway done with it now.  I was having some difficulty with it because I had to find a new brainstorming style.

Back when I did the Niece Web series, I used to be able to script a comic as I went along.  I would brainstorm, and write down the character notes, panel notes and dialogue all in one sitting.  Here’s a sample of my old brainstorming style that I used when I worked on a comic 6 years ago.  The comic I’m about to show you was a comic I worked on before Niece Web, called Trailblazers.  It was about a strong boy named Zoan (not shown), a fairy named Kaira and a magical girl of destruction named Trina.  They went on random adventures together.

My notes on a Trailblazers comic

I would sit down a script the comic as I brainstormed the ideas behind it.  In my notes, I was only concerned about dialogue.  The numbers in the margin was the panel number, and I wrote enough dialogue that could naturally fit into the panel.  This was my idea of story writing back then.

My thumbnail sketch of a Trailblazers Comic

After I finished the script, I would turn the page over and draw out a thumbnail sketch.  I took the dialogue and created the art around it.  When I did the thumbnail sketch, all I was concerned about was facial expressions, visual effects, camera angles and speech balloon placement.  Other stuff like body figures and background art, I figured out when I worked on the final artwork.

The finished Trailblazers comic

After the thumbnail sketch (it usually took one, and I was satisfied), I worked on the final artwork.  All the other visual details not addressed in the thumbnail sketch, I worked out along the way as I completed the final artwork.

Right now if I was to try to create a comic using my old brainstorming style, I would immediately run into writers block.  I think I figured out why.  Now when I brainstorm, I’m juggling a lot more topics in my head than just straight dialogue.  Topics such as characterization, visual details, plot, etc.  I find that I can’t start out with doing dialogue anymore.  I have to brainstorm other areas of the story first before I even begin to think about dialogue.

That’s where my current brainstorming style comes into play.  I sit down and write down everything that’s going through my mind about the story, in a stream of consciousness writing style.  For example, I need to figure out Spider’s motivation for doing a certain action….so I write down exactly that, and begin to write down every idea I have on that problem.  This brainstorming style has been very effective for me, and my ideas are flowing onto the page.  The only drawback to this brainstorming style is that it takes up more of my time to do.  Not only that, but now I have to script the comic separately from my notes, which…again…takes up time.  But its the best style I have going for me right now, and its getting results.

Drawing Course: Task 2 (Tone)

***This is a continuation of the lesson learned from the Drawing Course: Task 1 (Form) post***

Task 2: Tone. Draw an object with a single light source, then move the light source to a new position and redraw.

Masking Tape- Light Source 1

My sketch of the above masking tape

Masking Tape- Light Source 2

My Sketch of the other masking tape

How did I do?

Right off the back, I realized that the light sources didn’t create that much of a difference on the masking tape.  Instead of the shadows moving onto different areas of the masking tape, the shadows only got deeper.  I did switch the light sources (1st light source is a lamp on the right, and the second is the outside light coming from the left), but the subject itself doesn’t allow for too many differences in tone.  Maybe I should revisit this task?

I mentioned in past posts that I hate drawing circles.  So when doing these tasks I chose objects that help me to get out of my comfort zone.  So that’s what lead to me choosing masking tape for this task.  An object that requires you to draw a perfect circle.

This was another tough task for me to complete.  Personally I thought the masking tapes came out sucky.  You can see the wobbliness of the lines as I tried to draw the circles and was hesitating a lot.

The tone of the objects came out average, I suppose.  As I mentioned earlier, the shadows on the masking tape weren’t different enough to warrant a second sketch.  I effectively made the tones darker for the second sketch, which they were.

Yea, I anticipate me becoming neurotic as I go through this book and complete these tasks.  My inner critic is going to drive me insane, lol.

Drawing Course: Task 1 (Form)

Its time to do a task from the “Complete Drawing Course” book!  The first section of the book deals with drawing objects, and the first chapter deals with observing objects so you can draw them.  Here’s what I learned from the chapter:

-Objects have 4 properties that are drawn: Form (their solid qualities), Texture (surface quality), Color and Shades of light and dark.

