Character Portrait Project

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, Now that Bendy and the Ink Machine has inspired me to draw many other things as well as those about Dreamwalkers, I decided to look at some of the Original characters I have only ever sketched in the past and decided to do portraits of them for the purpose of showing in the roleplay that they are all part of. As a forum moderator, it makes sense I should probably show what some of the figures look like that are part of the main plot.

As such, I started with, admittedly not my oldest characters, but one of my more interesting ones. Perhaps it is because I have been looking at horror playthroughs, but it certainly inspired me to draw one of my more.....Ah....psychotic OCs.

So, here we go! Say hello to Yume Arashi! I began with a base sketch first, which I like to do freehand in pencil first.....though this one I actually drew in biro for the lack of having any other drawing materials on hand. I'm surprised it came out so well with minimal mistakes!

Sorry if the image is a tad blurry. Still, the real version allowed me to use it as the base for the digital version.

Just in case the image is not too sharp, you can see the fully uploaded version on my Deviant art page here: Yume Arashi

So, yes, I mentioned Arashi being a little on the psychotic side. Well, Arashi here has an ability which, unfortunately, has a side effect that can cause eventual psychosis. Probably doesn't help that he was something of a psychopath to begin with anyway. Arashi is one of the few character's I've written as who enjoys causing pain and suffering, even if he might be a good actor at times to make it seem otherwise. It is somewhat creepy when you can write a torture scene, trying to get information out of an enemy, with the torturer being joking and teasing the entire time, honestly, as you start staring at your hands wondering where the heck something that dark came from. But that aside, he is probably one of the most interesting characters to write as, as you're also writing his decent to further insanity. If nothing else its interesting in terms of narrative.

I'm considering doing more portrait like profile pictures for different characters as well for the role play, if only to help people to see exactly what characters may look like in an otherwise fully text based roleplay.

As usual, comments and constructive criticism is always welcome :) After all, it will all help me improve!

Until next time!

Tara

Something A Little Different

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Before I get started, I promised last week that I would put a link up to the review of the various places we visited while in Birmingham for the Comic Con there, which we posted on the TanraStudios blog. If you're interested to see what we thought, then click here and enjoy! :)

That done, on to todays post!

So, this week I started looking at the horror genre again to see if I could get a bit more inspiration for any of the nightmares, be it for atmosphere or just for the interesting horrific things that might turn up in nightmares. I mean, really, some nightmares can be pretty messed up after all. And so, in doing so, I tried looking at drawings and games and clips from films (because I admit if I watched the films too long themselves then I wouldn't be able to sleep for over a week). In my research I came across a relatively new, episodic game called 'Bendy and the Ink Machine' - thank Nadia for this since it was through her pointing out a fanart that I first heard about this. For those of you who might not have heard about it, BatIM is based in an old cartoon studio, which was obviously inspired by the old black and white Disney cartoons, such as Steamboat Willy, With one of the artists invited back to 'see something', leading to what appears to be the awakening, or creating of a real life version of the star character, Bendy. There's only two chapters out at the time of this blog, but I'll admit, it did interest me.

I had been thinking in the past that, in Dreamwalkers, the art style of the dreams should also differ, depending on who's dream they enter, be it due to colour (or lack thereof), or more realistic, or maybe even more cartoony etc. It would differentiate the waking world from the dreamscape, while allowing me to explore different ways to portray the dreamer's personality, or even allow me to have more flexibility in what the SOS crew can pull off within the dreams, as I imagine that each dream would have its own 'rules' to follow.

This lead me to doodling a little. Which lead me to doing fanart.

Yes, I have once again started doing some fanart. Still, it has let me explore 'horror' yet in a different kind of art style, so if nothing else, it let me have some practice! The drawings I did were avatar/icon style images that could be used online, so I only had a certain amount of space to work with. If nothing else they could be edited to make badges, perhaps! Let me know what you guys think?

Either way, first was the image I doodled which evolved into a colour piece.

