Category: Cadence

Art!, Cadence, Manga, Writing Journey

A New Beginning

mary v.

medium-p
I guess I can only ignore that ache for so long. I’ve said it in so many places that every time I looked at TCoaRH pages I desperately wanted to start it as a graphic novel again. I thought maybe it would go away while I was novelizing it, but really, during every scene I’m writing I just wish I were drawing it. My moleskine sketchbook I brought with me to NZ is ridiculously full of sketches of the people from this story. The narration of the novel is clunky and sparse because I’m busy visualizing the scene so that I forget to write it well. This story is begging to be drawn.

I’ve also always known since I drew my last graphic novel that committing to a graphic novel would be a huge investment of time and energy and resources. But because of how many times I’ve told this story now (once in full, and I’m over halfway through the novelization), I’m willing to slow down and work patiently with this endeavor.

I’ve more or less figured out what my process for doing this will be. I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with digital lines. At this point, I can only produce sloppy lines I’m happy with, not neat ones. Meanwhile, I tend to be naturally meticulous drawing traditional ink lines, and I’m really comfortable with them. I know I can colorize traditional lines digitally with ease, and this is such a fantastically colorful story. I might struggle with backgrounds, but I’ll go easy on myself with them.

I already have to be patient, because I don’t have any paper suitable for starting pages here. I am going to buy that tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m slowly thumbnailing my first pages, and working on character designs. I think I need to make myself some legit reference sheets for the characters, especially Solimin, who’s got visible tattoos most of the time. I also happily reminded myself it’ll be a while before a lot of these characters get introduced, which will give me time to fine-tune them and brush up on drawing their faces.

Who knows if this will take off or not, but the thing is I’m not asking for immediate gratification. So it might take off over the course of the next few years. At some point soon I’ll set up a website for this so I can get a webcomic system working.

 

 

Art!, Cadence, Writing!

Falling into the Sun

mary v.

OH MY GOODNESS
I, like, figuratively, never, ever, ever come up with good story titles BUT I DID
And the idea sprang forth like RE, in that it would be based on the idea of …WtR, but a new story, about CADENCE AND SOLARIS
They have always, always fascinated me because they sort of drive the whole story…Cadence is angry at the world ’cause she’s stuck forever as the Sidereal Ambassador which is sort of why she ends up screwing with everybody. Anyway the reason she IS stuck as the Sidereal Ambassador is because of Solaris, but he still loves her but she won’t forgive him and for some reason I really like that.
Anyway I started thinking about how the two of them got into that situation — I wrote a tiny blip about Cadence’s past and realized her and Solaris meeting, falling for each other, and subsequently falling to ruins, would make a really interesting novel. It’s got the romance in it but when Cadence meets Solaris, he’s a Night Magician/Sun King so he’s CRAZY POWER HUNGRY, and Cadence sort of is too, hungry and proud, which is why she’s attracted to him…but then he kills the former Sidereal Ambassador and then WOOP go Cadence! And that would be the ending, and it’s a horrible ending but it’s STRONG
Hmm, spoilers?
Anyway I wanted to doodle because I was just sort of staring at TCoaRH and not writing anything, so I ended up with this sketch of Cadence and Solaris which totally sums of what their relationship would have even begun like. I like the idea of writing a pretty but kind of crazy woman, so I’d probably write it from Cadence’s perspective…then again, in a story about a man and a woman you tend to get the woman’s side, so maybe Solaris might be cool. That way I’d avoid the whole “la la la, I’m a pretty girl living a normal life OH MY GOD IT’S A SMOKING HOT MAN HE’S THE SUN KING HE’S BAD I’M SO ATTRACTED TO HIM WHAT’S HIS WORLD LIKE” But first person. Definitely feeling first person. Yeah I guess Solaris would tell that well. For some reason I just thought of The Great Gatsby. Who’s that crazy lady Gats is in love with. Okay well that just made me think of Brett from The Sun Also Rises. Both good models for Cay Cay.
Also, I was just debating over the time period to set this in — I was hesitant to stick with Cadence’s 1500s roots because…well that sounds boring. But then I argued, “But for Solaris to really totally shatter the expectations she has for her life, she should have totally been looking for a traditional future as housewife by 20yrs old.” So then I decided a lot of people do still have that mentality, and that was really common to find in southern MN in the country, where the communities are smaller and stabler. So if – GASP – I set FitS in the contemporary countryside, it would change things, and give Sol more freedom to introduce Cay into the underbelly of modern living…and Element Kings.
Oh and then countryside girl made me sing, I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can bear…and for once it might be grand, to have someone…understand.


