Author: thea

the I/O balance

creativity is a flow… don’t let it stop flowing and start to stagnate!

i’ve been feeling a little bloated lately.
no, it’s not that time of the month! (ewww, feminine body humor…)
and it’s not all that yummy Thanksgiving turkey, either.

i’m talking about my imagination. my brain. i’ve been on a sort of reading-watching-absorbing binge.

books. movies. websites.

>grab, gulp, munch-munch-munch, swallow, gulp. and again. and again.<

suddenly it was too much. and it led me to today’s tip:

to reach fully productive creativity, you have to balance what you take in with what you pour out.

yes, it’s also about quality. “garbage in, garbage out” is true.

but even if you’re taking in the best possible stuff, you need to be sensitive to your inner cycle of creativity. there will come a moment when you just have to put down the book (or remote) and stop all incoming calls and ideas and visuals and pour some of your own stuff out. because if you don’t, you will likely lose it.

this moment doesn’t always feel the same. but i’ve learned to recognize and honor it whenever (and however) it appears.

  • sometimes it’s an urgent desire to sit and write.
  • sometimes it’s such a clear mental image that i know it’s important to capture it.
  • sometimes it’s a holy discontent, an inexplicable restlessness.

learn to recognize how it shows up for you.

and when that moment comes–oh!
when it comes, put everything else on hold.
freeze the world!
and just create. write, write, draw, draw, whatever it is, don’t stop until you’ve poured out everything that’s inside you.

even if it takes days.
heh-heh.

so if i disappear for a few days (or weeks), you’ll know what happened to me.

don’t send in the cavalry.
just smile, and nod knowingly.

it’s a creativity explosion.
and i’m at ground zero.

i feel the love

enjoying the riches of the open-hearted Internet community

one of the absolute best things about the Net community is the (overall) willingness to share. sure, there’s some selfish folks out there, but overall, the brilliant ones are showing others how they did it. they enrich the whole world, adding to the library of articles and tutorials.

>steps onto the tangent train<

i admire that.

i admire people who are unafraid to show others how they did their “magic”. they share a technique for a special effect they use in their art, knowing that this does not lessen or dilute their value. these people realize a great secret of all art:

nobody else can truly compete with your art.

you are unique.
nobody, and i mean nobody can tell the stories that are in you exactly the way you can tell them. nobody can draw or paint exactly the way you will, if you follow the whispers of that creative Genius who wants to guide you into your true calling.

and the world is big enough to need all the creative people that exist.

i hope i remember this. when i start posting my work and someone asks me, “how did you do that?” it’s the perfect time to start a beautiful cycle.

some call it karma, but i believe it’s a lot older than that.
i think it’s the same thing that brings a 60-foot tree from a seed smaller than my fingernail. i think it’s the same power behind so-called “self-fulfilling prophecies”.

i think everything is a seed.
words. actions. even thoughts. decisions.
and you reap what you sow.

and the Net is one great, big field of rich soil. and the ones who are getting the best harvest are the ones planting the most good seed.

>toot-toot! now offloading the tangent train. all aboard the clue train!<

for example, this tutorial on Vector Polishing at Nick La’s WebDesignerWall.

the guy does nice work. beautiful.
someone asked him, “how did you do such-and-such? did you use Photoshop or Illustrator?” so he writes this tutorial, and right in the first paragraph he says,

“Here I will unveil all my secret techniques.”

it’s a good way to get people to read.
everybody wants to know a secret!
then he shares nine of his coolest Photoshop techniques. and suddenly i want to spend the day fiddling in Photoshop.

i love to learn. always have.
and i love to learn on my own, at my own pace.
the Net is my playground.
it’s my university.
abundant in mentors.
whether they know it or not!

and someday, i’ll do it, too.
enrich the world. share my techniques.
first i gotta have some, though.

>leaves the train station, marching into the cool depths of the asylum<

see ya ’round the Net!

polly and the pirates

a review of Polly and the Pirates comics

i love the drawing style for polly and her strange water world. are there any buildings actually on land? there are docks, i guess, but most of the buildings seem to be boats. towering, three and four story, sprawling victorian boats (or whatever the time period might be, i’m no expert).

beneath young polly pringle’s dull, proper, rule-abiding schoolgirl surface lurks a bold, clever, sword-fighting pirate.

and it doesn’t take much to scratch the surface.
a few threats to harm her good reputation and her friends.
and her pirate self leaps onto the page without ado.

a swash-buckling good ride.

