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

Random Stuff!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, I'll admit I've been a little busy this week with work and planning out part two of Dreamwalkers, but since I can't really show any of the sketched comic images without spoiling things right now, I thought I should show you a few other things I've been working on in the meantime. It's not quite the same, I know, but I hope it'll be interesting anyway :)

So, the first thing was something of an experiment in inking and also in doing more fine details, such as doing hair. My usual style is, admittedly, a little more simplistic where hair is concerned, and admittedly, I was a little unsure how it would come out. While the image is currently unfinished, this is what I have so far:

It looks a tad weird when its unfinished, especially since it looks like there are horns growing out of the character's back right now (Spoilers: they aren't horns, just something unfinished. lol), but I have to admit that the hair did come out quite well. Though admittedly, it did take me a while. I started by drawing the outlines of where the hair would flow, before adding in the shadows/inking to each section individually.

Admittedly, this likely isn't the most productive manner to do this in comics, and there is probably more efficient ways, but I'll admit that I prefer to experiment a bit before I actually look up tutorials. Again, its a bit of a weird way of doing things, but I am a bit weird. I guess its just it feels easier to adapt tutorials into whatever I learned from my experimentation, rather than trying to use tutorials and then trying to experiment with them when I've now got a full 'this is how you do it' in my head.

But that;'s just me, and I know I'm odd. lol

Either way, I'm quite pleased with how its turning out so far, and I hope that the trend continues as I work on it more. There is still a lot to do. Like finishing the armour, the wings, and....well, the lower body.

Still, this isn't the only think I've been working on. I've also been asked to do a continuation of a tattoo that I did last year. This time, I've been asked to make a pocket watch over a cracked part of skin, which will have words underneath, with various words such as freedom and liberty, etc. There is also going to be a broken chain coming from the pocket watch.

This is currently my progress on that.

 Have I ever mentioned before that drawing circles by hand is difficult for me? Still, it's not as bad as it could be, right? I didn't want to rely on the circle tool, especially since I'll have to work on thicknesses on certain sides of the circle and such. I do think that what will take the most time, though, is the cogs on the inside of the clock. There is a lot of detail there after all, and one of the requirements I was given was to have a pocket watch that showed those cogs in the middle. Still, I'll persevere! I do hope the rest of it will work out, though, as I want it to go well. It is for a client after all. Hopefully, once I'm done I can show the final result and how the client liked it too :)

That's all from me for now!

Until next time!

Tara

Somnus Oneirology Specialists

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

Today, I thought I would talk a little about something I've mentioned in a few of my posts about my comic, Dreamwalkers. That is, the group known as S.O.S, which the central plot revolves around. As mentioned, S.O.S, in this case, rather than the usual Save Our Souls meaning, stands for Somnus Oneirology Specialists.

Now, as you probably know from any of my previous posts, Somnus refers to one of the main characters and founders of this group, and I'm sure I don't need to explain the 'specialist' part. However, Oneirology, the middle part of this version of S.O.S, is not a standard word that everyone uses day to day. However, it's not a made up word. Oneirology comes from the Greek 'Oneiron', meaning 'dream', and 'Logia', meaning 'The Study of'. As such, the word Oneirology translates to 'The Study of Dreams'.

According to Wikipedia and similar sources, Onreiology researches the connection between dreams and known brain functions, the mechanisms of dreaming, how dreams can be influenced, as well as how the brain works in dreaming pertaining to memory formation and mental disorders. The aim is to study the process of dreams, rather than analysing the meaning behind them, so Onreiology is a completely different study than that of Dream Interpretation.

Considering that the creatures that Dreamwalkers revolves around, the Onreios, effect dreams on a physical level, enough that it can change brain functions to essentially kill the dreamer from their own dreams, Oneirology fit far more than dream interpretation. That is not to say that some dream interpretation couldn't be added to the specific dreams that each victim might have during the series, but the Dreamwalkers are mainly looking at brain function during the sleeping states of the victims to monitor their state and locate and classify the Oneiros, which is far closer to Oneirology.