-The chapter stresses that when you’re drawing an object (or anything in reality), you’re not just copying the object onto the paper….you’re giving your interpretation of how you view the object.  Two people drawing the same object will have 2 differing drawings because of their own unique interpretations and views of the object.

The book gives 4 tasks that help to explore the properties of an object.  Here’s the first one:

Task 1: Form:

Draw 2 objects of completely different forms, side by side, on a table.

Here’s my task:

2 objects of different forms, side by side. A spray bottle of All Purpose Cleaner and a can opener

My sketch of the 2 objects

This task was tough!  Let it be known that I HATE drawing still life.  But I’m going through these tasks anyway to hone my drawing skills.

The toughest part of the drawing was measuring proportions and angles.  Many times, I had to erase and redraw because a section of the object was disproportionate to the other sections, or the angle of some lines didn’t match.

Proportions and measurement are the themes I have to tackle if I want to become a better artist.

Doing this task did give my self-confidence a boost, despite my inner critic assassinating me.  I liked how the book said that drawings are interpretations of how you perceive reality as an artist.  No matter how bad I “think” I draw, my drawing is still good because that’s how I interpreted the subject.  You can’t take that from me, its my own unique view.  Of course with practice, my interpretations will become more realistic, but for now they’re fine as they are.  Let’s just say they’re the interpretations of the Chimeric Muse on May 31st, 2011.  Who knows how the future Chimeric Muse will interpret these same objects.

Birthday Vow: Brainstorming Frustration

With less than 2 months before my birthday, I had to get started with working on the Niece Web story I vowed to do.  There’s no way I can get away with doing this last-minute, even if I wanted to.  I need at least a full month and a prayer to just get the final artwork done.  So the first month will be all planning and preparation, and I want to get that done as soon as possible so I can get started with the time-consuming artwork.

My first plan of action is coming up with the plot of the story. So I’m sitting at my computer working on the story. You would think that it would be easy for me since I’m rewriting a story I previously did.  But NOPE, my muse wants me to do a mostly new story that’s based off the old one.  You see, I’ve spent the past few years researching on writing fundamentals, and what it takes to write a story.  This is the first story I’m writing since I finished that research, so my muse is itching to put its knowledge to use.  This reminds me of a person I know who’s enlisted in the army and had to do a tour of duty in Iraq.  I asked him if he was scared or nervous to be going to such a hostile territory for a few months.  His response gave me something to think about.  Was he nervous?  Yea, he was.  But he was also excited too.  Excited because he spent months in combat training learning skills, and he’s FINALLY going to put them to practical use.  I feel the same way too (though writing is MUCH safer than serving in active duty, thank you lord).

So I begin to work on the story.  I have vague, disjointed ideas floating around in my head.  “Spring, Autumn and Uncle Spider should start the story off playing soccer”, “Winter cooks a fabulous dinner”, “Melony is a psychiatrist and Neoma is a social worker”.  The ideas are ok, but they’re mostly details, and I’m looking for ideas that lead to a plot.  And here’s where the frustration sets in.  My muse wants to focus on details of the story, while I want to work on grander ideas that lead to a plot. My muse is stubborn and we’re having an internal battle now with each other, and my muse says “screw me” and shuts down all idea generation.

So now I’m sitting there with a nasty case of writer’s block.  Not only that, but the negative thoughts start to sink in.  “My writing sucks”, “Since coming up with a story is SO HARD, maybe I’m not cut out to be a writer”, “Why bother with this kind of frustration, just don’t bother with it”.  Not only am I frustrated with the writer’s block, but now I’m having an internal battle with even continuing writing period.  It was a tough time.  I’m trying my best to tune out the negative thinking, but it’s so hard because it’s not all just mental.  I suffer from clinical depression, so any negativity manifests itself into physical symptoms like headaches, lethargy, and my brain slowing down.  Ugh.

