Beginning a New Chapter

Unintentionally turning a sketch into a story

In 2019, I got back into drawing and painting after over twenty years of being out practice. Going digital was such a different experience than the pens and paints that I had put down almost fifteen years earlier. I found a new excitement in forming and putting my ideas together.

Over the last five years, I’ve been drawing more than I ever did when I was younger and exploring different styles and techniques to the point where I was going beyond random ideas. When I was particularly happy with a piece, I found myself also building an entire narrative to go along with it.

This is cool but what happened just before it? What happens next?

I started 2024 with yet another sketch, but this time I saw more than yet another story to go with it. I saw a way to connect it to a larger project I’ve been chipping away at for years, Treadbeats.

What was exciting about this was that that I had no clear idea where this inkling of an idea would end up. I didn’t even know who the characters were or what the arc would be. I just went with wherever inspiration led me, whether it was something I wanted to see or something I wanted to say.

I’d gone through the routine of drawing something new every day with a few years of Inktober, and here was a chance to take that to a new level. I wanted to make this more of a storyboarding exercise, with what I consider a specific cinematic style.

“Approaching Arsenal”

Drawing this first piece was just the beginning. Adding a slow pull back and lighting effect gave it a heartbeat, and adding “A Warm Place” by Nine Inch Nails under it gave it a soul. At this point, the only connection to Treadbeats was when I added the title (“Arsenal” is a setting for an early part of that story).

“When They Saw Nothing Remained”

The title sounds especially bleak without context, but I like finding ways to create intrigue or mystery at the beginning of a story. Nothing makes me wonder what’s happening more than seeing characters face some sort of adversity right off the bat. Maybe that’s just me?

“Hope and Wisdom Undone By Secrets”

Who are these people? Where are they? Why are they there? All good questions I started to see answers to, even if I didn’t know how to express them. Meanwhile, I also started to see the tall figure as the central character in this moment. Is he some sort of leader? Who is he? Even better, who was he?

That was the question that opened the floodgates, and yet, the answers were not in this moment, as they never are. Those answers were in some other moment.

Show, don’t tell, right?

And so here was a chance to do something different and take a chance by going to another time. Ah, the often misused or plain old uninspired flashback. Risky, sure, but why not. WHO CARES? I just wanted to explore this out loud and see where it goes.

Now, this isn’t specifically the Treadbeats story, but it’s definitely in the same universe. I’m thinking of it like a spin-off in reverse, I suppose. The idea is to tell a story that happens before and parallel to everything I have in mind for Treadbeats, even it might be stylistically or tonally different.

At this point, I’m going to see how long I can keep this up and 1) not paint myself into a corner and 2) stay actually excited about doing it.

I’d like to keep up daily posts on Instagram, followed by weekly collections here. And to sweeten the deal for subscribers, what better way to use this platform than to serve up even more detail for the story.

Time to start writing!