OKAY SO
after discussing body language with Margaret I decided I ought to do better.
So NOW, check out Cay’s resistance
and I put her into a skankier dress, yeahhh
Well because I did the one before with my limited/nonexistent knowledge of 16th century fashion
Which then led me to change it to contemporary
Hence skanky dress
She’s all like WHOA tiger, look but don’t touch and god how I love when you look.

I wrote half an opening scene for this. I think I’m going to alternate between the end and the beginning of the story, and as suggested by Margaret tell it from Cay AND Solaris’s 1st person POVs.

Also, I decided Cay is going to meet Sol through her dad, who works with Night Magicians, which is interesting because essentially this will be a pair of bad guys that’s forced to go good. WOOO

Art!, Cadence, Manga, Writing!

Procrastination is Surprisingly Productive

mary v.

On Mondays I don’t have class till 4, and given that I pushed myself out of my room and into activity every time I sat around for longer than 30 minutes over the weekend, I gave myself permission to bum around in my sweat pants on Monday till I need to leave.

Anyway, I’m 50,000 words into the novel adaptation of The Cadence of a Restless Heart (I KNOW what the hell am I doing with my life), and I’ve tended to get stuck in corners and it takes a few days of bumming around staring at my words before I pull myself forward in the story. That’s what I’ve been doing today but God this story’s so visual so I’ve been doodling people from it all day long. Especially Jonas, because I just wrote a big chunk from his perspective and I just think he’s the cutest darned things second to puppies. Well, that’s not true, I was drawing a lot of Cadence too because I just wrote her first scene, just like I drew Solaris last week right before I wrote him for the first time. Sigh, I just can’t separate drawing and writing and I doubt I ever will. Just still searching for a way to bring them back together again.

Sketch dump…and go!

D’awww, so I was trying to think of how to drive the scene when Cadence wakes up and I figured HEY it always helps when you MAKE PEOPLE CRY, so sorry Katherine you got the short end of this one
BUT ISN’T THIS SO PERDY
dammit women
Katherine put your butt away


ugh i don’t want to talk about this one
HOW DO I DO ELEGANT LINELESS DIGITAL ART
ffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu


Okay but this is pretty cool and I just made it because Jonas is struggling with caring more about the magicians than his mom
wow what a punk huh
anyway HE’S COO
and I like doing weird color palettes these days


Eh who cares, Syracrus your hair’s too big..

Art!, Cadence, Manga

Sun King

mary v.

Whew!
Sort of the last 4 hours have been a whirlwind that sucked me into this piece. I’ve been wanting to really get into Solaris visually lately ’cause he’s just so neat. He always has been. I remember doing a huge pastel drawing of him in like 11th grade (even though he looked like a woman at the time…not so much now :3) because of his hot color scheme (no literally). Working digitally let me take this to a whole new level.
Also when I started drawing him today I did a bust and then I was like “No, I want to go more epic than that.” So of course epic I was thinking, cape-flying, scowling at the viewer and a few moments of sketching confirmed that wasn’t going to take off today. So then I went super-static like “basic drawing poses” and then I was like e___e so then I started thinking of Solaris and how he’s really struggled having all the power he does and how he’s sort of old and weary and introspective, so I opted for a more under-stated pose and as soon as I decided that I was golden. The more I look at this pose the more pleased with it I am. It’s totally him — working magic, still moving forward, but sort of dismissive of his powers what with his staff tucked into the crook of his elbow.
Oof but I just realized I forgot his tattoos/scars from when he was a Night Magician. So it looks like I’ll give this another round (…or not) sometime soon.
It was a nice union of applying traditional techniques to digital work but also taking advantage of digital tools and mess-free experimentation.
I did Solaris himself with the same approach to working traditional which was SUPER satisfying. It meant not getting really frustrated with his lines right away. I started with a low-opacity sketch that I worked directly on top of with stronger lines so that I could just erase the worst of the sketchiness as I went, just like normal. You can see he’s a lot more organic-looking than my digital people frequently end up.
Then first with his sunlight stuff I was just going to do boring old streakies but then, drawing inspiration from my host-sister’s way of getting inspired to do art, I decided to (GASP) experiment! In that way I found the cool real ink pens or whatever that exploded into that awesome smoky light over his head.
The only thing I’d like to keep working with is his staff. I found a good design for it based on dream catchers but I know it looks pretty crappy. Probably because I was thinking “God I suck at ornamental art” the whole time I was working on it. Good attitudes count, guys. xD