So how did I work through this.  For one thing, I remember something I posted about earlier on in this blog.  A post called “Blank Page Syndrome”, where just writing random gibberish will help get the creative juices flowing.  So I tried this method.  Because of my depressed brain, it was so hard to even write period, even random gibberish, but I pushed through the layer of mental heaviness.  I started by writing down the detail ideas that my muse came up with, and then I wrote down my desire to come up with ideas for the plot too.  Then something just clicked in my head, and I started coming up with ideas that I can create a plot out of.  “While Spring, Autumn and Spider are playing Soccer, Spider would meet Melony there, the lady he would have a disastrous date with”.  “Summer believes in romance, so she sees an incentive to plan Spider the perfect date, and have it go well”.  “Spring is forced to attend this date against her will, so she decides to play pranks for her own amusement”.

I won’t be spoiling the story I’ll eventually come up with, but that’s just some of the ideas I came up with so far.  I just wanted to detail the hellish battle I had with myself to get to this point.  But I’m committed to completing this vow.  Check back for more updates.

“Complete Drawing Course” Book

One of the reasons why I created this blog was to give myself motivation with producing more art.  I already got the ball rolling with making my birthday vow, but I also have another idea too.

A few months ago I purchased a book called “Complete Drawing Course” by the Diagram Group.

Pretty much my textbook for now. The "Complete Drawing Course" Book

The name says it all.  The book gives lessons on various drawing topics, and then has you do tasks that lets you practice what you learned.  I bought the book with the hopes of completing the tasks, and now that I have my blog, I will complete the tasks and upload my artwork online.  That way, the blog will motivate me to complete the tasks….all 300+ of them, lol.

You may be asking “why bother with going through the book?”.  Well, going through this book will help me to  reinforce my knowledge of the basic fundamentals of drawing.  Its my belief that to be a good artist, you need to have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of your craft.  The basics of your craft have to become like second nature to you.  Once that happens, then you can experiment with your craft and become really creative, while doing so in an intelligent/clever manner because of your knowledge of your craft.

Without a grasp of the fundamentals, not only are you more prone to make mistakes, but your art might look “off” because its missing that certain “something”.  Your art might end up great, but it has a high chance of not reaching its potential.  That’s what I believe anyway.

So in the future, I’ll be posting the lessons that I’ve learned from the book, along with the tasks that I completed.  I’m looking forward to this, as I want to improve my drawing skills.  Should be fun

Niece Web on DeviantART

Now that I finished the Oshawott Project, I can start work on fulfilling the Niece Web Birthday Vow, I made a few weeks ago.  As a reminder, I vowed to write, draw and color a completed Niece Web story by my birthday this year (July 22).

Link: Niece Web and My Birthday Vow

But since the vast majority of you all have probably never seen Niece Web, I figured it’ll be a good idea to upload the complete series again online.  To do this, I reactivated my old account at DeviantART.com and showcase them there.  DeviantART is a great website where artists can upload their art and have others view them and comment on them.  I plan on going more in-depth about DeviantART later on, but for now here are the links to my old DeviantART page and the link to the Niece Web section of it.  Enjoy:

My DeviantART profile: darkspiderzero.deviantart.com

Link: Niece Web on DeviantART

The comics are organized in reverse chronological order, so go to the last page of the gallery to find the first comic.  All of the comics feature descriptions that tell you when it was originally published and the medium I created the comic on.  Also most of the comics features tidbits of information and stories related to the comic, so make sure to not miss the description section of each comic.

Niece Web and My Birthday Vow

This post won’t be news for anybody who read the “about the blog” page of this site.  But for those of you who haven’t, I used to run a webcomic a few years back.  Now while the point of this post is make a vow, first I need to give you all some background info about my old webcomic.  So here’s that background information.  This is the history of my webcomic, Niece Web.

