Offbeat Worlds is getting a major facelift!

And by facelift I don’t just mean in design, although that will be getting updated (let’s face it, the header up there kind really sucks), but a lot of other stuff as well!
Let me break down the changes:

1) Offbeat Worlds now has a “focus” to it, something that will tie almost all of the content I plan on sharing with you guys together. And the funny thing is I can’t believe it took me this long to realize what that focus should be, especially because it’s right in the name of the website: WORLDS! Or more specifically, world building.

World building is something I have been interested in for years and years, since before I even seriously started creating stories to be developed and was just making up little stories in my head for no real reason. I have been researching the inner workings of world building for a long time and I feel like I know a lot about it, especially when expressing those worlds through my art and screenwriting.

So in the future, my blog posts will not only be featuring my new art and updates on my screenwriting, but also how-tos, thoughts, tutorials, techniques, insights, and everything in between, all related to world building. I will also be writing about how to express your world through art and storytelling. It’s all going to be a bunch of awesomeness, so keep an eye out for that!

2) I am revamping the organization of the pages on Offbeat Worlds. I am going to have a separate page for each of my screenplays/stories, and I’ll have links to each of the character profiles I’ve been uploading lately plus the ones to come.

I will also be reworking the categories for posts, simplifying them and getting rid of the categories that never get used and probably will never be used, as well as adding in the ones that will be needed for future posts about world building and storytelling.

3) This change is actually already in place, but there is now a subscribe feature over in the side bar, where you can sign up to receive a newsletter type of email with updates from Offbeat Worlds. So if you’d like to stay up to date, make sure to sign up! I promise, your email gets sent directly to my inbox, so you don’t have to worry about spam.

4) I will also be making changes to my Youtube channel and will finally start uploading videos again, with additional information and content relating to the topics I mentioned above. So if you have not already, check out my channel on Youtube and make sure to subscribe!

5) All of the Offbeat Worlds social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and so on will all have a cohesive theme and look, very much like the new header of this website.
Those all of the changes I can think of right now, but I’m sure there are others.

Unfortunately I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to officially relaunch Offbeat Worlds, because I am moving to a new location in a week and I still have a lot of packing and such to do, but I will work on it as much as I can.

If you sign up for the email subscription, you’ll be the first know the official date!!

Until then, enjoy another picture of my puppy, Karris Whitetoe Oakenshield!

Oh, I am also still working on new art, including an Assassin’s Creed fan art piece, the first illustration of a character series that I am calling The Princesses (more on that later), as well as still developing more of the character illustrations I posted sketches of before. On top of that, I have also been selected as an artist for an upcoming gallery show at the Light Grey Art Lab called Station Zero!

In the mean time, I humbly ask that you like my Facebook page and follow me on Twitter!

Until we meet again!

Allons-y!

There is this guy (whose username I will not divulge for his own privacy) who has been going around commenting on ImagineFX videos on YouTube with things like “where are the first drawings ..made up as she went along..i don’t think so..not helpful” (on a video by Melanie Delon) or claiming that artists who paint realistically, like Marta Dahlig, must be using photo references because it’s not possible to paint realistically without them, and that said artists should be showing their references.

Well, first of all, since when do artists have to show their reference photos? Do book cover artists have a little blurb next to their name on the cover saying “BTWs, I used so-and-so’s photo for a reference.” Do concept artists go “oh, these are the references I used, just so you know.” No, because no one really cares. Now if you blatantly copy a photo, especially one that wasn’t your’s, within the painting itself, that’s a different story. But using a reference does not mean that you have to show it to everyone, or that you even have to mention that you used a reference. Granted, some artists do, but most don’t and it’s definitely not necessary.

This guy’s comment looking for Melanie Delon’s “first drawings” and not buying that she just painted it from scratch is, well, dumb. I gathered from a reply to another YouTuber’s comment that he is looking for line-art drawings done before she started painting. But everyone has a different style of working, so while some might start a painting by creating super detailed line-art, like Charlie Bowater or Dan Luvisi, others just start painting with big blobby forms and carve out shapes with their brushes, just like Melanie Delon, Marta Dahlig, and many others. Some artists start in black and white, and some jump right into color. Myself, I usually use which ever technique I feel works for the specific piece. I’m flexible that way. That’s the great thing about painting digital, it gives you the freedom to be flexible and try new techniques.

But on top of that, his point that it’s impossible to paint realistically without references is just plain ignorance. Yes, you do need references, but if you paint something, such as a face, over and over again, you’ll learn to understand the structure of a face and eventually be able to paint faces without any reference. Same with bodies. You keep practicing and studying, you’ll gain an understanding of anatomy and proportions. This is called building your visual library. Your visual library is your own internal reference book that you can refer to without ever needing to look at a photo. Your visual library is also a great place to draw inspiration from. Feng Zhu made a great video explaining the visual library in depth.