on the critique side… i gotta wonder if ted has trouble drawing hands and feet, because the characters are a bit short-changed on those items.

but there is a panel or two with very. detailed. gnarly. old. sailor. hands…

so maybe it’s about artistic shorthand (um, pun intended, i guess) and not lack of skill.

i can relate to that.
artistic shorthand, that is.
(well, i can relate to lack of skill, too… but that’s another story)

i’ve been thinking about what it takes to keep a webcomic going regularly, and how much time it probably takes for those that post more than once a week. my time on the computer is kinda limited. no, no, no–not by a straitjacket! well, not exactly. but there are… restrictions.

so how will i find time to keep such a thing going? as a reader, it’s really hard to wait when you get hooked on a webcomic and then the author doesn’t post regularly.

>turns a half-hearted frown in the direction of caroline curtis<
>but can’t keep frowning at a favorite storyteller…<
>the frown morphs to hopeful, puppy-dog eyes<

after all, we’ve all got real lives to live outside the Net. well, most of us do. so… one of the things i’d probably do is pick a style that i can draw quickly. not heavy on the details. not too busy in the layouts. because, hey! (imho) it’s all about the story, anyway. as long as the art is good enough to get the story across, you can survive if it’s a great story.

not that i want to do sucky art.
uh-uh.
but i’m not one of those artists that’s super picky about certain details. at least not with a webcomic. i want a rollickin’ good story, that’s all. artistic shorthand is a-okay.

anyway, back to the polly review. ted naifeh is a GOOD artist, for sure. didn’t mean to imply otherwise. just noticed that the hands and feet were sketchy. the story is great, characters interesting, i loved looking at the details on the ship buildings and even the spirals he used in the wave foam.

conclusion? a pleasure for the eyes and the imagination.
is there more on the way, ted?
coming to a library near me?

what are you waiting for?
go read it already!

online delights

links to some favorites on deviantArt.com

the Net is an amazing thing. i can spend days, oh who am I fooling? i could spend years simply browsing and reading the works of other creatives. and especially the works of creatives so much more practiced than i! a site that never disappoints is deviantart.com. it’s like sneaking up to their door, creeping in through the window, tip-toeing along the hall and peeking into the studios of so many talented artists. only it’s not illegal, occifer. not a bit. perfectly legit.

and to think! most of them are students! they haven’t even launched into their professional careers yet (some, anyway)!

check out some of my favorites from a single browse-fest (and this was just the cream of the crop — as you can see, i must limit my browsing sessions or they will consume a-l-l my time):

<contented sigh>

the world is full of talented people. and with the Net around, we don’t just sit in our little world and stew anymore. well, we don’t have to, anyway. we get to jump into a global pot and provoke each other to keep trying, keep going, keep living. sorta makes me sit back in awe, and try to grasp the implications. i wonder how it will be in another ten or twenty years?

<starts to fidget>

i wonder how long it will be before i have anything worthy to post online?

<wanders down the long stone hall of Temple Asylum, muttering and gesturing, hugging self encouragingly>

skip-beat manga

a review of Skip-Beat Japanese comics

Skip-Beat Volume 1 Coveri’m reading Yoshiki Nakamura’s shojo manga “Skip-Beat!” the layouts are sometimes a bit confusing (and therefore the whole series seems less polished to me). it’s often hard to tell whose thoughts you’re reading, and she likes to span several pages with a single thought separated into several words at a time — PLUS you have to read the dialogue, and cute little action notes, so my brain gets full trying to follow all those fragments. BUT nonetheless, the story caught my interest.

a girl who has been self-sacrificing and boring and normal is transformed into someone of passion by a traumatic incident. it’s not a good thing, in some ways — her dark side is unlocked by a cold-hearted rejection. but even that is interesting to watch.

the art includes illustration of the evil spirits that are given freedom to operate in her life when she lets rejection lead to anger, hate and bitterness. these spirits, labeled “grudge” and “hate” and such things, fly around her. even other characters notice this dark aura.

but she quickly realizes that she has lost something precious by letting this dark side run free. and she seeks to restore the “human emotions so precious to life” that she lost. it isn’t easy, though. a small angelic “pure self” spirit flutters around at times, fighting with the illustrated evil ones. but her “pure self” gets womped quite a bit. no telling how long that battle will go on.

i’m interested in stories that bring the invisible, supernatural side of life into visibility through various manga or movie techniques.

here, put on these 7-D glasses and tell me what you see. heh. yeeeaah… i wanna do that.