Admittedly, its probably more cartoon that horror here, but it was a first attempt. I think the thing I enjoyed the most was doing the glowing eye here. Still, I wanted to try to get used working with only a few colours and get used to a slightly different art style as well. I think the ink itself could be improved, as I didn't really get around to the lighting on the ink properly, so it's come across a little on the flat side. But it was interesting to get used to drawing Bendy himself. Hopefully I'll do a few improvements on him to make the ink pop a little better.

Still, I'll admit I enjoyed working in almost sepia tone, which was similar to the art style from the game, and so I tried something slightly different in terms of both the shading and texturing in the next part.

Please note this one definitely isn't finished yet, but the majority is, so I thought you guys might be interested in seeing it :) Once again, please excuse my horribly photography skills

This one, I feel, is coming out closer to what I originally imagined. It still looks cartoony, but with hints of more....not exactly realism, but grittiness, I guess? The drips of the ink look a bit less cartoony - sorry, I haven't looked at highlights yet on this one - (it reminded me a bit of when I did the front cover image for Dreamwalkers, honestly!) and you can see the grooves in the wood. I definitely think if I drew a kids nightmare with a cartoony like figure looking similar to something like this, it would certainly be scary to that child. Not to say there isn't more to do here, but it seemed to be a good basis.

Its been nice experimenting, and also allowing myself to get some of my interest in other things on paper.

Characters aside, atmospherically, the game does pretty well, using the cartoony/comic like art style and making it pretty damned creepy, too. Its worth a look at for that, if nothing else, but the gameplay as well in pretty interesting and the unfolding story looks pretty promising, so I'll probably keep looking into it as more episodes of the game come out....and hope I don't end up scared of shadows for months after.

Yes, I am indeed a big wimp. Ah well

Anyway, hoped you enjoyed my doodle detour. Its great to post up some stuff for you all :)

Until next time!

Tara

Birmingham Comic Con!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, this past weekend, I, as part of TanraStudios, was over in Birmingham for the Birmingham Comic Con. On Twitter, I had been doing posts hourly or so on the Tanra Twitter, which I retweeted onto my own twitter too, documenting some of the events. Buuuuut, if you guys don't follow me on twitter, I'll be giving a bit of a summery/review of some of the events and how things went for us at the con.

Nadia and I actually went to Birmingham the day before the con, so we could leisurely set up and get used to the area so we wouldn't be late. We were staying at the Paragon Hotel, which was about half an hour or so walking distance from Edgbaston Cricket Grounds, where the Con would take place. The hotel itself is fairly big. We did have a leak in the original room we were given, but we were quickly given a new room. The leak itself looked like a new thing, since we only noticed about five minute after we got there when we heard the dripping. The room we ended up getting for the rest of our stay was fairly good. The beds were pretty comfortable, there was a kettle with tea and coffee we could have and the necessities were stocked too.

We only really stayed at the hotel to sleep, though, and once we had dropped off our things and we had finished setting up for the con, we had gone about exploring a little. We weren't too far away from the Bull Ring shopping centre either. About a 25-30 minute walk from the hotel, really. So, we ended up heading that way for food. I'm not a big foodie, myself, but Nadia is, so we'll probably cover our food adventures on the Tanra blog. I'll be sure to link it in on my next blog update. Still, I had fun trying something new. I had never been to Yo Sushi before.

Still, Con wise, since we had set up the day before, we got to the con on Saturday pretty relaxed, not needing to really do much other than relax until the con began. The first lot of people came in with early access tickets about 9am, and the rest of the public joined in at 11am. The con went pretty well, despite the fact that it probably wasn't the best suited con for us. The majority of people were there for western comics like Marvel or DC, but it wasn't to say that there wasn't any traffic for us. We sold several comics, the Luck Dip was as popular as usual and we even got a couple of commissions as well.

Speaking of the commissions, Nadia did one, while I did the other. I was asked to draw a full body sketch of my interpretation of a character known as 'Power Girl'.

