So far, we’re up to 40 pages storyboarded, and begun on the next 2. It’s not great, but it’s constant forward momentum, which is all we need to finish the job. Well, that and the grace of God.
The focus on Genesis-to-Revelation overview of history with Christ at the center means that the Gospel of Mark is basically my go-to source. He’s got the action-packed supernatural showdown emphasis I am aiming for. But obviously, I’m pulling stuff in from Luke, and from anywhere else I find useful.
Awright. Yesterday was, in general, a good day, despite a town-trip eating half the day I got most of my chores done, four pages of storyboard AND a bunch of work on my Licensed RPG. WordPress was down, so I live-tweeted the process.
Monday I am likely to be engaged in extracurricular activities that will not only prevent me from getting pages done, but even posting my week-beginning log.
So here it is. 30 pages storyboarded. Presuming I work Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday, averaging 4 pages a day, and the story isn’t finished by Saturday, we’ll finish out next week at 46 pages, with 42 on my Friday Captain’s Log.
Per my pastor’s encouragement, I intend to include an appendix explaining my artistic choices and pointing to the Scriptures from which they are drawn. However as the final book’s predicted length approaches 100 pages not counting appendices, and the things I need to explain multiply, I wonder whether I can reasonably include those extra pages.
I may just have to resign myself to it. I want my work to be easily available to the broke and impoverished, but I can’t justify sparing any bit of quality for the confession of faith I leave my own child.
So that’s the plan. I’m very excited for Tuesday. War in Heaven illustration time! Honestly, I’m sufficiently excited about it I may do it today, instead of the stuff I’m kind of sort of planning to do..
This week has been a bit of a trick. Members of my house had major surgery. I was blessed by God and my brother with a building, which I had to help drag to the farm I live on.
The Awesome Moments storyboard remains where it was on Monday. Work on the Candy Raid promo art got done.
I have two more days to this workweek, today and tomorrow. Assuming a minimum of 2 pages per day, that’s 4+ more pages. So, when we hit the ground running on Monday, we’ll see how that went.
I have been toying over the last few weeks with the ideas of taking Sunday and Wednesday off rather than Saturday and Sunday. I tried it out this week, and I think that will be my pattern moving forward.
Psychologically, I’ve noticed my love for Hat Trick has been creeping back. I started on Awesome Moments last month with the assumption that when the storyboard was done, of course I’d Kickstart Awesome Moments first. It’s my most important work after all. But now I am content when this leg of this journey is done to pick up the next leg of the last journey.
Not to mention my January and perhaps February are spoken for.
It’ll be amusing (to me at least) if I produce nothing really in 2020, but come out the gate swinging with multiple products in 2021 because I spent all of 2020 laying the foundations for them.
I’m going to do my pages now. My plan is to do the bare minimum each day to progress, then switch over to work on my RPG engine. However, if the mood strikes to do more than the minimum, I will let the muse have her way. Ciao.
Yeah, I think I’ve used this pose a little too obsessively lately.
Oh well. The pic of Jenny (the rabbit) was only meant to be concept art anyhow. It’ll do.
But on the bright side, I finished the promo picture for Candy Raid!
… dang it!
Hopefully, I’m done with Candy Raid for the foreseeable future. Now, I can focus on the more excellent work of finishing the Awesome Moments storyboard, all the while wishing I was making my RPG instead.
I’m drawing a picture of Candy today. Hopefully it shall be epic.
It’s meant to replace the current promo image, which is too dark, doesn’t have the character centered, and is a fruit of that period where I thought painting over 3D was the solution to all my problems. (And in fairness, it is sometimes a good technique).
Candy Raid! My first collaborative effort. I did the art, Kayne Ruse did the coding. As of last month, Candy Raid has made more money than my children’s books, making me equally successful as a game developer and a purveyor of pedagogical print. We got a marketing scholarship in a contest, so the game is being re-launched in about a week.
Since my first book runs from Eden to the Second Coming, it is necessary to unify certain characters who are spoken of in different terms. That is, the Serpent of Eden is the Dragon of Revelation.
