Concept: Awareness

May 21, 2020 by Karlissa Koop in Designs and Art, Comics and Storyboards, Sneak Peaks

For my ‘entry’ for the art contest, I decided to do a simple sketch.

So… SPOILER WARNING!

In The Loss, Jair becomes aware of his insanity, and has to face it. Though maybe it isn’t a major plot point in that book, it is significant to me. I decided to represent his moment of awareness, adding a mirror to reflect what’s going on inside him: how he now sees his mind as cracked and broken.

You could say the concept represented is “Mental Illness.” However, I think of it more as “Awareness.” Throughout Tales of the Diversity, various characters become more aware of their weaknesses, who they are, and where they want their lives to go.

It’s a theme that continues into the third book, which I’m still busily writing.

The art contest is open for submissions until June 15th: create an art piece (it can be a photograph, painting, model, whatever!) representing a concept from Tales of the Diversity, and send it in to author@karlissaj.com.

2020 Art Contest Winners

February 21, 2020 by Karlissa Koop in Designs and Art, Events of the Month

Time to announce the winners of the Tales of the Diversity art contest!

First of all, thank you to everyone that participated! I enjoyed getting to see all the unique art pieces and takes on the characters in “The Quest.”

But I could only pick three winners… so here they are!

For Author’s Favourite:

An adorable take on Katia hanging out on the mast, by Daniel!

For Most Accurate to Book:

An incredible model of Reto from Josiah!

And for Most Unique Style:

A fun little craft of Black Night from Ethan!

Again, thank you to everyone who participated, and great job on your art pieces! I’ll aim to get prizes delivered within the next few weeks!

Looking Back: Art

December 27, 2019 by Karlissa Koop in Designs and Art, Comics and Storyboards

I happened to be going through some old notebooks, and I discovered these: early concept art for the different races in “Tales of the Diversity”!

First of all, some context: the concepts, stories, and races now found in “Tales of the Diversity” have been on my mind for a long time, and therefore, been through many changes.

At one point, the stories were set in space, across multiple planets. I’ve had alternate races. And many of the creatures have changed over time.

This concept art, then, is a look at how I’ve imagined these races in the past… not necessarily how I picture them now.

Above is a few attempts I made at drawing Scavgans. That second image, labeled “MaiX,” was probably my inspiration for Jair’s current look (though I don’t imagine him quite like that).

I’ve never drawn a Scavgan that fully satisfied me. I’ve made lots of attempts over the years, but never really settled on a final look. I always knew I wanted them to look alien, but to what degree, I still haven’t decided.

I actually came up with the design for the Athai as part of a school project. For a later art assignment, I invented the Reea as their adversaries. In the books, I described the Athai as “lizard-squirrel people,” which is the best summary I could come up with for the design I’d chosen.

Above: this was an old concept for the Mocjoa… I certainly don’t imagine them this way anymore, though I do find this picture cute!

And finally, these are some Kamai sketches. The one on the left is mine. After giving some concept art to an artistic brother-in-law, he came up with the middle image. And the one on the right is one that I drew and he shaded.

All this to say… feel free to image and draw these races as you see fit for the art contest! You just might inspire me to reimagine the looks of the different characters once again!

Pictures and the Words They Speak

February 27, 2018 by Karlissa Koop in Thoughts on Life, Designs and Art

It occurred to me that I'd made the chibi art project way too complicated.

Fighting over draft after draft, doing sketch after sketch. I at last remembered why I'd started this: for fun! So, instead of trying to wow you with my art skills, I returned to the simple pleasure of making a picture.

A playful sketch of BookBat enjoying a warm drink!

Rough draft of Chibi characters... Tsingy (far left) left me unsatisfied, and the designer in me cringed at the big white space beside him...

Shortly after coming to that decision, I made a discovery while sorting through old notes. I uncovered a few of the pictures I'd made for Kingdom of Bats - back in the days before I'd published my very first book! Most of these pictures never made it to the final draft, and by extension were never shown to the world. I myself forgot they existed.

One of my cover design ideas I sent to the publisher, of the vampire bat Patas looking down on the portal spiderweb to the Underworld

Another cover design idea I sent the publisher, this one of Bai'ic in armour

Sketches of the main characters in "Kingdom of Bats"

Seeing these images reminded me once more of where I've come, and the time, effort, and courage it took to get here.

I've been thinking about what started me on this authoring path. And though I've enjoyed writing since I was a child, I trace my decision to publish back to a day in my early adulthood.

I was in Switzerland, studying communications. Some of the weeks I struggled through. But the week on writing - ah, I came alive that week! Our teacher was a published author, and he led us in creative exercises, like "showing not telling" and writing a story about God watching people kiss (seriously). In nearly all exercises (except the kissing one) I blazed ahead confidently and excitedly.

At the end of the week, the teacher and I were together chatting. He told me something that would set me on my new path: a published author told me, "You're good enough to be doing what I'm doing."

Not many years later, I published Kingdom of Bats.

These pictures I re-discovered remind me of what I've learned. I hadn't been to design school yet, so didn't know the ins-and-outs of book cover designs (I forgive the publisher for not going with my designs). I actually did a lot more pictures than these, but didn't understand things like 'resolution,' so sketched them too small to be of any use. Eventually, I scrapped all but two images (the map and one good sketch).

The map that actually made it into the book!

Each book, I've learned something new, and I believe I've grown in skills. But it all started with that one encouragement from my teacher.

Who has inspired you to take the next step in your dreams?

Coming up: two short stories are ready for sharing! Keep an eye out for "Bridging Worlds" - the story between Kingdom of Bats and Dwelling in Darkness - and "Ramanga's Lightning," a playful prequel to Dwelling in Darkness. I'll begin posting the first story Monday.

What Is Chibi?

July 31, 2017 by Karlissa Koop in Reading and Writing, Designs and Art

I mentioned in the Summer 2017 blog post that I’m creating Chibi-style sketches for a few of my characters from Kingdom of Bats and Dwelling in Darkness.

You might be someone who immediately knows what I’m talking about; or you might be asking yourself, “What is Chibi?”

The Japanese word actually means something along the lines of “little;” apparently, it’s an endearing term when applied to a child, and a bit of an insult when applied to an adult (not too surprising).

But the Western world has taken the word ‘Chibi’ as a direct reference to Japanese-style artwork in which the characters are given enlarged heads and simplified bodies in order to make them look more child-like or cute. (Think Powerpuff Girls.)

It’s a style I’ve played around with a little in my personal art sessions, and I decided it’d be a fun venue for creating pictures of some of my favourite characters from my two animal-themed books.

When these pictures are done, I’ll start posting them to FaceBook, Twitter, and Pinterest. So be on the lookout for lemurs, a bat, and a swallow all coming soon!