....I'll admit I....actually hadn't heard of the character before. But admittedly my experience with western comics is pretty much limited to Spider-Man, Batman, and the cartoon versions of X-Men, Justice League, Young Justice, Teen Titans, Batman Beyond and the Marvel films that have come out in recent years. If Power Girl appeared in any of those it might have been something I missed or forgot about. Still, there are plenty of pics online that I could look at to get a vague idea about her. Either way, this was my interpretation:

As usual, sorry for my horribly photography skills. I took the picture from my mobile phone and I'll admit I'm pretty bad at photos. lol

Either way, we did fairly well at the con. We certainly covered the table cost and got a bit of profit too. We also made friends with some of our neighbours too, so that was fun, especially having some cool conversations, and we even got a free magazine at the end of the con, too!

Oh, we also visited a couple of the stalls. There were about three that we especially enjoyed. There was a stall that was selling these cupcakes that had bits of fudge inside which were really nice - I had this chocolate Orange one which was pretty awesome. They did really well too! No surprising, they stuff not only tasted nice but they looked wonderful too. One of the other stalls was selling some snack type items, such as ramune, and even things like 'Zombie Jerky' and Harry Potter style 'Butterbeer'. I didn't get to try the butterbeer, though our neighbour did (Apparently it was like a cream soda?) but I did try the jerky. It was a teriyaki jerky that had some type of food colouring to make it look like zombie skin. It tasted nicer than it might sound, though it wasn't something I could eat a lot of at once. Lastly, we visited a stall that sold bubble tea with little juice balls that burst in your mouth when you ate them. That stall was called Manhua Cha and those were really nice. I can certainly see us keeping an eye out for them again!

Yeah, I guess Nadia and I just really like our Bubble tea! lol As we always say, we'll always have bubble tea :3

The con finished at 6pm, and, honestly, we had a pretty good time! Or at least I did anyway. It would be pretty cool if we could go again. We'll have to see about it again a little closer to the time. I'll let you guys know if we head there again!

Still, while not a big con like the MCM conventions, it was still a pretty good one and I'd certainly recommend going. Apparently the tickets were pretty cheap, too. It was certainly affordable for us to table at, at any rate.

We stayed in Birmingham for another day, leaving late on Sunday. Oddly enough, at this point we didn't even need to use google maps at this point to get us to the Bull Ring. Its always nice to get your bearings. It was cool to get to look around. Being from a smaller town, it was nice to get to see some stores that just aren't available around my idea. I even managed to pick up a birthday present for my dad while I was there. We also got to eat at some interesting places, too, Edd's Diner and Café Soya, the later of which sold really nice bubble tea, too. We ended up with some to take away after we ate while we picked up our luggage and headed off to our respective transport home. I was pretty lucky, actually, I reached the train station and my platform just as a train I could take pulled in. I rarely have such timing!

All in all, I'll admit I had a pretty good weekend, from Con to just hanging out in Birmingham and both of us would love to go to the city again. Maybe even for a week trip instead of a few days. There was loads we didn't get to explore, after all.

I'll be sure to link in my next post the Tanra Blog(s) that will cover the eateries in more detail, if anyone is interested in our reviews of them. Who knows, you might want to visit them yourself!

Until next time!

Tara

Comic Con Ahoy!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

I'll be taking a break from the usual dream and nightmare mythology for this week to let you guys know about an upcoming event! So, here I am to let you know that this coming weekend, I, as part of TanraStudios, will be at another con! This one is the Birmingham Comic Con on the 29th of April!

Our comics, which also includes Dreamwalkers, will be on sale at the convention, along with prints and we'll also be offering commissions as well to anyone interested. As usual, our popular Luck Dip will also be available, allowing people to win anything from chocolate, to one of our comics for only a pound a play!

I'm pretty excited for it, to be honest!

Either way, if you're attending the event, please keep an eye out for us! We'd love to see you. You'll be able to find us at the event here:

I'll also be live tweeting from the event, too, so be sure to keep your eyes open for those! I could be commenting on anything from Stall events to cool cosplays to food related stuff or even just random doodles that me and Nadia might be doing throughout the day. Hopefully you'll enjoy our messages. I'll also be commenting on my summery of the event on my next blog post as well, so if you've never been to Birmingham Comic Con before, you might be interested in seeing what its about.
If you're in the Birmingham area in general, you might see us around on the day before and the day after the event, too. I'll admit that I've only been to Birmingham maybe.....once or twice in my life? So we're hoping to make a good trip of it. You're all welcome to come say hi if any of you see us around. I know I'm looking forwards to seeing Birmingham as well as the con!

