ivytarablair - Tumblr blog

[ivytarablair]

As we move into a summer still full of upheaval, many parents and kidlets wouldn't mind falling into another land with new friends :) You & kiddos would love the #audiobook of The Lost Children by @carolyncohagan!   

The audiobook was being released just as the world was being stood on its end, tumbling myself and my family with it, and I was sad I wasn't all over promoting it as I would have been. 

But you know what? Turns out *now* is EXACTLY the right time to give people stories - I hope you and kids enjoy this one!

[ivytarablair]

As I type this, tens of thousands of people have contracted COVID-19, and literally millions are in quarantine in their homes.  

I am joining the many many artists of every stripe - audio, video, visual - who are reaching out to those who are hurting, those who are isolated, those who need distraction, those who need comfort...simply by doing what I do best; my work, my art. So I have revived my 'informal reading of my favorite works' podcast, focusing on pieces with humor, kindness, deep feeling, and lighthearted joy.  

These recordings will be even more informal than the original set - because I would like to focus my time on creating the audio, rather than editing it.  So there will be some flubs, much laughing, and talking to you rather than only talking about the story. 

 May it give some comfort, some ease, some faith there is goodness in the world.

[ivytarablair]

To celebrate ten years of Sister Claire’s first publication online, here’s a special message from Claire, and from us, to you, all of our dear readers. 

Here’s to a warmer 2019. 

Big hugs, The Sister Claire Team

[ivytarablair]

being an adult is wanting a cool octopus rug for your office and agonizing for three hours over whether to buy it, because it’s $89, but see also:  octopus rug

[ivytarablair]

"Freeverse poetry is just a bunch of random, pointless line breaks on a page! They don't mean anything!"

Ah, of course.

The way text is presented Doesn't Actually Do Anything to add to meaning At All.

ONLY THE CONTENT OF THE ACTUAL WORDS MATTERS.

spacing, breaks, caPITALIZATION, WhY wOuLd ChAnGiNg AnY oF tHaT aFfEcT iNtErPrEtAtIoN?

n o n e o f t h a t m a t t e r s .

stop

acting

like

it

does.

[ivytarablair]

Hey there!  If you like my art and haven’t checked out my webcomic, Sister Claire, I highly recommend it. It’s about battle-nuns, witches, and monsters, and people who are in between. And everyone is some kinda queer!  I draw it, my wife Ash writes for it, and Laura is our editor and professional organizer.

I started it back in 2008 (!!!) we’ve been working on it ever since!  The past several chapters have included some of my most cinematic comic panels to date, and I’m so happy with how they’ve come out. Here is a sample of some recent comic pages that I really enjoyed drawing and coloring. <3

[ivytarablair]

Hi there! I was wondering, what's the writing process like when it comes to scripting out a book of Sister Claire? Do you guys make the script for the entire book before the illustrations are started, or is it done on more of a chapter by chapter basis? 8O

Hey, dear~~~! So, the planning process goes through some stages.

Book Overview: We go over the general plan for the whole book. So Book 3, present one, we’ve known what happens in each chapter for some time now. Like, Chapter 4 is Bright Night, Chapter 5 is Helsing Abbey… we’re working on overviewing Book 4 now. Wouldn’t you like to know ;)

Chapter Overview: So, with our Book Overview done, we zoom in on each chapter at a time. “This happens, then this happens, this character does this”, and so on. That’s all done before the chapter starts.

Page Scripting: At last, we zoom closer in and start scripting page-by-page! We nail down what’s happening in each panel, and write dialogue. 

Yamino Works her Magick: At the end of everything, of course, Yamino puts pen to tablet, and at this point there’s often more tweaks. For example, Chapter 3, Page 86, is originally scripted as “Gabby dives with Claire underwater”. When actually doing the page, Yamino used that cool ass water effect instead to indicate this, which saved her space.And now you know how it’s done!

