Oneiros Types: Icelos Class

Heya Everyone! Welcome back!

So, today I'm going to be talking Dreamwalkers again. This time, I'll be discussing the enemies in the comic once again, though this time I'll be discussing the various types of Oneiros there are. The SOS group had devised classifications for the various Oneiros that they face, of which there are three main classifications that they might fall into. These classifications help the Dreamwalkers team to devise a plan of action, as, while each Oneiros has individual abilities, they also share some similarities as those also under the same classification.

The three classes are as follows: Icelos, Phantasos and Morpheus (no, not the Matrix one! lol). Similar to the name SOS gave to the monstrous beings they fight as a whole, the three classes are also based loosely on their mythological counterparts, due to the way the monsters will present themselves in the nightmares.

The classification that I'll be talking about today is the Icelos Group.

The Icelos group's name comes from Icelos in Greek mythology, also known as Ikelos, Icelus (all of which mean 'semblance' and, in some cases also known as Phobetor, which means 'frightening'. This god, sometimes known to either be one of the brothers of Hypnos, or one of the son's of the god of sleep, was said to be a shape shifter that could take on the form of animals and beasts in order to interact with mortals in the waking world. It's said that he is also the personification of nightmares.

In Dreamwalkers, Oneiros that fall into this category take the form of monsters and/or animal based phobias that the dreamer might have. This class is also the easiest to find and classify by SOS standards, as they often actively hound the dreamer. They also tend to be the most aggressive of the three main classifications.

So, for example, if you had a phobia of Spiders, an Oneiros of the Icelos class might take the form of a giant spider with hoards of tiny spider minions that are chasing down the dreamer to weave into a web with the intent of eating the victim alive.

Of course, with them being shape shifters, they aren't bound my a single form. So long as its animal or monster based, they could change forms at will, making them the most versatile when it comes to all out offense, though the tactics used by them are usually the most crude of the three types.

Well, crude, but still effective! While they might be more obvious seeming monsters than the other two types, they are no less dangerous

Those of you who might have seen clips of Dreamwalkers part one might note that the Onreios here is based in this class. Though what it does and its abilities are something that you can only find out by reading. :) Though some of my original sketches of the Oneiros (which I showed on my previous blog post that gives the overview of the Dreamwalkers antagonists) do give a little insight on ideas and concepts I had for them in the early stages of the comic.

Next time, I'll be talking about the next in the three Oneiros classes, the Phantasos class! So please look forwards to it :)

Until next time!

Tara

Project Stuff!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Well, as some of you may or may not know, the competition I entered - the image was something I showed a post or two back - has released the results. Unfortunately, I didn't win this time. A bit disappointing, but there was some pretty stiff competition, so while I'm a little disappointed, I'm not too unhappy. It was fun to draw either way, and I'm sure that next time Foxhat64 does a competition, I'll be having another go at it anyway.

Either way, congrats to the winners! they did really well, so they definitely earned it :)

Onto other things, I have been continuing on an older project, which was more or less a practice using an original character on, essentially, profiling - mainly drawing the character in different outfits, shown from different positions, close ups on certain bits of detail etc. It's not finished yet, as I'm also intending to do different facial expressions and different angles, as well as finishing the colours on the images as well. I had shown a part of it before - a single figure version in one outfit, but much like then, it was a work in progress.

While its not quite finished, this is what I have so far:

As you can see, the shading isn't fully finished yet, but I'm quite pleased in how its coming out so far. The character I made here was for a roleplay on fanfiction.net, and while this is mostly a practice, I'm hoping to do this kind of thing for Dreamwalkers characters, complete with artist notes, maybe even make an art book for Dreamwalkers, or a collaboration art book with Nadia involving all our characters from the 'Tanra-verse'. It would be interesting, if nothing else, not to mention a good reference point for myself with the comic series.

Oh, I am considering making another print for Dreamwalkers. As I've done a print for Rem and for Somnus, making a print for Ashling would be fitting, right? I just need to think of a good pose, so its entirely likely that this will be my next project.

