Hestia-Edwards

Well, as you probably can guess, I’m not active on this site anymore. I thought that perhaps I didn’t love art as much as I did, but I realized that’s not the case: I started working digitally, and I’m catching up to my old comic-drawing habits. What I realized, really, is that I no longer enjoy posting and interacting on dA. This makes me sound like an old-timer, but other old-timers would agree: dA isn’t what it used to be. I really enjoyed its previous self, where people would comment on art and suggest improvements, or have long discussions in the forums. These happen on a much smaller scale now. It was also inspirational, where great artists would share their works of beauty and their tutorials and insights. These artists have sailed from dA shores.

As to where I will transition to, well...That’s a good question. Pixiv comes to mind the most. I’ve been following the Art Spacious Discord, and it sounds like their dA-alternative will soon arrive...But I get the impression the user base will be young people, and it’s not a good fit for me. When I have a new “home”--or at least a residence—I’ll update everyone here.

For other news, I broke my promise...Was it a promise, or just an intention? Regardless, I failed to continue drawing Broken Arm traditionally—the latest page was done entirely digital. I was surprised how much I could emulate my traditional style with Clip Studio Paint—can you tell the difference? I originally bought a Huion Kamvas, because “real artists use a graphics tablet”...And I dreaded using it. Plus, the official Huion store thought it was good policy to send me a “new” tablet that had wrinkled wrap, fingerprints and pet hair on the equipment. Thankfully I could return it free of charge, and I gambled with an iPad instead—And I won the gamble. It feels far more natural to me, having been used to traditional methods for so long, than a “proper” graphics tablet. Clip Studio Paint works well on it, so I’m grateful I finally found my digital equivalent.

So that’s my update for now.

Hello Friends,

August was a busy month for me: I spent 11 days in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), and just moved to a shared apartment closer to work—it’s a 15-20 minute walk. Though admittedly, uphill when coming back. I don’t know what will happen with snow: maybe I’ll buy a plastic sled?

I happed to check dA, and someone gave me a month of Core! I am pleased—it’s my first gift in return for posting my creative stuff.

I started drawing the next page of Broken Arm, and I still have unpacked boxes in my room. As far as mental health goes, I feel the best that I have in years: I leave work wanting to go to my room and draw or create something. I feel that during the past month God has been peeling away my perfectionism, and for the first time in years, I feel that I can trust His Goodness. My 20’s were spent in a very conservative Christian culture, and I could only see God being like Calvin’s dad:

...And my congregation was telling me that we’re supposed to submit to such a personality. Another belief that was rampant from my home state was “God helps those who help themselves”. So essentially, make good choices, neglect your feelings, and expect nothing from life except pain.

Only since I moved to the East Coast and cut ties with my family back home have I been able to discover that there’s more to God—yes, He does encourage character-growth with rain, but also with sunshine. I’ve only been able to enjoy the sunshine-aspect recently.

For other, lighter news: I’ve been following the reviews for Rings of Power. For a little personal background: I was a Tolkien-geek in high school, just in time for the Lord of the Rings trilogy to release in theaters. I also saw the...Less than stellar Hobbit films. Or as my boss said, “they should not have been made”. Anyway, with two trilogies of opposite quality, I have been curious about the Amazon production. To my amusement, the show has been review-bombed in mass—so much so, that Amazon removed the reviews from the site. Rotten Tomatoes originally had some favorable reviews from film critics, but now those are hidden, while the negative fan reviews keep piling up. Now I had read the appendices and the Silmarillion previously, and I knew that to make a show about it would be very difficult. While LotR and the Hobbit have recurring characters, and the main story takes place over (roughly) a year—Silmarillion has hundreds of characters over thousands of years, and few of them recurring. So I knew that the show creative team would have to be..eh, creative. I actually don’t have much of an opinion either way about the Rings of Power, and while I find it interesting that it’s getting review-bombed, I also don’t have a lot of sympathy because it’s Amazon. Maybe if it was a different studio I would feel bad for them?

