Look At Me Dance.

As I mention earlier today on a journal entry over on my deviantart page, right now I’m kind of dancing around recent revelations that have been occurring over Babayka-Lives so as to give readers who are lagging behind a chance to catch up without spoilers. I’ve given myself a self-imposed deadline of Halloween, before I’ll let myself openly blog about what’s going on in Brides Of Babayka, so I don’t ruin it for more casual readers. But that said, I do strongly recommend that everyone be up-to-date by Halloween, as the spoilers will no doubt flow from then on. So if you haven’t check in on Babayka-Lives for a while, please do try and do so before the end of next month, or risk falling foul of dreaded spoiler.  

For those of you readers who tune in a bit more regularly, I hope you have been enjoying what’s been going down in Babayka Land of late. If you think recent instalments of Babayka-Lives have been intense and horrifically scary these last few weeks, I think you’re gonna be really pleased with this weekend’s episode. As an early treat, here’s a snippet from the forthcoming page-93, which will go up this Saturday. Clearly poor Blake’s ordeal is just getting started.

Word To The Wise.

If you’re not currently caught up on the latest goings on over on Babayka-Lives, now would be a really bad time to fall behind, that’s all I’m saying. Things are gonna get extremely intense and creepy over the next few weeks. I’m gonna be keeping all info and updates to a minimum over the coming weeks to avoid spoilers. I’d like readers to just read and experience it as the story unfolds.

Fun Fact: I think panel 3 of page-92 is probably my favourite shot of that particular character from the whole of Brides Of Babayka. I was reading a lot of Junji Ito at the time, and I think it shows.

Stick The Landing.

I remember deciding a while ago that I should take more behind-the-scenes photos for Babayka: Book 2 for my blog, and then completely forgetting to do so. So with that in mind, here’s some artwork I was working on yesterday. Rather than finished pencils, I thought readers may get a kick out of seeing a panel that’s only been mapped out, before I’ve gone in to do the final pencils. Because they’re only roughly done pencil-line lay outs, I’m not sure how well they’ll show up on your screens, and people may need to enlarge this photo to pick out the details (it doesn‘t help that it‘s a crappy camera-phone photo.) But basically, that’s my rough pencils before going in and adding detail. I build up the shape of the figure like head, torso and limbs before adding clothing and features. A trick I learned years ago as a teenager after reading How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way.

Over on Babayka-Lives tomorrow. No spoilers or clues as to what’s going to go down on Saturday, but I will say I think it’s the page most readers have been waiting for and not to be missed. I’m sure a lot of people are waiting to see if I can ‘stick the landing’ when it comes to wrapping up Brides Of Babayka. All I’ll say is I’m very proud of the ending to Book 1, and hope readers will enjoy how the story resolves itself. Like all good horror stories, I tried to save the scariest bit till last.

Pick Your Poison.

This weekend Babayka-Lives readers are spoiled.

If you follow the main site, head over to Babayka-Lives right now, where you’ll find Page-90 waiting for you. What does the return of Conner mean for Blake, and will they escape? You can find out by heading over there right now.

For readers who are following the series on Tapastic, if you head over to my page this weekend, you’ll find pages 83-85 waiting for you. Rejoin Blake, as he wakes to find himself the last Bachelor standing.

Enjoy, folks.

A Deleted Scene (Sort Of…)

So I’m guessing by now that everyone is up-to-date and has had a chance to read Page-89 of Babayka-Lives, and has (SPOILER ALERT…) witness the return of Barry Conner. Yes, we last see Conner towards the end of Chapter three, as he drunkenly slinks off to check on Colin on Page-64. As we found out last weekend, it’s while on his way to do this that Conner is ambushed by the Brides. Beaten, overpowered and then taken to the room at the end of the hall. While we as the reader never see this scene actually happen (as I thought it would just be scarier to have an eyeless Conner come unexpectedly lumbering out the shadows), I did briefly play with the idea of drawing this scene. Although I think the story works much better without it, the reason I considered putting it in is because I had a subplot in there about how the Brides took down larger prey like Conner. In my head, I had planned to show how the Brides suit up in a makeshift kind of armour, made from things like riot gear, protective sporting pads, and so on that they have accumulated (probably mostly online.) Safely padded up against any defensive attacks, they then subdue their intended victim with cattle-prods and riot-batons and clubs. This scene would have been a lot of fun to draw, and would have answered how the Brides deal with big, burly guys in the past like Conner, but would have made the Blake and Conner reunion scene less frightening, I feel, and so had to be chopped out the final story.

I was sad to lose this scene, as I could see it clearly in my head, and would love to have drawn a scene of a small group of Brides in their makeshift armour ambushing poor Conner in some darken hallway in the hotel. Luckily, this idea does kind of live on as a pin-up. A deleted scene, if you will. Depicting just seconds before the attack happens and Conner is taken. A little peek at why he looks so bad on Page-89, although why Conner is missing his eyes…? well… that will have to remain a mystery for the time being.

Heroes Or Villains?

Who do you prefer and why?

Lately, I’ve been pondering this question more-and-more. With my own work, by far the two characters I’ve created who I like the most (Babayka and Yana) would be, I guess, labelled as villains. Not that I see either of them that way really, but if you were to boil it down to good-guys and bad-guys, I guess most people would consider them bad-guys. I don’t know why, but I just find it easier to create and write villains rather than heroes. It not that I dislike heroes, but I do find them a bit bland and samey sometimes. Whereas I’ve always enjoyed villains that you like, even though you really shouldn’t. While people in real life who are selfish and opportunistic infuriate me greatly, and I try my hardest to keep them out of my life, somehow when they’re fictional, you don’t feel so bad for enjoying their sinister escapades so much. You can close the book\comic or switch off the TV\computer when you’ve had enough of them and they‘re gone. You have some control over a fictional bad guy\girl.

I guess this is a longwinded way of saying I lean more towards villains (well… certain villains anyway) rather than heroes. Don’t get me wrong, I can happily read\watch\play something with a good hero\heroine as the lead, and often do, but maybe it’s just the horror writer in me that likes a good villain or monster better. For the record, I don’t consider myself a bad guy, by-the-by. I’m a live-and-let-live kind of person. I feel both guilt and empathy, two things real life bad guys often don’t. I think the act of reading, writing or playing in a fictional world can be a kind therapy, and just as some people believe that every person in your dreams represents a part of you, I also think the same can be true when someone creates a fictional world and characters. So the idea of good-guys and bad-guys shouldn’t be taken too seriously, in my opinion.

Again, I don’t dislike heroes. I would hate for people to think I’m saying I do, because I don’t. But on the other hand, I am saying when push-comes-to-shove, I do enjoy writing villains more.