Obviously, this kind of learning can’t be done with everything, not unless you have a TON of free time. I’m good enough at painting people that I don’t need references, but things like animals and landscapes I still need to look up references for in order to make them look convincing (still working on realistic ). So yes, references will always be needed for realism, but only to a point. If you are good at painting something you definitely do not need them, and it is not impossible to paint without them. And more importantly you should never, ever rely on references your work. Your creativity and originality will suffer if you do.

But back to this guy on YouTube. I decided to confront him on the fault in his logic, stating, as I said above, that it is possible to paint without references, it just takes practice. His response: “this is nonsense said by people who have never painted traditional or digital.” HA! He didn’t even check my channel to verify before he made that claim. I have a link to my website with my portfolio on it too. He also insinuated that Marta was using a photo of herself for reference, but if he’d bothered to look up her photo, he’d know she wasn’t. Marta is a very pretty girl, but she paints females that don’t look much like her.

Again, I called him out on his bullshit, letting him know that I am in fact a professional artist and have been for a few years now.

He actually deleted his response (or it got marked as spam) but I still got it in my inbox: “then you are not a professional..only an amateur would declare that they do not use references..as a book and magazine illustrator of 35 years I know what i’m talking about” and continued to insist that artists can’t paint realistically without photographs. So, since he claims he’s been working professionally for 35 years but still can’t paint without a photo – and I say “claims” because he has no name or link to a portfolio on his channel, and a Google search of his username and the word “illustrator” turned up nothing but an empty freelancer account – I concluded that this guy must be A) suffering from a severe lack of imagination and B) has a very limited visual library. I decided to not respond again. If he can’t imagine other people working in ways different from him, there is no way to convince him otherwise.

What can be learned from this? Obviously, you can never believe everything on the internet. If you are going to make a claim, you’d better damn well provide some evidence. But these artists who have taken the time to record their process are doing us all a favor by giving us a glance into a different way of working. Marta Dahlig has created many super helpful tutorials not only on ImagineFX, but also on CGSociety (here and here). And though I am a professional artist, I am still learning too, and I’ve picked up a lot of new techniques and tricks by watching these videos. People like this guy, assuming or claiming that their art is somehow fake because they have a process that he doesn’t believe in or doesn’t understand, and then claiming he knows what he’s talking about but gives no proof, are just ignorant and possibly envious people out to make other artists look bad. That doesn’t mean they are right. It’s unfortunate that they exist, but there isn’t much we can do about them. We can try to put them in their place, but odds they they will be too stubborn to see any other way. We can’t let them discourage us, bring us down, tell it is can’t be done or isn’t possible just because they say so. They are wrong.

And of course, sometimes they are just trolls.

Anyway, just felt like sharing. Also I have decided I am going to start sharing how I work, through YouTube and Livestream videos and work-in-progress shots here.

Please let me know what you think about this experience in the comments down below!

And don’t forget to like the OffbeatWorlds Facebook page and follow me on Twitter!

There’s not much I can say about Tanwil without dropping spoilers. What I can tell you is that he is a very complicated character. He is one of Vagdvar’s Shadow Knights, and a member of his elite unit. He is the main opponent in the first chapter of the Orbs trilogy. While at first he doesn’t appear to know Sylanya, he later seems to know more about her than even she does. Tanwil is one of my favorite creations.

Darron is another primary character in Legend of the Orbs. He lives in Flarin and used to be on the Town Guard. He was one of the best, very skilled with a sword and quick to act. But when he caused an incident that wound up getting an innocent person killed, he left the Guard. He has kept mostly to himself since then, festering in his own anger and guilt, picking fights with people and getting into trouble. When he meets Sylanya, he finds himself so curious about her story that he can almost forget about his own.

Sylanya is the main character of the Legend of the Orbs trilogy, a young woman who runs the bookstore that belonged to her father before he passed away. She grew up and still lives in the town of Flarin, located on a cliff overlooking the sparkling waters of the Dargen Sea. She has already read nearly every book in the store, and has even started going to the town library for more reading material. She keeps to herself and goes out of her way to avoid people, usually tucking herself into the corner of her store with her nose stuffed in a book. Her penchant for being antisocial stems from a deep secret she carries, one that she must never let anyone find out. She has held this secret close all of her life, and that secret has created a rift between her and everyone else, making nearly impossible for her trust anyone or let them get too close, lest they find out what it is.

When she unexpectedly finds a map that was left by her mother, a map that shows the secret locations of the nine magical orbs lost long ago, she embarks on a quest to go find them. And as she searches for the hidden artifacts, she will also discover something about herself.

Here is the first one, completed.

This is Sylanya, the main character from my Legend of the Orbs trilogy. She is the one who uncovers the map that leads her and her new friend Darron (character illustration coming soon) on a journey to find the nine lost orbs. And yes, that is the map in the illustration.