Hoping to see you all there!

'Til next time!

Tara

Nightmare Facts

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! I know that this past week, including the Easter Weekend, when I wasn't working at my job, I spend most of my time doing more interesting searches on dreams and nightmares that would both help in my portrayals in Dreamwalkers and purely for interest in the topic - its amazing the kind of things you can learn about dreams and that's not even including some of the stuff we've already looked into! During my search, I came across this pretty cool video on YouTube which was actually pretty relevant to my research, too, and gave a few interesting facts, too, some I've mentioned in passing and others that were pretty new to me as well.

As such, I thought I'd share the video with you guys. The video, of course, is not mine, so all credit goes to Alltime10s on YouTube. Give his video a like if you enjoy it, and give him some support :) I know I have! He's even got a few other dream related videos, too, and many other really interesting vids, so check him out :) I left a link to his YouTube channel if you click on his name.

For now, though, lets have a look at his Top 10 Horrifying Facts About Nightmares

I hope you enjoy! I know its certainly helped give me lots of interesting things to look into more, too :) Definitely a good point to start research into nightmares.

I'll certainly be looking up more interesting videos, facts and mythologies surrounding dreams and nightmares, too. I am also starting on a new tattoo project for a client, too, so hopefully I'll have some more in depth stuff to show to you guys for next time.

Until next time!

Tara

Dream Meaning Crash Course

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, for a little while, I've been covering creatures in mythology that effect sleep ir dreams in some way, shape or form. Today, I thought I'd take a break from that to revisit a topic I very briefly covered earlier on. When I say briefly, it was....well, pretty darn brief. So, today, I'm going to cover what some things in dreams might actually mean. Dreams can be interpreted in many ways, depending on what is present in dreams, and to cover every single meaning could take a while. However, I thought today I would cover ten different things that might show up in dreams and their meanings. I'll be sure to cover more another time, though, especially if this does interest anyone :)

So, here's a list of ten different dream meanings:

1) Teeth Falling Out: It is thought that, if you ever dream of teeth falling out, it is likely that you are anxious how others perceive your physical appearance in real life, and, how they might judge you on that physical appearance. There are also other things it could symbolise, such as a feeling of helplessness or loss. This dream is seen a little more in women than men.

2) Dirty Water: If you dream of dirty water, it is thought that this may actually be a signal from the unconscious mind that there is something wrong or unhealthy with the dreamer - a warning system, perhaps, to alert the dreamer of the dreamer not being at full health, perhaps?

3) Storms: Much like the event bringing its own brand of chaos in real life, it is thought that, if you dream of storms, a part of you feels as if you aren't in control, or that you're being strung along by events you can't influence. Perhaps a feeling of helplessness, maybe?

4) Chocolate: If you dream of chocolate, there is two ways you could interpret this: Either you feel you should be rewarded for something and deserve some form of special treatment.....or you've just been indulging in way too much of the stuff! lol. Well, not exactly being too indulgent in just chocolate, as funny as this interpretation could be, but rather just excessive indulgence in anything. The Chocolate here is just a subtle hint to, perhaps, practicing restraint.

5) Missing Big Events: If you dream of something like this, for example missing out on an important date, or a big event, it could mean that you're feeling anxious about failing something. Or, perhaps, just anxious about the event itself. Missing it entirely would certainly be failing at something important, wouldn't you say?

6) A House: If you dream of a house, it often symbolises a person's actual body. If you have such a dream and the house you see is a mansion, you may have an exaggerated sense of self, or at least have a rich sense of self. It could also represent one's future potential, too.

7) Drowning: As sort of stated in the dirty water dreams, dreaming of large bodies of water symbolises the unconscious - I guess this is why the dirty water can be the unconsciousness giving a warning. Dreaming of drowning can symbolise feeling overwhelmed, especially by unconsciously suppressed issues. There is also a slightly lighter symbolism too, that you have moved to a new stage of your development and what is drowning and 'dying' is the old self, instead.