[ivytarablair]

I really really dig this design

@sisterclaire

[ivytarablair]

Oscar cups the creature's— no. She cups the child’s cheek in her hand and they look at her with a face crumpled up in preemptive grief, a gaze gone over to anguish.

Sister Claire has updated!

[ivytarablair]

thoughts on “the lament”

SO the formerly imprisoned machina that wept shards, now sharing clementine’s body until she can give them a new one, was meant to be “the lament”, as a purpose more than a name

there’ve been parallels with nuclear contamination and shards

I’d assumed shards happened accidentally when a tipping point was reached, but now I have to wonder.. what if the sleepers were created to produce shards intentionally, as weapons to destroy other city states. but shards overran everything, because they messed with things beyond their understanding. then they tried to bury them and put them to sleep, but they couldn’t undo what they’d done, because they’d changed how life flows

@ace-and-ranty here have a 2 am theory post

[ivytarablair]

Hi! I'm working on some fanart and I was wondering if Clementine's horns have an official design, or does all the losing and regrowing mean that they're different most of the time?

Awesome! I can’t wait to see your art!

As for her horns, they are definitely different at different stages of her life! The last version of them was one I had to draw several times, so I actually made a Sculptris 3D model to trace because it got too hard to draw them over and over and different angles:

I think as long as they look like antlers, that’s the main thing. 👍

Incidentally, Sculptris is a free and super useful program that I highly recommend for stuff like this. I’ve used it to make a lot of digital 3D references for hard-to-draw objects and props:

Hope this helps!

-Yamino

[ivytarablair]

me, immediately upon seeing clemlament:

( @sisterclaire, @yamino, @summerlightning )

[ivytarablair]

A playlist for a wide selections of voicing samples from the Seeds trilogy - a future dystopian YA novel by K. Makansi.  Thoroughly enjoyable read!  I’m posting this for an easily accessible batch of author-listening samples.

(tumblr, for some weird reason, won’t embed playlists - only individual tracks, thus my link to the whole thing rather than simply embedding it right here.  c’mon tumblr!  do the thing!)

a track from the list:

[ivytarablair]

This is a playlist of voicing samples from James Joyce’s The Dead, a thoroughly enjoyable project! 

(tumblr, for some weird reason, won’t embed playlists - only individual tracks, thus my link to the whole thing rather than simply embedding it right here.  c’mon tumblr!  do the thing!)

The first track:

[ivytarablair]

Welcome!  Grab a cup of tea and let me share a favorite book with you :)

I spend plenty of time being an exacting perfectionist in front of microphones and editing software.  This series is where I get to play - to simply read as myself, rather than narrate as Professional Ivy.

Enjoy!

Intro/outro 'Over Jordan' performed by myself and Dakota S.R. Aspen [his book 'You Carry Your Wars With You' coming out in 2018 in both audiobook and in pixels]

http://www.ivytarablair.com

https://twitter.com/ivytarablair

[ivytarablair]

pfffff!  Joy, peddler of glorious weres, you keep offering up these linguistic challenges as apologies.

Oh noo no no no no noo.  These are not apologies these are challenges and I love challenges to bits :D

I SHALL TACKLE YOUR ALLITERATIVE SIBILANCE-IVE TEXT WITH WICKED WICKED GLEE.

*a distant ‘mwaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa’ can be heard in the distance*

*....yes, narrators ‘mwaa ha ha’ - is that so odd?*

*....why?  because we get to double-whomp the poor listeners!  The author’s text delivers whomp-the-first; and, if I’m any damn good, the narration delivers whomp-the-second.  And just like any author?  Narrators live for that :D*

Hello, I'm very excited for your book :) Also does Vlad have a signature scent? He kind of seems like the type, and I love him for it :)

Oh my god he does, it actually comes up in the book a lot because Nathan is very scent orientated. Hang on, let me find it.

[ivytarablair]

RIGHT??????   ALLLLLL THE YESSSSSSS