Niece Web began as an opportunity.  I’ve been reading webcomics since late 2000, and I always thought it was cool that random people could create and publish comics online for people to read.  Before then, people would have to compete against thousands of aspiring artists to get their work published in print media like newspapers and magazines.  But now ANYBODY could create a comic and have it be seen and enjoyed online.  In 2005, I ran across a website named Comic Genesis that offered free website hosting for webcomics.  All I had to do was create a comic and a website for it, and Comic Genesis would host my comic.  Since I had knowledge of HTML 4 and website construction, I figured it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.  I’ve been learning about comics and about being a cartoonist forever, and it was now time to finally put those skills to use.

In the course of about 4 months, I create the Niece Web comic and website.  It officially started on July 22nd, 2005 (my 20th birthday).

Niece Web Logo

Niece Web Main Characters: (center) Dark Spider, (Clockwise from upper left) Winter, Autumn, Spring and Summer.

Niece Web was about a young man nicknamed Dark Spider, a character directly based off me (his nickname is my old artist name).  Dark Spider’s the guardian of his quadruplet teen nieces, Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.  The whole comic (and the humor) was pretty much Dark Spider and his nieces driving each other crazy, being weird or getting into crazy situations.  In one story, Dark Spider had a date with 2 women who passively aggressively fought over him, and his nieces stirred the flames.  In another story, the nieces learned a specific body trick that only females can do, in order to take control of the minds of men.  I came up with some weird stuff lol.  Niece Web was half storyline oriented, with “gag a day” style comics in between the stories.

I ran the comic for a year and a half, and it was such a personally satisfying run.  I was living out my dream of running a comic.  My art and writing skills improved tons.  I spent most of my free time doing what I loved.

Evolution of Niece Webs art style

Well, if I got such a good joy from doing the comic….then why did I stop?  For a variety of reasons, but mostly I was burned out from the weekly grind of doing the comic.  Plus I found that by being a slave to the grind, I wasn’t improving in my art/writing enough for my liking.  My plan was to take a small break and do independent research in improving my art and writing techniques.  I’m STILL doing that “small break”, 5 years later >_>.  But that’s where this so-called “birthday vow” comes in.

I have NEVER forgotten Niece Web these past 5 years.  I’ve been slowly working on a comeback story, but I never quite got back into the artist grind where I can complete the story.  My theory is that working on an original story from scratch is a daunting task for getting back into the grind.  So my solution to this theory is to rewrite and redraw a previous story of Niece Web.  My 5 years of working on Niece Web have changed its characters drastically, so it won’t be JUST a simple rewrite.  It’ll effectively be a new story, without being completely original.  The perfect way for easing my way back into the grind.

I VOW to complete this rewriting of an old Niece Web story by my birthday this year.  Completely rewritten, completely new art and colored.  All by July 22, 2011.  That’s exactly 3 months from today.

I’m making this vow because the time is right that I made a complete story, instead of being stuck in the note taking process.  I started Niece Web on my birthday, and I figured I make a comeback on my birthday too.  Also I regularly listen to a comedian by the name of Keith Malley (from the Keith and The Girl comedy podcast, a MUST LISTEN), who vowed to perform brand new stand up material every year for his birthday.  He just completed his yearly stand up act on the 15th.  He inspired me to create my own birthday tradition, starting with this here birthday vow.

If this birthday vow goes smoothly, and I accomplish this goal, I’m thinking of doing something like this EVERY year for my birthday, topping myself creatively year after year.  But I’m getting ahead of myself right now.  The only thing I’m focused on is this upcoming July 22nd.

Wish me luck with keeping the vow,  It’s a big goal to accomplish in 3 months.  But I’m CONFIDENT that me and my chimeric muse will be up for the task.  Of course, I’ll be giving you guys updates via this blog.  If you read my “about the blog” section, THIS is the blog’s purpose anyway….to motivate me into being more creative.

