Original Character Archive . 6 of my Oldest

Back in College I had tons of time in my hands and enjoyed illustrating tons of stories in short doodles, or write the ideas in some kind paper doing my best to string words pretending to be a writer in my own world. Sadly I never got to finish any good writing in them, but the idea's are still recorded, all kept hidden in some treasure box I couldn't remember where I placed. It was only during this part of my life that I got to record my stories properly, at least after my fourth year of high school when I obsessed for some time on a story I didn't get truly to finish even though I've written a draft of fifty pages.

Realizing that I enjoyed writing the idea's or stories despite not finishing them had myself become obsessed, or like a part of my life, to keep tabs of all the characters I could keep and integrate them in my stories in the future. Usually I form a sort of original character and the story comes along, or vice-versa, what ever idea I needed to form into. Like a normal creative person could do, in whatever means they know.

The longest running characters in my head are 6 of my oldest children, by my creative brain. They're different from my persona like characters named Hi and High, both androgynous looking semi-guess-the-gender type of characters since I never truly gave them a definitive description but that Hi looks like a boy that dresses like a girl sometimes and High is vice-versa.

The 6 children we're beings from the story I made in my head about a boy who lived in a place that had nothing but the only known land he walks on while outside of it are what I call the Blank Canvas. A universe counter-part from ours, where only white can be seen. The idea of that concept can be clearly depicted in one scene from Coraline, 2009 fantasy movie from the book authored by Neil Gaiman, where Coraline has already solved the mystery of the realm she entered and is slowly dissolving into it's original form. I couldn't explain it well but the gist of it is that.

The universe this Boy lives in is a mixed-race realm where there is no deep conflict despite having problems or miscommunications. They are governed by the library and guardians of a crystal tower. Events unfold and a world altering scenario changes his life, and what he meant in the world, he is neither an under-achiever or an under dog though. But his youth is something that makes him an under dog. Proving himself to other's didn't become obvious at first, which probably what he didn't figure out in the first parts of the story.

It's a usual shounen like story that I always read or watch in the anime's that I've encountered back in my college days. And drawing them again in a style as animated as the first image made me feel alive and awesome in my own skin. Something I've been missing these past few days as a working adult worrying about too many things in life. Right now I'm going to focus on creating my comics Tamtam, despite not it having started yet. This year end months had so much in it that the stress I got from it became too much that even my romantic head had wrapped around in a bobble of anxious dilemma.

I'm not going to put my characters details cause I've re-written their existence right now into different roles for Tamtam. A far cry from the fantasy-adventure story I had intended them to be in, although fantasy is still in it plus a little hints of the old story they original came from. Either way, encountering nostalgia in this sense gives much motivation to focus on things in a positive way, which is always what these entries I end up writing end in. Noting positivity like I was the most optimistic being in my planet.

Tha's 'Nother Story . fairy tale with a cliff hanger

Source; Story: The Golden Key; Art: pansikoser

I've never encountered the best cliff hanger of a fairy tale in my known time to spend reading one.

Good day. After spending some good breakfast and spent finishing some touches on a project, I thought I could put up some time to look into translated fairy tales online.

Childhood without stories that were aimed to tell a lesson; amuse them, spark a good imagination in their head or just simply pass the time, will make any person from their child days miss out on a lot of things. Fortunately, I grew up enjoying the world of reading; fascinating me enough to be excited and involve myself, even have it as my work. Although I'm a struggling artist and growing slowly towards my goal, I couldn't agree more to go back to different types of genre and scope.

This includes reading fairy tale like stories, the origin of true fantasy and fiction for me.

Children stories have a variety of versions, there are ones from the era of the Grimm brothers and Anderson that based of the child's version of cautionary tales. Generations before them that were passed down from word of mouth that formed legends and mythology, to this age where the realistic the story is that stirs an emotion or scenario the better. Unto ones that were completely bizarre and simply amused you with current trendy and catchy cute concepts of fables or monsters that delved independently to the pursuit of creative essence.

Golden Key

Tells a tale of a boy in the middle of a winter night, or any time of the day maybe unlike the little match girl who spent her time in a snowy night. This boy was poor who intended to never go home due to the state of his life. Freezing, almost no food to eat (maybe?), and no other chances of making things better, he finds himself scraping through the soil to warm himself only to find a tiny gold key, and upon digging deeper, finds a large chest.