8) Naked Dreams: A commonly used dream in some shows, often played for laughs, dreaming of being naked suggests exposure of oneself to other people, though not in a physical sense, but rather in a vulnerable way. It could also be caused by feelings of shame. On a slightly different note, it could symbolise a desire for freedom, or perhaps feeling unencumbered (from responsibility, maybe?)

9) Feet: People can sometimes react oddly to feet in general. It seems similarly the case in dreams, too. Feet can have all kinds of odd interpretations, such as freedom and mobility, a foundation in something, all the way up to things like sex or humiliation. I imagine that, to get a true understanding of why feet are prominent in a dream, you'd need to compare it to other things appearing within the dream. That way you could probably find the truest interpretation.

10) Forests: Forests are similar to large amounts of water in dreams in that they can also symbolise the unconscious mind. So if you ever find yourself wandering a forest in a dream, you may be exploring the unconscious realm, or you are finding comfort within your mind's refuge from the demands of your daily life.

Of course, this barely scratches the surface of things that could be in your dream and how they are interpreted. Indeed, even what I mentioned could just be a very quick peek, as I'm sure there are much, much more detailed reasoning for why you may dream any of these and the exact meanings for them in certain contexts. Still, I do hope that you have found some interest in this. I hope to bring some more interesting dream meanings to the table in the future, too, maybe with more details as well. So, if you've enjoyed reading about this, let me know! It'll be a big help :)

Until next time!

Tara

Dream Mythology: Dab Tsuam

Hey Everyone! Welcome back!

So, last few weeks we looked at mythology in dreams where the item or creature mentioned was actually benevolent towards humans. This time, we'll be looking at a mythology which had a lot of influence towards Dreamwalkers, or, more specifically, in the Oneiros themselves. As with many dream myths, there was usually an actual sleep based phenomenon that it was used to explain, similar to how the Mare were thought to have been a cause of Sleep Paralysis. This one goes a step further, not just paralysing the victim temporarily, but rather causing outright death.

In 1977, there was the first noted case of unexpected and, at the time, unexplained, death during sleep, among the Hmong refugees in the US. It was noted again between 1982 and 1990, when 230 otherwise healthy Thai men all died in their sleep of unexpected causes. Pretty scary, to think that someone could just die in their sleep for seemingly no reason at all, right? Indeed, what is now known as 'Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome', or 'Sudden Adult Death Syndrome' (Shortened to SADS), 'Sudden Unexpected/Unexplained Death Syndrome' (SUDS) or 'Sudden Unexpected/Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS), actually inspired several things, such as the film Nightmare on Elm Street and also brought about the belief amongst the Hmong in the supernatural creature Dab Tsuam (Pronounced 'Dab Cho').

Dab Tsuam is the one that we'll be looking at today, however. Unlike Nightmare on Elm Street, this one certainly hits the mythology status.

So, who, or what, is Dab Tsuam?

The mythology states that Dab Tsuam is a hideous, hag like woman, who, similar to the Mare, would sit on the chest of the victims. Unlike the Mare, however, she would stay there on the victims chest until they could not breath and would die as a result.

Its now known that the cause is a genetically irregular heartbeat that is difficult to detect or could have been missed entirely, which lead to the deaths. But it seems the saying of one being 'scared to death' could indeed have some fact. The belief in Dab Tsuam was so strong, that it is thought that it caused people night terrors about the woman, which, in turn, put strain on the heart and exacerbate the underlying heart issue, resulting in the end deaths, seemingly without any explanation, during their sleep.

Its hardly surprising that a Nightmare on Elm Street might have some basis here.

I do suggest reading up about SADS though. It's definitely an interesting read. Not to mention pretty scary to think about since there' only really one effective treatment method, too.

There are other mythologies which have similar beings to Dab Tsuam. These include Bei Gui Ya in China, Dutch mythology's Nachtmerrie and Philippian folklore's Batibat or Bangungot.

Still, it is certainly interesting that there are dream myths that are linked to thinks that have happened in fairly recent history.

Until next time!

Tara