Music and comics

Ah, the unpredictability of creativity. Last time I posted I was mumbling about the tenth anniversary project thing and how it's gonna be great and stuff...

Well, ok not really, but something close enough. Anyway.

Came out that after making the first track (which in its raw state is about 4 minutes long) I had no idea what to do afterwards. So I went in a totally different direction.

First, I'm blending all my projects together to form only two, Din Krakatau and Pink Noise Inferno. I'd move it all to one, but Din Krakatau has already a myspace and a whole bunch of people heard it (well, a whole lot from my point of perspective starts around 50 and I'm sure at least that much people did hear about it) so it's going to be two. Din Krakatau gets all the material that takes long to make and is attempting to blend genres and create unified albums by going in totally different directions on every track (thus taking ages to do anything), while Pink Noise Inferno gets everything else, mostly all the "theme/sound" creations of mine, meaning one album might be total noise, while the next one pure lullabies... or something like that.

Second, I started working on an album for PNI that's rather heavy and dark. Friends who heard the first tracks said something about industrial, noise and illbient. Personally I have no idea where to put it, all I know is I'm using slow (or very slow) distorted beats laid over dark ambient/drone backgrounds, with lots of reverbs and delays, distortions and overdrives, yet keeping it fairly listenable.

In news not related to music: I'm still waiting for art samples for Law of Revenge, while my second project, Six Bullets Left, is currently hanging in air as I seem to be unable to draw certain things. There's a possibility I'll have to give it away to someone else. That is, IF I find someone else at all.

That's it for the "wonderful" news, time to return to pretending I'm busy with writing.

Back to music?

Seems I have returned to music for a bit. It's going to be ten years since I started making music, so I decided to give it another go, and make one more album. But since it is an anniversary, it should be a special one, thus I attempt to build one out of pieces of all my creations since 1997. Well, all the unused ones that don't form any album or anything like that anyway.

Currently I`m halfway through with dismantling my old .mod and .dbm files and making loops out of that for easier editing, then I`m pulling out the backups of my noisetapes and other stuff, I'll use these to spice up the backgrounds.

While writing this I remembered that I had a similar idea few years ago, when I was thinking about an album constructed out of my old unfinished modules, but nothing came out of that idea since I was too lazy to work on it.

So, if I finish the album, it'll be for the Pink Noise Inferno project, and hopefully will incorporate bits of my recordings from early years mostly (various attempts at techno, rock and industrial), spiced up with more recent discoveries in noise, ambient, drone and glitch.

And after that... we'll see what's after that, I might drop music, or I might start something new, or continue with the old. Who knows :)

Full script finished!

Two days ago it finally happened. After weeks of writing, more writing, drawing thumbnails, panel layouts, random sketches and several days filled with writer's block and "OMG I'LL NEVER FINISH IT"'s...

I finished.

I finished my second full script, four issue miniseries titled Six Bullets Left. Yep, it`s full, has all dialogues, panel descriptions, actions, descriptions and whatever else (barely any captions though as I don't use them often).

Now, that was the easy part. Now I'll have to draw it all, every one of the 88 pages, every panel of 437 panels. Damn, and to think hundreds of people do that every day.

And all that while working on another script.

Ok, I just scared myself. Still, I am happy with my titanic achievement (despite the fact that on the grand scale of comic book creations it sits very low) and look forward to drawing this. Cause if I can finish this tale, I can finish a longer one too.

I`m sounding sooo dramatic today, haha.

What a day...

It all started yesterday, actually, so that's where I'll start too.

I got two thing yesterday. First, thanks to a very good friend, I got new speakers. I don't think he'll ever read that but thanks again :)
Second, I got a notice about an unpaid internet bill, apparently I missed one somehow a month or two ago.
Also one more thing happened yesterday, that is my brother's computer going insane. It crashed, and took the hd with itself, screwing up the c: drive (or just the mbr).

Fast forward to today.

I went to find out how long I have until I have to pay for the net and decided to get rid of some crap items online (old books and comics I don't need anymore) to pay them. I sold some and if money arrives by Monday latest, I should be saved from disconnection.

When I got home I decided to reinstall my webcam as it didn't really work anymore (nothing new, does that regularly). This of course screwed up my audio drivers, as if the fact that soundmax drivers have no equalizer on my comp for whatever reason wasn`t annoying enough. So I reinstalled these too.
Meanwhile my brother reinstalled windows... only to find out that windows doesn't see his integrated ethernet card. He jumped at me with his "they probably disconnected my net instead of yours" which is impossible cause I know it won't be touched at least until Monday, plus disconnected internet DOES NOT make your ethernet card evaporate from your system. Anyway, there is no net visible, can't install drivers, even if we force them it says that it doesn't work. I'm guessing it's hardware problem while my brother insists it's windows problem, thus he went to reinstall it AGAIN.

