Star Road Woes - Cancellations, Cutbacks, and what ever happened to that animation?

Alright, in case you didn't notice...

I canceled DiVA. Again.

~headdesk~

The first time I ended it, I had glorious plans of reviving it.

The second time I ended it, it was because relationships reflected in the comic totally changed in the real world.

So why end it now?

Here's a better question - why continue it?

While I love DiVA in the sense that it's my first comic, my baby, etc... it's time to move the fuck on with my life.

The main character is supposed to be me - named after me, can sing like me, etc. But she's not me. She is simply not me. She has very vague traces of my personality, but even then there are so many things about her that are so unreal. She's way prettier than me, she's successful, she's daring. I mean jeezus, the personality trait she and I have most in common is our laziness.

And hell - like 50% of her character design was made up by someone who wanted to make a character based off of me. She's not even really mine.

And even if you take into account that this is a story about anthropomorphic animals in a pseudo-fantasy setting...

She isn't me. Keep that in the back of your mind while I go into this next subject.

Friends that are in the comic. One just about dropped off the face of the planet, another just doesn't talk to me, yet another I can't decide if I even like anymore or not, and a would-be boyfriend that randomly stopped talking to me for a year.

The only characters worth keeping are the "NPCs" and like two of my friends. I've thought about bringing in other friends, but won't that just perpetuate the embarrassment like DiVA the first?

And then there are the constant worries when it comes to my friends. Did I interpret them well? Have I unknowingly exposed some sort of flaw that they wouldn't want people to know? Have I been too worried about embarrassing them to even make their characters...them? Even now, I can't answer that because I'm not them.

It's easier with Prismatic Star- because even though alot of my characters are loosely based on people I've known in my life, it's a very loose association which allows me to mold the character any way I so please without - I dunno - offending someone.

Did you remember to keep that thought of DiVA =/= me in the back of your mind while I went over all that? Do you see corellation here?

Not happy with the main character, not happy with the supportive characters.

And goddammit I hate so many things about the music industry, yet I have a pop singer for a main character. What. WHY. It's supposed to be a huge part of the story's premise but goddammit I hate the idea of having to write and draw music industry crap.

And I hate the word DiVA. Not just because of its stupid shift-lowercase-CAPSLOCK crap (why did I do that anyway?!)...but...the meaning of the word is different now than it was when I decided to call my story that. When I named the comic and character 'DiVA', my thoughts were - "confident singer". Now it seems to mean "demanding bitch". I kept the name during its reincarnations because...I had no better ideas. Just like the rest of the damn comic.

The current definition of diva suits it well. Demanding bitch. No matter how I try to let it go, it keeps demanding I bring it back. Not this time though! This time it's gone for good. And no amount of nostalgia will bring it back.

That said, I've been cutting back on my site - alot.

Star-Vox.Net expired and I decided not to bring it back - mostly because it's just easier to use a subdomain on star-road.net. Now, the idea of star-vox was originally supposed to be my vocal stuff and included a podcast I used to do with a friend of mine. Podcast died, friend stopped talking to me - there was very little point in having it anymore. Kept it initially to post videos and stuff too - but even then a full domain seems unnecessary. So yeah. All that stuff will be moved to http://media.star-road.net ...whenever I get around to it. As a tribute, I'll have Christi the Cat (NOT DiVA anymore!) be that site's mascot. It seems suitable yes?

Also deleted the fan works page because no one actually sends me artwork anymore. o.o You wanna see my fan art just do a dA search. ...hey look, more retarded case changes!

Despite the rumors that totally don't exist, I'm not giving up on the Caps and Crowns "animation". Though, being ridiculously inexperienced with animation - I've decided to cut back on the workload for that. It's going to be an animatic/storyboard with voices and music. I'll have one or two parts that are actual animation - it'll all be very experimental.

As for my voice actors, I'm sure most of you have forgotten about this whole thing by now, haha! If anyone needs to cancel your participation, let me know. Also - I have a few roles left if anyone wants to join up.

I'm making a few changes to the script but it should be done within the next month or so (I'd say "within the next week", but everytime I say those four words it ends up being half a year XD).

tl;dr - DiVA's cancelled, new multimedia site coming soon, caps and crowns animation's still on but cut back to animatic/storyboard style.

