Comicaurora - Blog Posts

Eepy little catboy.

Can you draw Falst eepy cozy

its been a while since he had a nap that wasn't forced upon him by being somehow knocked out i think

Him an angy boi, so, so angy!

"That bastard Liutprand, who I'm NOT done with" -OSP Blue, on the Overly Sarcastic Podcast.

Chibi portrait by OSP Red @comicaurora

I dont fuckin knows!!!!!!!!

Also, my two cents, it's amazing what happens when I go and do a little light manual labor. Raking leaves, washing dishes, weeding the garden... and suddenly the ideas and solutions start moving again.

Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.

OSP Red, over on her Tumblr blog Comicaurora, posted a brilliant and refreshingly frank analysis of "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant."

I can't believe I didn't figure out it was an allegory about death, but we all miss something sometimes, I guess.

Go read the whole post.

Death Battle Matchup: The Collector (Aurora Webcomic) vs Emperor Belos (The Owl House)

Connections: ancient mages who have spent centuries perfecting their own twisted version of their world’s magic system (Belos invented the Coven Sigils to force people to control “wild magic,” whereas The Collector manipulates life magic to create monsters and destroy cities by “healing” their land). They see the people in their world as being entirely below them, and treat even the godlike figures in their world as just pawns and tools in their machinations (Vash for The Collector, Papa Titan and The Collector for Belos). They commit evil actions like genocide in the name of one of the ancient gods of their world, who makes up the very land that the story takes place on (The Primordials and Papa Titan), despite these entities not necessarily supporting their villainy back. They both have a form which can shift in between being humanoid and sludge-like, which allows them to regenerate from massive amounts of damage. Both characters prefer to enact their plans in secret and stay out of sight, but demonstrate deadly effectiveness in combat when the situation calls for it.

Animation potential: there’s a lot of potential for interesting scenes and interactions between the two characters’ powers. Belos has a much more versatile set of spells and abilities, so he can do a lot to outmaneuver The Collector using Glyphs, teleportation, mind magic etc., meanwhile The Collector can use her control of the Primordials to manipulate the terrain to her advantage and distract Belos by summoning Chimerae to her aid. They could then transition to a more close quarters physical battle with Belos’s Palisman form vs The Collector with her knives and plant magic. Lastly, Belos in his Titan form could go up against The Collector channeling the power of Primordial Life, and/or trying to take his soul for her own.

Dialogue/interaction potential: both characters are very calculating and sinister, so they would likely start with Collector trying to goad and study Belos while the latter tries to intimidate and belittle her. As the fight goes on, Belos slowly loses his composure and becomes more aggressive and animalistic, while the Collector becomes more confident in developing a strategy to win.

Track name: Wicked Witches

Debate: Both characters are pretty comparable in AP/Speed/Durability, so abilities and hax seem to be the deciding factor. Ultimately, I think Belos should win in this case even if Collector’s stats are likely a bit higher. He has several abilities between petrification, telekinesis and the Titan’s mold-breath that should be able to overcome the Collector’s life magic. Meanwhile, the hax that the Collector has are much more situational and less likely to overcome his defensive abilities.

Setup: The Collector arrives in the Boiling Isles seeking information about the Titan and its powers, hoping to study it and add to her collection. Locals lead her to Emperor Belos as the ultimate emissary of the Titan; however, Belos is suspicious of her Life magic as signs of a “wild witch” and so he decides to have her seized and petrified for her “heresy.”

I should've made this joke sooner

Snowed In - An Aurora Webcomic Fanfic

Oh hi, did anyone order a fluffy oneshot?

This one is Gen, rated T, and a comfy 3k words. It features Dainix encountering snow for the first time, the Floof Squad taking shelter on their way to Helm, and snuggles. Check it out if you like, and wishing you warmth and coziness regardless!

I hadn’t even considered the possibility that anything the paladins can do, Erin can also do. It hasn’t been proven or even theorized in the comic, but Theia does claim that anything LD can do, VD can do too. So like, Erin? Wings? When?

all of these new paladin powers are making me go feral because presumably ERIN CAN DO THEM TOO. WHERE IS ERINS WINGS. WHERE IS HIS BREATH ATTACK. does the void dragon need to help him or something?

WHERE ARE THEY

me when the character has a uniquely fucked mindset. me when the character's fundamental views of how the world works lead to them being hurt and/or hurting others and not seeing the problem with this. me when the character is a little freak who does weird shit because their beliefs, inspired entirely by their environment, are fuckeddddd

Micheal: "If we keep fighting all of these innocents are going to die, so please just give up and let me kill your friend!"

Kendal: "BITCH YOURE THE ONE WHO CHOSE TO FIGHT ME AND PUT THOSE INNOCENTS IN DANGER IN THE FIRST PLACE"

Micheal: "Damn good point."

Micheal: "Okay so instead im just going to murder all of the innocents myself"

I'm so excited about the next few pages omg <33

You should go and read this comic NOW!!

it's the very first aurora two-page spread!