Caylista Art & Comics

[Moni]

Hanso is so adorable and mischievous! I think the posing and facial expressions really sell it; he's like a kid who's avoiding talking to you and also sheepishly knows what he's doing is Not Okay by adults. I just want to hug him. And Brynn, naturally, has a poindexter feel to her even in kid-form. It might have to do with her longer features. x)

And Roberta's hair being different is a nice touch too. She looks so cherubish with shorter hair pfff. Tormund is... well, much the same, I guess. For some reason I don't imagine him looking or acting too differently as a child, mostly because he already had a childish disposition in TDF, so maybe I have a hard time looking past that.

Okay, I'll stop blathering. They're so CUTEEEEEE is all.

as for requests i will make one for--*shot*

[charming thievery]

OMG I am dying from cuteness overload! 😆💕 Hanso and Brynn are so adorable!!! >///<

I especially love Hanso's expression in the second pose, d'aww! xD

[Caylista]

Thanks Moni! I feel like he turned out the best, which is sort of disappointing because those sketches are from 2014. I just cleaned them up a bit last night when I was drawing the others. Roberta was probably the most interesting(?) to draw, and I'll probably work on her design a little more (without taking too many artistic liberties). I agree, she does look comparatively more innocent than her game appearance. xd

Your request has been noted! 8)

And thank you, charming thievery! Hanso is a really fun character to draw. He's just so expressive!

[Caylista]

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Awkward nerd cosplayer Jeran vs. Actual Squire Jeran

WHO WOULD WIN?

Moni I'm really hoping I got the right guy, lol.

Also, if nobody else has any requests, CoM will be next~

[Moni]

Caylista - so I am backtracking a little here because I am a BACKTRACKING MASTER, but I totally feel you on old art somehow miraculously turning out better than your newer stuff. x.x I think partially it's because, like you said, those are doodles and I suppose the gains you've made since 2014 are more likely to be more complex stuff, but also because I think as you grows more distant from a piece, you also lose touch with what they originally wanted it to look like/your pretensions, so you're likely in a sense to look back at old art and take it for what it is. At least, that is the case with me! x)

But anyway AHHHHHHHH JERAN IS SO CUTE WHAT AND YOU DREW TWO OF HIM WHAT AND THEY ARE BOTH PRECIOUS AND MUST BE PROTECTED. >< Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, in all seriousness, it was a very cool idea to draw both the "modern" and "medieval" versions of Jeran and juxtapose them together like that. I like how the cosplayer Jeran is much more of a nerd but also more confident of himself, and squire Jeran is like "... help, someone get me out of here." He definitely looks a lot less sure; it's almost like he has to come to grips with the fact there's more to being a knight than a high STR stat and a diceroll.

(come to think of it, that thought reminds me of that one picture with a soldier struggling to reload his gun, captioned with "where's the X button??" haha)

As to who would win, the answer is obviously Caylis! Anyway, I love this so much and thank you for making it! :-D

[Caylista]

Moni
Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for! : D I feel like it'd be a given that Jeran would be at least a LITTLE shaken after being transported far away from home with no idea how he got to be where he was, or any clue as to how to get back. And yeah, I think he would start to realize that pretending to be a knight was nothing like being handed a REAL sword and told he had to fight with it. And yet, in an ironic twist, he ends up making a better real knight than he does a pretend one. : d

Anywho, you are welcome and I'm glad you like it!

[Caylista]

Hey, that's not Curse of Maraqua

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I guess you could say

Sofiex really carries their team

*bah dum tsh*

/removes the oversharing bits and replaces them with a lame joke ayy/

[Twillie]

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Aw man, I feel that frustration in trying to make substantial progress on a personal project, but it's slow going or not happening xP Not just with Blossoms, but with other comics and stories I've worked with over the years as well, plot especially can be difficult to wrestle. With another comic I've got in the prewriting stages right now, I've sort of got the same mentality of "Just pick something!" for its story x3

Something I've picked up on while writing Blossoms, though, is that having the plot completely nailed down once you start writing and creating the product is not only necessary, but kind of impossible. At least, it's very difficult. When I started submitting comics to the NT all those years ago, the plot track I had in mind looked almost nothing like the one I'm writing now, and that just came as a product of the story evolving alongside my growth as a writer.

