Sunday 8th December 2024

A Happy Festive Period to one and all! I am writing and posting this a good month after I initially intended to begin posting updates on what I’ve been up to: what I’ve been working on and why, and also why not. Mostly not as I’ve come to discover, looking back through the entries that I have written and not written so far.

This is coming after one of my regular writing/creative droughts as I once again stumble around the ideas of how I would like to present the journal entries. One constant, and is the most obvious, is as a blog here at the DOMAVerse, my hub for all the junk I do.

Which is where I’ll start! With a dump of the entries from November. Hopefully they show you an insight into my process or lack thereof…

A month ago …

Friday 8th November 2024

Down Day: what’s the point of any progress? Sat watching Andor, feeling like everything is a waste.

Unsure of what steps I could take. At the Very Least, I got paid today and there’s money to spend. Continued the conversation with my Etsy Mask Maker re:Crimson Hood replica for future projects. But it’s beginning to sound like it’s not the direction I want to go in and will search for an alternative.

I also revisited Precinct Zero artist Jay Santos about continuing the addition of shading to the existing issues to release a collected edition. 

Saturday 9th November 2024

Took the kids to Pittencrief Park and along the way remembered that I wanted to get some photos and video of the landscape to use as backgrounds in the short film I’m working on. I took a few to test and based on how they look, will possibly return once I have a better idea of angles.

Watched a little of The Mystic. A silent film from 1925 by Todd Browning. Eying up a wonderful-looking FREAKS boxset including his other two associated works, also including The Unknown. However, the two side films are available free on YouTube so the idea of spending the current discounted price of £24 is somewhat steep … unless I can watch the two free silent films before the sale ends and enjoy them enough to consider a more likely improved quality version.

Monday 11th November 2024

Researching into making a custom Crimson Hood mask. There are a lot of ideas for different things so making the mask custom means I can make variations.

You may have read the existing Tales of the Crimson Hood chapters here. There’s a lot more information to come on all of that, but I’m…working with someone else on those, let’s say. If you’re confused, trust me: so am I. 

Tuesday 12th November 2024

Organised the updated artwork for Precinct Zero. Shading has been added to the entirety of #1 and almost the first half of #2. #4 was shaded as we worked on it so it leaves us with #3 before looking at producing an official collected edition. Had the wonderful idea to start dressing more professionally, like I’m a fancy writer. NOTE from the future: not entirely happened yet!

Wednesday 13th November 2024

Wrote some notes on Human Cargo. Fleshing out the world and looking at how to make the captaincy handover as dramatic or interesting as possible. Making it more of a secret. Captain thawing the Janitor once everyone else has been frozen. Potentially a few days into the voyage? After everything is underway and there have been no issues onboard. Everything is settled and the Captain feels comfortable that he really son’t be needed. It’s more serious than calling him to the command deck and leaving him to it, as happened in the short comic strip I penned that was more comedy-leaning. These are serious people who wouldn’t laugh at the captain for dropping it on the janitor. It is an honourable position.

Thursday 14th November 2024

Switched my Halloween Funkos for Christmas ones. It’s too early for one set and too late for the other.

Further development on Human Cargo: using the notes from yesterday. Delving deeper into how the voyage comes about and focusing primarily on the Captain: Brendan Utnytter.

Monday 18th November 2024

Human Cargo development: from Utnytter’s prologue into the bridge– transferring command to The Janitor. How that comes around.

Tuesday 19th November 2024

Continuation of the work on the 18th, moving further in to how everything begins to take a sinister turn. What triggers The Janitor not only to become homicidal, but to begin thawing out passengers to begin with.

Sunday 24th November 2024

Working on Part One of Human Cargo, continuing to focus on Utnytter. His visit to the meeting that changed his life, where he meets the now named Leader Royal Svikari (Icelandic for Conman) and we learn the name of the group he joins. It isn’t finalised but the placeholder is Hundreds of Worlds, or HoW. It goes like this: By fate or happenstance he came across a talk in a community hall. Leader Royal Svikari had drawn him in with his confident, friendly manner. Welcoming them to the dingy hall, he stood on the brightly lit stage in his pristine robes. “They tell us that we are now restricted to Two Continents. But, my brethren– I see amongst the stars above, Hundreds of Worlds.”

Monday 25th November 2024

I had been thinking of how our primary thawed out target could relate back to the setup. I like the idea of characters or events being unrelated instead of everything tying together, as a lot of the time there isn’t any real rhyme or reason to why things happen and to whom. However, it can be more meaningful when everything ties together.

As I was writing the ‘festival’ part of Part One/Prologue, a character was created and I felt it would work quite well for our thawed out heroine to be one and the same.