a handful of petals

This would be Sylvae’s bathroom; they live with their (single) mother. I didn’t think too much about the bathroom - I’d drawn a flat image of it before, based on a bathroom of the flat I was renting at the time. However, it needs more thought, as these characters exist in a SEA-diaspora type environment. I haven’t quite worked out how the seasons and climates work, and thus the buildings and their architecture haven’t been worked out properly. It’s all connected! And these things do have to make sense at some point, so I would like to really have a strong foundation soon.

Going back through these comics in 2020 makes me realise how much Tristen’s design has changed over time. I’d always been drawing these two together, but Sylvae came together so much quicker! Tristen is very elastic for a while, but I’m not sure if anyone else can really tell! I think I settled on who he is in early-2020. I still love this strip, but Tristen would NOT wear that outfit, he wouldn’t have an undercut that short; and as kids, if Sylvae is about 8 there, then Tristen should be about 2. So it’s not really ‘canon’ so to speak. But it was cute picturing them the same age! I have another one in the works that covers their ages a bit better. 

If you notice the little heart on Tristen’s leg, this is because I have always thought Aurian and Tristen would get matching tattoos somewhere a little discreet. At the time, I thought the rainbow heart was a good touch; but over time, I think both of them would opt for something either really stupid, or a metaphor. I haven’t quite worked out what they would get! Tristen would not need to hide a tattoo, but Aurian would - it would be quite a rebellious move to his family.

Aurian’s symbols have always been about gold and fire. He is a celestial being, although he doesn’t know it; and without any practise, he’s quite weak in any supernatural power. But one thing he does have is an aversion to water, or bodies of water. Perhaps he knows it’s an opposite to his natural state! Saying that, he can swim, and he will still take boat rides; he just isn’t fond of seeing the waves and the depths of the ocean.

I admit I wrote this one after listening to Carly Rae's No Drug Like Me on repeat - the line 'and if you make me feel in love/then I'll blossom for you'  stuck in my head for a long time, and I put those words into images.

I was excited about sharing this one. Although I had talked about it and wrote it, this was the first time I really overtly placed Sylvae as non-human. I say ‘forest spirit’ for ease; 'plant spirit' is better placed, but they were born in the forest, and can walk in that domain. They are based on the hybrid tea rose ‘Peace’.

There is nothing too significant about the flower except it’s one of my favourites. I came across it on a walk around the neighbourhood and couldn't forget about it. Story-wise, I like to think Sylvae’s mother chose the flower as it’s her favourite. It works for Sylvae’s story - one who doesn’t really feel comfortable in either of the worlds they occupy; roses like these don’t grow in the forest after all.

I thought a lot about how the plants bind together with the human body. Sylvae, when they lie down on the earth, will instinctively grow roots and consume any nutrients there. They absorb sunlight through their skin. They drink fertiliser regularly. Technically, they do not need to eat, but mimicking people long enough has given them the habit and taste for it.

When content and happy, buds and blossoms grow out of their skin; when sad, their leaves droop; when angry, they have thorns. Because these elements are a part of their livelihood, I thought it made sense they were similar to flesh and blood; breaking a stem or pulling petals would mean they would bleed; ruffling the flowers and leaves would tickle; they can sense touch and wind changes, and all kinds of natural instincts.

Sylvae is pretty powerful; I like to think their Mama was eager to help them thrive, and encouraged them to use their powers, so they are well practised. They have always had a garden or a 'soil box'. They started visiting the forest regularly in their early teens after realising they have less control than they thought*. As such, they are pretty reserved with their emotions, and it takes them a long time to admit they’re in love, as they don’t want to accidentally expose themself.

There are a few stories I have that are more plant-based: one where they're a kid and having a tantrum about leaving a park, and anchor themselves to the ground, their Mama unable to pull them loose; one about them using their vines to retrieve things they need off high shelves; one that I'm excited to draw because it's about their first sexual experience; and *another I've already been scripting because it's their backstory and deals with love and jealousy and anger and belonging.

I'm a bit amazed at how many things I'm able to spin from that one fateful walk around the neighbourhood! I'm excited to write these stories; I'm a bit intimidated as the longest stories I've made so far max out at 2.5 pages and these span much, much longer. Hopefully I can look back at them when they're made and feel really proud of them!!

Today's song is: The Shanghai Sisters ft. WVC Jazz - Rose, Rose, I love you (玫瑰玫瑰我爱你)

Do we all have a special space for that first x you do? This was my first finished comic of Tristen and Sylvae, and although I recoil at how ostentatiously OTT pink it is (and not even my favourite kind of pink), how inaccurate the anatomy is, how that second panel really does not capture what I thought it did, blue-eyed Tristen.......I'm still proud of it. I didn't know where I was going with these two at the time (Sylvae didn't even have a name yet), but it was a moment that I wanted to draw. It kickstarted everything for me.