Creativity Hates Linearity

Lately, I’ve been working on a revival of my old webcomic (more on that in later blog posts).  Specifically, I’ve been working on the story arc that kicks the comic off.  I desperately want to come up with the beginning of the comic and go on from there.  But when me and my Chimeric Muse actually try to sit down and come up with some ideas for the beginning, the muse draws a blank.  Instead, the muse is dreaming up situations and plot points for other sections of the story that I don’t want to deal with now.  It’s all very frustrating stuff, and most times I’m left in a perpetual state of writer’s block.

This past session though I actually took a step back and paid attention to what exactly my muse was doing.  My muse is inspiring me for the story I’m working on, but just not in the part of the story I want.  When I realized that, it reminded me about my old research on creativity, and a VERY important point I forgot.

The human mind is composed of information and memories that’s interconnected to each other.  If one were to map the human mind, it would resembled a spider’s web of information cells, that’s connected to each other by “threads” that represent something that the 2 pieces of information share.  For example, there’s 2 cells that each contain information about an apple and an orange.  There would be threads connecting them together.  1 thread would be about how both apples and oranges are fruits.  Another thread would be about how both are round objects.  Yet another thread would be about how they are both colored objects.  The list goes on.

As an agent of my mind, the Chimeric Muse also functions like this.  My muse wants to work on a piece of the story that its easiest to inspire me to do.  And starting from that piece of the story, it wants to branch out, and create other pieces of storyline….all the while, connecting them along common threads. My muse wants to work in a web like manner, whereas I’ve been trying to force it into working in a rigid line, from point A to point B, from story beginning to story end.

If I force my muse to work in a linear fashion, I would be ignoring the valuable inspiration it’s giving me for other parts of the story.  Plus I’m robbing it of its potential to make creative connections between story pieces, and pretty much sucking the energy out of my muse.

Instead of getting frustrated that my muse wants to work like this, I need to work WITH my muse.  Work with the parts of the story that its inspiring me to do, and guide my muse into the direction of the part of the story that I really want to work in.  That way, my muse will be happy and productive, and my story is steadily getting worked on.  Not in the way I wanted it worked on, but its progress….and its better than being frustrated and making NO progress at all.

Blank Page Syndrome

Ok, so I started Chimeric Musings, and I got a lot of stuff to talk about, right?  I’m at the blank text box at WordPress.com, where I type in text that becomes my blog posts.  Now its time for the Chimeric Muse to shine, and inspire me to type about something.

“So muse, what should we type?”

But the muse, it just stares at the blank text box on my computer screen.  So now I’m “inspired” to just…stare at the blank text box.  And stare.  And stare some more.

“Um, muse?   You’re the best and everything, but I don’t see how staring at this blank text box is helping me be more creative.”

But that’s when I REALLY took a good look at my muse, and noticed that its fried.  How’d that happened?  WTF?

Enter Blank Page Syndrome

Remember in the “Information Overload” post, how I said setting limitations will help your creativity flow.  Well, what happens when you come across the most unlimited thing to ever grace the Earth….a blank page?  If your medium for creativity includes paper at all, then you know exactly what happens.  You see, you can do ANYTHING to a blank page.  You can draw a circle.  You can write the words “help me”.  You can paint the Mona Lisa.  You can write the Divine Comedy.  You have an infinite amount of options at your disposal, as to what to do with a blank page.  Faced with such unlimited potential, your muses will become overwhelmed with so many potential avenues for creating awesome that it becomes fried, well done.  Your muse will just stare at the blank page, not knowing how to start creating awesome. Classic symptom of this debilitating syndrome.  And the trick of setting limitations on your muse won’t work too well, because how exactly do you set limitations on a blank page, outside of shrinking its size?

So….. HOW EXACTLY do you overcome Blank Page Syndrome?  By putting it off for later and waiting for your muse to randomly inspire you?  You could very well do that, but that’s unreliable though.  Like most creative types, muses are so awesome, that time management just doesn’t factor into their being.  So what’s a more reliable method?  How about attacking something as unlimited as blank page syndrome, with something just as unlimited, if not more.  What could that be, you ask?  It’s the human mind.

