Author: Cal

Flags 3

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Cal

got pretty hung up on stylized comets and planets with rings on this one.

when doing comic concept I always try to do most of it in B&W. I didn’t used to but I learned my lesson. things always manage to look different in color.

I really like this batch overall. just some tweaks here and there. i think most of them would be fairly striking even in B&W. I found the Good Flag, Bad Flag pamphlet to be a good resource. it breaks down flag design and why things work and other things don’t in an understandable way to the layman. i am by no means an expert on flags, but hopefully i have enough design experience to make something striking and poignant (or at least recognize when a design isn’t).

on a side note, i wish my state flag (Kansas) could be one of these. or something like it. or just something that isn’t the flag we have at the moment. it’s just so bad. along with the like 20 other state flags that look just like it. none of them stand out, and you can’t even see what’s on the seal at a distance. in my opinion many badly need a redesign.

with these two designs at least they would be fitting for kansas with kansas-y colors (sunset, sky, fields, clouds). simple and distinct. the mostly unknown state banner is fine too, we could always use that. a man can dream I suppose.

(quiet clothes?) LOUD CLOTHES???

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Cal

how classy should we go?

how loud? how casual? again, design trends are pretty independent of when or where you live. some fashion trends could easily have happened centuries before or after they did in real life.

even if i sit on these designs for years on end without using them there is no definitive end date for the comic at this point. even I have no idea where it could end up in 20 years.

and without spoiling too many future ideas, this comic could very well end up exploring many more places and times than what has been shown so far. even if some of these outfits aren’t appropriate for the moment, they very well could be at a later date.

Otigo Trappings

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Cal

as always, playing with things to see what i like and what i don’t. in real life people wouldn’t dress like they do in the fire nation (“we all have to wear red!”), but it definitely helps the reader. you have to be a little heavy handed sometimes to drive a point home.

these are some ideas i have for the Otigo people. at this point they will not be the main focus but will impact other nations in the area through their actions and culture. they are a loose group of many disparate tribes and i was dabbling with how to make the body shapes and outfits distinct but not too different (they are all part of one people group). at this point i’m leaning towards reducing the diversity even though I like most of the outfits in a vacuum. ideally i want the reader to be able to fairly easily recognize any of these characters as from the otigo area. for that purpose they’re not there yet. how close should they be to each other? that is the question.

Flag content

Posted on September 2, 2022 by Cal

like the last post about flags, a lot of these are ripoffs of real-life flags. also like last time, it helps to weed out generic ideas in favor of something that hopefully will have more legs. just playing around as always.

the goal of a lot of these is to make something distinct but still have competent flag design. it can be pretty hard to make a design that is simple and distinct. it can be hard to keep it from getting too cluttered or busy. i see why many flag designs have (what i feel are) too many elements. it can be pretty tempting. but it is also for good reason that most real-world flags air on the side of minimalism, even the incredibly old ones. keep in mind that you also need to recognize a flag at any size, what if you are on the border of enemy territory and see a flag in the far distance. It is only a millimeter in size relative to you. I hope you will be able to tell if it belongs to friend or foe.

also for these flags in particular it’s important to keep in mind how these look in B&W. pretty useless to come up with some crazy colorful pattern when the comic is monochrome. it’s not really that big of a deal, because I believe that the pattern of a flag is much more important than the colors anyway. it’s like its silhouette.

a need to DANCE!!!

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Cal

i dance about as well as a large tree but i do find it pretty interesting.

body language is of course important to me and dancing obviously opens up a lot of fun opportunities. it’s also just how some people [and cultures] celebrate and praise even if I don’t. it helps me understand others even if it’s just in small ways.

tails fulfill a similar function to dancing skirts in real life. in artistic terms they assist the line of action.

The true foreigner

Posted on August 28, 2022 by Cal

Who is the true foreigner among you? Is it the one who looks or talks or acts differently from you? Or is it the one to whom you relate or do not relate? Or perhaps still, is it your enemy?

