Who wants a wee bit of Florid Sword/Shadowblade art?Yeah, I thought you might. :-)https://www.instagram.com/p/BmTtENlhca2/?taken-by=mrjaymyers
Look how beautiful this is.In our book club last week we read what Janner found in the cave. But this is what Kalmar found in that same cave.One little snout. One big snout. Connection.Thank you, Noah, for sharing your heart and eyes and Conté work with us.
Here it is—part 5 and the final segment of Madame Sidler's interview with Nicholas Kole. (Here are parts one, two, three, and four.) Thanks for sticking with us as these interview snippets rolled out!
Madame Sidler: Moving away a little bit from Wingfeather—Jellybots! Tell us about Jellybots and what else you’re currently doing.
Nicholas Kole: Jellybots is a little project I’ve been—what is it called when a mother hen sits on her eggs?—I’ve been trying to foster and grow that gradually. It’s a science fiction story project I’ve been chewing on for a number of years at this point, and finally this year as Wingfeather was wrapping up I got up the courage to kick off a Patreon and try to make a go of it a little more directly, rather than just trying to take care of it in the background.
What specifically would you like to know about it?
MS: We were just wondering—this question is from Vekka Youngbeast, which may be my favorite name in the world—wondering what your plans are.
NK: Well, the plan right now is to develop that through the Patreon to the point where we have enough content to create an art book. And the desire with an art book is to have a physical object that says yes, this exists, these designs exist, and to have a concrete thing that can then be used to pitch and move forward with the story and the world. I find that I really love worldbuilding. I really love populating the world with creatures and characters, and figuring out what’s the nature of this space and the different powers and how they relate to each other. And if you leap too quickly into just trying to get the story out there, I think opportunities get missed to more thoroughly envision what that world’s going to be like.
So right now it’s primarily a worldbuilding project. I’m pretty wary, though, that I don’t want to dither too much on all the details before committing to trying to make it a real thing with a story that’s working and a script that moves the way you want it to, but it’s been a personal project and testing ground where I vent all of my energy that I can’t spend on the professional projects I have. So the weirder designs and wackier stuff that I want to do and I can’t, I pour into Jellybots.
MS: Cool. Jellybots are super fun. :-) Another fun question: Bronze the Sling asks, “Are there any chances for students to learn from you by internships, tutoring, or even online tutorials?” And we have actually had one or two other people ask whether some of the artists from the Wingfeather design—either from the books or the animated series—would be interested in doing online drawing tutorials.
NK: Tutorial posts, yeah, for sure! That’s actually been a part of the Jellybots Patreon—getting together a monthly tutorial to walk through that stuff. And, slowly, my plan is that that continues and a book kind of exists, or at least does online, apart from the Patreon. So right now those are locked behind the Patreon, but eventually I think they will not be. I do try—on Twitter sometimes, I’ll go off on little rants to explain visual principle or put together a short tutorial for people struggling—
MS: I’ve seen those; they’re really cool.
NK: Thank you! People seem to really respond to those. I really love taking that opportunity to teach and give back, because none of us arrived in the place where we are professionally without people teaching us to begin with.
MS: Are there other artists you learn from?
NK: Definitely, yes, definitely. And professors and mentors, and people along the way. In terms of influences, I would say Kazu Kibuishi, who does the Amulet graphic novel series, has been a huge inspiration and influence. Jake Parker does a lot of great breakdowns and stuff like that, and just makes stellar work, and watching his trajectory has been cool. And he’s just a really nice guy, too, so that’s always fun. Those are the two that spring to mind right off the top of the head. Being involved in online art community has been a huge part of my development.
MS: Awesome. We have reached the end of our very long list of questions, and I really appreciate you talking with me. Is there anything else you would want to talk about?
NK: Well, I’m an open book, but I can’t think of anything that springs to mind.
MS: Okay, well, thank you very much. What’s next for you? What’s exciting you right now? And we’ll wrap up with that.
NK: Okay, yeah. Right now—well, I’m about to get married—
MS: Yes!
NK: —so that’s pretty exciting; I’m pretty pumped about that. I just signed a lease for our future apartment. So getting all that squared away has been really fun—and nerve wracking, but great! And I’ve been involved with the new remasters of the Spyro the Dragon game—so I don’t know if that means anything to anybody, but I’ve gone from dragons to dragons. So my whole life has been very, very dragon-focused for the last couple months, and those are coming out in September. We’ve just [in April] begun to announce things and drip out screenshots, and that’s been really exciting to get people’s response, so that’s been really fun. I think that’s going to be a really enjoyable time. And for the person who asked about Wingfeather game stuff, give the new Spyro games a try! [laughter] It’s not the same. But there are dragons, and I did draw them!
MS: Cool! Well, thank you very much.
NK: Absolutely! Happy to talk.
MS: Yeah! So, greetings from the Featherheads, and I appreciate your time.
NK: Absolutely. Right back.
MS: I hope the rest of your day is full of colors and dragons and all sorts of wonderful things.
NK: Absolutely! And yours as well.
Since this interview happened way back in April, I am pleased to report to you that Nicholas and Erika were successfully married last weekend! Congratulations, Koles!
