Really Rough Storyboarding For A Minicomic I Am Working On. That Second Panel Is A Giant Glass Gate,

Really rough storyboarding for a minicomic I am working on. That second panel is a giant glass gate, which is going to be a pain to draw...

Did a random animation because I am still figuring out Procreate Dreams. This is a metaphorical representation of a random side effect of using a blood magic in my current WIP - whatever color your eyes were, they get redder and brighter. One character's eyes are bright orange, like this animation. I have another animation in progress that also shows this effect a bit, but who knows when I'll finish it because it is far more complicated than this one was.

Character Songs

I've had the idea to write songs for each of my MC's in my current WIP. Once again, procrastinating that editing. Problem is, I'm not very musical, but I am channeling what musical theater knowledge I have to do it. Really different genres for all of them, though, which is a big part of the fun. Are there any characters for whom you strongly associate some music genre? Or a song in particular?

There was something you were hiding, on the night you ran away.

"That looks kind of like a friend of mine – is it a bear?"

In regards to the character songs I have been working on (by the way I am not a songwriter this is just for fun) they have really taken me by surprise. For example, one turned out to be some kind of anxiety rap. Another turned into this long thing that I can't get out of my head (I guess I find it catchy). That one is Tye's, and since he is raven themed, so is the song. I feel like talking about that, so I will.

So the nursery rhyme "One for Sorrow" has inspired a lot of people and a lot of things. It's an old rhyme, so it's been around. There are even multiple versions of it, though they are somewhat similar. The idea behind the rhyme is that the number of magpies (yes, originally it seems it was magpies) would indicate something positive or negative. One and two are very established - one is BAD. Two is GOOD. One for sorrow, two for joy. This actually has roots in some actual bird behavior because a lone magpie means something about bad weather, I think, so it actually does hold that seeing single magpies is a bad sign compared to dual magpie action.

Now not everyone has magpies, but the practice of counting corvids holds true across a broader geographic range. So people "counting crows" is a part of that, though often in North America, people are looking at Ravens. It all falls into the same category, really.

I really find this a compelling concept because it really has a vibe. A single raven signifying sorrow? Poe loves it, too. The band Counting Crows obviously agrees with me. So Tye as a character is kind of the 'lone raven', and has to come to terms with the fact that he can't ever signal anything but sorrow: he can't ever be two ravens, so he'll never signal joy.

He also has a sort of obsession with counting crows (backstory reasons). As such, the song has several references to specific numbers of ravens. They also often vascillate between good and bad omens if you take away or add just one, so that's a repeated theme in the song. One verse goes "Five ravens, one flew down. I begged him not to do it, may as well have made no sound". For those of you with some familiarity of the rhyme, you may wonder why he's begging that one raven to stay - it's because in an earlier version of the poem, it reads "Three for a wedding, four for a death", so when it was five ravens, the omen was just about silver. With one fewer, it signals death.

If anyone has any interest in the lyrics I wrote, maybe I'll post them. Maybe I'll record the actual song, too, we'll see