Hi friends,
It’s officially fall, and Lo-Fi Girl has started live streaming a Halloween Lo-Fi radio station.
Got a bunch of little things to share with you today:
New Story Update: Thumbnails Done
New (Used) Acquisitions for the Reference Library
Podcast Rec: Why Cynicism Is Bad For Everyone
Sketchbook Share
New Story Update: Thumbnails Done
Finished drafting page thumbnails! These aren’t strictly followed when I execute final page art, but I do a lot of the important creative work in this stage, thinking through and working out compositions and layouts. It makes it easier and faster when it comes time to do the final art.
Up next, I’ll create a title image for announcing the new story.
I would jump into executing final art right after that, but I need to do some prep for tabling at Short Run on November 2nd, which is just a month and a half away now!
And then executing final art. Hopefully I can get the first set of pages for the new story’s online serialization done before Short Run, too.
New (Used) Acquisitions for the Reference Library
Picked up some new (used) books for my personal reference library. I’m excited about these! I really enjoyed each of these stories, and they’ll all provide excellent artistic reference and inspiration.
I’ve generally avoided picking up physical books after e-books became a thing because they take up space and are heavy and a pain to move. It’s convenient to travel with an e-book reader, and easier to deal with borrowing from and returning books to the library, too. E-books also became a thing after I’d put my artistic interests into very-occasional-hobby status, so I wasn’t buying art-related books for a long time.
But now that I’m creating graphic stories, I’m interested in building out a “library”, so I’ve started collecting physical books again.
Do you have any favorite books for artistic reference that you’d suggest?
The Into The Spider-Verse movie was so freaking good. I loved the story and the music, but the visual design in particular was especially standout. Kinda want to watch it again now.
Avatar: The Last Airbender received universal acclaim. It’s sequel series, The Legend of Korra had a somewhat more polarized reception, but I’m in the strong pro camp. The first season wasn’t the best in the series story-wise, but the art was still top notch, and the book was cheaper to buy—so it suits my purposes perfectly.
And finally, Asterios Polyp. The author, David Mazzuchelli, tells a thinky yet page-turning story of personal foibles and growth. But the main reason I wanted a copy for my collection is that it’s a masterful demonstration of a vast range of the expressive techniques and approaches that the comics medium is capable of. I love that Mazzuchelli used to be a mainstream superhero comics artist, too. We all contain multitudes.
Podcast Rec: Why Cynicism Is Bad For Everyone
This is a fantastic interview. I highly recommend it to everyone.
One of my peeves is the “realist’s” argument. Namely, people are bad, the world is terrible, so we just have to accept that and go along with it, whether that means doing the bad things, ourselves, because we think everyone else is doing it, or bowing to unethical commands from above because it’s useless to do anything else. It’s just being “realistic”!
Now, I wouldn’t say that people should never decide that the potential negative consequences of an action are too great for them to do what they think would be ethically preferable. We can generate all sorts of complicated scenarios that make decisions tough. But the “realist” stance by itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy that wouldn’t be true if everyone didn’t just assume that that’s how we must behave.
Amazingly, a study is referenced in the interview that found that cynics actually don’t have better outcomes?
Anyway, it’s a good a listen.
Yes, I am dying first in the apocalypse.
Sketchbook Share
Till next,
William
Thanks William, that podcast sounds great. I’ll put it in my ears today. You and me together first in the apocalypse! lol.😜