Nicholas has paused his Patreon for August, but you're still welcome to visit. His wife Erika is an artist as well—and was a storyboard artist for Wingfeather! Meet her on Instagram and Tumblr. :-)This week, Madame Sidler will be reading chapters 40-46 in The Monster in the Hollows. Check back on Friday for an excerpt—and head to the forum for art and writing challenges and all manner of fun conversations. :-)
Several years ago Pastor Rob was reading The Monster in the Hollows to his seven-year-old daughter, who brought him this drawing. I don't know her name—and she'd be older than Janner now (sorry for the delay!)—but we do appreciate this drawing. What a contrast there is between the long, sharp claws and the sad blue eyes. When I look into those eyes, I think he looks afraid. And no wonder.The Maker makes a flourish. The Maker makes a well. What will He make of you, little Grey Fang?
Huzzah! The soundtrack is here! You can purchase it at the Rabbit Room, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Amazon, and more. We're so thrilled for you to hear it! Huge thanks to Chris for his hard work in making the soundtrack (and the film!) possible; to The Arcadian Wild, who co-wrote the songs with Andrew and performed them; and to Kurt Heinecke, who along with The Arcadian Wild scored the film.Click the cover art below for the official lyric video for the film version of "My Love Has Gone Across the Sea," featuring Skye Peterson, who also sings "Yurgen's Tune" on the soundtrack.ps. Skye also released a brand-new single this weekend! Check that out here.
Fans of the Florid Sword, Shadowblade, and comic books: I have no update for you on the progress of the comic book. But! I do have a new Florid Sword sketch for you! Mr. Jay Myers, our comic's illustrator, has been playing around in Procreate (the same app Nicholas Kole uses) and posted these the other day.https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk6o9o1Bovt/?taken-by=mrjaymyersScroll through and you'll see a certain masked man we all know from Dugtown. When I saw him I commented "Florid Sword!" and Jay replied "Hero with heroes." :-)
We're back with more goodness from Nicholas Kole! Here are parts one, two, and three to get you caught up on our conversation. Stay tuned for part five!
Madame Sidler: Um, so here’s a question from Danniby—not that Danniby; the other Danniby—I assume not that Danniby—“How do you create compelling color schemes for environments and scenes within the limitationss of realistic colors? I can’t seem to make them coexist. To clarify, when I try to stick to believable colors I end up breaking my color scheme. How do you avoid this?”
Nicholas Kole: I would say to Danniby, I am not the biggest believer in the importance of realism.
[laughter]
MS: As a fictional character, I’m with you.
NK: Yeah, I just—visually... how do I say this? The fullest answer would be a long artistic conversation over coffee. But in short, I think for storytelling and for things like the Wingfeather Saga, our priority with color was to tell the story. The secondary priority was a sense of realism in grounding it. We didn’t want to go so wacky and wild, but we really did want to set up the colors and make them dynamic and powerful in a way that emphasized the moment narratively. For instance, when the Black Carriage is racing through the streets of Glipwood, it’s not writ anywhere that it must have a lantern on it, but it must. There’s got to be a pop of orange light, because you’re looking at the space, it’s nighttime, so you’re going to create a space that’s largely blue and green. A contrast in complementary color has got to be an orange glow. So, to track this object we want you be to looking at, we’re going to add a lantern or some sort of source of light that’s going to draw your eye, your attention. Likewise, with the dragon, we’re trying to create these scenes where your attention stays exactly where it ought to stay—you’re not looking off to the side of the screen and paying too much attention to the blades of grass, or the tree branches or whatever. Later you can if you want, but we want you to feel as you move through the story that you’re locked in.
A big thing that I wanted to do—that was definitely a point of some contention, we sort of argued it back and forth as we went—but I created a color script for the whole pieces before we went in, which is basically just a really rough pass on the color scheme of each scene. We start in the dark of the night but then we break to morning, it’s breakfast, it’s a warm family time, so the colors are very natural. But over the course of the short the peril increases, and I wanted that to be mirrored by a shift in the color. So, the sunset. And basically we try to get the passage of time through the short to work such that by the time the dragon appears it’s just the right moment for the sky to be as dramatic as we can make it. So it’s just that moment when the sun’s still at the horizon, it’s sunset but it’s kind of twilight, the moon’s in the sky, and things are quite dark and the shadows pool and stuff like that. My sense was that the dragon moment would be most powerful in that framing than in the middle of the afternoon. Does that make sense?
MS: Yeah. Definitely, as the story gets more intense the colors also get more intense.
NK: Yeah. So I would say it’s about sussing out what your priorities are for the scene. If you’re trying to create a scene of warmth and comfort, you’re going to create your color scheme in a particular way, and if you’re looking for dynamic perilous action, then you might approach it very differently. And not being tethered too much to realism but sort of allowing things to move emotionally with your priorities, that's the way I prefer to work.
MS: Yeah. That makes sense. I’m thinking about the scene around the breakfast table where there’s a lot less contrast in the colors, everything’s sort of at the same level, everything’s light and the colors are not as deep and they’re not as intense, and then you’ve got those really rich sky colors, and the black-black and the very magenta-magentas and all of that later in those more dangerous scenes.
NK: Yeah, for sure.
MS: Very cool. I love it, by the way.
This week, Madame Sidler will be reading chapters 21-25 of The Monster in the Hollows. To weigh in on any of the conversations currently happening in the forum (a quote game, books we love, guildling signups, the short film's animation style, and more), dive on in. :-) We'll see you on Friday for an excerpt from this week's reading!
This drawing reminds me of a passage we read a couple of weeks ago. Look at the detail on the wings. Look at Artham's dear fearful face.Thanks for sending this in, Sandra! We're so glad your kids love the Wingfeathers.