Oraq, the ancient god-empress of the Allanos. An important symbol for the nation, so I wanted to get the look down.
some concepts of her design. i wanted it to be elegant and authoritative without being too ornate. her mask would have a pearl-reflective sheen as mentioned in a previous lore excerpt.
I see the callous plumes rise high
And wonder why they have to die
Why the city’s end is nigh
Into the sky the embers fly
The jewel of Allano’s bride
Once home to those who lived and laughed
Now martyr for the nation’s pride
The vipers savaged in their wrath
I look beside the river deep
The maiden falls upon the shore
Prostrate floored and softly weeps
Softly weeps to cry no more
A fury like I’ve never known
Shines burning zealous in her eyes
I think her shaken to the bone
Until I see her slowly rise
In righteous rage she then declares
To gouge an eye demands their own
Her figure lights with blessed flares
As now my eyes grasp heaven’s throne
She burns in a celestial flash
I cower from the blinding light
Long-suffered trek resolved at last
Allano’s queen ascends tonight
She then appears beside the worms
Who persist cruelly in their sins
With no reluctance she affirms
And eyes ignite with ire again
Thunder cracks and lightning strikes
I see the demons try to fight
To wail like children in such fright
And enter the eternal night
The vipers sowed and reaped in kind
In mortal arms they put their trust
Her will imposed on those maligned
Turns spears to ash, their bones to dust
Allano’s vengeance is resolved
The smoke dispels – she stands alone
She gives to me a final pause
As I again behold the throne
I see her fade – and I implore
She cannot leave this mortal shore
My one strong arm and bedrock floor
The pearl queen whom I adore
Standing still no longer confined
A last look behind to me and the shore
Til finally she immortally shines
And smiles resigned – she cries no more
Many thanks to Ishfe Tarco for his rendition of the old Allano poem. Our condolences as to the unfortunate circumstances of his displacement.
figure i’ll show my current process. people seem to dig that stuff. the process is heavily subject to change as i find new ways to be lazy.
^ these are the layers i use in case anyone is interested. i use a surface pro with clipstudio. i like clip a lot but am by no means an expert. part of me would like to do it with ink on paper but digital is way faster and more flexible. i may experiment with traditional media for a mini-chapter at some point before i commit.
i have a rough script and plot points that i have written but no huge storyboard. so from my rough idea of what i wanna do i then make the background sketch. i draw this in blue but i changed it here to black just to help visibility. after that i make the panels (which clip makes very easy to do).
i pretty much sketch it straight on the page as shown above and occasionally use the lasso tool to move parts of the image around to get a composition i like. that level of detail is about the best balance for me between intricacy and speed. i often find if i make the sketch too in-depth then when i do the final lines it looks really stiff and lifeless.
often i’ll play around with a few panel layouts to get the flow right but generally i do one page’s layout at a time. i rarely sketch out more than like 3 pages in one go. ‘wing it’ is a dirty term to some people but that’s basically what i do. me and my soul mate toriyama. if i storyboarded out the entire comic chapter all at the beginning i would 1) be bored to tears and 2) likely waste a ton of time because i’ll get to page 3 and decide i want to change something, meaning i’ll have to storyboard a lot of it all over again. again, some people work that way but i do not.
after that i do the main lines. it really doesn’t take super long assuming i’m not braindead. i do most of it on the Char[acter] layer and extra stuff on the FG and BG just so it doesnt get too messy. i’ve been using vector layers lately. they seem to work well, especially in regards to coloring and rotating parts of the image. a lot of times if i drew a character’s arm too long or something i’ll just lasso it and move and rotate it and whatever. vectors make that pretty painless. if it was raster it would be all blurry and nasty and also a pain to color.
to further help coloring i also work with aliased lines at a big resolution. if they were anti-aliased i couldn’t use the fill bucket tool as easily. after i shrink and export the final image for web use you can’t even tell.
then colors (b&w in this case). clipstudio makes it easy to fill in big areas even without completely closing the lines. after that i also do the stars (which are just a scatter brush). for this chapter i am using two gray shades (30/50%) and it seems fine. i may do something else in the future. i did it with just the one 30% gray originally but it was a bit flat at times. way back when i used yellow instead but i switched it out for a few reasons.
after all that i do the speech bubbles and that’s pretty much it. in total it takes a few hours give or take. i really don’t have it in me to draw for like 8 hours like some people. i’m sure in a year i’ll have refined the process further but i thought i would share. feel free to ask questions if you dig.
since chapter 2 is wrapping up fairly soon, I thought I should show some of the character design i’ve been working on for the next. starring: OLD LADY
geezer represent
mainly working on face stuff and tattoo designs. simplifying things. trying to get rid of tedious-to-draw stuff now so i dont have to deal with it when i’m actually working on the pages. this is more preliminary stuff, i will refine it as i doodle more.
for the tattoos, it can be tough finding a balance between a lore-friendly, interesting design and one that doesn’t muddy the body language or expression. in the real world, if they were this crazy about their tats they would probably cover up a lot more of their bodies that I’ve shown. but like i’ve said before that can really muddy the silhouette and body language for the reader so even if it’s ‘lore accurate’ it’s not always ‘the thing that should be done’.
so anyway i’m currently leaning to the tat design on the lower left. the design on her arms is the one she got as a teenager, the design of her family. inspired by some polynesian designs. the one on her torso (the grey part) and head is the design she inherited from her husband’s line.