Until next time!

Tara

Nogitsune

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, last time, you may remember I took part in a competition on Deviant Art, and showed my entry for said competition. Weeeeeeell, while the submission date hasn't changed, there was a bit of an extension on when the results will be out, so as of yet, I don't know how well I have done. But once I know, I'll be sure to let you know how it went.

Meanwhile, apart from coming down with yet another cold (Honestly, I must have a horrible immune system or something), I have finished another of my projects, this time a character I once created a while ago, but have only recently drawn in order to see how it would look, and to test out my colouring style, as well as testing out ever so slight differences in angles. The character I drew was one based on legends of Nogitsune.

So, what are Nogitsune?

Basically, a Nogitsune is a form of supernatural fox, or Kitsune, from Japanese mythology. In said mythology, foxes are capable of shapeshifting to take on a human form (often female, but not always) in order to interact with humans. Nogitsune are the most malevolent version of the foxes (Also known as Yakou or 'field foxes'), as apposed to 'Zenko', which are foxes mostly linked to the deity Inari. Nogitsune are prone to playing tricks on humans, and not just the playful kind.

You can find more information on Nogitsune and their various counterparts on Wikipedia. It, along with other Japanese mythology, is rather interesting :)

The family I made essentially has the shapeshifting ability, though in this case it is at the cost of the users individuality. The shape shifters have fox shaped masks with individual and unique patterns on them in order to identify between themselves, no matter what shape they take. The character I drew is to a point that they have forgotten even their own gender, and as such refers to themselves in a non-binary manner (unless using someone else's appearance, when they take on that person's name and gender). As such, I hoped to be able to draw an androgynous figure. What I came up with was this:

I have to admit, my favourite part of this image was the hair. I know that in earlier pictures, hair tended to be fairly simple, but I'm hoping to make hair at least a little more interesting to look at. It was fun doing the waves in the hair - it reminds me a bit of Somnus' hair. Hopefully my practice will help me improve on characters like Somnus as well. I'm also quite happy with how the angles have been coming out as well. It's easy to draw characters facing the camera, and I'll admit that that was something I often did when I was younger, but it's nice to try things from different angles as well.

This character, who is named Nogitsune Nagisa (in the Japanese format of surname first and given name last) was created in a role-play, where I tested out the shapeshifting character, and fell in love with them. There is a lot of depth that such a character can have, not only with being able to explore how the character may win or fail at faking people's identities, but also looking at the psychological side of being everyone but yourself. The picture was inspired by a scene in which Nagisa was speaking with another character on the RP, named 'Bokudou', and a particular conversation that they had there. It stuck with me, somewhat, and thus this image was born in my mind.

To see the full sized image, check it out here and maybe even leave me a comment or two. :) Constructive criticism always helps to improve and that is something I hope to do as an artist. You never stop learning, after all.

Well, until next time!

Tara

Grumpy Bunny Competition!

Hi everyone! Welcome back!

I hope you've all been having a great Halloween this year! And, with it being October 31st, I decided to celebrate by.....doing something that has nothing to do with it. lol. Not to say I wouldn't have done something Halloween-y, but I had a project that had the deadline of the 1st of November, which I was completing this week.

Now, some of you who have been following me for a while might remember me mentioning a competition I had joined, under the title 'Grumpy Bunny' - the project stated that the submitted art had to include the titular character of Bubblegum, from the comic 'Bubblegum and Marzipan' by Foxhat64, who was, for whatever reason, being grumpy. Permitted was any of the other cast from the comic as well, so long as Bubblegum was grumpy. Thus, in my head, I could only imagine the whole group of them stuffed in a room together with Bubblegum grumpy at having the attention taken away, and from that I ended up with what I like to call the Grumpy Bunny Pile Up.

