Kinda hate it when I get stuck on technical problems

About a hundred years ago, I wrote this fantasy series about half-way through before deciding it didn't work out, and ever since then I've been trying to make it work, while writing other stuff. I've finally settled with comic format for this story. But now I don't know if it should be in my comfortable watercolour style or if I should face the next steep learning curve for me and do it digitally.

Watercolour pages:

Watercolour pros:

- I've been practising this for years, so I'm pretty okay with it at this point, I feel like I know (mostly) what I'm doing

- It's kind of the most natural style for me, fits exactly the dream-like impression I want to create

- people have liked my watercolour effects and a fantasy story is the perfect playground for that kind of stuff

- I feel closer to what I'm creating the less I have "between" me and the art, the more minimal the medium is the better

- I won't lose the original pages unless my house burns down or something

- I just always figured I was a traditional artist

- I've already drawn about 60 watercolour pages of this comic

- watercolour is just SO flexible and I love it

Watercolour cons:

- the cost of the paper will be astronomical for a comic as long as this story

- I probably just think I can't create as good digital effects because they aren't "the same"

- I probably just think I can't feel as close to my art in digital form because I haven't got used to it yet

- I'm probably just identifying as a "traditional artist" because I think I can't be good at digital art

- the process just takes so much more time when you have to scan hundreds of pages

- it's outdated in most places that host comics and could be less approachable for that reason

Super quick and rough digital sketches:

Digital pros:

- cheap

- takes up no physical space in my room

- will definitely make me better rounded as an artist

- I finally found a brush I like, it looks soft

- these sketches make me feel like I COULD get better with practise

- I've already been doing some black-and-white comics digitally for a year or so, and I can see I've been improving more than I thought

- what feels like limitations is probably just my lack of skill and if I learned this tool it could open so many new possibilities

- I make speech bubbles digitally so it's way more simple if the whole thing is digital

- you can't ruin a digital picture

Digital cons:

- I think my technical weaknesses will be more apparent because it's still a "harder" tool

- every time I draw digitally I get annoyed by how little variation I can create with the way I move my hand

- even though watercolours may be perceived to be outdated, what if I lose my special touch without them, what if the perceived outdatedness could be a strength and not a weakness?

- I just LOVE watercolours (though that doesn't mean I couldn't turn out to love digital as much in time)

- I literally came up with this thought last night, while sketching those two characters

SO...

????????

I mean, who says it's too late to change course? That's not the case, it's just that at this point I feel like I keep postponing this project because I always start it again in a different way. Why this project? I mean, usually I get a book idea and I write the book. I get a comic idea and I draw the comic.

I don't think it's a problem with the project itself, like, it's not my subconscious telling me not to tell this story at all.

But for some reason this is hard for me. Maybe I've just had it in my head for so long and I want it to be perfect and it never feels perfect enough.

And if I threw a coin and took a gamble I know I would be disappointed if it didn't give me the digital option.

Maybe it's nothing bad? Maybe it's just finally the time for me to really learn digital drawing? It doesn't mean I can no longer do watercolours.

I mean, I should probably just go for it, it's not like I won't notice if it doesn't work for me.

Blog survey for writers: 10. What are some really weird situations your characters have been in?

Sometimes, when I was younger I had a habit of making situations really weird by mixing comedic elements with serious scenes. The problem was that I didn't really know how to do it skillfully yet. This was especially evident in my impro comic with my friend, because we both had this habit.

There was a time in the comic when Viola and Keller were participating in a singing contest their school held (which was weird on its own right because the prize was an actual recording contract...) and while Viola was watching Keller's performance, thinking how good she was, she saw a faint image of angel wings behind Keller. And then suddenly, surprise: Time stopped! And for some reason Viola was the only one whose time didn't stop. And she saw an image of a moon looming above her, and it started talking to Viola, saying that it was Keller's "sign" and had come to warn her.

Um... Some supernatural power, huh? Couldn't even come to the right person at the right time.

