Will it work?
Last week of classes before finals. I’m so excited.
Posts authored by zartala
11
Things are heating up. 🙂
Things are heating up in the real world, too. I’m in the last two weeks of the semester before finals. Too, much studying to do and not enough time. Additionally, a week after finals I head out to the middle of nowhere for close to a month. I’ve never been camping before but I’m really looking forward to spending a lot of time away from everything. I’m just hoping I don’t run into any bears, mountain lions, or rattle snakes, but it is mostly the bears I worry about.
10
I wonder what they’re up to.
One of my goals with this chapter has been to get better at utilizing tricky perspective shots and I’ve been re-sketching a lot of panels digitally after scanning in the pencils. The left panel of today’s page is one such re-sketch. The original pencils did not look so good and even the first few attempts of setting up perspective lines did not go so well. I really struggled to get the angle I wanted but in the end I really like how the panel turned out. Marie’s thumb on the other hand, suffered from my focus on the left panel. I didn’t even notice how strange her thumb looks until now.
Also, a new version of the first page of the scene is up. Part of the problem with being a one person show is that it is easy to miss the errors in one’s own work. Thank you so much Spelledeg for pointing out what was wrong with the first panel and helping me to fix it! Also go read Spelledeg’s INTS: Black Gate (if you aren’t already); it is really awesome!
09
Fae’s quick, but not quick enough.
Check out this hilarious picture I received from Waffles597 who creates the webcomic Elmer the Eccentric. I love it so much! Waffles597 made this as part of the Comic Fury Easter Egg Fan Art Eggchange. There’s a bunch of other really great arts in the exchange but, in my completely biased opinion, this one is the very best. If you like this picture, you’ll love Elmer the Eccentric (it’s a fun read).
08
I sure hope Fae is quick on her feet.
Back at the end of February there was enough bad weather (snow and ice) to close down the university I attend for multiple days. In that time I was able to build up enough of a buffer to last the remainder of the semester; since then I haven’t touched the comic. There are no words that can describe how relieved I am that I took the plunge and lowered the update schedule down to once a week for the current chapter. It was a decision I agonized over a lot at the time but in hind sight was the right call to make. In general I’m a highly anxious person, but it helps soothe my anxieties, even if just a little, to know that I feel that I made the right call.
Once the semester ends, I have a few weeks before I head out of town for close to a month for summer field camp (requirement to graduate). In that time I hope to get enough pages done so that the update schedule can go back to 2x a week for the summer months. Only time will tell but I can still hope.
07
At least Fae was able to dodge before she tripped. Fae’s not a clumsy person, but that limestone floor is super slippery with all of the water flowing over it. If you’ve every been in a living cave (cave with water traveling through it), you’ve probably experienced just how slippery that surface is.
If you’ve never been in a living cave, other than missing out on a great experience, you probably have no clue how slippery that cave floor is. Walking on the wet surface of a cave is a lot like walking across a freshly mopped floor. There’s very little friction and one miss-step can send you sliding. The sliding is only worse with bare feet. To me it would be unrealistic for Fae not to trip at least once now that water is being hurled around everywhere. Also, I’ve only ever been in commercial show caves; I’ve been told that the actual rock surface is much more slippery than the paved floor of a show cave (which is already fairly slippery).
06
One really interesting thing about rocks is that they can contain a lot of water. Another interesting thing about rocks is that water can flow relatively easy through many types of sedimentary rocks. This is where Emma and Marie are getting their water from. Over time the process of pulling water out of the rocks will dissolve and weaken the rocks but since I don’t know how to calculate that (yet), I didn’t include that detail in the current scene. Rocks are really interesting.
Also, I’m currently out of town and will be not able to respond to comments in a timely manner. So apologies in advance if you leave a comment and it takes me forever + a day to respond.
05
Meanwhile, back to these guys. Fae really didn’t have to try too hard to be bait.
Edit: New version of the page is posted. A big thanks to Spelledeg for her help with fixing up this page. Also go read Spelledeg’s INTS: Black Gate; it is really awesome!
04
How much does Adrik trust Enya? How much should Adrik trust Enya? One of those questions will be answered by the end of the chapter 😉
Almost a year ago I wrote a really long, ramble-y post on one part of my life that leaked into Eternity Complex, wrong first impressions. At the time, I slightly mentioned my issue with trust in that post but never really went too deep with it. Well, I guess it’s something about this time of year, because I’m feeling like rambling a little more (but I’ll try to keep this post much shorter).
Trust is another one of those things that stumbled it’s way into the story due to the environment I grew up in. I spent my childhood trusting the wrong people and suffered the consequences as a result. And, part of that experience has made me really marvel at people who are capable of trusting others unquestionably without having the other party break that trust (I marvel a lot less now that I’m in a much better situation, but I still marvel a bit). Out of all the character dynamics that appear, I think I explored trust the most visibly in the relationship between Adrik and Enya. I think part of that is due to the fact that they’ve known each other the longest and part of that is because they’ve been in the cast from the very beginning. Now whether the trust between the two is based on my life experience or idealization or somewhere in between is yet to be revealed but it’s one of those things that pops up from time to time.
I hope that my rambling doesn’t affect how you’ve been viewing the story so far. I just had a bunch of free days off from school due to weather last week and felt like rambling as a result. It’s never my intent to make any of the reoccurring themes in Eternity Complex stand out in the writing and I never started writing with any themes in mind. But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize just how much of my own life experiences and thoughts have transferred over into what I’m writing. When I was younger I plotted out the story by thinking, “wouldn’t it be cool if…” and, “I really like it when other stories do X so I want to try and do X” without putting a lot of thought into why those things resonated with me. First and foremost, though, I want Eternity Complex to be an enjoyable fantasy adventure story. Everything else is secondary. I have always hated reading books that beat the reader over the head with the author’s intent (Scarlet Letter I’m looking at you) and I hope my story never does that. I’ve always felt and still feel that what the audience gets from a story supersedes authorial intent and so as long as your happy with the story, I’m happy.
Thanks for reading my ramble-y mess and thanks for reading Eternity Complex! <3
03
Did Enya know? Depends on your interpretation of this page.