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.

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.

What Niece Web Story Shall I Rewrite?

My Niece Web birthday vow was to rewrite and redraw a previous Niece Web story.  So now its about time I chose that story that I’ll be rewriting.

Niece Web had 5 stories: Disastrous Date, The More You Know Through Fear, The Chatterbox Technique, The Rainy Day Club, and a series of comics that I’ll nickname “The Egg Bet Story”.  I’ll go through each one, tell you a little about it, and any possible reasons why I’d want to revisit the story.

If you’d like to read the comics for yourself, please visit the Niece Web Gallery on DeviantART: Link.  The relevant comics have the story name in the title.

Disastrous Date

This was the story that kicked off Niece Web, and introduced Spider and the Nieces.  The story’s about Spider having a dinner date with his friends Neoma and Melony.  Melony had recently got reacquainted with Spider and she tries to use this dinner to hook up with him.  But unfortunately for her, Neoma also has feelings for Spider, gets jealous of Melony’s advances toward him, and tries to stop her.  The nieces are at the  dinner too and they stir up trouble for their own amusement.  Spider’s just along for the ride through the drama.

Out of all the stories I did for Niece Web, this one seems like the most fun to rewrite.  There are opportunities to have each of the main characters shine.  There are lots of opportunities for some lol moments.  Plus it’ll be fun to redraw this storyline using my 2011 art skills, and compare it to my 2005 artwork.

The More You Know Through Fear

This was the Halloween storyline.  The Nieces are waiting to attend a costume party.  While they’re waiting, Autumn suggests they play “The Game of Fear”, where you try to guess what the other person is afraid of.  Through this game, the Nieces reveal their deepest fears.  Some funny and some sad.

I could see a possible rewrite with this one.  I could elaborate further with this story.  Like I could keep the stuff dealing with the game of fear, but include some stuff of them actually attending the Halloween party.  Or I could even have the “Game of Fear” take place AT the Halloween party, with other people participating too.  The only downside is that Dark Spider doesn’t heavily feature into this storyline, and I definitely want to write a story with him having a prominent role.  I’d have to work quite a bit to include him into the story.

The Chatterbox Technique

I’m crazy for coming up with this story.  Dark Spider goes on a date with Neoma, and leaves his nieces in the care of Marty.  Marty is a big misogynistic asshole though, so Spider’s other friend Veronica comes to babysit Marty.  Marty treats the nieces like slaves, and they resent him for it.  Seeing this resentment, Veronica teaches the nieces the chatterbox technique, which has the power to turn men into sex crazed lunatics.  Armed with this technique, the nieces make Marty their slave as revenge and shenanigans ensues.

I really don’t want to deal with this storyline again, to be honest.  I’m not a big fan of it.  I made the Marty character too much of a creepy asshole, and he rubs me the wrong way.  The idea of the nieces being taught such a sexual technique rubs me the wrong way too.  Gives me pedophile undertones.  I hate to say all of this about my own storyline, as this was all done for gags and laughs, but it is what it is.

The Rainy Day Club

The LOOONNNGEST of the 5 storylines.  Dark Spider goes to the DMV on monsoon of a day, and the nieces are stuck inside the house.  To pass the time, they each write down an activity, and randomly pick which activity to do.  They start off playing a trivia game, but the whole day soon derails into a dramafest, as the nieces hurt each others feelings and get various acts of revenge on each other.  But through the drama, they get a chance to learn more about themselves and each other.

I consider this storyline the most epic and complete out of the 5 stories, and I can’t really imagine tweaking it in any kind of way.  It’s my favorite storyline.

The Egg Bet

(The first 8 comics, on the first page, in the Niece Web gallery at DA.  It starts with “Prelude to the Egg Bet” and ends with “Shut Up About the Toilet Egg”)

The storyline that ended Niece Web.  Spring bets Winter and Summer that she can convince Autumn that she laid an egg.  Summer thinks this is ridiculous and bets against Spring.  But unfortunately, Spring does convince Autumn that she laid an egg, through a clever prank.

As it stands, the story is complete.  But in reality its incomplete, because I abruptly ended Niece Web before it reached its conclusion.  The last comic just so happens to avoid being a cliffhanger and concludes the story in a way I didn’t intend it to.  This storyline has the most incentive for me to rewrite it, since its incomplete as I originally intended it.

The Final Verdict

It’s a toss-up between Disastrous Date, The More You know Through Fear and The Egg Bet.  I have decided to rewrite the Disastrous Date storyline because like I mentioned before, it seems like the most fun for me to rewrite.  Also it incorporates all the main characters and has the most opportunities for them to shine.  I will throw a bone to the Egg Bet and draw some strips that gives it a proper conclusion.  But that’s for later.
Since the story’s chosen, now its time to rework its plot.  But that’s for another post.  Laters.

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.