Episode 394 - Nostalgia, creative fuel?
Oct 1, 2018
Nostalgia! - Where does it fit in the creative process? People are the product of their influences. For a lot of us the strongest influences happen when we're growing up and learning about the world and all the things IN it for the first time. As you get older the things you experience don't make as much impact, simply because your brain has already had most of its “first times” and it's already learned enough about the world to be fully functional and independent.
Topics and Show Notes
“Nostalgia” is strongest when you harken back to those formative experiences, many little “origin stories” so to speak. Art that references nostalgia can make you feel more connected to it, it can give you a mental rush when you recall how much you loved something and looked forward to it, it can transport you back to when you had a particular frame of mind and dwell on that.
Also, things are always cooler looking BACK than when you're actually experiencing them because your mind romanticises and embellishes memories, creating impressionist paintings of them…
The recent film Ready Player on (directed by Spielberg and adapted from a book) plays on pop-culture nostalgia heavily, as well as the nostalgia of formative experiences and contrasts it with the need to live in the present.
Of course nostalgia helped sell that film and made the book a hit. Films, books and comics can use nostalgia in many ways to draw an audience in. Creators can use it to make themselves get enthused for their work.
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Metal Ice Cream, this sound is a spaceship full of mysterious, robotic, metallic, clunky and compelling dance beats. Grind your gears! Shake that chunky metal body till it rattles!
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Drunk Duck Awards 2018 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2018/sep/25/featured-comic-drunk-duck-awards-2018/
Links:
Listen to us on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=224306&refid=stpr
Or TuneinRadio
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Featured music:
Metal Ice Cream - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Metal_Ice_Cream/, by DanielLeister, rated T.
Episode 393 - Set the scene!
Sep 24, 2018
In THIS Quackcast we chat about shots! The kind you get from a camera… Long short, bird's eye view, worm's eye view, high angle, low angle, wide angle, fish eye, close up, ultra close up… You can use them to set the pace of the narrative, increase drama, reveal or conceal elements and so on. Shot types and angles are really important in story crafting. This was based on a newspost by Banes. I was actually IN Athens in Greece sitting next to Tantz Aerine for this Quackcast. It was cool to be in the same place with at least ONE of our fellow casters. Banes was still in Canada and Pit was in London, making a very brief cameo appearance at the very end.
Episode 392 - Outside hobbies
Aug 19, 2018
In this Quackcast we chat about what interests we have outside of webcomics and we want to know what YOU do as well. What are your hobbies and interests? Our interests and hobbies really inform what we do as comic creators in all sorts of ways, it can be fascinating to learn about what drives a person and what led them to be where they are now. For Banes it was music, keyboards, drums, magic and ventriloquism. For Tantz it's writing and a fascination with surgery. For Pit it's archaeology, heavy metal, and art. For me it's making, art, costume and sewing. What about you?
Episode 391 - personality mix group dynamics
Aug 19, 2018
This Quackcast was based on an idea from Banes. We chat about designing a group of characters with complementary temperaments. In Banes' own words: “I like the idea of the line between a logical, left brained person and a creative, right brained person, crossed with a spectrum of a more active, extroverted, action taking temperament and a more nurturing, introverted type.
Episode 390 - Imprinting on your characters
Aug 15, 2018
We nicked the idea for this Quackcast from a newspost by Emma Clare. What we chat about is the unintentional process of giving your characters you own traits or even traits of people you know without realising it: Every time you draw an expression for your character you're not really creating a generic expression but basing it on yourself… when you character is being quizzical or irritated for example people may recognise that as you. It could be in other things too: their taste, the way they dress, what they like to eat, their furniture. things that annoy them, their hobbies etc. It's interesting how tied they are to us.
Episode 388 - Coding for Men and women
Aug 15, 2018
In this Quackcast we discuss the artistic coding used to represent males and females in comic art in a simple, minimal way. Pitface joins us, along with Banes and Tantz Aerine! Much like an expert physicist is able to simplify enormously complex equations into something seemingly simple like E=MC2 a good comic artist simplifies the essence of what they're drawing into something that's immediately recognisable without a lot of complexity. We're mainly talking here in terms of drawing men and women. It sounds like the most basic, silly thing, but even pros with years of experience have trouble with it. Some of the art for the new She-Ra cartoon is a great example of that.
Episode 389 - Intimidating Baddies
Aug 14, 2018
What makes bad guy intimidating? Tantz Aerine made a great newspost about the question, carefully outlining various key bad-guy properties like confidence, composure, efficiency, and amorality. Banes, Pitface, Tantz and I stomp ALL over that, traipsing about like drunken, muddy rugby players, as we blather on about our opinions of the idea and finish up with no idea what we're talking about...
Episode 387 - History and Pastiche
Aug 7, 2018
In this Quackcast Tantz and I chat about the differences between working with historical settings and the different approaches we take. Tantz's comics (Without Moonlight and Brave Resistance), are both set in a real period of history: Nazi occupied Greece during WW2. Pinky TA is set in the 1920s in an alternative version of history, with Pinky coming from the fictional “Crimean Empire”. Tantz has to keep times, places, and details close to real history while with Pinky TA I can pick and choose the things from history I like the best and create my own idealised pastiche. The advantage of Tantz's approach is that everything is there, nothing has to be invented, just researched and reproduced, whereas my approach involves a lot of creation which slows things down and makes it harder. On the upside Pinky TA is much more flexible, I can easily fit whatever I want into the story, whereas Tantz's comics are bound by the rules of the history she's presenting.