It's similar with media like TV shows, where even writers on the professional level don't have the entire plot figured out. They have the general premise in mind, perhaps big plot points in the future, but along the way things change, pop up, evolve, and perhaps even drop. So basically what I'm getting at is that even if you don't have everything figured out at the start, that's alright, even normal! Having perhaps a general premise, a few big plot points, or a smaller storyline to start with could help you dip your toes into things, as well as get the wheels turning just a little more :3

As for the long commitment thing, yuuup I feel that too xP Not sure I have much advice there except that if you really do want to get your story out and finished, it's gonna take a good amount of time, energy, and patience. Also time management, which is something I'm still struggling with as well (serial procrastinator here, when will I learrrrrnnnnn). Making deadlines, figuring out how long it takes you to draw, line, write, and all that, that'll help a lot when scheduling the comic in among everything else you've got going.
Also, since it is a personal project of yours rather than something professional, there is more leeway in the amount of time that you need to get it done, and how high on the priority list it is when things get busy. Readers are pretty understanding of those kinds of things, especially when a good number of them are content creators themselves online :3

With the whole NT acceptance and limitations thing, there's also nothing wrong with posting the comic elsewhere online as well! That's what I'm moving to do, actually, so the quality-slashed version of my comics aren't the only versions online, and also so I don't have to work with the one-update-a-week thing. So, even if any issues do crop up in submitting to the NT, that thankfully isn't the only outlet you can use to publish your work :3

But lol yeah, just thought I'd comment since I've been through those feelings a lot before as well, both with my own Neopets comics and other stories x3 Dunno if any of this helps, but basically I just wanna say that even with all the past frustration in developing the comic, there's still the potential to make good progress on it, as well as plenty of options on how to further it :3 And whether you do want to commit to the long story you've got currently, shorten it or change the format, or even shelve it for now, there's no shame in the route you decide to take. You know best what you want and what would work best for you.

But whatever you do choose or any roadblocks you may face, there's plenty of people here and other places that would be more than happy to help or support you however you need, so it's also good to know you're not alone :3 I know I for one would love to read your comic, as well as any other content you decide to make!

[Caylista]

Twillie

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Hi and thanks! I appreciate your input and insight as the creator of a long-running series. It kind of helps confidence-wise to hear it, because I could tell myself the same things, but then it’s like… “But where’s your CREDENTIALS, hmm? Are you sure you know what you’re talking about??” b:

I’ve just come to realize in recent… months? Years? That I’m not as good at story-writing as I thought I was, and that’s kind of shot every project I have in the leg. It’s also possibly a case of unrealistic expectations, because as you mention a story evolving as you grow, I tell myself, “Nope, not me, I’ll have everything planned out and there won’t be any off-the-cuff revisions to the plot or art style shifts or anything”. Which, like I said, is COMPLETELY unrealistic and I know it. Sometimes the story (or art) changes as you go along, and it’s for the better. It happens ALL the TIME in webcomics, lol.

But yeah, I really agree with you on learning how to manage time. That’s another thing I’m really terrible at that I need to work on. p:

With the NT, even though getting rejected would be a bummer, I think for me the quality-slashing is even more frustrating. :/ At least with my comics, it’s not just a matter of conversion quality, it’s also pages being too wide and being forced to shrink them (which plays GrEaT with speech bubble text and other small details). I just feel pressured to work on a smaller canvas so I don’t have to go through the headache of formatting them later on. I know I’ve seen a couple comics published recently that have gone over the width limit (I mean, clearly, since they stretched the NT formatting). I really… don’t feel great about “abusing a glitch” (aka Jade and/or scrappy doesn’t realize what happens when a comic is too wide and publish it anyway), but it would allow me to make my comics wider, which would give me a little more freedom when it comes to formatting.

Not that I’ll end up going that route, but idk. I might mention it to scrappy. The NT isn’t really structured that well when it comes to hosting comics.

Oh, and just out of curiosity since you mention making Blossoms available elsewhere online, do you know where you might start doing that?

Anyway, thank you again for your input. I really do appreciate it, and if I run into any specific problems I’ll try to ask about them (and give out whatever advice I can to other artists)!

(Also, sorry I had to delete my earlier rant; it’s just every time I post anything vaguely ranty or personal I end up regretting it orz.)

[Twillie]

Caylista

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Lol yeah I totally get that xD I do the same thing to myself as well because, I mean, aside from Blossoms, I've really not had any formal education on comics nor any professional work, and I'm not that well versed in the comics medium in general. I'm still trying to immerse myself in it more by reading graphic novels, something I have little experience in. So I can only go off of my own personal experience with creation, I know there's plenty of others with much better knowledge than me x3

Oof yeah, that desire to keep the story contained and controlled from the beginning is something I've been through before as well. That's actually what caused a lot of grief for me when starting Blossoms, and why it took about two or three years for it to really get off the ground. So just speaking from my own mistakes, but being messy with a story and giving it plenty of wiggle room to change and grow is a good thing! Building a box for it from the start usually doesn't work because you can't really tell if it'll fit or not.
But yeah, it's just kind of a mentality to shake off; even if you know it's unrealistic expectations like you mentioned, yeah it can still take time and practice to get out of that mindset. For that, I'd say perhaps the best solution is sort of "exercising" your story; do actually make some comics with your characters, perhaps some one-offs or bits of the story that you have in mind. Try it on for size, see what works and what doesn't fit, and that can also get your mind figuring out what it wants out of the story.