Sometimes you just need to start, and I think that's what this was and why it sticks in my mind as a really strong moment. It's not all terrible; I like the kitchen I drew (this is where Aurian and Tristen live), I think Sylvae in the first panel is really  cute and I like their soft gradient cheeks, I do like the halftones (which I have continued to play around with), I like that I did go with colour instead of greyscale tones.

The choice to go with colour was merely because I wanted to get their skintones in. In mainstream media, you just do not see darker-toned Asians, and I wanted a lead who was more tan. I was also unsure how to do them with greyscale and halftones. I didn't want to do The Simpsons Effect where only the brown people get brown skin, but I also recognise the importance of differing tones. As my way of drawing mirrors manga in a lot of ways, I did look to it for help. In various anime adaptions of manga, it seems quite common that those with blank skin have a variety of tones, but only Black people get the halftones. If I run Tristen through Clip's automated halftone tool, he gets halftoned skin, but he's only a tan-skinned SEAsian boy. Who gets halftoned skin and who doesn't? Where does that line get drawn? Does it become othering if I do, or disrespectful if I don't?

Sometimes I regret going full colour. I do find that lines + halftones carry a plot just fine when it comes to quick quip punchlines, and it's why I leant into it for my Halloween comic last year. But between wanting people to not read everyone as pale, and not knowing how to use halftones correctly, and being influenced by the Western webcomics scene (which demands full colour and shading and full backgrounds, so I really shouldn't look to that), it felt like I needed to go full colour to have any chance of readership.

When I first started writing, Aurian (not pictured) was the main character, and Tristen and Sylvae were side characters in a convoluted period-drama plot that spanned about 70 pages of creative writing before I deleted the file. The more I wrote, the more I cared about these two instead, so now Sylvae is the main character in a modern fantasy story about diasporic feelings and natural gods.

In my earlier sketches (like these), you'll see the different costumery I had for them because of that period drama setting. I remember dropping it because I didn't want to draw horses or carriages or stately homes, I didn't care to research those eras or history or lines of monarchs, and one thing I hated was the general difficulty of communication. Everything I wrote could've been solved in one phone call. I missed phones. I kept thinking about them discovering memes and hanging out at boba shops, getting sugarcane water, eating roti canai. So I thought 'hey, why aren't they Asian? I can literally write my own experiences', launched them into the 21st Century, and so here they are: personalities the same, backgrounds somewhat similar, but everything else completely changed.

Sylvae's design came out of my head and onto paper, and with a few tweaks, they were done. Tristen was much tougher. I didn't really know what I wanted him to look like beyond having black hair. And a beard. Which I then scrapped because I couldn't figure out how to draw it back then. Should I have practised more? Absolutely. Did I? Absolutely not. So now he's smooth. Then I had a very strong phase of only listening to Billie Eilish, and Ocean Eyes ended up being the song I could not let go. With teals and dark greys and rich blues, Tristen swirled into existence. His palette is based on the ocean, on winter, and on night-time; he is a design foil to Auri in that sense. In earlier pieces you will see he has blue eyes, but over time I came to loathe the trope of tan or dark skin + blue eyes. How many times has it happened! It brought up memories of when I used to despair reading and watching stories as a kid, of Asian characters with blue eyes and the descriptions being so much more charming because of that feature. It may be my biggest design regret - because how could I not see what I was doing, when I hated the thing myself? Needless to say I scrapped the blue the minute I realised. I was worried it would be jarring as I'd already made drawn several comics by then, but whether or not anyone noticed, it's never been questioned, and I'm glad. I love my brown eyes, and I hope you all love Tristen's brown eyes too.

I remember making this piece before I had worked out everyone's pronouns, and I was so worried Sylvae would read 'too feminine'. I think I was having the same gender worries at the same time - What defines us as men or women? What does non-binary mean to me, personally? What does it mean to not feel defined either way but not feel dysphoric all the time? - and I remember constantly questioning whether makeup and nail polish and hair longer than their neck were all too much, and they wouldn't read as any part masculine anymore. I remember people seeing Sylvae and saying 'she...' and I would feel pretty uncomfortable, even though I hadn't tagged the pronouns in at this point. Of course looking back a year now, it seems silly that I was anxious over something so small, but it did make me hesitate to share such things. I still feel worried if I draw Sylvae in anything feminine, like somehow I'm 'choosing' one way, but that's some internalised BS, isn't it?