Eventually the translation from my source doesn't have any version with the ending. In fact, it just hinted a form of anticipation for the contents, even though it might just end up like Schrodinger's cat. To me, it is either the best cliff hanger or a grand opportunity for a writer to try and end the story themselves. The beginning of the story isn't that much different to whatever style the Grimm brothers wrote in. Yet, the unfortunate lack of ending feels satisfying and not at the same time.

I couldn't even analyze the story's very essence or possible cautionary tale for anyone, just that it's all going to end like Schrodingers cat. The possibility of only bad things coming out from the chest, or may be good things, no one will be sure of. So, maybe, in the end, I could just subjectively make this story a seemingly inspirational one. The positive kind, where one person begins with a sort of reminder that how hard life is don't give up on a pursuit you believe in that will grow into something better in the end, or maybe that the chest will always be a symbol of life's mysteries and surprises.

Either way, looking at the way it was written is enriching enough, I must say. Let it's simplicity just baffle you into it's incompleteness. 

Tamtam and the Update

These days I've stopped creating for my planned webcomics "Tamtam: Peaceful Days", and stopped editing the script for the first arc of the story. But I've come back to edit the story and soon plan on creating the drafts, by pencil, and just post it like that through my webcomics. Mayhaps it would make me successfully practice being a clean pencil artist for my art, and future projects. I could ink them at the same time, but I take ten years to ink, especially in projects that I have to leave them off for the while.

Being slow in the industry of creating my own story and comics is a bit dragging. I won't be sugar coating my sin by saying I'm not jealous of the people who've gone and succeeded in this line of life, but I'm not lying when I say that I get the same heights of inspiration even sometimes greater than my warped jealous self. Either way, the script is in an over haul of almost everything. From the dialogue to terms used, I'm decided as well to incorporate the irony of 'Baybayin' into my story as a language used by mythos like creatures more than modern society.

In the Philippines, there is a local language and alphabet called 'Alibata' or 'Baybayin' that has been used by our natives until the Spaniards came, as I recall or think...or remember. The alphabet isn't exactly dead, but majority of the citizens aren't even versed in it anymore, me included. My father is awesome with tagalog words, that makes me evidently proud about that skill of his. Considering if it IS a skill to completely know more tagalog than english.

Source

Me incorporating 'Baybayin' as an ironic dead language in the universe of "Tamtam" is iconic, in a sense that I want to explore how I could string the world I've concocted and the reality I'm partially basing it from. Along with the fact that I'm introducing furry characters AND mythological representatives, completely based from original Pinoy mythology will be a big thing. Not that I'm following the trend in our comics industry, but I've always wondered how I can explore the stories I create with local fiction and mythological lore.

Filipino mythology is really fascinating, but in my growth as an adult, I've lost some of my fascination with the context like I'm already tired and not even happy to support local product, or information historically for that matter. History, especially the lore and legends, has always fascinated me like a moth into a candles light in my childhood days.

Source

Yet, my memory as good as the misconceptions that of the goldfish (if it IS a misconception that goldfish's memories are short), is completely warped into just retaining only the ones that I need for my current life. See Sherlock BBC, and that episode about him forgetting that Science and the Sun being the center of our known living universe.

This desire must not leave me, that's why I'm writing it here and possibly making a chronicle of my progress, albeit planned only yet and slowly progressing in it. Me, seeing myself researching about how to use 'Baybayin' will be a big thing for me. Putting up an ambition and a goal set helps me a lot.

Pretending to be Inimitable

I used to have a story where the mother of the heroine, heroine named Rui, and her mother was the governess of realms. Like a queen, who used to have a husband but she soon let him go because of political reasons. The man was driven out by her and the council, and soon married a woman who was simple and needed him as well.

I remembered how I always felt that Rui's mother always looked sad but satisfied, knowing that she once loved the man she knew she would always be loyal to but her life and everyone around her prevented them from being together. Sort of like, she became workaholic, and somehow he didn't see it. He believed they could be together, but she knew there we're lesser chances of them being together, and to spare them the pain of it she decided to cut off her ties with him.

Left to her was their daughter, who understood how her mother loved him. The story had them as side characters, but somehow, that's how I wrote her. And that character was almost based to be mine, the mother, the queen.