Farning hymn of war, -0y. Translated by Adtne of Kwawha.
Black sky! They cry.
Black moon! They cry.
For we are the ones who wrestled the rings
And we are the ones who tackle the beast.
Gaze upon the walls of Farning and despair!
Cower under the fury of our arrows!
Those serpents cry in fear of our strength,
Cry out, like a woman in labor.
The flame burns bright into the night,
The songs sound long.
None can best the greatest of men,
None can sing our song.
The Maiden looks upon her city and smiles,
Like a mother looks upon her sleeping child.
She’ll let no harm come to him,
And any who try will face the burn of her javelin!
Interlude
Under her care we grow strong,
Shoot up fast like the crops of spring.
Grow nourished like the crops of summer,
To bring great pride upon the harvest.
Like the dew we’ll appear suddenly on our foes.
They shall be drenched in blood.
Her war mask shall shine red.
The harvested will harvest the world.
The might of the greatest of men
Will blow like a hurricane
Will flood like the Mandara
Will uproot like the quake.
Tremble, enemies. wail!
Every limb will be broken by the sword,
Or yoke,
Or plow!
We have been delivered,
but you cannot say the same!
Despite its popularity, great debate surrounds this song. Many Allanos hold it as unduly influenced by Rabanti notions, and view it as heretical and dangerous to their faith to view Oraq as ‘protecting’ any anchor of the mortal realm. The lyrics are set to the traditional Allano tune of Indina. For an attempted translation in the spirit rather than the letter, please see addendum 4.25.60.100d.
The thunder of the plains, so deep, so loud
Who could make such force that quakes the soul?
I look to the horizon that once seemed so far
And now there is only blackness underneath the heavy sky.
Pressures of the deep under the ocean I see above.
Who can conquer this open sky?
Who can best nature?
Many have tried, but man is just a vapor in the wind
And they only flatter themselves.
Only one is the master of the expanse and it serves him the same as all other things.
The heavens are all the same to him,
There is no difference between the sky and the stars to the infinite.
And the one who tames the constellations can tame the sky
And the one who tames the sky can tame any turbulence in any man.
Every storm will pass,
And there is beauty to be found in any storm,
For the storm echoes the might of the almighty,
Just as the breeze after does his gentle mercy.
I have no reason to fear any storm,
Clouds or not, thunder or not,
I know who calls down the rain or causes it to cease.
Poem or song, rambling or inspired,
The truth is in who we trust instead of any thunder.
Transcribed from a song performed by a traveler near Tharman, Allano.
throwing around a few more tattoo ideas.
based off a bit of maori stuff. more or less. i imagine if these people were real they would tattoo themselves all over the place and try to show them off (like we do), but for reader clarity it can muddy the silhouettes a bit if you aren’t careful. can take a long time to draw too.
also i mentioned this a while ago but it might be a little hard to see for the casual reader. above is the tattoo design for the main characters of chapter 2, more or less in the colors it would actually be. the dad has the ‘father mark’, basically the full tattoo for the family crest. lain has the ‘daughter mark’, a partial version that would be blended with that of her husband’s family mark if she got married. it’s seen as poor form to have the daughter mark take up too much of the face since it’s basically insulting the husband’s family if they got no space to put their bling on there.
men and women both get their designs when the come of age, so little kids don’t have them.
no page this week unfortunately. still got a doodle for yall
(patented rob liefeld tinyfeet™)
i hadn’t really drawn sago (ch 1 character) since I got my new tablet. the main reason why the two chapters look a bit different is because by the time I started ch 2 I had a tablet with a screen. I don’t care how good your hand-eye coordination is, you are not drawing consistent and quick straight lines without seeing your pen. it was really hard to do any hatching other than very tiny lines and that just isn’t enough flexibility.
the new tablet is a bit harder to vary the pen pressure with on the other hand, but I’d by far rather have accurate lines. i’m way too lazy to take more time than I need to.
I also started using Clipstudio instead of photoshop and I personally like it a lot more. it makes it a lot easier to color and set up panels. the main thing it does worse is text (it isn’t great, but has gotten better). still recommend clipstudio to anyone though, it’s a waaay better price too.
at some point i’ll get a big ol off-brand cintiq type monitor tablet and then i’ll really be captain lazy. but doggone wait till you see how spicy my lines are then champs
I never thought I would live to see the day. It’s gone. Eda disappeared like all the others. Just like the others. One night it was a beacon for travelers and shipping to the whole world, the eye in the constellation of Menandas – and by next sunset there was only the night. Just a dark blemish where she once lie. The eye of Menandas gouged out, just like that. No fanfare, no nova, nothing. We wept, we all wept. The sailors most of all. Prices will rise on goods on top of everything else. Of course.
We prayed and prayed. We prayed… many say we need to pray harder still and there might yet be some hope. I doubt it. Why should the south star be any different than the others? They say the gods are punishing us for something. Well, I did nothing wrong. We’re just a footstool to the divine. The Gods must just hate us.
Well. I hate them too.
We are officially into triple digits. Thanks to everyone for their support. I couldn’t have done it alone. Here’s to the beginning.