In the story, S.O.S is meant to be a legitimate business. A character whom has yet to be introduced, is actually trained in Dreamology, and as such, they can still earn a living, even when an Oneiros-inflicted victim isn't the one walking through the doors, but as mentioned before, Oneirology in this case can only locate and classify the Oneiros. Now, you may be wondering where the 'Dreamwalking' is involved.

Using the Oneirology as a basis, the Dreamwalkers are then capable of traversing the dream on a conscious basis in order to neutralise the supernatural threat. Now, while Dreamwalkers on the level of this story might not exist, there are such things as people who are fully conscious of the fact they are dreaming, and are even capable of influencing their dreaming actions to a degree. This is referred to a Lucid Dreaming, and is the basis of the idea of Dreamwalking, and thus the basis of the idea for those characters that are capable of hopping into people's dreams. It is certainly an interesting idea that you could have this much control over your dreaming self, and certainly opens up interesting story related doors, especially since the trope of 'everything is a dream' is used less as a twist ending, and more as the premise you already know, but doesn't act as a buffer. Rather, the fact that everything is a dream is actually the reason things are so deadly during the waking parts of the story, where it is now 'real life'.

So, the S.O.S team essentially blend real studies with the supernatural aspect of the story to create the events that Dreamwalkers works around.

Still, I am interested in exploring the ideas of dream interpretations as well. After all, there are characters that only appear for a single case, so the fact that you could divine information about them due to the kind of dream they are having seems an interesting way of developing characters in this universe, if only slightly. Of course, relying only on that would make things very open to interpretation in some cases, so regular story telling applies as well, but since comics and manga are a visual medium, it certainly peeked my interest.

The world of dreams and its studies are certainly interesting ones!

Until next time!

Tara

Speed Sketching

 Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, I've been doing a few things recently. I've been rather busy at my day job, so I haven't really been able to focus on Dreamwalkers much. But I do have some news! I'm going to be going to New Work Comic Con! Not selling anything, unfortunately (maybe one day once there are lots more volumes of the comics done and there is more of a following. Tis a goal!) but it'll actually be my first time attending a con abroad. And considering that it's likely to be even bigger than London, I'm really excited to see how things are done over there. My ticket arrived in the post yesterday, so I'm really hyped now. Less than a month to go!

I'll definitely be giving my impressions of it once I return, but I'll talk about that more a bit closer to the time.

In the meantime, I've just been working on a few random things. Firstly, I was working on creating a portfolio picture for a Naruto OC I made a while ago. I'm going to be creating a full version including different angle shots, different clothing types etc. If the final version goes well, its my intention to do something like that for the Dreamwalker characters as well too. But as its not too important, I've only been working on this version on and off. While all the angles have been sketched out so far, I've only got one of the full body drawings finished.

It's certainly been interesting doing this, so I think it'll be fun to be able to do such things with the Dreamwalker cast, especially considering the interesting clothing styles that Somnus and Ashling tend to favour.

As well as slowly working on that in spare time, I've also been seeuing just how fast I can do sketch/colour drawings. They certainly aren't neat, of course, but I'm mostly using them as warm ups to keep my hand in while I've been busy with my day job (I don't work set hours, so they can change weekly. Normally I have more time to work on my comics). As said, not neat, but they have been quite fun. These are a few of my quick five/ten minute sketches:

Not all of them came out brilliantly of course, especially since I was limiting myself to five to ten minutes to draw and colour as best I could. These two were some of my favourites, but it was fun just messing around, sketching whatever I felt like and just keeping practicing until I can really get back on track again. If nothing else, it was just fun trying out different styles, even if they are only in sketched form. Hopefully, I'll be able to show some more things soon too! It'll be interesting to see what might inspire me next. :)

Until next time!

Tara