Keep an eye out for more illustrations in the future!

But that’s not what I really want to talk about here. As terrible as the bombing was, that’s not what really struck me that day. It was people’s reactions to it.

I saw several people posting online about how the bombing was a sure sign of how sick and twisted humanity is, and that our species is only getting worse.

Now, I will admit, back when the shootings were happening a few months ago, I felt similar sentiments. But this time I reacted differently. I didn’t see this as a sign of how humanity is a piece of shit. I saw quite the opposite.

As Fred Rogers put it “When I was a boy and I would see scary things on the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” That was so true on Monday. Immediately after the bombs went off, volunteers and other people in the street ran to help the victims of the blasts. They comforted complete strangers, sacrificed their own clothing to stop the bleeding of the injured, and helped in any way that they could. It is because of their heroism and quickness to act that only three people died that day, and not more.

And even in the shootings that happened a few months, there were many stories of heroes that came out of them. The teacher who sacrificed herself to save all of her students. The three guys who died protecting their girlfriends at the shooting in the movie theater. There’s more where those came from.

So humanity is sick? That’s not what I saw. That’s not what I see every day. There are acts of kindness being committed all across the globe ALL the time. People give to charities, volunteer at soup kitchens, donate blood, help out a person who might have dropped something potentially valuable on the street. Don’t believe me? Check out this new campaign by Coca-Cola (which I absolutely love):

The only difference is that today with modern day media, we don’t hear about these random acts of kindness. We only hear about the bad. But that doesn’t mean humanity is sick or getting worse.

Sure there are people out there who are bad and do bad things, but that doesn’t make the rest of our species “a piece of shit”. Those bad people are a teeny weeny thousandth of a percent of the population. We can’t condemn our entire species for the acts of a small group of people. There are seven billion people on this planet!

Patton Oswalt made a terrific post on his Facebook page about the bombing that really nailed what I was feeling:

Boston. Fucking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”

But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”

And on the thoughts people have about our species getting worse, I have this to say: less than 100 years ago, people were hanging other people because of the color of their skin. 400 years ago, women were burned at the stake because they were suspected of being witches. 800 years ago an entire continent went to war with the Middle East so that they could force their religion on them. Rape used to be a common-day occurrence, and not a crime. There will always be war, and violence, because humanity is not perfect and never will be. There will always be bad people. But they are very much out-numbered by good people, and I think that’s the case more so these days than ever before.

Honestly, the only reason is feels otherwise is because we are fed more bad than good by the media. The good is everywhere. We just have to look for it.

And as a final thought, we not only have to look for the good around us, but we also have to look for it in ourselves. And I think this new campaign by Dove makes this point brilliantly*:

This also reminded me of a project I saw about a year back or so called OperationBeautiful were people would leave post-it notes on the mirrors in public bathrooms and other places reminding people of how beautiful and wonderful and kick-ass they are. Such a great mission.

Disclaimer: I was in no way paid by Coca-cola or Dove to feature their commercials on my website. These were posted by my own choice to emphasize the point I am trying to make. All copyrights belong to the respective companies, no infringement is intended.

Looper, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis

This is not to say that Hollywood doesn’t have reason to create these movies. They do, and I completely understand why. They come with a pre-made fan club.We all still pay movie to go see them. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t starved for new stories that haven’t been told already. How many movies can you name that were 100% original that came out last year? Personally, I can think of only 2: Cabin in the Woods and Looper. Even the hugely successful Avengers movie was still an adaption. And we even had a reboot of the Spider-man franchise already, even though the last movie of Sam Raimi’s trilogy only came out in 2007 (six years ago!). Is Hollywood really so nervous about committing original stories?

The sad thing, in my opinion, is that even when Hollywood does produce original movies, they often don’t market them properly (usually because of not enough marketing budget) and so no one knows about these movies when they come out. Of course no one is going to see them! If you market them properly, people will actually know about them and go see them. Many original movies underperform at the box office not because they are bad movies (come on, Cabin in the Woods was AMAZING), it’s just no one knows the movies even exist. There aren’t enough tv spots playing often enough during popular tv shows. There aren’t enough posters in places like buses, subways, or anywhere else where big movie’s get posters. There aren’t enough ads on Youtube or other places on the internet. Only big movie nerds like myself know about these movies because we make it our business to know.

Obviously there are some exceptions. Looper did very well at the box office considering its $30 million budget. Inception, Christoper Nolan’s thought-provoking original story, did extremely well at the box office (although Nolan himself has a built-in fan-base, he can get away with making original movies).

