Category: world-building

IP Development Mentorship Week 7

IP Development Week 7

DISCLAIMER: I don’t mind you guys sharing my thoughts about the mentorship with others. However, if you don’t see the art or writing bits up at SongofExile.com, that means I’d prefer you keep it between us!  Enjoy!:)

It was another sleepless week spent on making illustrations for my pitch!  I’m still only a little past the midpoint with 8 of 15 total illustrations completed in grayscale, with the initial illustration of the duel pegged for completion to fully painted color.

I also got to practice pitch once more, this time to Kalan Ray, a visdev artist with a history as a linguist, which gave him some insight on the historical sources I’ve been drawing on for my story (the Mongols, kings and succession, etc.).  This was the first time I’ve actually had a chance to pitch my revised book trailer script with the new POV and it was a huge success!  Kalan gave me the great complement that he would totally read my book when it’s done, since it was right up his alley of interests.  Best. Feedback. Ever!

There’s really nothing like validation from a pro to motivate a person!  I’m just going to enjoy my ego fluffing for a small bit before I realize that after this course is over, I’ll actually need to Write The Thing.

I have named my figure “Slim Tim”!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that my boyfriend gifted me with this TrueType male figure!  We found a great price for him on Amazon.  It may just look like an overpriced doll, but its extreme points of articulation allow for it to be posed in ways the usual artist mannequins can’t and make for great photo reference, especially for seeing how lighting works, draping of clothing, and placement of cast shadows.

The female TrueType figure is also in the mail right now.  I’m so excited!  My boyfriend is best boyfriend.  These figures are going to be invaluable to my workflow.  Thanks to this mentorship, I’m also planning to add 3D modeling with Daz Studio (a free 3D program) to my repertoire so I can light scenes and have more fine control over lighting and camera placement, but the program was a little too much for me to try to learn this week.  I did manage to create a reference photo with Daz for the illustration I need to work to color, but it could definitely use improvement.  Beware the naked manbutt if you want to see it! It’s here.

An example of how useful this doll was for me in my latest panel!
An example of how useful this doll was for me in my latest panel!

Another technique I’ve added to my workflow this week is photo tracing.  I feel like a cheater doing this thanks to strict gallery schooling in college where true skill meant you could draw everything from scratch, but since I have so little time to get these done, I’ve been playing fast and loose with photos.

As you can see above, I pretty much traced my photo reference of the figure, then altered it to suit my needs.  I also used two different photos of Blood Dragon Trees spliced together for the background.  Photo manipulation creates a base quickly that I can refine for later, a technique I was introduced to by Rebecca Guay, actually!  It can save a lot of time and also help your art feel more grounded, though you must also know when to deviate from your reference, which is a hard skill to master, in and of itself.

Next week is my last week of the mentorship!  Can I finish all of the illustrations and face the final critique of Max Landis, who gave me such great crit before?  Will my changes be improvements?  Stay tuned, Bat-fans!

Week 7 Art Wrap-Up

Read about the rest of my journey with the IP Development Mentorship here:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Final Week
Final Critique

IP Development Mentorship Week 4

DISCLAIMER: I don’t mind you guys sharing my thoughts about the mentorship with others. However, if you don’t see the art or writing bits up at SongofExile.com, that means I’d prefer you keep it between us!  Enjoy!:)

IP Development Mentorship Week 4 Wrap Up

My mentorship went on a brief hiatus for a week where I caught up on a ton of sleep, played Witcher 3, and took a much needed load off.  The 4th week resumed this past week and we were right back to the revision game!  I finished up my book 1 synopsis and defined the skeleton of my book trailer/pitch.

I ended up tapping my writer friend so hard for edits that I hired her professionally for all of the late nights of brainstorming and revisions we had been doing together.  This was the best move I made to really bring the polish to my story that I needed.  The mentorship teachers only have so much time in and outside of class to critique our art AND writing.  Once my mentorship ends, I hope to continue the working relationship with my new content editor into the future and I’m so excited to see how my story will improve because of it!