This was from my friend's pen, but I made this whole thing even weirder. Because I made the sign reappear when the girls were flying towards the cursed mountain in some freaky big soap bubbles. (Unexplained, of course.) And the sign told Keller that she had only two weeks left to live as a human if the girls didn't hurry up and complete their mission in that time!

Yeah, I had probably started to feel self-conscious about how little the characters actually did for their magical mission, so I wanted to speed things up. It sure worked, but looking back to it the scene with Keller floating in a bubble listening to her death sentence from a moon is pretty weird.


But it's not like my stories haven't been weird since then.

In my university years' writing project "Ashland" the characters were visiting a neighbour town when they passed by a haunted house, and heard the ghost claimed to be someone they knew very well, and who shouldn't have been anywhere nearby, so that was pretty weird.

Once one of them had to dance with another character and spin her around until she fainted, because she was possessed by a weird demon.

I've also drawn a good amount of character meme based situations for these characters for fun, and many of those are pretty weird and funny. Maybe not so much if you don't know the characters, but oh well, I'll share some of them anyway...

I drew these, because I like trolling on my characters' personalities and there isn't always enough room for that when you're telling a "serious" story.

Anyway, this is what I had on top of my mind, so let's leave it at this.

30 Day Challenge: 5 current goals

Okay, let's get the obvious one out of the way first:

1. To get a book published

Of course I'd prefer it to happen rather sooner than later. But I also try to be down to earth about it. It's more important that I write what's important to me, and spend as much time writing and editing it as I feel I need. I don't want to rush because I might just be at my biggest growth spurt as a writer right now. There's a dramatic difference in skill with the beginning and ending of the last novel I completed. It's like they were written by a different person, or at least years apart, not months. I know my stuff isn't ready yet, but I'm getting so much better all the time, so I hope that soon something is ready, that I am ready.

At the moment I'm writing for a contemporary YA novel competition (not my usual thing) and I only have three months to complete the novel that is still in the beginning, since my summer job has kept me so busy, so I guess that's a goal in itself, but let it be inside this bigger goal, since its just one way I'm trying to achieve this.

After that, I have my fantasy series to complete, which is still probably going to take me more than a couple of years, since it was only half way through and then I started writing the first book all the way from the beginning again...

2. To improve my drawing/Strenghten my style

I've only recently realized how much I've been trying to draw ”by the book” all these years. How much I've been trying to do the same as those who are actually good at it. But it has struck me: Why would I try to draw like people who don't draw for the same reasons or aren't about expressing the same things I want to express? I'm bad with anatomy. So what? I don't even want to draw realistically, so that shouldn't be my main concern. I'm good with faces, expressions, colours and contrast. And those are enough to express what I actually want to: feelings and atmosphere. It doesn't mean I don't need to get better at anatomy. It just means I should approach it in favour of the things that are more important to me, on their terms, to strengthen them.

I don't want to draw a mountain so that you can see in detail exactly what this particular mountain looks like. I want to draw so that I can make you believe there is a mountain there, and that it's there for a reason.

Not so good, no.

That's going in the right direction.

3. To improve my flexibility

This is probably my weakest area in ballet. Well, not in every single place, it seems my sides are more flexible than average and my attitudes and arabesques aren't half bad, so I guess my back isn't that stiff either. But I can't do a spagat, and I've never been able to lift my leg all the way up along my side with my hand on my heel. I guess I haven't really had to worry about it enough before, in class it's been enough to just do everything to the extend you can. But in our last performance we did can-can and we were supposed to end it in a spagat. There was only one other person besides me, who had to cheat, hiding the other leg under the big can-can skirt, since we couldn't get it straight.

This was the can-can skirt.

So, I'm trying to make it a habit to stretch my legs everytime I'm reading or watching something. So far, it's really hard. I might have to ask for someone's advice... so far I've only heard ”Just stretch untill it stops hurting” but the problems is, it doesn't. It just gets more painful. Either I'm doing something wrong, or the problem is that I've only been asking people who are naturally flexible.

