#fatalk

This was the last page concept art before I went ahead and started the comic. At least when it comes to rendering style and paneling and speech bubbles and backgrounds and stuff, it's pretty close to how the pages are at the start of the comic. I also just think its really cute!

Context is too related to how Kana and Ash get to know each other in the comic for me to explain it. But at least I can say they start meeting up in the woods just the two of them, and this page is about that!

The second to last one! A smaller test for character rendering I made. I believe I had done a bunch of concept art for how Noriel's hideout was supposed to look (it ended up not looking like that at all lmao) and realized I could use them as copy pasted backgrounds for a quick test! I thiiink the context behind this dialogue I had in mind back then is related to conflict we have already seen! It just wouldn't happen like this anymore for character reasons. But I believe it was Noriel asking Kana if she would tell any of her friends what shes been doing out here and Kana was like lmao… no?

Hi hello!! Thank you so much for the kind words. I just recently reopened my asks because A Situation in my ask box had left me paranoid for a bit. So this being one of the first asks I get since reopening them again has made me very hopeful and appreciative that you took time out of your day to leave a nice message! I'm glad you liked Nostalgia my little grape juice wolf, and that you think my characters are nice and fun to learn about ;v; I hope you continue to enjoy what I have in store for the future.

As for your comments on the shadows and how my lighting and shading/shadows feel like characters themselves and the horror of them, I'm very glad that's the vibes they give!! That's my goal :D I know they have a strange way of working with the world and the story. Kind of other worldy and they can be hard to comprehend sometimes but that's the point and part of the horror of it.

If you like this sort of thing and want to dig deeper into its inner workings, FadeAway falls into an specific story genre: Magical realism!

Magical realism is a genre that originates from Latin America, which makes FadeAway a piece of Latin American art/literature in more ways than just its author (me!!). In simple words, its a Latin American narrative strategy that is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction. Magic realism is a natural outcome of postcolonial writing, which must make sense of at least two separate realities—the reality of the conquerors as well as that of the conquered. It employs magical elements to make a point about reality.

1) The narrator plays an important role because when describing a fantasy event, his voice speaks normally. Therefore, he doesn't attach importance to the unreality of said event to an extent, since he accepts it as normal. The one who does give meaning is the reader, who realizes the magical events.

2) Characters with supernatural powers: This is a key feature of this type of text, as the characters appear to have extraordinary abilities.

For now, here is some concept work I made for the prologue!

Thumbnails for the 4 pages. I always thumbnail because I find it makes paneling and spacing everything out so much easier for me. But they are rarely this clear, I only make them this detailed in important scenes where I'm trying to do relevant visual storytelling, which the prologue is very much filled with!

I was originally planning on keeping these to myself but I decided to show them anyway (Hope I don't regret it later.) The first concepts for the prologue cover! The last one is actually my favorite but I decided to save it for a future, more fitting time.

So I picked the second one from the first batch and played around with it! Sad I didn't get to include a spider in the cover but it just wasnt fitting right. And I'm quite happy with the final one to be That sad about it anyway!

Color mapping! I have done concept art for areas in my stories before but never like this! I was very proud of the script of the prologue though, so I really wanted to make sure the visuals turned out just as nice. And the mood and visuals of this prologue are VERY important, the color palette needed to show how Noriel feels throughout it as clearly as possible.

The goal was for something that made the world feel distant and eerie, but also gross to the touch and dangerous. Like dissociating because everything around you scares and grosses you out. #9 fit perfectly with the first half of what I wanted, while #2 fit the second half, so I combined them to get the final one!

The lineart is different in these pages compared to the rest of the comic, they are more scratchy to fit the mood. And Noriel has a different design because this prologue takes place at a different time compared to chapter 1! So I made quick references to help Aitebit and Trailing in those areas :]

In summary, two new ones got added to the list (Gore and suicide attempt), and the in depth run down of all the trigger warnings got rewritten a bit too for better clarity.