I couldn't have been older than 11 when I read The Flaming Heart of Danko by Maxim Gorky. And boy, did it cut me with the finest of fine glass. Even now thinking about the short story hurts somewhere deep in my soul.
And yet, I love it so ...
Danko's Flaming Heart
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Dec. 5, 2020The Work of the Mentor
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Oct. 17, 2020
Might as well get it out of the way: if you're a mentor in a story, chances are you're going on a boatride over the river Styx at some point.
When a mentor dies it's often the signal that the main character, the one being mentored, is ...
Character Design Brainstorm: The Man (or Woman) of the Cloth
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 29, 2020
There are many tropes and many archetypes that we use for character designs. I had a couple of years go (have I really been at it this long!?) done a series of articles on the standard character type/functionality archetypes.
I'm thinking it's high time to explore archetypes ...
SquareEnix Life is Strange Review
kawaiidaigakusei at 12:00AM, April 6, 2020
With more time spent at home, I have been able to dive into some of my favorite past-times that I used to do when I was middle school aged. One of them being playing video games. Growing up, Squaresoft and the Final Fantasy video game series completely shaped my identity ...
What makes your comic special?
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Sept. 13, 2019
When you’re creating something like a webcomic it’s very easy to diminish your own work. You work on it every day and, if you’re anything like me, you only ever see the mistakes. During my regular stalking of the comic forums I came across a thread asking ...
Pure Evil
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 20, 2019
I've talked about villains before and how they can be very nuanced in their motivations (without those motivations being redeeming) but today, thanks to Emma Clare's Friday post, I became inspired to talk about abject, absolute, abominable villainy! The twirling mustache type, the one that is so pure ...
Handling Controversial Historical Characters
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 13, 2019
image by Ben Burgraff
When writing a historical fiction, it's very likely that you will need to include some actual historical personalities along with your historically-adept yet fictional cast.
Depicting a historical character is hard enough when there's a general consensus among historians and popular belief about who ...
Building Platonic Friendships (Part 2)
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, March 9, 2019
Building a platonic friendship has its challenges, not only because as an author or creator of your webcomic you will need to handle the audience's propensity to assume your male and female lead will be romantically involved, but because of the demands you'll need to meet to make ...
Writing Your Own OC Spinoffs
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 5, 2019
I'm not sure how many creators do it, but I often place my original characters in different settings, writing out stories about them very much like I'd write fanfiction about some established franchise.
It's even more fun when I do it mixing them up with characters from ...