My heels are my true achilles' heels, as well. (Heh heh, not so funny... I'm sorry, I couldn't help that.) They're just naturally stiffer than those of most non-dancers I know. Yeah... sad. I'm always worried that someday, they'll just snap. I'm trying to do something about them as well, since it makes me cheat in pirouettes, which is a shame, since otherwise, those are basically my only strong suit.

4. To finally start typing fictional characters on my personality blog

I type all the time. If I haven't typed someone I've read/watched it's because a) They're really hard for me to type and it's an on-going process or b) they aren't realistic enough to type which probably also means they weren't very interesting as a character.

But for some reason when it comes to actually writing about those typings, I keep putting it off. I guess I want to be exactly 112% sure of their MBTI, enneagram tritype, wing, and instinctual variants before writing anything.

But I want to do this because 1) It's just so interesting, plain and simple. 2) It's a good field for discussion, since when you're talking about real people, you can only really do it with someone who knows the person as well as you. Fictional characters can have so wide audiences. Sure, you can discuss celebrities too, but 3) you can get the thought processes of a character from the fictional work way easier than you can get real people's thought processes, and that's why, when it comes to the theory, I find fictional characters a better learning tool than real people. (Of course, I always recommend watching real people for practical learning, but the theory is just as important and the fictional characters are ideal for that.)

5. Finish my degree work

Yeah, the most boring goal. Okay, it's not like I'm not interested in my subject, of course I chose something that overlaps with literature, so I have an excuse to read more fiction: The images of God in self-published Christian fiction. That's my subject. I've read my material and I know approximately what's going to be in every chapter, and I think I've found some interesting spectrums and dichotomies in the way the concept of God is formed and used in these stories.

But you know, writing fiction and blogging about personality theories is just so much more interesting than actually doing the work: the academic writing. (Sorry I'm going to go Jungian here:) It's. So. Extraverted Thinking. It's always the same thing for me as an Ni-Ti looper: I don't actually do the work the way I have to present it. The Te part of the work is the last part I do. I fake it every single time, I've done that since middle school porfolios, since you're expected to reach your conclusion in a certain step by step manner. But I can't do that. I get to the conclusions first, I come to them in a complicated web of relationships of cause and effect, and then I have to go back and figure out how exactly I would've have gotten there, if I was using Te. And it's tedious.

But, my goal is to be done by Christmas. Unlike fiction, I write school papers the best in the morning, when I've specifically woken up to do them. So I'll have to welcome early mornings once summer's done.

This is the book that made me want to research Christian fiction. Check it out!

So, that's my five. Hope I didn't forget something important. I'm tired.

Blog survey for writers: 1. Your favourite project

I found this survey when this inspiring person posted a video about it. I got exited, so I guess this blog will be all about too much information about my writing for a while. :D I don't feel like trying to answer briefly, so today I only take the first question:

1. Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

Oh my. The hard questions first I guess.

Okay, if I absolutely had to choose, like if I was allowed to write in only one universe for the rest of my life... It would be a comic called ”Four Colours”. Or rather, what started as a comic that I drew with one of my oldest friends from the end of elementary school until high school. Since then the story has actually developed multiple universes in my head and I have my friend's permission to recreate it in book from. Currently it's not an active project but it's in my mind a lot.

Obviously, the comic isn't very good, at least from the perspective of someone who is serious about writing. I mean we started it when we were 12, had no script, and exchanged a few pages of our stream-of-consciousness doodling at a time (though the ”few pages” turned into a few dozen pages in a couple of years, especially for me). The other always continued where the other stopped, without any hint about how we had thought the story would develop, so it has taken many, many, weird, unexpected turns of events which makes the overall plot convoluted at best. It's heavily influenced by the Italian comic called W.i.t.c.h., both the story and the drawing style, for both of us. For my friend I guess Digimon was the other series her art was most influenced by. And from my part there's borderline plagiarism (picture-wise) from certain shoujo mangas I had just found as my inspiration and sometimes wanted to use for reference to get certain poses anatomically right.

