Alright you asked for process questions here come's one, How did you decide the placement and content of the illustrations, and how'd that work in collaboration with Janet?
i wanted to get janet (@girlpillz) to do official godfeels art pretty much immediately after her first june egbert sketch showed up in my feed. i think it was after this piece that i finally reached out to her just to say "hey your art fucking rules." when i finally started the godfeels work server back in january 2021 of course i invited her in. she actually posted wip sketches of THIS piece long before it was released, and i'm honestly not sure why i didn't ask her to let me use it in the chapter??? but when she started posting sketches of puppet june and said she wanted to play around with an animation i was immediately like THIS HAS TO BE HOW THE CHAPTER STARTS. then she posted the first finished version of the animation and this was my reaction:
anyway so her flashback art is a bit of a different story.
the flashbacks, in general, were not originally planned. i wanted the circus egotistica to be a continuous event that felt REALLY painful in a lot of ways, but the more of it i wrote the more i was like, yeah, this maybe is a bit too much all at once. so i started writing the rose flashback, and it felt so beautifully painfully tragic that i knew i had to give all the betas their own flashbacks. this was the development that ultimately delayed the chapter the most (besides all the many alterations i had to make to the J swallowed by X bits, which is a post for another day), because i wanted each of the flashbacks to dig down into something true and maybe as yet understated about these characters that would help enhance current and future events.
at some point janet and i started talking about ways she could contribute art to godfeels that wouldn't eat up TOO much of her time, and she suggested these little vignettes. i trust her judgment as an artist and like a couple days later she hit me with sketches that are pretty much identical to the final published versions, and they COMPLETELY changed my view of the chapter.
here's the thing. as a collaborative artist, i really dislike dictators. don't get me wrong, there's stuff i won't budge on re: my plans for godfeels. but generally speaking there's very little that isn't up for debate or discussion, and quite frankly i think this story has gotten astronomically better now that i've got other people with complimentary mental illnesses to mine to spitball ideas off of. @optimisticduelist2 for instance has been a TREMENDOUS help in honing my dirk voice, and is just all around a fantastically insightful person. honestly all my collaborators are amazing, they take my dumb ideas and run with them SO much further than i ever anticipated. god there's so much cool shit coming your way later this year i can't fucking wait OK I'M GETTING DISTRACTED
for me, there's no point in collaborating with another artist if all they're there to do is what i tell them to do. i like being surprised and finding inspiration in new ideas! so when my friend KC does a shitpost design of alphi apexis that's basically just kermit with six arms and a kappa indent on her head, i see that and go "okay but what if that was actually canon." like my only real thought with alphi's physical appearance was that i don't want her to look like a fucking krogan from mass effect, and like. can you get much more removed from that than kermit????
i also did this with zoe in chapter 7, where the images evolved into a dialectic between violetta and voicello, and this reverberated on the chapter itself. i modified a lot of the text to enhance that effect! it became such an integral part of the chapter that it actually changed/clarified a huge chunk of my plans for godfeels as a whole! which is why i put her as a co-author on the chapter despite her not contributing any prose.
so anyway when i got janet's flashback sketches, i found myself really enamored with just how fractured they are. partial snapshots of moments, memories that are even kind of disconnected from june in a way?
this came at a time when i was really struggling with the flashbacks. my instinct is to tie a bow on every scene as much as possible. how many times have i ranted about hollywood-style movies cutting dialogue scenes off too early? but every time i tried to close these flashbacks it felt like it was just going on too long. the chapter was already so fucking long!! i considered cutting the flashbacks at one point because i was just so certain i couldn't find a way to pull them together.
then i got janet's sketches and realized, actually it makes SENSE for these scenes to be a little fractured and incomplete, because they're memories spurned on by moments of trauma and distress. in text, the flashbacks are occurring simultaneously to everyone in june's primary system -june, J, X, and vriska- which is something i didn't even initially intend until i got to the end of the chapter and realized what that implied about X specifically.
from there i started going back and finding commonalities between the flashbacks. immediately i identified a weakness in the dave and jade flashbacks. jade's scene started with narration, which was less interesting than jumping in with dialogue like the other flashbacks. to fix that i basically took that narration and reincorporated most of it into the rest of the scene. but for dave's the problem was mostly just irrelevant context that is basically implied by the rest of the scene (which i'll share with you now because it's short and kind of cute):
as to the placement of the images themselves, the obvious answer is to put them at the beginning of the flashbacks right? but something about that just felt wrong to me, and i think it's specifically dave's and terezi's images that cinched it. there's something about them that specifically embodies the tone of the END of those flashbacks. if terezi's scene opened with the picture of her eating a leaf, that would be funny. but i think getting that image at the end of the flashback really hammers home the absurd drama of it. putting them at the head of the chapters almost felt like spoilers? idk
anyway janet did an incredible job and i'm really looking forward to working with her again in the future. this was a way longer answer than strictly necessary BUT THAT'S ME AIN'T IT
Check out the Mandeville Canyon Project on Howard Fischer Design
New Post has been published on http://www.howardfischerdesign.com/mandeville-canyon/
Mandeville Canyon
[ RENOVATION + INTERIOR DESIGN ]
The restoration of this mid century modern home, Started with the Idea of letting the Original Architect’s intention show through, While making it livable for today. It was more of a taking things away that didn’t belong than Adding detail. The flooring in most of the house was too badly damaged to repair. Grey stained maple floors were used throughout. Although not something that would have originally been used in the 50s, They provide a neutral backdrop for the furnishings and the owners art collection. The owners had several iconic pieces of furniture to start with. They wanted to make sure their home looked like a home and not a high-end furniture showroom. We added a few more design icon pieces of furniture, But mostly comfortable modern furniture that a family could live with. By restoring much of the house versus replacing Original items, the budget was cut by half. The end result is a beautiful Home.
Check my Interior Design Projects on Howard Fischer Design
New Post has been published on http://www.howardfischerdesign.com/interior-design/
Interior Design
The planning, layout, organization and furnishing of an architectural interior. Most people come to design project with existing furniture art and things they like. Howard’s goal is to utilize existing items with new items. Interior design can dovetail with renovation. The result is beautiful livable home, not just a high-end looking space.
Featured Projects:
Mandeville Canyon
The owners had several iconic pieces of furniture to start with. They wanted to make sure their home looked like a home and not a high-end furniture showroom. We added a few more design icon pieces of furniture, but mostly comfortable modern furniture that a family could live with.
Hyde Park
Many original and rare light fixtures were also in place. Although there was extensive work done on the home, It has the feeling of maintained overtime versus renovated. Many of the furnishings the owner had for years. So the design process was more about editing and finding the appropriate location for each piece.
3 Room Suite
This Space started out as two bedrooms and a separate sleeping porch. What was there was in excellent condition. But it felt disjointed & lacked architectural presents. Most of the mahogany doors and trim around the windows and floor are original.
Check out the Hyde Park Project on Howard Fischer Design
New Post has been published on http://www.howardfischerdesign.com/hyde-park/
Hyde Park
[ RENOVATION + INTERIOR DESIGN ]
This home was in decay when purchased. However many of the incredible architectural features were still in place. More importantly Many original and rare light fixtures were also in place. Although there was extensive work done on the home, It has the feeling of maintained overtime versus renovated. Many of the furnishings the owner had for years. So the design process was more about editing and finding the appropriate location for each piece.
