Hey, everybody!

I just finished the site design for the Riverwolf CD!

Ahh! Now that's nice! I've long wanted to do a project which forced me to think and create outside my normal bounds, and here I allowed myself two of them! (The CD and the new website.)

Only very, very rarely do I work on anything which does not represent myself and my own thoughts. As such, because it is the place from which I draw my power, my images, characters and my world are rendered most often with warm, sandy colors. Ambers and yellows and reds. --These are Rubel's colors. And little red-headed Heath always wears yellow. Yellow is her power color, and she is drawn to it.

The music on the CD, however, is performed by Tony. --And he isn't an amber, yellow and sepia toned kind of guy. Of all the characters I write and draw, Tony relates best with Soracia. He feels a closeness to her thinking and her trials. Soracia stands out from the rest in that she draws her power from cool colors, autumnal feelings. She approaches the world from a more melancholy disposition. --As with all my characters, I love and understand Soracia very much, but she draws a special kind of sympathy from me simply because she is perhaps the most tormented and sad of them all. She faces her trials, for the most part, alone. She approaches beauty and the divine in her own way. Her successes are hard won and personal, and difficult to share simply because they are hard for others to comprehend. --Only people like Quinton are fully able grasp her struggles through life. When Quinton told her that he was very proud of her, I was speaking to her in my own way, as a creator.

Anyway. . .

Colors. Tony asked if I might use lots of blue. So I did. It was a new way for me to explore a different kind of being and approach to life. I learned a lot in this way. (I realize that this may all sound somewhat over-significant; it's just a simple website, after all, but it was a fascinating project for me. You can learn things in the most unexpected ways if you remain open.) So you can check out the site if you like, and tell me what you think.

While the CD project was a collaborative effort, (my characters and world illustrating his music and vice versa), we were each also exploring our own unique paths, and because of this, I tried to design the site to promote Tony as his own musician, (which he very much is in his own rite!) When the site goes on-line in a week or so under its own www address, (riverwolf.org), it will be used primarily at first as his calling card to the music industry. For now, I'm hosting it on the T&K server. The final design might change a little bit over the next couple of days, (the index page, for instance, is a little too big for small screens set at low resolution), but for the most part, the project is done.

This and the CD paintings and package design will be the last bit of non-T&K work I'll be doing for quite some time. While they did take me away from working on the comic, it was a very necessary holiday, allowing me to grow and explore new forms of expression; I've not painted so many pictures in a row in over ten years! There's a whole level of learning which comes with such exercises! --Usually when I'm finished a painting, I'm a little disappointed when I have to stop in order to get on with the next non-color job; I've always wanted to spend six weeks or so doing nothing but painting! --Just to see what would happen. Well the CD project allowed me to do this; (I painted the pictures in reverse order, and I think they get better as they reach the front. Anybody who has a copy might easily notice this right away, I think!) Anyway, I was very happy with the results! I've learned a number of very valuable lessons as a painter. Ahh!

Then, building Tony's site was another very guilty pleasure which I wouldn't normally have been able to spend time on; I got to play with Javascript and new kinds of cross-platform animation which I've always been eager to try, but never really had the energy to spare. --Anybody who has done any webdesign knows just how much fun it can be to lose yourself in that world for a while, learning script and such. And I now know how to do some very spectacular things with animation which any browser can run with very little effort. I've got all sorts of new things I want to try. But not today. Sigh. Ah well. Holidays always end, but I am very happy with what I've learned, and with how re-charged I am left feeling after the whole process!

Okay. Enough of that. Back to making comics!

Take care!

P.S. The next post I put up here will have a few hundred pages from T&K thumbnailed and ready to go to market! Check back regularly!