Even so, this was the story that inspired me the most through my teenage years and it was by far the longest of my stories at the time. (Over 500 comic pages when it went on hiatus in 2010.) It was while drawing this comic that I first experienced I was in perfect flow with the story, like there was no pen and paper between my inner world and its expression. The first time I stayed up an entire night drawing, was with this comic too. (40 pages in 14 hours or so.) It was also the first time I got to experience someone really loving what I came up with, and excitedly waiting for me to draw more. All of these are feelings that nothing can compare to.

Also, I don't think I can do anything like this ever again. I mean, I'm interested in writing with a partner but I don't think there's any chance I could do it like this anymore. I take my characters far too seriously for it: I couldn't create a story by taking turns anymore. I would have to know that we agree about everything regarding the characters and the plot. This of course, takes away the surprise element, which I loved when I drew this comic with my friend, but nowadays I just take writing too seriously to do it the way we did. (The exception would be if we decided to continue with my friend for fun. We've already spent so many years drawing these characters that I think we both have a clear enough sense of who they are.)

Ahem, what is this comic really about then? As you might have guessed, (if you know anything about W.i.t.c.h) it's about a group of girls with magical powers. It's mostly set in our modern world.

Meet the Four Colours:

Their names mean their signature colours (with slight variation, in Finnish) with a fail. We thought there was a colour called ”jasmine red” at the time. Turns out there isn't. Oh well. (This mistake inspired a short story were the colour ”jasmine red” is created but unfortunately I never finished it.) Originally, Sini and Keller were my designs, and Viola and Jasmin were my friend's, but for a long time it has felt like they're all equally from both's pen.

The girls have pretty nonsensical colour related powers and outfits. They also have their signature symbols. They yell a lot of nonsense when they use their magical abilities. None of it was planned to function effectively, it's basically all there to support the image we wanted to(?) create for them as characters.

The colours we chose for them didn't go the most stereotypical way, though. Blue is often associated with wisdom, understanding and some kind of otherworldliness. Our Miss Blue is rather head-strong, somewhat simple-minded, and really down to earth. Purple is usually somewhat mysterious, borderline dark, maybe even poisonous, but our ”Viola” is the jester of the group, the most energetic, wild and ”innocent” by nature. I think that's usually what yellow represents, but our yellow character, Keller, is the gentle and sort of motherly empath of the cast. Red is often the colour of power and leadership, and though there isn't clearly anyone with the most dominant personality, if I had to choose, it still probably wouldn't be Jasmin. She's a pretty sensitive and introverted character, who generally avoids conflict, even if she's inflexible at times.

The premise of the story was that these four girls got a mission from a supernatural being, to save a small village by a mountain, tormented by a magical illness. The girls were to fight their way to the mountain, guarded by evil forces, and reach the top of it, where they would unite their magical powers and clear the village from the illness.

(Yes, this is actually what twelve-year-old kids think is a great plot!) No, it is never explained why there's an illness in the village. No, it's never explained why only the power of these girls can save it. The girls don't even wonder about it. Nor do they give any second thought to whether they should do something like this or not, of course they're all in for putting their lives in danger! (I think this might have something to do with the W.i.t.c.h. influences. It is shown over and over again in W.i.t.c.h. that the chosen ones just can't escape their fate, so maybe we just accepted it so we didn't need to raise the question, haha.)

This, and brief character profiles, were all the planning we did. Then we just started drawing. And oh boy, didn't it get out of hand. Kind of in a good way, from the eyes of someone who loves the story despite its shortcomings.

I think the most endearing thing about this comic is how reluctant both, me and my friend, were to actually move the plot forward and focus on the whole ”fighting evil on a mountain” part of the story. We were clearly more interested in exploring the characters' everyday lives and relationships. The comic is full of magicless everyday side plots, regarding everything from shopping to romance, school concerts to hobbies, parties to family drama. Sure, it's enough that the characters go to the mountain when they feel like ”it's the right time”. It isn't very often, it seems.