But there’s more going on here. The Hebrew that is translated “serpent” is potentially a double- or triple-entendre, implying “serpent,” “false oracle,” or “bronze” or “brass”. Some commentators believe that the description of Goliath, the giant’s bronze armor is a callback to the serpent of Eden… David and Goliath are both armored in their deity.
Tomorrow, a family member has major surgery (prayers appreciated), and I have to move a trailer house a longish distance (prayers appreciated). So there will be no Captain’s log.
Progress on the book has been slow. Partly because my attention is divided, partly because of the upcoming events, and partly because my family has been recovering from a nasty cold. Here are the storyboards thus far.
And here’s the concept art that has been done for the book:
Yesterday I introduced the project to my pastor and secured his blessing on the project and a promise of a theological review of the first draft when it is finished. I have also been doing some research into angelology out of necessity, since Awesome Moments 1 covers the grand, cosmic context in which the other Awesome Moments books shall live (I call it the Eden to Revelation presentation of the Gospel). Obviously, I’m taking a lot of artistic license, so using my kids’ book of the Gospel as a manual for spiritual warfare is contraindicated, but the more I know, the more confident I can be of my artistic choices. For instance, Ezekiel presents Eden as a mountain. My current art doesn’t reflect that. The final product may, however.
Anyway, I don’t plan to get much done this week, but I hope to get a lot done starting next week. ONWARD!
I storyboarded 4 pages today. Here’s the whole storyboard as it currently exists:
Keeping in mind each picture is two pages, and we begin on page 2 (page 1 is the title page), I’ve decided I need to insert two pages between biting the fruit and Super Saiyan Jesus showing up for his morning constitutional. Since I’m going to make a big deal about the animal skins God furnishes our first parents with, I need to shout out the fig leaf outfits they make themselves. I had initially thought I wouldn’t need to (I’m trying to cut out every little bit I can as this is a race to get to the Jesus), but it turns out its not gonna work that way.
The Plan for this week
I made the art for a game a couple years back, and it’s relaunching December 4th. I need to make new art for the relaunch, so that’s my primary responsibility this week. I intend to get at least 2 pages of storyboard done a day while my main focus is on the game art. Next week I intend to push it up to 6+ pages a day. Gotta move fast, because this is the first draft, and the job of the first draft isn’t to be pretty; it’s to have something to critique and improve upon.
Family has the sniffles, so we’re skipping church this week, alas. Today I decided to draw Super Saiyan Jesus.
Step 1
It’s a bit dodgy. I’m not supposed to work on my project o the month on Sunday, but it’s not December yet, and this is not a storyboard for Awesome Moments, and I feel like doing it, so it doesn’t technically count.
So this is a ‘pencil’ sketch composed in Krita. My ideal workflow is to convert this to cyan, print it out on cardstock, and then ink it with my Tombow brush pens. The ideal workflow will be used for this picture, but may not be useable for the awesome moments books; my printer is not capable of printing or scanning large enough pictures for the U.S. Letter size book I aim to make.
But there are workarounds: printers exist that can manage big enough papers, and are available at high (for starving artists like myself) but reasonable prices. It’s possible my church may have an industrial printer that I can borrow which will solve all my problems. And at the last resort, I have determined I can ink it digitally, even though I really, really don’t want to. That was the whole point of making this picture:
I’m going to post this blog post right here, right now. But I’ll come back to it as I accomplish further steps on Super Saiyan Jesus drawing because I believe it will serve as a useful illustration I can point people back to when discussing making my books.
Step 2
It’s good to slap down a picture as quick as you can, and then walk away from it for a few minutes. All sorts of tweaks begin to suggest themselves.
So, here’s an explanation of my thinking, so you can understand what I’m up to. Starting with the storyboards thus far.
Awesome Moments 1 is meant to be the gospel story, but I’m drawing on Revelation rather than, e.g. Matthew: start in Eden, and go all the way to the second coming. Here is Adam’s sin. Here is Christ as second Adam. Adam is the first King. Christ is the last King. The King slew a dragon with the cross. The King is coming back.
There’s the 12 pages of storyboard I have so far. Walking through these and explaining the decisions I’ve made will, I think, serve as a useful way to demonstrate what the Awesome Moments project is really, truly all about. So let’s go!
