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Gorbo made his mind.

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    I am curious, way earlier you stated you learned that oil used for lighthouse was made from whales.
    Was Gorbo still in the story, or came after as a result of this knowledge? How did the story change?

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  • sharkinthepark Comment by an artist on this post

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    bluemoonstruckwolf said:
    I am curious, way earlier you stated you learned that oil used for lighthouse was made from whales.
    Was Gorbo still in the story, or came after as a result of this knowledge? How did the story change?

    Good question! They came as a result of knowing about whale oil in lighthouses.

    My memory's a bit fuzzy (I almost said "Me memory's", hahaha), but at the start of the project, Gorbo was definitely not a fleshed-out character. I had the idea of a menacing whale causing some chaos, but nothing more. And then Gorbo slowly materialized over time while I was painting pages. The page you mentioned is when I decided on their motivation, because burning whale oil explained perfectly why the whale would be angry! And then the page with the possessed radio is when I decided on their backstory, and so on. The idea came in waves.

    I like writing notes down and then thinking ively for months. Writing a story involves a lot of problem solving. You have plot points and backstory that you have to lay out in some reasonable order. But sometimes there are ordering problems, or scope problems (some arcs are too long) or pacing problems (too fast or too boring) or whatever. So I like to take my time, put it on the back-burner for a bit, and then come back whenever I have good ideas.

    My notes for other future stories follow the same process of laying down the general idea and some plot points, and then iteratively adding detail and events and reordering things. It's kind of similar to the best practices for painting : you want to sketch the basic shapes first, get the proportions and values right, make sure the "feeling" is good, and THEN start adding detail over it. That makes it so you can change your mind early and quickly and avoid wasting a bunch of time fixing things later, etc etc etc. So I'm doing a kind of equivalent thing for the story itself, if that makes sense.

    I'm definitely not planning every detail ahead of time, but I'm not "letting the characters lead the story where their hearts desire" either. It's kind of in the middle, and iterative, and I make decisions as I paint each chapter.

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  • sharkinthepark said:
    Good question! They came as a result of knowing about whale oil in lighthouses.

    My memory's a bit fuzzy (I almost said "Me memory's", hahaha), but at the start of the project, Gorbo was definitely not a fleshed-out character. I had the idea of a menacing whale causing some chaos, but nothing more. And then Gorbo slowly materialized over time while I was painting pages. The page you mentioned is when I decided on their motivation, because burning whale oil explained perfectly why the whale would be angry! And then the page with the possessed radio is when I decided on their backstory, and so on. The idea came in waves.

    I like writing notes down and then thinking ively for months. Writing a story involves a lot of problem solving. You have plot points and backstory that you have to lay out in some reasonable order. But sometimes there are ordering problems, or scope problems (some arcs are too long) or pacing problems (too fast or too boring) or whatever. So I like to take my time, put it on the back-burner for a bit, and then come back whenever I have good ideas.

    My notes for other future stories follow the same process of laying down the general idea and some plot points, and then iteratively adding detail and events and reordering things. It's kind of similar to the best practices for painting : you want to sketch the basic shapes first, get the proportions and values right, make sure the "feeling" is good, and THEN start adding detail over it. That makes it so you can change your mind early and quickly and avoid wasting a bunch of time fixing things later, etc etc etc. So I'm doing a kind of equivalent thing for the story itself, if that makes sense.

    I'm definitely not planning every detail ahead of time, but I'm not "letting the characters lead the story where their hearts desire" either. It's kind of in the middle, and iterative, and I make decisions as I paint each chapter.

    Ah, I see!! Interesting! I do sometimes myself slowly change points or motivations as time goes on.
    Unfortunately, I rarely put down notes and forget context of things. I usually kept things in my head as i overthink a lot.. and now, after not thinking, forget a lot of details.
    I do agree on filling in the details in between. See what might make more sense. Or better make it to the intended point. A few times how I want things to go between characters don’t quite match how I want things to go story wise (hence many branching). I struggled a long time with painting and sketches because I struggle to keep an end goal in my head without seeing it physically. If I make simple shapes and see it, it’s hard for me to apply my thought to it, so unfortunately I try to finalize early xp or even before I start! (So way delayed), even after years of practicing…

    Perhaps I should try putting what I can down to paper again, but more *broadly*! I usually worry if k write something down, it changes permanently what I had in mind ambiguously vague in my head x)

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  • sharkinthepark Comment by an artist on this post

    Member

    bluemoonstruckwolf said:
    Ah, I see!! Interesting! I do sometimes myself slowly change points or motivations as time goes on.
    Unfortunately, I rarely put down notes and forget context of things. I usually kept things in my head as i overthink a lot.. and now, after not thinking, forget a lot of details.
    I do agree on filling in the details in between. See what might make more sense. Or better make it to the intended point. A few times how I want things to go between characters don’t quite match how I want things to go story wise (hence many branching). I struggled a long time with painting and sketches because I struggle to keep an end goal in my head without seeing it physically. If I make simple shapes and see it, it’s hard for me to apply my thought to it, so unfortunately I try to finalize early xp or even before I start! (So way delayed), even after years of practicing…

    Perhaps I should try putting what I can down to paper again, but more *broadly*! I usually worry if k write something down, it changes permanently what I had in mind ambiguously vague in my head x)

    I'd say do what works for you. Most of the time, I have a bunch of ideas floating in my head and it takes energy to everything, so it's nice to transfer them into notes so I don't have to think of them anymore, and I don't worry about losing them. It's for the exact reasons you mention! And maybe it's easier to brainstorm and rearrange things afterwards in a text editor than in your head :P

    About choosing "permanent" changes : one thing that bothers me while painting is making some change to the painting and then having second thoughts and wanting to come back and worrying about not being able to undo. To help with that, sometimes I make a whole copy of every layer (like all 50 layers or whatever) and then continue painting on the copy. It makes it easy to compare both ideas (just toggle the layer folder visibility) and you can easily restore the old version. I suppose you can also copy the whole file, or use snapshots if your drawing program has that, but I find it a bit cumbersome and it takes me out of the zone. Copying layers is pretty easy/quick.

    I don't know if there's an equivalent for stories or notes... Maybe it's possible to duplicate the whole story and make changes and then compare side-by-side? Or at least have a backup of what the original idea is? Not sure about that... I tend to just slowly change the story in-place, and move parts around. I don't really revert any choices once I make them.

    > I struggled a long time with painting and sketches because I struggle to keep an end goal in my head without seeing it physically. If I make simple shapes and see it, it’s hard for me to apply my thought to it, so unfortunately I try to finalize early xp or even before I start! (So way delayed), even after years of practicing…

    I want to check if I understand : You mean that it's easier to draw from reference / real life because you can see what you're supposed to copy, but drawing from imagination is hard because you don't see the end goal at the beginning? It's only vague ideas in your head, and you have to translate it somehow into a drawing that satisfies your vague vision?

    That's true. Conjuring an image from imagination in my head is kind of hard for me! Maybe I have no imagination or maybe it's normal. I think that's why thumbnailing and figure drawing and sketching exist. They help materialize an idea. I need more practice with those things, actually... because I don't do them, hehe...

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