A recollection of feelings about being scared of connection.
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They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, (Lord Byron)
Sometimes going outside is an experience.
This project is an exploration of contradictory feelings. My goal was to create a project that asks unanswerable questions, and by doing so captures the feelings that often come with having a need but being uncertain of how to meet that need, or if it is even right to do so. Is the Vampire hungry? Or lonely? Is the Siren also hungry? Or also lonely? How often does desire feel dangerous? And how often when stepping into new and frightening territories, is that sense of danger merely an illusion created by unfamiliarity? Is this a dangerous moment, or simply a new one?
I finished this webcomic near the end of 2022. At the time I had been hearing a lot of people sharing their hopes for things ‘going back to normal’ at the ‘end of the pandemic.’ The truth is, I felt at the time that things would never quite be the same after the lockdown. Experiencing a global pandemic changed me forever. It changed everyone. Certainly, it’s changed the world, and at the time, things felt scary and uncertain and new. A lot of the imagery was inspired by things I saw and experienced during the pandemic. I wanted to capture the eerie quiet of an empty street.
Lore! – Do vampires need to breathe? If not…
On a more fun and less serious note, one of the main ideas behind this comic was this; if a Vampire and a Siren duked it out underwater which one would win? How starved would a vampire have to be to try expanding its diet? Can vampires survive underwater just as well as any other aquatic creature? Does the siren know the vampire is in fact, a vampire, or does it think the person she’s serenading will drown? Rather than answering these questions, I wanted to pose the question to the reader. The comic ends at the beginning of a million questions of what is possible. Is the Vampire lost forever, or simply striking out into a new, uncharted, mysterious world? Does the siren know what she’s summoned into the depths? And, most important of all, do they think each other are hot???
(right) This was supposed to be the last panel of the webcomic, rather than the ocean with the rising moon. However, I realized that it was more fun and fit better with the story to end with a mystery rather than a confrontation. After all, who says the Vampire was heading into the ocean to fight?
main concepts
I started with a few core concepts; I wanted the comic to capture the effect of a sunset, transferring from red to blue, to red again when the moon rose. I wanted to focus on the atmosphere of walking around a quiet city. Lastly, I wanted to capture the light and colors changing throughout the comic so you get the sense that everything around the POV character is changing.
(left) a speedpaint of the very first page. 😀
a peek behind the scenes
Above are some examples of what I was using to flesh out the comic, from beginning to end. I started with the sketches for each page, formatted to fit into an 8.5×5.5 zine. My color palette included the main gradient for each page, where I’d block in the right color for each panel, and references for the characters. Once I was finished with the colors, I arranged and formatted the print file with some mockups! 😀
(right) a speedpaint of the second to last page. 😀
The Process 😀
I wanted to see what would happen if I crafted the story without plotting anything first. I sketched out the whole story and then adjusted some scenes before finishing the final render. I didn’t plan very much of it as I wanted to see where the story took me. I think the pacing could have been a bit better, but it is what it is.
Coming soon – if you’re looking for ways to support me or keep up with what I’ve got going on, I will have socials to follow and a Ko-fi button available hopefully starting in April. For now, just enjoy! Thanks for reading.