The Importance of Revision

It seems all I’ve been saying this entire time has been REVISION, REVISION, REVISION!  But it really is so important to the narrative process, not only for writing, but for art as well.  There are times I’ve stared too long at the same painting or too long at my synopsis during this mentorship that I just couldn’t see what was wrong anymore.  Getting a second set of eyes on my work has improved my work so much faster in a shorter time than banging my head against the wall trying to solve the problems myself.  I really can’t recommend a good critique group for art and a good content editor for writing enough!

Grand Total of Revisions Thus Far

Synopsis – 8 revision
Pitch – 2 revisions (with more to come)

MOAR Pitching! 

When it comes to pitching, I’ve had another chance this past week to pitch my story to a story director over at Riot Games.  Talk about nerve-wracking!  I got some great feedback, however, and I get to update my pitch now with even more pointed feedback that I wouldn’t have gotten if I had continued pitching to people who already know my story really well.  It’s more proof that getting an outside opinion is so very important when you’re working on a narrative product!

This Week’s Art

I’m still working on trying to get the thumbnails for my illustrations sorted out.  They keep changing as my pitch evolves and I take some away and add others. I’m excited to be working with a set of images for a single narrative!  It’s not something I get to do often.

Read about the rest of my journey with the IP Development Mentorship here:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Final Week
Final Critique

IP Development Mentorship Blog Series PREVIEW

I’ve been working on tons of exciting things this week for my IP Development Mentorship with Anthony Jones and Dan LuVisi!

You can get a more in-depth peek at my world-building experience, thoughts about the mentorship process, plus sneak peeks of my personal project’s art by supporting me at any level on Patreon!

I’ll be uploading weekly blog posts of my progress *exclusively* for my Patrons there.

And now, SLEEP! This first week has been exhausting, but amazingly productive!

Once you become my Patron, you can login to start reading the first blog post in my mentorship diary here:
https://www.patreon.com/creation?hid=2433225

Eventide Hijacked: The Artifice of Character

Coming to you from the fingertips of fellow fantasy enthusiast, Hayley E. Lavik:

Artist and fantasy writer Angela Sasser hijacks the blog today! Angela has hijacked the blog in the past to explore the overlaps between fantasy writing and fantasy illustration, and she’s back today to talk about dissecting fantasy characters with her cross-media point of view!

(Check out my guest post at Eventide Unmasked and join the discussion!)

Guest Post – World-Building: Animal Lore

My series of guest posts continues at Eventide Unmasked. Join my latest discussion on animal lore. What is it? How can you implement it into your stories effectively? Tips, tricks, and examples at the link!

World-Building – Animal Lore

Hello all! Angela here again for a Wacky Wednesday guest post. Hayley’s been talking a lot lately about world-building so I thought I’d chime in with a particular niche in the world-building skillset – animal lore.

What is animal lore?

Animal lore differs from generic mythology for the fact that it specifically involves creatures which are a part of the natural or supernatural order of things in any given story’s setting. Some real world examples include Hayley’s infamous black dog, bringer of ill portent, the European and Asian dragons, unicorns, and all manner of beasts we can conjure up with a quick jaunt through our childhood memories.

Animals often convey the mythical beginnings of our universe, shedding light on mysteries that inform a culture’s mystical practices and even methods of dress. The raven who created the world, the spider whose web brings life, or the coyote who stole the secret of fire. A culture rich in animal lore also suggests a culture close to nature, magic, and the mysteries of the world. Most cultures with deep ties to Animalism are less inclined towards industrialization and generally less reliant on science and technology (a situation ripe for tension and change, if you’re looking for inspiration prompts!).

