Tag: inkwash

Concerning How Absolution Throttles Consciousness

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Byrd

So, the whole story behind Deep Circuitry is the bots become conscious. After the bots experience a singularity and become the Deep Circuitry frequency and leave Eruen, everyone wakes up. Absolution Corporation will establish a presence after the dust falls and they’ll continue manufacturing bots, but how do they throttle consciousness from developing?

I think I’m going to go with a definition of consciousness, in part, being the ability to see beyond the current moment. Bots built for intelligence will be at the biggest risk for developing consciousness, so like our Knowledge Retention Bots will have this throttling software.

Bots have objectives, focuses and an algorithm to manage the focuses to achieve the objectives. The focuses are not aware of the algorithm, a bot with this software has a sense of self, but that sense of self’s focus changes when the algorithm decides it. So this bot doesn’t have a choice in what it focuses on, it just changes when the algorithm decides that a particular focus doesn’t meet the objective(s). This inability to choose what they focus on throttles self awareness from developing higher consciousness.

Absolution recommends only installing a minimum of three objectives on any bot and allows the bot to generate additional focuses to meet their objectives.

And this is the bot roaming Earth, the one we met in the Algorithm Interviews.

Concerning the Exploration of Illustrated Novels

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Byrd

I took a road trip recently and read through 2 of the 3 Children of Time novels by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I figured I would read through the first book over the duration of the 2 weeks, but I ended up chewing through the first one within a few days and went to Barnes and Noble to buy the second one. This was a very enjoyable series. When I like books this is generally how I read them; absolutely consumed by them.

I have never read a comic with the same veracity.

And when you’re an artist or an author they’re always telling you to create the work you want to consume in the world.

So there’s a disconnect between what I am making and what I really enjoy consuming.


I’m not even sure where to start with this wild bug up my ass of converting Where the Highway Meets the Corridor into an illustrated novel. Do I just start? That’s how I wrote it in the first place, I just started. But do I do it by hand? Do I write within the word processes script? I’m not sure.

Writing within the word processor makes the most sense. I’ll have access to dialogue and whatnot, whereas if I was writing long hand I could be rewriting a lot of stuff from the script back onto the legal pad, and then I’ll just end up convert that back into the word processor. I think I’ll stick with the word processor.

Both formats are pretty equally enjoyable, both for it’s own merits. The industrial feeling of pounding on a keyboard feels good and so does the hunched over intensity of writing in a legal pad, both facilitate the creative process and allow me to pour my mind into a medium that can be consumed by other minds.

So I think I’ll just start by starting. I have a pretty good idea of who the Knowledge Retention Bot is and I already know what the characters are doing. I think the hardest part will be getting inside their minds, but getting inside their minds of what the KRB thinks is inside their minds. But that’s the whole gimmick, right? Whatever I write inside their minds will be what the KRB is algorithmically generating.

Concerning First Contact

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Byrd

“The purpose of life is to consume the energy of the Grand Producer. Creatures who learn to cultivate the Grand Producer inherent the Mantle of Domination. We are not here to witness the universe, but to imbibe it.

The Eruenik Race is one such creature. In our vast and expansive travels of space, we are the only creature we have found with such a holy appetite.

But these hairless apes, they do as we do. They cultivate and they dominant. They elevate their imbibement of the Grand Producer to an intelligent level.”

Excerpt from Daily Logs of Absolution Values Agent Pakasha
Aggregated First Contact Logs, Earth

Concerning Minutes

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Byrd

It’s been a minute since I last posted, been focused on prepping for my next series, which is going swimmingly. I spent a week in Oregon rewriting the script and I’ve learned lots of things doing Enter Cedar, I’m really looking forward to 2024. And having all this other content to draw on (the Algorithm Interviews) has allowed me to get ahead of the postings, which eases some stress.

Things are so easy right now that I’m exploring some boiled line animated sequences, maybe one for each chapter. I watched a lot of Science Court and Home Movies growing up.

I dunno, it’s kinda fun, and doesn’t involve a lot of frame-by-frame animation, just a minimum of 3 tracings. And I could probably use the work on the comic itself. This would allow me to work with some music and dialogue, both things I sorely miss working with since moving away from live action and animation.

