The Wulf & Eadwacer Project

Transforming a thousand-year-old story into a modern graphic novel. |Rora|Honours Student|Medievalist|Creative Writer|Artist|

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I'm Back, And I Nailed It

It's been too long friends, too long!

I know I jumped ship for a while there but in order to not drown I had to let this go for a while.

The good news is...

I FINISHED MY PROJECT!

I achieved a first class honours degree and I've been accepted into a PhD program. I'll be starting my PhD in 2023 (giving myself a year off, finally).

I dearly want to start posting about this and other projects again very soon. I think I may end up making a twitter and making that my main platform as well.

For now I just wanted to give y'all an update and thank you for your support!

tl;dr: I'm back, baby!

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Entry 24: Capitalism Makes Clothing Lame

9th June 2021:

I want to focus on accentuating the clothing in Wulf and Eadwacer. Not just bringing froth medieval fashion from Scandinavia and the Anglo-Saxons but also other parts of Europe. Bring back the beautiful, cultural, elaborate garments of the past, a fashion homage to inspire the future!

Reclaiming what was fashion before fascism, capitalism and white supremacy.

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Entry 23: No Beer & No TV Make Homer Something Something

1st June 2021:

It's nearing the end of semester one. I’ve got two major assignments left until the mid-semester break. God, I can’t wait! Not just because it’s a “break” (I don’t actually think I’ll be able to “break” much), but because I will have five weeks of uninterrupted time to work on my project.

I’m dying for this time. There’s sooo much to do! I’m finishing the concept art and script (draft 1) this week, but that’s nothing compared to the 1-200 pages of drawing I will need to do for the project.

That and the thesis.

The 8,000-word thesis.

I’ve made a timetable to help me keep on track. It includes what creative work I need to do but what I should be researching each week.

Just gotta keep reminding myself what might come if I can do this. Scholarship. PhD. Meaningful and financially stable employment (no more under the poverty line! Better healthcare! Heating -- omg heating!!!!).

In other news, I’ve been told by serval teachers and one of my supervisors that I should apply to present at this academic conference held by the uni.

“It will look good on your resume,” they said.

So I guess I should probably do that too. Not complaining. I think it’s a good idea. Just tired.

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Second romantic concept sketch, as something I want to have at the beginning of each episode. This feels like the one. Much longing, much loss.

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Been working on a little romance sketch for the beginning of each episode. I really want there to be lots of longing.

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A couple of rough character concepts for episode 1 of Wulf and Eadwacer!

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Entry 22: Final Assignments and Dud Housemates

23rd May 2021:

It’s been a stressful week -- working on my final assignments for the semester alongside my project, plus dealing with housemate problems (is expecting housemates to pay their share of the rent really asking too much?).

After I met with my second supervisor and discussed my ideas around having Eadwacer’s “clan” being subtly influenced by Christianity, I decided to I’m going to lean into the Roman aesthetics with his (and his family’s) designs.

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Entry 21: More Research

16th May 2021:

I’m working on my last assignment for Research Methods. It ties in with my overall honours thesis, so it’s not all wasted work.

I’m going over Murdocks’ The Heroine’s Journey again. It seems like a good idea to emphasise the protagonist’s mother if I want to use The Heroine’s Journey as a narrative device.

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love this colour palette! Wulf is a summer!

realised that I was spending too much time fussing over the colouring details for the main three characters and, like, not actually starting the main bulk of the project. So, I think I'm going to leave this one as is and move onto actually thumbnailing everything.

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Experimenting with clothing.

Wulf concepts part 2.

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Entry 20: And The Pope Said...

13th May 2021:

I had my second “official” meeting with my second supervisor, the medieval specialist who worked on GOT, yesterday. Basically, I updated her with where I was at in terms of concept art and story.

We discussed ways to open the story, and both liked having similar opening ideas to the way Lore Olympus and GOT open, with something like a party or an important gathering. This gives the story a chance to introduces characters and their dynamics and give somewhat of a sense of what their normal life is like before everything is interrupted.

We also looked at the religious themes I want to portray in the comic. In this period of time, it’s not if you believe in something but what you believe.

This story is an Anglo-Saxon one that is written most likely about their recent ancestors. This means there would likely be a mixture of old gods and new gods in the text for two reasons:

The grandchildren writing this would have likely converted from the old gods and have embraced the new growing Christian movement.

The way Christianity proselytised in those times was kind of genius. The pope told his proselytisers to start converting people of different faiths by simply adding “thank you jesus” at the end of whatever they would normally do in their current religion. Let them keep all their holidays, their ceremonies, their gods, but make them thank jesus at the end. As one can imagine, this makes it easier and less threatening to adopt, which over time makes it simpler for these people to fully convert. In short, during this time, you get a mix of old religions and new this type of conversion of ceremonies, and old religions being almost exactly the same but with a few minor Christian tweaks.

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Wulf mood board

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Continuing with Wulf's concept sketches! <3

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Entry 19:Creative Career Advice From Industry Professionals

11th May 2021:

Today I attended the Creative Careers Conference, held by my uni. While this is not directly related to my project, I thought it would be a good chance to get industry insight and, sigh, n e t w o r k.

Anyway, I met a lot of cool people, including some people that have worked for Dark Horse, Marvel, Ubisoft (apparently an awful place to work), Disney, and Monkey Stack to name a few. They gave some excellent. Here are some key takeaways if anyone is interested:

When trying to break into the industry, you should:

Never be an asshole (this was repeated a lot!)

Be resilient and don’t let rejections get to you (many said they had experienced hundreds of rejections before breaking in)

Be okay with working your way up (mail-room and runner jobs are great starting points)

Be persistent

Take an interest in the work of other professionals’ work, i.e. don’t just try to peddle your work to them! Don’t be that guy who meets an industry professional then sucks up 20 minutes of their time talking about your work and asking if they can get your work into the industry. Actually appreciate their work -- it will leave a much better impression. People and the industry is small. People remember first impressions.

Other note: I’m drafting ideas for my script and taking lots of inspiration from Evanescence's Synesthesia “Lithium”.

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I just spent a week so intimidated by "the blank page" that I couldn't even update anything. Good news though, I finally made a breakthrough!

Advice to anyone struggling with "the blank page": keep pushing through; you'll make a breakthrough!

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More cinnamon roll concepts.

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Working on full body concepts for Wulf.