Black Fantasies Month
Hey Friends, happy Black History Month!
This month we are finally working on The Four! Woot! But also, it’s Black History Month, a month where I have historically taken time away to just live a quiet life. This year I want to stay focused on the work I’m doing, exploring Blackness from my own perspective, relating to mysticism and queerness, and the worlds we inhabit.
I am always looking to the imagining of new worlds and new stories. For the month of February, I want to challenge myself with a revisit and focus on every Black character I’ve ever created, and bring them into the current flow of the world they live on. It’s great that this month I’m focusing on The Four because all the Children of the Moon will be highlighted, too! I’ll talk backstory, gifts, connections, and why I created them in the first place. For 30 in every stream I’ll work on a different character with a nice little redraw.
This month we’re also working on The Four Worlds! I’m excited to be back in the The Four because this is where the action is, where people live, where stories are told, and where I’m most challenged by my own constraints of setting, storyline, and vision. Each of the Four titles has its own thing going on, its own colors, its own magic, and I like getting to play in these worlds. You’ve seen me work on these before, in the last couple of years, but because these are redrafts, there are some significant changes to what’s happening in them, so it’ll be a little fresh and new.
To that end, each week will be on a different world, dealing with the emotional and character aftershocks of what happened during the start of Espermarch #1. There might be some spoilery things you’ll see since at least two chapters of Espermarch haven’t yet gone up in the pages, but you don’t have to actually need to get through those pages to know what’s happening in The Four. These books stand on their own and tell their own story, as being those after-shocks of when the Moonchildren left their folks.
Finally, this month will have two practice Saturdays! Our first is the 7th and the second is on the 21st. Aligned with this month I’m looking to learn and perform music that was originated with Black musicians. I have the one down, but I want to switch out (or add in??) the second for something else that’s more on-theme. I’ll spend the week pondering this and looking through my own favorite musicians for a piece that’s simple to learn, lyrical, and fun.
I hope folks are enjoying the Saturda Practice streams! Things are kinda taking shape on their own and I feel that what I’m doing regularly is far more than just “making comics” or even “fantasy illustration.” That is, it feels like my work is trying to tell its own story and I think I want to follow along and help guide that process instead of setting specific boundaries. I like sharing music and while I’ve only had two music streams this year, I can already tell I want to keep this a thing.
Okay, that’s the month:
Black History Month Character Design - 30 minutes of each stream
Page work on The Four every week
Two pieces of music originating with Black musicians
I think that’s a good spot. Thanks for reading!