Now, this project was something I admittedly put off for a bit after initially drawing it, mainly as it's deadline was very long, (literally about three months or so, perhaps longer) and I had other projects with closer deadlines, but I finally turned my attention back to it once more and this is the result! :)

(The full version of this is available on my Deviantart for anyone who wants to see it in its full size.)

Character wise, for those unaware of the comic, we have Bubblegum at the bottom, the blonde bunny, Marzipan on the left, Nash the owl on the right, Luna the cat on the top, and Cynder the fox peeking out by Luna's leg. All the characters, of course, belong to Foxhat64, though these are my iterations of them.

I do hope that it does well in the competition. Much like last time there are plenty of talented artists that have taken part, so it should be fun to see how we all do. Wish us all the best! I'll be sure to let you all know how things went once the results are called :)

So, until next time!

Tara

Inspiration!

Hi everyone! Welcome back!

I'll admit that this past week hasn't been a good one for me. I've been ill through most of it, honestly (likely having caught a bunch of things while traveling from the US, or due to the cold I got on the plane my immune system dropped) and only really just recovering now. So admittedly, I've not really been 100%. Still, despite the fact I've not managed to get much work done this week, I thought that I would focus a bit on the Dreamwalkers universe a little.

So far, I've spoken of three of the main characters in Dreamwalkers, a bit about what Oneirology is and how S.O.S fits into the study, and a little bit about the main antagonists of the series, the Oneiros. So, what does that leave us with?

Well, this time, I thought I would actually get a little deeper into Dreamwalkers - not in the story itself, but rather into what made me create the comic in the first place.

Inspiration comes from many places and in many forms. For me, the beginning inspiration for Dreamwalkers came from music. Weirdly, not even really from the lyrics, but the sounds of the tune behind it. Indeed, one of the tunes that inspired me was a Sweedish lulaby, Byssan Lull, and I'll admit here and now that English is the only language I know that I can actually read and write proficiently in (and even then I can get tongue tied or my dyslexia gets in the way), so I actually began coming up with concepts for Dreamwalkers waaaaay before I actually found an actual lyric translation for the song. In this version of the song, the clock pendulum sound in the background, the slow beat and the soothing, almost mystical sounds to it seemed to me to have an underlaying mysticism to it, at least in my head. Coupled with the fact it was a lullaby and it was what gave me the basis to create a story that involved sleep and dreaming.

Researching dreaming on sides such as dream interpretation, as well as the actual concepts of sleep, along with the more mystical aspects that I used to make up the enemy in the story were interesting as well. I always find that if you have a personal interest in what I'm going to be drawing or writing about, it helps to keep my focus and also makes the whole process enjoyable, rather than a chore. And honestly, there is a lot of interesting things about dreaming, sleep and the effects on the mind. Some concepts such as lucid dreaming also made for interest to me, in how the Dreamwalkers can actually function while in the dream worlds.

Essentially, using dreams as the main plot point to a story, rather than some kind of 'And it was all a dream' twist ending means that you have a lot of room to play with. Each dream could even be considered a new world, with different laws and physics, and as each dream is formed from a different mind, new concepts, or even art styles can come into play. The dreams of a child, for example, are not going to be the same as those of an adult. And likewise, as dreams can be influenced by a character's waking self, the lives of each individual character could also effect the events of their dream worlds. All in all, considering it that way, each mission would be new, while still retaining a connection to the overarching plot.

The limits of what could be done, while conforming to the basic plot, of course, is still very much only limited by imagination: that of myself as the creator, and that of the characters 'living' within the Dreamwalkers world.

For me, even now there is a lot that I can still research, and so much potential I can bring to the story, just by looking into actual scientific research as well as dream interpretation which in and of itself could actually grant information about the characters who's dreams the team enters - you would essentially be seeing the character's state of mind without even needing to use words.

Essentially, in Dreamwalkers, even the most 'boring' seeming dream would still have some interesting information, I feel. Of course, that's assuming that they hadn't just ate something funny before sleep. lol

Still, all in all, its interesting where you can go from just a bit of inspiration. And I do hope my spark of inspiration will, at least, make for an interesting series, even if I currently only have the first chapter completed currently. Make sure to keep an eye out for more Dreamwalkers info as I bring it to you.