Oh yeah, and I UPDATED STAR DEMON the other day.

Descent

Click for Larger Version

This is my first experiment with any kind of watercolor - in this case aquacolor pastels. There are tons of mistakes, and the scan looks awful compared to the original, but I think the experiment was overall a success. I know what I need to work on, so perhaps I'll make more art like this in the future.

ALSO: Anyone reading this should check out my tegaki blog. Tegaki is a blogging site where you DRAW your entries with a mouse or tablet instead of typing. You can find it here.

Speed painting

COMING SOON:

Those of you that are already groaning at my comics' crappy updating schedule can just shut up.

Because now I would like to announce my next comic series! Presenting~


YEAH I WENT THERE.

First of all, I want to acknowledge two things - first, I am very much aware of Captain SNES. It is a very well done sprite comic, which I enjoy greatly, and I've no intention of copying it. I'm also aware that someone named Captain Wii is out there on the internet and promoting Wii in Perth. I've no intention of copying him either.

The conception of Captain Wii - the Game Mistress was another of those situations in which my muse kicked me in the face with an idea and I just ran with it because I felt I had no choice. Why a girl, you ask? Why NOT? Girls play games now more than ever, and most Nintendo heroes are guys. Having a girl fight with them changes things up a bit! Besides, when you have a female protagonist - the female readers relate to her and the guys fanboy over her. It's all good!

On top of that, the main character, Sky Ericson, has been floating around the back of my head for the past decade. She was my very first character. She's had many surnames and many forms, but Sky has always had a certain appearance and a certain personality. In my teens, she was my avatar, but she's since grown into her own. She's always been tied to the original Nintendo Nsider - where I used her in interactive stories, so bringing her into the Captain N universe was not exactly a giant leap. Here and there, old school Nsiders may see some subtle references to the good ol' days. :)

Furthermore, the Wii itself brings to mind many ideas of how characters could interact (Smash Bros, anyone?) and the kind of abilities the new Game Master could have. Think of anything you've been able to accomplish with the wiimote and nunchuck and she has that ability - whether it be swordfighting with Link, launching into space with Mario, or picking someone's nose in the world of Wario Ware. And if there are any giant tv monsters, you just better LOOK OUT because the wrist strap is coming OFF!

With the introduction of Nintendo Wifi, the Mii channel, and the Everybody Votes channel, Videoland is connected to the real world like never before. This will make for some interesting character interaction! And with the Virtual Console - video worlds of both past and present are accessible to the new Game Master.

The comic also peers into the current life of Kevin Keene, now 33 years old, and Princess Lana, what they're doing now, and introduces their family members into the equation.

Overall, I'm really looking forward to doing another nintendo comic that's a little more free-reign than Caps and Crowns. :D The comics will be episodic, similar to the old cartoon. References to Captain N will be constant, but with a fresh writing style and better character designs!

I hope you guys are as excited as I am. :D

ONE PIECE - Franky and Nico Robin

FINALLY.


Click for larger version.

This is a commission I have owed Mankey for months. ~SHAME~ I still haven't gotten far enough in one piece to know much about Franky, but the character is quite interesting, if not ridiculously difficult to draw.

His legs were initially included in the drawing, but I realized when I was halfway done coloring that one leg was grotesquely shorter than the other. Hence the crop. :D I think it looks better like this anyway.

Eiichiro Oda, I love you, but you HAD to have been on crack when you were designing some of these characters. XD

Anyway, because I was late...

I did a bonus sketch for him (MAY BE NSFW!)

Again, click to enlarge.

I hope that makes up for the delay, Mankey! :D

Prismatic Star Character designs

My bigger projects are taking a little longer than expected - so all I can leave you with right now are new character sketches for the upcoming Prismatic Star.




If you are curious about the characters and have a livejournal account, feel free to join the Prismatic Star Livejournal Community. Thanks!

Introduction

Hello. My name is Christina Warren, but I'm also known online as Prismaya.

I am an artist specializing in cartooning and surrealism. I will be using this blog to show off sketches, finished art, crafts, and even some music.

Stuff about my private life is posted in my livejournal, which is restricted to friends only. But here you'll get all my creative...stuff.



Like this :O

I'll try to update this blog fairly consistantly, but it's pretty much based on how much art I make =P

Much <3