(Read on at the full blog post)

Fashion Hasn’t Changed in Heaven: A Review of Legion

So from the first moment I saw the promotional images of Paul Bettany sporting cryptic tattoos, a pair of gorgeously rendered dark wings, a gun and a superfluous knife, my interest was piqued. “A new representation of angels in the movies? Interesting…” I thought to myself.

My fears grew as the first trailers showed a possessed old woman climbing, spider-like, across the ceiling and careening across the diner where the main action of this movie takes place. A horribly predictable plot ensues with equally horrible plot holes. But wait, I didn’t see this movie for a plot, I saw it for the latest take on angels!

On that topic, for the five minutes we see Archangel Gabriel tearing up the scene, we’re treated to the spinning, flailing, slicing, dicing, and bulletproof wing-action which was the whole reason I went to see the movie in the first place. Outside of this interesting rendering of wings, I was left pretty unsatisfied. Even Paul Bettany could not save this movie with his role as the Archangel Michael, the angel most faithful in the goodness of man (and yet he spends most of the movie not giving a crap about any of the characters). He is cold, cryptic, and inconsistent, just as the rendition of the angels are.

I could not help but compare this movie to The Prophecy movies with Christopher Walken. No, there wasn’t much flailing wing action, but there was something about this movie’s nod to the mythology that inspired it which made it shine above others with grander budgets. For instance, in Legion, the old-lady turned demonic spider sports an aura of flies, eats raw meat, and curses like a sailor. The angelically possessed terminators even go so far as to crucify a victim upside-down in the process of killing a character.

Even for angels which have been ordered to exterminate mankind, why would they go through such lengths to be hateful and demonic, rather than reverently going about their duties with a sense of remorse or reluctance for the creatures they had once revered and loved? Why would God go against his own promise to never let a disaster like the Flood happen ever again? From a continuity point, this movie just does not work.

I understand it is a movie made for entertainment’s sake, but if you’re making a movie in the setting of the ‘real’ world with a heavily Christian backdrop, then there are certain plot devices which cannot be ignored in order to maintain the suspension of disbelief. Maybe in this world such promises were never made? Maybe in this world, God is just pissed off and therefore his angels are pissed off as well? But none of these pretenses are explained or justified fully in the movie, beyond a bedtime story guessing at God just being “sick of the bullshit” (a story they felt like repeating twice, just in case you didn’t get the message before) and a mention of an offhand order to exterminate mankind.

In contrast, The Prophecy tells the story of Archangel Gabriel, who has come to earth to collect the dark soul of a war criminal in order to fight a war in Heaven that has been going on since humans were lifted above angels in God’s eyes. The angels, once descended to earth, become mortals who have no eyes, a nod to the fact that angels do not have the ‘windows to the soul’, being soulless, unlike humans.

Instead of being vague and cryptic a la Bettany’s Michael, Walken portrays Gabriel as enigmatic and even naive. Being somewhat disconnected with mortal goings on, he cannot drive nor operate a computer. As an angel who does not believe in human worth, he calls them ‘talking monkeys’. The angels also sport dusty long coats and any clothing they could get their hands on, along with angelic script tattooed on their necks that represent their names. No Roman armor and suped medieval maces here!

There is even a point in The Prophecy in which Gabriel tells the main character about the indentation in his lip where he once laid his finger in order to tell a secret, a direct nod to a Jewish story concerning an angel’s role as a keeper of secrets who whispers to the unborn soul knowledge of heaven before it is born, and then hushes them with a finger on their lips so they will forget. Such a subtle nod to the lore, but oh such an effective scene, especially when Gabriel looks at the main character with his hollow illusionary eyes!

It is in this attention to detail, mythology, setting, and world-building that a movie based in supernatural pretenses can maintain suspension of disbelief and a level of uniqueness lacking in the fractured mess that was Legion. Go to see it if you want some nifty wing-fu and mindless action, but not recommended to anyone with more discerning tastes for the lore. I may check out the prequel graphic novel just to see if any of the plot holes are explained, but I don’t expect them to be.