Cadence, Writing Journey, Writing!

ohai, ~19,000 words

mary v.

So, I didn’t reeeeeeeeeeally anticipate this …Whispered the River novelization to take off quite this much. I’ve got a volume and a half of the manga all scanned in, which has helped me stay on track and also flip back and forth through the story to keep everything nicely knit together (which was the manga’s major problem.) I’m trying to keep a certain amount of the humor from the manga, and it’s sort of easy with a cast that includes 4 teenagers and a really flamboyant king. I’m really falling in love with these characters in a way I wasn’t quite able to with the manga, and they’re all possibly more distinctive than any of my other casts. The system of magic is so straightforward and lends itself to a lot of vivid imagery and richness.

Okay I’ll stop tooting my own horn, but I’m so glad I’ve got this to pour my energy into with how stressful everything will be for the next few weeks.

Art!, Cadence, Manga

HAND CRAAAAAAAMP

mary v.

OKAY I don’t even want to take very long writing this because my eyes are BLEEDING from too much screentime.

I have just reminded myself why I gave up manga. I’ll leave all the “laziness” implications for another post.

I have been sitting at my computer for four and a half hours, trying to do a scene or two from “…Whispered the River” to see if it would be worth pursuing as a new, digital manga.

NO, NO NO

I admire webcomic artists SO MUCH but I do NOT HAVE THE PATIENCE or the BODY for that kind of work. Hours cramping my hand with my stylus; sloppy lines and bad speech bubbles. THAT’S ALL I GOT OUT OF THIS

Cadence, Emotional Breakdowns, Farewell Fairytale, Nikkei, Sun-Walking, Writing!

I Hate Heroines

mary v.

I just realized in my own writing that I have this tendency to be all right writing females — except for the lead role. I mean, maybe women writers in general tend to be somewhat weaker at writing their own sex than they are writing males (this, of course, is possibly just trying to justify myself).

Anyway, thinking back, I typically have a male lead. There was Nikkei in “Nikkei.” All but two of the characters were male in “Rebels,” and only one of those two females was important, and she wasn’t a “lead” enough for me to mess up. Also in “Redefining Evil,” I only have two females. I’d say both Ingrid and Lacy are authentic, but not necessarily likable. Then I hated Cirrus in “…Whispered the River,” and Cadence, Catherine, Ariell (at least I think that was her name), and Tyena were definitely not meant to be “loved.”
All right — I did like Sophie in “Farewell, Fairytale.” But that shouldn’t really count, because I based Sophie on myself and just used Ingrid’s appearance, which I already liked. “Catcher” had a male role, and I did like Phoebe, but I tried really hard to make her pleasant because that would be a lovely contradiction to her career as a prostitute (wow — and this was before seeing “Firefly!”)
And then comes Lucienne. I had this dreadful moment this last week when I suddenly realized how many wins I give her. I beat up like crazy on my male characters in this story, but any time Lucy gets hurt, I make sure she’s the victim. And this far outweighs the times when she overcomes the odds against her and comes out victorious. I mean, part of it is intentional because of the feminism vs. patriarchy theme I play with. Obviously I want feminism to win. That means in the case of Lucienne’s relationship to Levi that she sort of has to wear the pants. But I’m pretty sure there are instances where I overdo it.
This is why I decided that I’m going to wreak emotional havoc on her in the third book. 😀 Levi’s gonna occasionally get tired of tip-toeing around her sense of sexual independence (that sounds slightly perverse but…I don’t mean it that way xD).

Anyway, this problem has no real conclusion because I don’t really know how much of it has to do with the fact that I have been working with Lucienne for more than three consecutive weeks and how much of this has to do with a real concern.