The human mind is running through tons of thoughts at any given min.  Why not fill up the blank page with some of it.  You write down exactly what’s on your mind onto the blank page.  Need groceries? Write down a grocery list.  Killed someone lately? You write down how it happened, OJ Simpson style (and burn the page afterward, we don’t need you going to jail).  Going through Blank Page Syndrome? You write down that you’re going through blank page syndrome.  Got nothing on your mind?  Then write down the word “nothing” ad nauseum.  You slap the shit out of that blank page with your random gibberish.

And here’s the beauty of that random gibberish.  Your muse will be reading through your gibberish, and there’s a high chance that he might like something you wrote down.  And if it EVER likes something, that means copious amounts of inspiration for you.  Inspiration is THE cure for Blank Page Syndrome, and you helped your muse to manufacture that cure.  You should feel proud of yourself.  All you gotta do now is get a new blank page, and use it for your new-found inspiration.

Keep this trick in mind for any other kind of creative block you’re going through too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, typing THIS post out helped me get rid of my own case of Blank Page Syndrome.  So me and the muse have to go out and create more blog posts.  Til next time.

Information Overload and the Sword of Limitation

When I came up with the idea for this blog, I thought the hardest part of starting it would be coming up with the content to put in it.  NOPE, the hardest part was actually setting up the blog at WordPress.  The problem?  They bombard you with SOOO MANY options and information. You would think that would be a good thing, as it gives you lots of tools to be creative with, in setting up the blog.  But too much of a good thing can be bad also. Setting up links and media, graphs of site statistics, widgets, it was information overload for my poor muse.  This brings me to my first topic of creativity.

You see, the Chimeric Muse loves information.  The more info it has, the more it can inspire me to be creative.  But my muse isn’t a glutton.  Its lean, trim and it can only handle but so much info at a time.  When its bombarded with info, its creative energy is now focused on figuring out and sorting through the info, instead of using it.  It gets overwhelmed very easily.  And when it’s overwhelmed, it goes away and hibernates until the winter storm of words and information goes away.  No muse = no creativity from me, and that sucks.  And I’m sure that I’m not the only person that this happens to.

I’ve learned a thing or too from all of this.  A main theme about creativity is solving problems.  Any creative endeavor is nothing more than a series of problems and decision-making, within a medium.  For example, with drawing, from start to finish you’re facing problems and making decisions until you create something, with pen and paper as the medium.  The medium is the tool(s) you use to create with.  For the blogger, the medium is the tools provided by the blogging site.  The medium of Chimeric Musings is WordPress.

Now my muse loves to solve problems, since it’s in its blood as my creative inspiration.  But my muse hates distractions while its solving a problem.  Too many distractions makes it say “screw this” and go into hibernation.  Figuring out the tools it’s using to be creative with, definitely counts as a distraction.  In fact, the less tools it has to work with, the less distracted it’ll be and the more creative it’ll be.  The muse has to work extra hard now, without the extra tools, but when it’s focusing all of its energy on the creative problems on hand, there will be more creative results.

This is not just a quirk of my muse, but it goes for most people’s muses too.  Try it one day.  If you’re an artist working with color, try limiting the colors you are using, and see how much more creative you become.  If you’re a composer, try limiting yourself on instruments and scales.  If you’re a writer, limit yourself on the amount of dialogue or characters to use in a scene.

This is exactly what I did to bring my muse out of hibernation, when faced with the information overload of WordPress.  I spent the time going through the options of the site, to see which ones I could use at the bare minimum.  It was hard work and boring, since my the muse usually makes these things fun for me….but it had to be done.  Eventually, I identified the options and tools I ABSOLUTELY needed, and my muse sprung back to life and did its thing with them.  And voila, Chimeric Musings was born.

So what’s the lesson of the story?  If you value your sanity, don’t start a blog. Oh and the creativity stuff I talked about too. Don’t wanna forget that 😉