What a foreboding thing to write about. How selfless but selfish the mother was to the pain, that soon even Rui her child would be solemn but optimistic. Rui was the reason why the met again, not because Rui wanted them to be together again in the flow of the story. The child was intended to save their realm from a certain danger, and it so happened that she needed her father and mothers help to do it.

They helped her of course, but their reunion was only a short time as both of them now has their own lives to live. He to his new family and she to her thrown that she must bravely and strongly govern.

I never knew how painful it felt when I wrote / imagined it, actually, I do. Just that, right now, I feel so sad. Especially for Rui who I sincerely feel her secret want for her parents to be together, but she had learned to accept both their families because she knew she couldn't force them into what she wants.

There's a certain finality with the way I wrote her mothers story. Rui's mother and her father were main characters to a previous story of mine. They we're lead characters in it, the father was the guardian of Rui's mother then, they ended up falling in love with each other. Silently vowing their support to each other like a pendulum of flowing fate.

But circumstances broke them apart, plus the desire for each one to fulfill something they couldn't fill for each other. That in the end, somehow they broke apart. Farther away from the pain.

Rui's mother is a selfish martyr who smiles proudly as she see's the man she once loved happy. While the man, who looked on smiling thinking she was good and well. Not knowing truthfully to each other that somehow they still love each other. Rui knew, but couldn't just ruin the lives they've built.

Definitive and painful. That's how I imagined my characters ending would be. By their subjugation into a circumstance that broke them, I gave a certain goal an opportunity to grow, however tragic, horrific or selfless this goal made them end up to be. Such willies of mine are completely painful. Right now my tears won't stop shedding for them, for those in similar state.

For children who hoped their parents would be together again, yet couldn't. To people who knew the truth of their friends reality, but couldn't help but watch as they unfold a painful disaster happen. All the helpless romantic emotional struggle of the third party who wants to say they shouldn't give up, they must have hope. Don't let that heart weaken. Strive to hold on.

Find a way to hold on. There is still hope. You know there is. Or should you tragically die a heroine or hero, who thinks they're doing the selfless thing when no martyr who died did not think once of regret for their efforts. That even saints surely in their time of death told God of how regretful they may die young, but grateful they will go back to his arms.

Find a way to hold on. And maybe there might be something to save from it. Hoping.

Also, hoping that the thing I wrote got conveyed pretty well even if it was written cryptically.

Art Thing: fanism towards Leviathan and its art

There was a book series I sort of obsessed, in a degree, over back between the years 2012 and 2013 entitled Leviathan. The series is a sort of historical fiction steampunk book that focuses over a certain "part" of World War I. Which, I think, was pertaining to the Ottoman empire and the likes. Clearly I've little to no clue of the German, Union and Ottoman relationship during that era, excuse me historians. Don't roll on your graves, I'm not worth it.

Image Source

There are several highlights for this book that I swear will be biased if I stated them because it's based on my taste of literature or genre alone. However, I do believe the artist for the books illustrations is worth everyones money and time. Here I present one of the "awesome-est" artist for steampunk I've seen, and also admire in the level of putting details through his illustration.

< Keith Thompson >

No image of the person, yet

(thank god, cause I searched and found some random handsome dude...dunno who he was)

You can visit his website here: http://www.keiththompsonart.com/

I've never not given enough praises to any artist who enjoys putting heavy sketchy details into their work, whether if it's just a doodle or for work.

In this case, my admiration goes heavily on the steampunk concepts he made for the book. He's also got a deviantart that I might say is fairly inactive since I think it only features his works from the book. And, since the book series is already done, I guess it's fair enough to assume that it won't be updating anytime.

Below are some of the images I like from the gallery (http://keithwormwood.deviantart.com/).

Leviathan

Peace Treaty

I suggest you browse the gallery more AND his website, or you can buy the Illustrated companion book The Manual of Aeronautics, I think this image is also in the book. I have a copy of the book, given to me by my boyfriend as a christmas gift, I liked it a lot even though I didn't really show it much.

This isn't much of a glorified article putting his works on a pedestal, however I do get inspiration and determination to work just by seeing his art so if I were you I'd start browsing his works and get some good juices there. Or, if not just browse it for fun.