This review I liked: the reviewer isn’t a Tolkien-Purist (beware!) or even objecting to the casting choices: he is comparing the LotR films to the show, and I think this is a fair comparison. And simply put, he found the Amazon series lacking so far.

https://nerdbot.com/2022/09/03/the-rings-of-power-is-bland-boring-but-beautiful-review/

Will I watch the series? From what I read, the first episode (or two) is mostly exposition. Since I tend to avoid engaging in anything that has a prologue, whether it’s the prologue in the LotR books or avoiding Stand Still: Stay Silent for years, it is unlikely the series will keep my interest. I also have a hard staying interested when a ton of characters are introduced at once, even though I understand that the anime Baccano! is really good, or I might have a hard time with Game of Thrones even. So probably not.

Talk to you soon,

Hestia

Hello friends,

Well, to be honest, I have been avoiding giving an update, particularly about the Anime Boston convention. In truth, it wasn’t a disaster—rather, to most people, it seemed (mostly) a success. God blessed me with calm nerves, and I could maintain an approachable, conversational tone throughout. A good number of people stayed for the entire hour and asked questions. I gave handouts with my list of supplies and a QR code to my website, and I saw people visited.

So why the hesitation to give a report?

I guess I realized that—partly, I’m not the same person I was two years ago when I first applied to do a panel—and partly, my enthusiasm for traditional art is sapped. For the former, I used to be obsessed with marketing myself, and only saw the panel as a way to exposure. For the later, I mentioned in a previous journal that I feel my future with traditional art is limited. When the voice in my head said “you will not go far working in traditional art”, the realization crushed me like a wave. I grieved, and am still grieving. If somebody told me that one of my dad’s cats died—or even my favorite one—I would grieve less. It’s as if an athlete was told he has a weak heart, or if a ballerina got a torn knee. My future as I dreamed it included creating my comics in pen and ink, and sharing my expertise of the craft.

Regarding the later, I also found it odd when I did the panel. I sat at an elevated platform, the same that you see famous people when they do panels. I looked down at the audience, and they looked up to me. They seemed interested in what I had to say, and they asked me questions.

And I realized that I didn’t like it. Who am I, that these people come to hear a stranger talk about drawing comics? Who am I, that they ask questions to, possibly regarding a challenge they have? Why was I on an elevated stage, when I wanted to interact with the audience?

After the panel and the convention, I just feel uncomfortable about the whole thing. Not sure why. Perhaps I can only credit it to being a different person from before. Perhaps some motivations have shifted as well: for example, how I approach art. Before, I admit my attitude was sometimes, “what shortcut can I get away with?” Now more so, I feel inspired not just to tell stories, but also to express beauty and well-done craft. Whether it’s John Waterhouse paintings or Demon Slayer animation, the execution of craft makes me to create my own.

So that’s my art-update. For other news, I am visiting Scandinavia in August of this year for vacation, the first time I’ve been outside of the States since the pandemic—actually, the first time outside of the state, but anyway. Lastly, I am moving in September, but it’s a 20-minute walk to work, instead an hour-commute both ways. So I hope to be more productive come fall.

Hestia

Hello friends,

As the title says, this is my official post stating: I’m doing a panel at Anime Boston 2022 (not 2020), and I am scheduled for Saturday, May 28th in the evening. My topic is covering how I use traditional manga tools for creating comics for the web. I will essentially breeze through my methods shown in my tutorials:

I use a page from Broken Arm. I’m thinking of doing the next page in the sequence, where the first panel is a hand using scissors to cut the boy’s sleeve, and the second panel is the doctor and nurse inspecting the patient. I have the preliminary inking for the first panel:

Essentially, I’m thinking of using a page that has panels, with clear gutters: so that leaves out pages 1 and 3. I could do page 2, or 4 or 5.

I prefer not to do pages 6 and 7, as they are setting up a (mildly) humorous scene. And I am leaning towards page 8, but that might be depending on time I have left before the convention. So if you have any feedback that, let me know, I’m curious. :)

For other news, some months ago I wanted to do an experiment: what if I stepped-up my Christian walk? Specifically, spending more time on learning about Him and soul-searching, and submitting to His will. A beautiful consequence of this renewed dedication is a lot of mental healing. It hasn’t been easy—a lot of humbling myself and relinquishing what I hold dear, but I can easily say this is the best I’ve felt in years. I want to go home at night and create and write. I have more energy, and I’m gaining self control with what I eat. But I have to remember that these blessings are side-effects—I remind myself that without Him, I cannot do anything.

Lastly...It only took me 7 years, but I started Pokemon Go this week. I had put it off because I thought it requires unlimited data, which I just got, but apparently it uses cellular. Oh well.