Eventually, they do manage to clear the village from the illness. Their next mission is brought on by one of them, Keller, who has turned out to be an angel born on earth, among six other angels she knew in the alternate universe where the angels of this story live. So, Four Colours are up to find those other six, to save them from the fury of a really mysteeeerious guy named Deimos, who's a foster parent to Keller's childhood friend Ater who happens to have a neat amulet which can help find the remaining angels. (Yes.) It sounds really bad like this, but later it is revealed that Deimos is actually one of the seven angels and the explanation why he thinks the other angels have betrayed him and why Ater has this convenient amulet sounds pretty convincing for a 15-year-old me.

After Deimos is redeemed, no new mission is introduced, and the story focuses on the characters everyday lives, before it goes on hiatus.

That's it in a nutshell. I'm not really a fan of nutshell, and I think I'm pretty bad at writing it too, so what I want to do now, is to focus on more detailed aspects of the comic and put parts of it on display.

BEHOLD,

Four Colours: The Weird, Silly and Reoccuring Stuff

• amazing anatomy
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• it's always raining for no reason
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• ripping off shoujo manga
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• the ”evil” takes many half-assed and unexplained forms
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• it's totally normal for an elementary school to host a singing contest with an actual recording contract as the prize
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• This pet hawk is never mentioned or seen again after its first appearance
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• they actually had a hot tub inside a bus
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• generic villains are generic
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• angels have elf ears
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• infodump
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• a mandatory Digimon haired boy
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• children are the most perceptive creatures
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• oh hello Sauron
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• confessions are always interrupted
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• characters just can't do without symbols
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• when you travel by magic... the landing always sucks
  
  
  
  
  
   
• when the stakes are highest, everyone meets in a void
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• It's okay for the villain to explain their plan... if the characters point the cliché out first
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• no perspective whatsoever
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• the running gag of a character who takes everything literally
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• romantic moments get faded into a joke (my personal sin)
  
  
  
  
  
• the conscience
  
  
  
  
  

Okay, now that I've mocked our precious child enough, let's have some

Moments I Honestly Like:

• The girls don't lose faith when they think one of them is dead
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Keller was assigned Viola's guardian angel before being born on earth (only a few months after Viola)
  
  
  
  
  
• Viola meets the human Keller the first time as a kid and thinks her voice sounds familiar
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Deimos can't ignore frozen roses, because they remind him of his beloved Radja
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Radja is determined to save Deimos and his villain role cracks
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The angels are reunited (and off to save Deimos and Radja)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Viola remembers Keller's voice (I know that's completely unrealistic since she was like max four months old but hey magic)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Keller and Viola are left by their band mates and they form a new one that includes all Four Colours
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We drew some pages taking turns every panel and it worked surprisingly well
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Ater, Deimos, Radja and her little sister Zenja move in together
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Sini and Keller regain trust in a dream world
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Josh can put it simply enough for Deimos to regain some sanity
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Viola wakes up characteristically ungracefully after thinking she just vanished from existence
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Keller and Ater bond on the balcony
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Alex breaks up with Jasmin undramatically and realistically
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Ater and Josh forget for a moment that they aren't on good terms
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Viola confesses her love to Alex who shares her feelings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Ater and Alex bond
  
  
  
  
  

Um, why exactly is this my favourite project then?

I admit that some of it has to do with nostalgia. But even more has to do with the characters. I think the characters are great, and that's why they take up a significant portion of space in my head. I wasn't a great writer when I drew this comic, so the story sucks in many ways, but my idea of it doesn't suck. How it should actually go inspires me. How the characters actually are, everything that isn't in the comic already but is a significant part of who I think the characters are, inspires me. How everything will unfold, if I give them a different starting point somewhere else, inspires me. There are themes and concepts in their life that intrigue me. Some of it is (implied) in the story in someways, but not nearly as deep as there would be to tell about it.

I want to see where those themes will take these characters. They are so close to me, they're like thought patterns. And if I let my thoughts on their path, it just doesn't end. They're endless. I could write anything about them and never lose interest. They've been with me constantly longer than any other of my characters. It doesn't matter what kind of story it is, if it's theirs, I'm at home. I guess that's why I would choose them.