Who deserves your care or love or tolerance? Is it only those who cannot defend themselves? Or is no distinction made between those who can and those who cannot?

I see many define those who need the most lifting up as those who are the most vulnerable. Those who by appearance or circumstance or what have you have limited ability to resist the manipulations of others. Fair enough. They definitely need help.

However, a thought. I’ve heard it said once that “The past is a foreign country. People do things differently over there.” And it definitely is true in my experience. What on earth were my ancestors thinking? How could they have possibly done X, Y or Z? How could they have let such injustice go unpunished, or even worse, inflict it upon others? Surely they could not have had the same values as mine. Were they even human with the horrors they inflicted upon others and the seemingly alien degree of their thoughts?

Yes. Of course they were.

It grieves me to see that many so-called proponents of tolerance do not tolerate those who truly cannot defend themselves, namely, those in the past.

Do you only tolerate those who agree with you? Is that real tolerance?

the voice of the character

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Cal

Back when i was laying the groundwork for the comic I worried about having to follow a small cast of characters for years on end and was worried that I might get burnt out on them before long. one of the strengths of the quasi-anthology format I came up with for motherland is that it lets me flip around between new characters often. if I like one I can come back to them in the future, and if I feel satisfied with a character’s arc I can leave it there. it lets me dabble. i like to dabble.

most of the time when i do a story i just have a very rough outline of what happens. i more or less make it up as I go, filling in sections here and there and letting the story sort of take its own path. I’m sure that ‘winging it’ would make some creators cringe but it gives me life. i spend less time worrying about who i want the characters to be and just go along for the ride for who they are. i sort of treat them like if I was meeting a real person.

as a result, when i am working on the visual design of a character, the design may not match up with who they seem to be turning out to be personality or arc-wise. Su for instance i knew from the start was going to be one of the main players for ch4 and she originally was going to have the design shown on the upper-left. but the more i got to ‘know’ su, the more some elements felt out of place. i ended up with the headdress shown on the upper right after some iterations because it felt much truer to something that a very shy introvert might wear. i did like the first headdress design, so i ended up using it on the older sister. but it felt too ‘confident’ for su.

that is just a tiny example, but for my process it is a frequent occurrence. the design of the character influences who i imagine they might be, and vice versa. they feed into each other. i really enjoy the process. not every artist necessarily thinks that way.

a lot of times i’ll just doodle face or body shapes and mill over ‘who could this be’? a lot of character designs i’ve come up with over the years came about as a result of this process. a lot of it is barely intentional. i’ve always thought that I was stronger at ‘putting together a puzzle’ than i am at designing according to a strict concept. people ask me if i draw what i see in my head. i do to a degree, but it is more that I can turn shapes into other shapes and make an image or a statement from elements of what i see rather than have a clear concept in mind from the start. i play and listen a heck of a lot more than i plan.

i like the characters showing me who they are, so to speak. i’ve come to realize in recent months that understanding is one of my main driving forces in life, whether that’s people or concepts or anything else. i want to know and help others know and that is a huge reason why i pay attention to people and their motivations. this doodling process that i do is just one way that i use this desire and hope to share it with others. i enjoy the artistic process, but it is more of a means to an end for me. however, it one of the best facilitators for me to understand others and help others understand – regardless of if those others are real or fictional.

The shape of your average LADY (and boy)

Posted on August 8, 2022 by Cal

some more body shape doodles. just seeing what works and what doesn’t for the story.

trying to design the clothes hand in hand with body shapes, which i haven’t done as much in the past as i probably should. the clothes and silhouette are basically the characters’ “brand”, i think it helps for them to build off each other. it makes the impact more distinct at least.

panel borders always kick my butt. it’s still easier for me to draw characters without worrying about panels even after all this time. a lot of times i like how a character silhouette looks in a vacuum but when it’s on the panel it clashes with other elements. oh well. still learning

Get em outta here!