Talk to you later,

Hestia

I realize that God has been working on my prejudices. Not the ones I was conscious of, mind you: but the ones either I didn’t recognize, or just blatantly believed were true, no questions asked.

The first one was my disinterest in learning a Scandinavian language: I already know English, why spend time on another Germanic language that, well, wasn’t German? But over two years later, I am still studying Norwegian, with tentative plans to visit the country this summer, and plans to take a proficiency exam in the language.

The second one, again language related, but also culture related, and one I’m more ashamed of: I was all about the Japanese language and culture, but had little interest in that of Korea. If you asked me which was “better”, I would say subjectively, Japanese. After a spiritual mirror showed how biased I was, I began to feel ashamed to harbor such views. Now I’m parking Japanese study for the moment, and picking up Korean and Hangul.

The third, and the most painful realization, has been my bias for traditional art. I say painful, because as I reflect on the time it takes to draw a comic page with ink and paper, and the vast amount of story I want to tell visually by comics, the stark realization come:

“You cannot progress by drawing comics traditionally”

This might have been obvious to anyone else, but it hasn’t been obvious to me—actually, it came as a shock this past week, and left me in a grieving state (I feel better now). Looking back over the past few years, I could see my interests start to creep towards the digital realm: I finally purchased a drawing tablet for editing CRG (when I reached the fifth chapter, that is); I have made extensive use of Affinity Photo, and some experience with Photoshop, Affinity Publisher, and Gimp; I am familiar with the font program Glyphs; my most recent computer purchase is equiped for learning 3D rendering, which I want to do; and lastly, because I work at a university, I can take a Character Design course for $40, which will include learning Maya and Mudbox.

So yes, I’ve been slowly getting more and more exposure to digital means—but I had every intention of continuing to draw comics traditionally. I admit I take a lot of pride in my hand-eye coordination, and my increasing drawing skills with the pencil and pen. I have spent hours either researching traditional materials and techniques or improving my hand-eye coordination in particular, or improving my art. If you look through my gallery, you can see my experiments with different papers and inks and techniques. My dreams and goals have to been to be a master of traditional techniques—like the title of the Cal Newport book (which I have a hardcopy): “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love”. This was my aspiration, this was the current identity of Hestia: the traditional-art hopeful who will carve her niche in the comics realm.

...But really, did I seek skill just so I could say “yeah, I did that traditionally—you should be impressed”? Was this entire lifestyle just to boost my ego, and the comics were just a vehicle? Did the story I wanted to tell, matter?

Part of my search for technique skill has also been a search for economy: both in time and money. Watercolors proved expensive as far as supplies—specifically, paper. Studying noir comics would free some time devoted to inking, but as you can see in Broken Arm, I still scratch a lot of details with a fine ink nib. I considered ink washes, but struggled with how to keep spaces devoid of color without using watercolor techniques. This lead to study of sumi art: perhaps I could learn how to make decisive brush strokes? But then...How on earth do I do precise buildings? Do I just forgo my detailed backgrounds?

So this might sound like an obvious lead-in to digital art—but it wasn’t so obvious to me. My identity is “traditional art”--see, look at my description below my dA avatar. Plus, let’s face it, I’ve been biased to some extent against digital art.

And I am sorry.

And the irony of it all, it looks like I might join forces with digital artists. If I consider the comic stories I want to tell—stories including the characters introduced in CRG, in Broken Arm, leading to the Atannan comics—if I want to make any discernible progress in the story, if I want to have more than one update a week, then I need to first ask myself: “how can I make this happen, to the benefit of the story, and to the benefit of my readers?” Perhaps it is time I stop trying to find ways to make myself look better, and instead consider the needs of the story, and in turn, consider the physical needs and limitations I have.

So, in conclusion—Broken Arm might be the last comic I draw traditionally. Again, ironic, because I will doing a panel at Anime Boston about drawing comics using traditional manga tools next month.

In short, considering my physical limitations as well, I can’t have deadlines for Broken Arm. I can’t say “I’ll have an update by ---”. Instead, I want to do a good job on this comic, I want this to be a show piece, a portfolio piece perhaps. So when I update, is when I update.

Tl:dr I’m transitioning out of traditional comics into digital? And no deadlines.

Hestia