And all that totally disrupted my writing today, not to mention that yesterday writing was affected too.

Speaking of writing. Despite the problems, I'm already done with full script with layouts and thumbs for the first two issues, and am currently working on pages 6-9 for third issue, if nothing comes out tomorrow I should get to 11+, and hopefully have it done by the end of the week, with next week left for the fourth issue.
That'll be the end of second phase.

Finished :)

Last time I was complaining about the writer's block, but also pointed out it`s not too bad at the moment. And guess what, it wasn`t. Which means that I finished the script finally.

Yep, the first version of script for Six Bullets Left is done and I`m currently practicing drawing, sketching character designs, etc. Can`t say when I`ll start properly drawing and how much changes will be done to the script, but hopefully it`ll start soon.

So yeah, the script is finished, currently it`s in a 30k text file, which is not much, and is basically descriptions of actions with 80% of the dialogues ready. Which means I still need to split it into panels (so far I only decided on the length of scenes in loose pagecount) and write the rest of text.

...And then draw all 88 pages of it :P

Meanwhile I guess I`ll focus on writing other stuff, there`s at least 30 ideas I`m developing at once (in various stages of completion), some of which are on hold cause you don`t jump into making comics with an epic that`ll take ten years to complete :P

The beauty of writer's block

Ah, the joy of being stuck halfway through your work, not being able to write another sentence, despite the fact that the ideas are there and you just can`t seem to find the right word to start.

I just had one long writer's block that lasted over a week and stopped me from finishing the early script for a four issue comic book miniseries. I wrote first two in less than three days. And then I got stuck, unable to plot out the second half of third one and jumping ahead to make notes for the fourth one.

And that was it...

...Days pass...


...More days pass...

...Finally, I sat down and managed to write the damned part, only to get stuck again on the fourth one...

...Luckily this time the block has been shorter and I managed to go ahead, writing small chunks, and I think I`m 1/3 done with it, the rest being very very very loosely plotted in a form of 10 sentences or so.

I do hope to finish it soon, it would be my second completed script. Now if only the guy that`s supposed to draw the first one wasn`t so busy with his work :)

Thus I decided to draw the second one myself, seeing as it`s shorter and the story seems to be more appropriate for my somewhat messy art style. So expect something in a year or two :P

Enneagrams

Two days ago, that is if my timetable isn`t too screwed by odd sleeping patterns and I`m not mixing up days, I got a link to a polish website with an enneagram test. Thinking it might be another of the silly tests that clutter the blogs, livejournals and myspace profiles, I decided to check out the link anyway.
After doing the test, to my amazement the results came out to be rather accurate; they confirmed what I expected about myself AND also helped out to answer few questions, and in general made me go "wow, this is so true"!

So, what were the results? Well, according to the test I`m "type four with wing in five", meaning an individualist (wing in five was described as "bohemian" type as opposed to wing in three which is named the "aristocrat" type).

I`ll just paste in a bit of text here, taken from this place.

"Four With a 5 Wing
Healthy side of this wing brings a withdrawn, complex creativity. May be somewhat intellectual but have exceptional depth of feeling and insight. Very much their own person; original and idiosyncratic. Have a spiritual and aesthetic openness. Will find multiple levels of meaning to most events. May have a strong need and ability to pour themselves into artistic creations. Loners; can seem enigmatic and hard to read. Externally reserved and internally resonant. When they open up it can be sudden and total. When entranced or defensive, Fours with a 5 wing can easily feel alienated and depressed. Many have a sense of not belonging, of being from another planet. Can get lost in their own process, drown in their own ocean. Whiny - tend to ruminate and relive past experience. Prone to the emotion of shame. Air of sullen, withdrawn disappointment. May live within a private mythology of pain and loss. Can get deeply morbid and fall in love with death.

Real-Life Fours With a 5 Wing: Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, Richard Brautigan, Jackson Browne, Kurt Cobain, Leonard Cohen, Isak Dinesen, Pink Floyd, Harvey Keitel, Philip Larkin, Thomas Merton, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Rimbaud, Anne Sexton, James Taylor, Vincent van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Neil Young."

And it seems to be true. Scary, how 36 questions can tell the truth about you.