Elysium by Neill Blomkamp

And it does seem like they are finally trying a little harder this year. Olympus Has Fallen, while very derivative, was an original screenplay. Oblivion comes out in a week, and while it is technically based off of an graphic novel, I still count it for two reasons: 1-the graphic novel was written by the director of the movie, and 2-the graphic novel is still unpublished. Neill Blomkamp’s new film Elysium comes out this summer; also an original. Now You See Me, a new thriller about magicians who rob banks, comes out in May. And finally Danny Boyle’s newest film, Trance, is also an original story. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There may be more. I hope these movies do well, it’d be nice to show Hollywood that originality draws crowds too.

But then we also have the sequel to Star Trek, Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, another Wolverine movie, the first Mortal Instruments movie based off of another teen book series, and more.

Now, here’s what really gets me about all of this: Hollywood is buying original screenplays all the time. They buy hundreds of movie scripts, but most of them never get greenlit. Why? There are various reasons. Sometimes they can’t get a big enough star* to commit to it. Sometimes they can’t get scheduling to work out. But mostly I think it’s just that they are nervous about pouring a bunch of money into a film that has virtually no fans (yet), and so they set these potentially awesome movies onto a shelf and never look at them again.

This is incredibly frustrating to me, as I am a screenwriter (albeit a noob screenwriter) trying to write original stories to sell to Hollywood. I want my movies to be produced so that thousands, if not millions, of audience members can enjoy them. I want them to see something new! And I’m not alone.

There are thousands of writers and artists who have stories to tell. You can find them all over the internet. Daniel Luvisi, an artist who got his start on DeviantART, has actually sold the film rights to his own original story (also known as an intellectual property or IP) Last Man Standing. Currently the only material we have on it was a book he created called Killbook of a Bounty Hunter, which is a compilation of every one of his characters along with bios and information about the world they live. BUT here’s the kicker: the rights to the film were bought BEFORE the book was published. And production studios were fighting over it before that. Except for Dan’s artwork posted online, there was no material publicly in existence when they bought the rights.

Illustration of Gabriel, from Dan Luvisi’s LMS (art also by Dan)

How did Dan do it? He had a pre-made fan club: all of the other artists and fans of his art that he collected on deviantART. It’s not as big as many other franchises, but it was big enough to gain the attention of Hollywood. So even though no one really knew what Dan’s IP was about, except for the subtle hints in his artwork, he collected a fanbase, and that fanbase caught the attention of people in the movie-making business. (You can find out more information about LMS on Dan Luvisi’s DeviantART page or Facebook page)

So what does that mean for the rest of us? What can we learn from his example?

If we want to start seeing more originality in Hollywood, WE are the ones who need to find it and help it get into Hollywood. They are already shifting back, we just need to encourage them to continue. If you find an artist or writer who has an IP worth sharing, make your love for it known. Share it, send it to other people you know will appreciate it and ask them to share it too! If we want to see change, we have to make change. All Hollywood needs to know is that there are people out there who will pay money to see this movie, that film, and they will jump on it. So let them know.

–

*Side note: the definition of a “star” in Hollywood is so screwy. To me, a star should be an actor of great talent who also has a large fan-base. To Hollywood, it seems to be anyone, doesn’t have to be a talented someone, who has a HUGE following, even if it’s not always a positive one *cough*Kristen Stewart*cough*. Which is why a lot of movies are cast with people with little to no acting skills, but damn to they draw attention. Another example of this is when famous musicians get cast in lead roles. They have a draw, but they don’t have the skill set. And then people with real acting talent get cast in smaller films or in small roles in bigger films. That’s so backwards. This isn’t always the case, but happens way more than it should.

Since I needed to create new promotional material for my screenplays, I decided to join in (although obviously I had to alter the schedule to fit my workflow a bit, for instance, I don’t ink my work since it’s all done on the computer.

The first week was last week, and here are the ten sketches!

This next week I’ll be posting the colored sketches, so keep an eye out.

So about two years ago now, I actually got the opportunity to work as concept artist for a REAL movie! The movie is called Voice from the Stone, and I got to read the script for it (which was written by Andrew Shaw and based off a novel by Silvio Raffo), and create concept art for it. They mostly had me do quick sketches to capture the mood and lighting for specific scenes, but still.

Unfortunately the movie has been moving at a snail pace, I’m not even sure if they have started filming yet, but since they have posted the concept art I did for them on their Facebook page I figure I can post them here as well (it’s not like I signed any NDAs anyway).

Honestly, not my best work ever, but like I said they were really just looking for loose sketches (something I wasn’t very good at at the time).

These first three are the first ones I painted immediately after reading the script, when the imagery was still fresh in my mind, and before I was told they wanted loose sketches.

And then these ones were specifically requested by the director, Eric D. Howell.

Even if it’s not my best work ever, and the movie might never come out (I know, how pessimistic of me), it was still extremely exciting to be able to work with the director and create art for a real film.

Oh, and on a side-note, the two lead actors in this film are Maggie Gyllenhaal and Mads Mikkelsen. ^_^