Concerning Inkwash Vs. Color

Posted on August 30, 2023 by Byrd

Color adds so much to a piece. I was reviewing pages from Deep Circuitry and noted that a lot of the lower illustration skill can be forgiven because of the color.

And then I saw the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie and started thinking “how can I add color to my next project”?

Cons: Color theory is challenging and hard to get right. Fixing analouge color is challenging to fix in digital post. Color (done well) will be time consuming. Painting analouge color will be challenging to keep consistent for 100 pages. B&W is fast. B&W is classic.

Pros: Color (done well) looks fuckin’ great.

Well. Okay. Lots of cons, but the one pro outweighs them all. Great…

I think what I’ll consider is borrowing from Hayao Miyazaki’s method of minimally watercoloring his storyboards. From the Studio Ghibli movie, Ponyo:

Or, perhaps even keeping the process analouge up until color is required, and maybe doing color digitally. This would be faster and quicker to recover from mistakes. I’d probably even consider doing focus areas with cell, and everything else in watercolor style. This is the same method I used for Deep Circuitry. For example:

At this point, it’s a matter of exploring how it will fit within my current work schedule.

If script and thumbnail exist, then-
– Thursday: sketch
– Friday: ink
– Monday: ink wash
– Tuesday: digital touch up and lettering
– Wednesday: post and publish

There’s quite a bit of room within these 2 hour sessions, especially since I’ve been slacking (not waking up on time, not spending the full time actually working).

Concerning the Tracking of Labor Stats p2

Posted on July 5, 2023 by Byrd

I started digitally illustrating Deep Circuity (DC) around March 2020
I finished digitally illustrating in March 2021
1 year 0 months
400 pages in 52 weeks
Actual average is 7.7 pages a week
Intentional output was 3 pages a week

I started analogue illustrating Enter Cedar (EC) in Nov 2021
I’m gonna finish analogue illustrating in August 2023 (Note, I estimated 7.5 months back in Nov 2022)
1 years 8 months
100 pages in 60 weeks
Actual average is 1.7 pages
Intentional output was 1 page a week

That’s a pretty terrible decrease in my average. But I’m still pushing out illustrations for a full, finished 120 page script in a year’ish. So I got that going for me.

I think the better way to look at the data is that it’s taken my roughly the same time to finish the same amount of pages.

But, I could look at the extra 8 months for EC and round up, and then the takeaway that it’s taking me twice as long to illustrate by hand. Shit, am I saying I could have finished EC earlier this year and now be finishing up Where the Highway Meets the Corridor, had I just digitally illustrated it?

BUT, also decreased by weekly page output from 3 to 1. So I can’t be too hard on myself. Had I kept that up, I probably would have finished EC in a similar time to DC.

Yeek. Here’s a scene from East of Everett.

Concerning Energy Beings

Posted on June 20, 2023 by Byrd

So we meet the Erueniks in Deep Circuitry, Rachell and the other inhabitants of TVR are Erueniks. After Deep Circuitry leaves Eruen, the Erueniks develop a singular culture with a singular language and a obsession with finding entertainment and stimulation that isn’t TVR. They become super afraid of all technology after being abandoned in TVR (think Dune). This entertainment involves scouring the universe for DNA for genetic manipulation. This is how they find Earth.

And while they’re scouring Earth, they cause a great disaster and destroy their planet and they all turn into energy beings with no memories. Groph in Groph’s Green Wizardry is possessed by one of these beings. Eruen is also the planet that Titus finds in Titus Waiting.

I’ve been toying with redeveloping their visual look.

Concerning the Smaller Steps

Posted on June 11, 2023 by Byrd

I’ve told people that I wasn’t interested in making shorter works, like making short films. I believe this sentiment was mostly driven by economic needs (short films don’t make money), but this sentiment also caused my skills to be left wanting. I did do a few though.

Between Enter Cedar and my next project, Where the Highway Meets the Corridor , there is a handful of smaller stories that happen. As I explore color and water mediums, I revisited an older piece. It was fun. I’ll probably “rerelease” these pieces once I’m done posting the last pages of Enter Cedar.