Hoping that I'll be in a much better state of health, until next time!

Tara

New York, New York!

Hey everyone, welcome back!

As you might recall from my last blog post, or if you've been following me on twitter, I was in New York last week. And while I'm having to resist the urge to sing Frank Sinatra's 'New York, New York' as I type this, this week I'll be talking about my experiences over there, since for me, it was my very first time going to America. Though I'll say this right away that the five days I was there was nowhere near long enough to get a really good experience of the place. It's so big and there was tons of exploring I wanted to do. But it is a place I really would love to go again, for a longer period of time.

So, thankfully the flight was smooth going there. A good thing, really, since it was the longest flight I had been on. Well, I should say 'flights', since we had to go to Amsterdam first. I never quite got why going to Amsterdam, then from there to America would be considered cheaper, though, especially since you have to go back on yourself to get to the US, but I didn't arrange the flights. Might be something I should ask at some point, but hey, the plane to JFK airport was pretty cool. It had a screen in front of each chair that you could watch movies and play games on, we got a pillow and blanket included (which I did attempt to use, even if I pretty much failed at any sleep past ten minute dozing). Oh, and free headphones - which is good as mine seemed to have died half way to the airport.

I seem to have bad luck with headphones.

I think my main complaint was the food. While its awesome that food and drink was included, I really can't eat much plane food. I'm probably a very picky person, but I could only eat about half of the stuff. I was glad for the drink, though. 6 or so hours on a plane without it would have been killer.

So yes, my rambles of travelling aside, New York itself was a really nice looking place, and while its not 'beautiful' in a 'look at all the greenery' fashion (Discounting Central Park), I have to say it was still a very pretty city in its own right. We were staying at the YMCA near Columbus Circle, and it was pretty interesting to look at the various venders and sculptures and generally just how life is in comparison to home. It's a strange experience for me, who comes from a pretty suburban area, to go to larger cities, with the exception of London and Leichester, which I've been to for conventions. Each of them have their own charm, of course. With New York, it was amazing how tall everything was, and yet it wasn't really a dark place in a 'blocking out the sun' manner either, as the tall buildings also seemed to reflect the light around.

Honestly, if I wasn't acting as the main navigator between Nadia and I, I would have loved to have been able to focus on the architecture if nothing else.

I think my only real complaint, if you can call it a complaint, was signs. Some of them were a bit hard to find at times, though mostly if using the subways. I suppose if you live there, you probably know where you would be going, but as for myself, downloading both a street and subway map was a lifesaver to make sure I wasn't a moron and going on the wrong train, since it was rare to find a train map once you passed the barriers. But other than that, we weren't too bad off, and if we did get a bit lost, people were really helpful. Maybe I'm just more used to reserved people, or people who are far too used to getting jumped by people trying to sell stuff or ask for money for charity or something to do with religion, but the residents mostly seemed quite happy to point us in the right direction. Honestly, people did seem a bit more open to talk. I mean, in the UK, more often than not, on trains or other public transport, people usually only talk if they know you, but a few times we were spoken to on the train by strangers. It really was weird, cause I often had the very British reaction of 'OMG a person is talking to me randomly, who the heck are you?' in my head, but it's not like I want to be rude either, you know? Still, it was a nice change of pace, my weird thoughts aside.