As for not being as good at story-writing, I think those techniques might also help with that. At least for storytelling seems all the harder to practice than something like art. For some reason, in my head storytelling practice = making actual finished stories, and since that takes a while and is something I haven't really done yet, I can get frustrated thinking I'm not making any progress or am no good at stories. But practice doesn't require you to finish every single thing you write- it comes with playing with characters, plotting in your head, figuring out motivations for characters and world building, reading advice from others, reading in general, etc. You don't have to be a master storyteller to write a story, especially if this is one of your first big projects. The first few things you make will not be perfect, nor will they be your best, and success rate is not measured by how much others like your story, but by how much you've learned and grown over time as you practice.

Yeahh, that file size limitation is probably the hardest part of the deal, and not a fun one to work with xP I've had to format Blossoms just to fit in the 470 format while also being readable, and it can be a strange format to work with with other sites. I think if there's a lot of text in your comics that's suffering from shrinking, having the comic shape fit more to NT guidelines would be the best way to go, which means panels that are stacked rather than side by side a lot of the time. At least, that's just what I've ended up doing.
And yeah, there is that glitch thing going on right now, but no guarantee on if it'll always be around or if it's best to encourage it. I think that part's up to you, because if Scrappy or Jade are simply choosing to accept comics wider than 470px, that's their decision. But yeah, no idea if that's deliberate, or they just don't know (or they kind of have to accept wider ones, because who knows how many comic submissions come in these days).

I've made a thread here to post my comics, and I'm also looking at this one place, Webtoons, that couple people irl have recommended to me! The latter has kept my attention because all the comics are formatted as scrollers, which Blossoms would fit perfectly with, and right now I just need to actually test it out and see if they are indeed formatted for the site.

No problem! Glad it helped some, and yeah, always feel free to ask if anything ever comes up :3 (and yeah, for sure! =D)

[Caylista]

Twillie

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I think what you suggest as far as “exercising” a story is a good idea! I'll have to try that with some standalone pages or short scenes I know I probably won’t include in the linear storyline.

That’s true, storytelling isn’t something that’s really easy to practice. You kind of have to just keep doing it, and like you said, you’ll eventually get better and know you’ve grown when you look back and see your improvement. It probably comes as a consequence of being hypercritical, but I tend to get caught up with thinking about whether or not people will criticize what I write. So it’s hard to put myself in a mindset of “It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks, I’m here for self-improvement!” lol. I mean, there’s probably a good balance to be had between the two where you’re not writing a trite, meaningless narrative full of plot holes, but at the same time you’re not aiming to create THE most highly-praised and well-loved series of the century.

Yeah, I wouldn’t just take my chance submitting something wider than the 470px limit. p: And if I did mention it, it’d just be to call the issue to the Editor’s attention (assuming she doesn’t already know). It would still be great to have a little more freedom for comic submissions, even though I understand WHY there are limitations.

Oh, is there are thread? I must have somehow missed seeing it. ;_; I’ve heard of Webtoon before (and read at least one comic there, I think?) It looks like a good platform!

Anyway, thank you again (and again) for your insight. I really appreciate it!

[Caylista]

On second thought, where do you guys host your art nowadays?

Okay I think I got it.

New post! Woo!

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Art trade for June Scarlet of her Alien Aishas Fizxy and Slienax! They have a great dynamic (footloose celebrity-begrudging bodyguard ftw!) and I hope I was able to do their personalities some justice. :'D I wanted to illustrate Slienax being dragged on a cross-Neopia tour of some sort and then added some ice cream, because why not?

[Celestial]

Caylista June's power is currently out but she wants to let you know that your art of Fizxy and Slienax is fantastic. ^^ She likes it!

[Caylista]

Aug 10, 2020 19:51:54 GMT -5 Celestial said:

Caylista June's power is currently out but she wants to let you know that your art of Fizxy and Slienax is fantastic. ^^ She likes it!

Oh no!! I hope she gets it back soon! But tell her thanks for me.

[Caylista]

So I was trying to see what I had done so far for my pets lookups, and apparently today is Voxna’s birthday, so I had to draw her.

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Happy birthday, space princess.....

Also, I can't remember if I'd ever posted the comic my profile pic is from, but here it is:

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... and that's pretty much their relationship.