Posted on August 4, 2022 by Cal

there are times when I need to think about mechanisms that may exist in the background of the comic, but are not focused on heavily.

I admit that prisons and legal systems are not a topic that I know a ton about, especially in regards to cultures or times of which I have limited understanding. for most cases like these, I tend to just gloss over them in the story. work to your strengths. and the anthology nature of the stories mean I can flit between different tales without having to commit too much to areas outside of my ‘expertise’. That said, it’s still a fun thought exercise to play with relatively unknown topics (for me) to see if I can figure out how things would work. I try to look at history to see what people actually did, and I try to use common sense. How successful will I be? I guess we’ll see!

though i doubt prisons in motherland are anywhere close to the industry that they are in many places in real life, i also doubt they are rare. probably still rarer, because in most places in the gulf they would just make prisoners into slaves or execute them instead. that way they would either be free labor or permanently out of your hair, a much more pragmatic solution. an exception would be political prisoners, who you could use for leverage or ransom (in the case of a powerful individual, a hefty sum). of course i’m sure the law isn’t going to be just executing any joe schmoe who commits a petty misdemeanor but I doubt prisoners in this world have a lot of rights. if you owe someone, they are gonna try to get their payment – likely often seizure of property or person (indentured servitude, which has been very common throughout history). if by necessity the debt necessitates prison, so be it. or so I would assume.

I’ve heard things about ancient roman prisons like they more or less only existed to hold people for trial. I’ve heard that some of the prisons were in absolute darkness and many who were kept there indefinitely went blind. is any of this true? It is hard to say, no one alive today was there. it is difficult to trust scholarly analysis at face value because humans make mistakes and often manufacture facts from theories. human nature doesn’t change however, and there are constants that I think can be gleaned from any subject.

like anything, I’ll have to learn more about it. or just see how well I can skirt around the issue in the comic 😉

I’m just not good enough

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Cal

I believe that we can’t fully comprehend the greatness of the Christian God, that’s just part of being a finite being trying to comprehend an infinite one. I am so glad he makes himself known to us and that we aren’t saved based on our knowledge.

I sigh when I see people try to disprove God. I mean no disrespect, but it seems to me like to a bacteria doubting that the dog it lives on exists. it can’t see the dog. dogs are probably a myth. and all of its bacteria friends agree: dogs don’t exist. but in the end, the dog’s existence doesn’t really depend on what the microbes think about it.

the bacteria is trying to punch above its weight, so to speak. the dog is just too big to fathom. it’s just like us, we can reason all we want but as finite beings trying to understand the infinite, I feel that relying on human logic over the logic of God is pretty laughable. human logic is just not big enough. it’s not that we’re stupid, but we sure aren’t smart enough.

that said, I believe that God still gives us our intellect for a reason and I (try) to use mine. I muse. Though my logic is minute compared to the vastness of infinity, I still have a thought.

by my human logic, the single “proof” I have as to the truth of the Christian gospel is that it openly says that you can’t be good enough. I’ve been in the pit. I know I’m not good enough to save myself or even really make myself better. And nothing that I’ve seen that other faiths tout that could ‘make me good’ enough are possible to achieve when you really confront it. Every other faith says “try harder”. I tried the hardest that was possible and it got me nowhere.

Now, maybe you are a stronger person than I am. I suppose it’s possible. But I have seen no evidence than any human is good enough to reach perfection. If you think you are good enough, then I propose that you haven’t thought much about how good perfect really is. Or you haven’t reached the true depths of the pit yet. Let me tell you, trying to earn your value is a straight path to that pit – saying this from experience.

I’m not a debater. I just wanted to share the hope that I have. I’ve heard it said that other faiths ask “what can I do?”, while Christianity asks “what did God do for me?”. It gives me hope, because I’m not good enough. Thankfully, thanks to Jesus that pressure is off of my weak shoulders.