I'll admit that a lot of the time we were there, we were looking mostly at different types of food sold in America that I've never had in the UK, which is where the navigation came into play. Nadia was mainly pointing out where to go, and I was getting us there. Food was a bit mixed - I'll admit, I kind of like not too complicated stuff when it comes to food. I don't handle spice all too well, as apposed to my friend, who loves the stuff, so between us we had varied reactions to some places, where I was happy with the food, but my Foodie Friend was much more critical. Though we did have a few bad experences on that front. Nadia and me chat about the food on the Tanrastudios Blog, so you can check out our thoughts there - a bit of warning, though, its a very informal and opinion based post, and Nadia is prone to swearing, but we cover all the places we went for food there.  Still, I can show a few pics of the types of food we had :)

 

Oh, there was one food thing that I did find funny, though, which I didn't talk about on the other blog, was that I got renamed by Starbucks, which I found funny. I was named 'Tari', which really confused me when they called my order out, since I knew I said Tara. Maybe it was just busy, but I'll admit it was funny. I'll admit I made a few 'Atari' jokes - well, after I managed to say 'I didn't know I was a Tari' to Nadia and my Pun mode kicked in. lol

Yeah, I'm a bit of a fan of bad jokes. I drive Nadia mad all the time when I hit Pun Mode. lol

So, anyway, food aside, I did get to see a few things.

One of these was the New York Comic Con!

I mentioned before that getting the tickets had been a nerve-wracking experience, considering just how fast they sold out, but I was glad that I had it delivered to me. While the convention itself was much like London's, albeit bigger, it was still fun to look around. There were some interesting sights there, and I'll admit, by the end of it, my feet were almost literally dropping off! I didn't particularly buy much, but I do hope that, one day, Nadia and myself will be able to go to New York Comic Con as venders at some point. I think that would be awesome. We do have a long way to go before that, though. But one day! 

On Wednesday, on the Tanra blog, we'll be talking about the con in length, hence my somewhat brief mention of the subject here. But we'll definitely be covering it and I'll be retweeting the link, if you guys are interested. I'll also link you all in on my next post too. :)

I got to see the Statue of Liberty, too, though from a distance - we were on a ferry.

But still, its the closest I've ever been to that historical monument, so its still pretty cool. I managed to get a picture of it, though I'll admit, my photography skills on my phone are terrible. I certainly wont be winning any awards for those any time soon! But it was still pretty cool to have the reminders.

We would have gone to see the Empire State Building too, but that trip had been scheduled the evening we arrived and I'll admit I was suffering from Jetlag there. It is a place I'd love to see some day, though, along with other similar places too, so I'd definitely want to come back.

Going back home was about as fun as arriving, though with added colds to the mix - the problem with flying, I guess. With the air circulation, if one person has a cold, or is ill, pretty much everyone ends up with the same thing.

Still, despite that, I had fun on the trip and would definitely go again for a longer period! :)

So, for now, until next time!

Tara

I'm So Excited!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

I'm really excited for the coming week, which I've spent most of last week prepping for! While I was still attending university, before my graduation, me and a few others had signed up for a trip to New York! It's the first time I've ever been to America before and its one of those places I've wanted to go for a long time, even before I started the Cartoon and Comic Arts Course (The other place I've been wanting to go for years being Japan), so even if its only for less than a week, I'm really happy to go!

So, what does it mean for you guys?

Well, it mainly means that I wont be able to blog this coming weekend, but instead, I'm going to be taking los of videos, maybe filming a bit on my phone to show you all what we get up to in NYC. Considering one of those days also includes the New York Comic Con, I think there'll be a lot to report! I'll be posting these pics and videos on my Facebook page, the TanraStudios Facebook Page and both my own and the TanraStudios twitter live, so, if you happen to be in the area, so if you follow any of those, keep an eye out!

Oh, for those who just read my blog directly, here are the links to mine and the TanraStudios Facebook and twitter:

My Twitter

My Facebook

TanraStudios Twitter

TanraStudios Facebook


I'll also be doing a blog post once I'm back in the country again, including all my thoughts and feelings on the trip, too, so I hope you guys look forwards to it, cause I know I'm pretty pumped!

Sorry that this post is a fairly short one this week. As mentioned, I've been running around making sure that my ESTA, insurance, money and belongings I'll be taking with me are all sorted, along with my day work, so admittedly I've done little in terms of art work, which sucks. But hey, I'll be making it up with all my photos and thoughts of the trip

So, until then!

Tara