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Latest Posts by ziggetai - Page 6
Jatta Eye the Elder, Narrator of Veil of the Gods.
Another Mahjuti Glyph from Veil of the Gods.
Mahjuti
Veil of the Gods features a magical system based on the ideas of Austin Osman Spare- a well-known 20th century artist and all round weirdo. He played with ancient and medieval ideas of magic especially the Norse magical tradition of Galdr. At a young age he came up with his own system based on graphics to empower his spells. He called these graphics sigils. I’ve developed his ideas much further for the storyline of Veil of the Gods. I call the symbolic designs glyphs rather than sigils and I’ve named the system of magic in Veil of the Gods- Mahjuti. Here’s one of the Hyper-Glyphs that feature in the coming chapters.
Here's the latest sketch from Veil of the Gods Chapter Two... Mikin Thelf the Mahjee.
Front cover complete. The Graphic Novel is uploading to Kindle...
Veil of the Gods is just about the most challenging project I've ever been presented with. Lucky I love a good challenge. ;) For the first time ever my deadline has passed and I'm not yet finished- though I'm very, very close. I never liked to word deadline anyway. I've been relaxed about getting behind schedule because I just had a feeling everything was happening in it's proper time. It's turned out I was right to be relaxed. In the last 10 months since I've been working full time on this graphic novel, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds and I've been blessed to be in a position to keep up with the latest developments. It's now possible to create a larger file across a few different publishing formats. So we've decided to make some massive changes to the layout of Veil of the Gods. Thank you to all our supporters for your patience. I'm sure this is going to be a beautiful piece of work. The first chapter has been extended from 30 pages to nearly a hundred, rounding off the first part of the story very nicely while introducing some of the main characters and leaving a little mystery to start the next chapter. Creativity is such a mystery. It all happens in it's own time...
Creativity is a very refined form of magic. Indeed, Creativity is the very essence of the magical arts. The sorcerer's greatest secret is a simple one. Whatever you create from Fear will be infused with fear and bound by it. However, that which you create from Love will be infused with Love and forever bound by the force of Love. Vandar Karn is an old-school sorcerer who learned his trade making many mistakes along the way. Yet even when a magician embodies the Sorcerer's Secret he may be tempted to misuse his knowledge. And the consequences of such an action can not always be foreseen. Here's another character sketch from Veil of the Gods.
Naleem Bon is mad, emotionally unstable and deluded. In that regard he's not so different from most people really. However, he has turned madness into an art form. He sincerely believes he's a wizard who gets his power from being in contact with dirt. So he never wears shoes. He doesn't wash either because every little bit of grime adds to his power. Not surprisingly he has no friends and most people shun him. People can be such harsh judges of character. Although, to be fair, he isn't a very likeable person. Indeed he cultivates aloofness. He was a concert violinist but he took music in an odd direction, convinced that disharmony was actually another source of wizardly power. So he doesn't have much of a following. If the cards had been dealt differently Naleem may have gone on scraping together a living busking in the street, interacting with others rarely and harming none. But it was not to be. Naleem Bon the Barefoot Wizard is a pivotal character in Veil of the Gods.
Here's the character sketch from Veil of the Gods for today.
The older you get the more you realise there are constant signals being sent to you if you're awake enough to notice them. It's as if Life were sending you clues wrapped in little ripples of chance. There are messages everywhere begging you to decipher them if you'd only take notice. Books fall open at pages that bear sage advice. A coin will appear on the road at your feet tempting you to explore a side-street. A conversation with a stranger may offer you all the answers you were looking for, even though the stranger had no idea of your questions. A song will get stuck in your head. And that song leads you off on another adventure. Theo Metaxis chose to live his life according to these messages from the world around him; to be guided by fortune. And for a long while this system worked perfectly for Theo. Now he's gone missing. And his disappearance is sending ripples through the world in a way that would probably make him smile if he knew about it. Here's my character study from Veil of the Gods for today.
Here’s the latest trailer for Veil of the Gods...
Here's my Veil of the Gods sketch for today. Lt. Qureen Sah- Pilot, medico and all round dark horse. There's something she's not telling us.
Her name is Miko Killick. Don’t mess with her. Not if you know what’s good for you. Veil of the Gods.
When it rains, it pours. This is the scene from Veil of the Gods I'm working on today...
We’re getting closer to release day. I’m so busy creating this graphic novel I can forget to post here. Please forgive me. Can’t wait to share the full thing with you all.
Character sketch for my new project; Veil of the Gods.
www.veilofthegods.com
I'm playing with a few illustration styles to use as flashback mode in Veil of the Gods. Here's today's little experiment.
As always you can expect strong female characters in anything I write. This is the lead- Yonani Khan- the heroine of Veil of the Gods- around whom the whole story is built.
https://www.facebook.com/Matrayah/
www.veilofthegods.com
BILL WATTERSON - “A Cartoonist’s Advice”
Hiroshi Yoshida 吉田 博 (1876 - 1950) - Fujiyama from Suzukawa 1928
The music I created for Veil of the Gods has been a wonderful journey in itself. You know, the long term plan is to transform the graphic novel into an interactive experience and an online game. So the music is very important. The track we used on the first two promo videos wasn’t the one I’d originally planned to include. This melody came to me in a daydream while I was trying to figure out a problem with a font. I picked up the low D whistle and the melody just burst out. I hadn’t actually played that instrument for about a year so I was really surprised. It was like the flute was just aching to be played again. The whole track took only a few hours to orchestrate, record and mix. And I’m pretty happy with the result. Here’s the short version without the flute.
The Japanese woodblock artist Hiroshi Yoshida ( 1876-1950 ) has been a huge influence on my approach to creating the graphic novel- Veil of the Gods. When I was researching the origins of graphic stories I found myself inevitably drawn to Japan where the art of graphic storytelling has been perfected over many hundreds of years. I’ve never seen one of Yoshida’s prints in the flesh, so to speak. I’ve only ever looked at them in books or online. I’d love to drink in the colours up close… Here’s a few of my favourite pieces by this master.
The process of creating a huge graphic novel like Veil of the Gods hasn’t just involved writing the story, sculpting the characters and preparing the digital artworks. I’ve also been creating typefaces. This was a hobby of mine 20 years or so ago. In 1996 I designed the font for my little book- The Moon on the Lake- published by Random House. Then I typeset the whole book with it. I mention this because it’s such a pleasure to have an excuse to build new typefaces. The graphic novel is full of them. Indeed these various typefaces are integral to the story… Here’s the proof page for two I finished today. They’re inspired by Tibetan scripts.
The music I created for Veil of the Gods has been a wonderful journey in itself. You know, the long term plan is to transform the graphic novel into an interactive experience and an online game. So the music is very important. The track we used on the first two promo videos wasn’t the one I’d originally planned to include. This melody came to me in a daydream while I was trying to figure out a problem with a font. I picked up the low D whistle and the melody just burst out. I hadn’t actually played that instrument for about a year so I was really surprised. It was like the flute was just aching to be played again. The whole track took only a few hours to orchestrate, record and mix. And I’m pretty happy with the result. Here’s the short version without the flute.
