Project-Sazzon

After a long period of procrastination, I have finally made an instagram account for this project. From now on it will be our main platform.

Follow us at tursas_art

Mara from project-sazzon, here!

Last journal entry I did was nearly two years ago. Back then I was talking about how we were aiming for a late august/early september launch for our prologue, but even now, we haven't released the thing yet. So, why the lack of release? Why nearly 2 years of silence? It can be boiled down to a few reasons:

First of all, the person who we wanted to do our website dropped out very early, so we are now trying to make a temporary domain. Well, that wasn't a terrible setback. At this point I started to draw the actual first chapter, and thought, that we would be able to launch with multiple chapters.

However, then the second year of school began...

Suddenly, my workload had multiplied, and I wasn't prepared for that. It was so sudden and overwhelming, that I completely stopped logging into deviantart. I've had very little free time since then and having to spend my summers working meant I couldn't just steam through the pages like I did with the prologue. By the third year this had gotten even worse and I have been very close to an actual mental breakdown.

Our financial plan has also taken a hit. By far the best way for us would've been crowdfunding via patreon, but there's one problem with it: where I live, it is not exactly legal. So, I have to either find some kind of loophole or, more likely, find a different source of revenue like ads, which are easily block and generally annoying, self-publishing through Amazon or an equivalent or an actual publisher. We're currently looking at all of those possibilities, but we will either likely either have to make do with smaller profits or give up our idealistic goal of providing a free experience sans ads.

Also, I'm working with horribly outdated soft- and hardware. luckily, I'm currently in the process of buying a new computer.

So, Where are we now? What will we do?

Once again, I have to state, that we haven't been idle. We've been making new character art and updating the old ones, and just generally been honing our skills. The prologue is completely finished, editing and all, and the next chapter is currently being drawn. The prologue was a great learning exercise. We went in with mostly our ideas and very little technical know-how, but now we know how to pay more attention to things like narrative, dramatic arch, posing, composition and framing. I've also spent time trying to recreate Jole's designs with my own style.

We are not giving up. We've invested so much time, energy and passion, and now that I'm starting to manage my time more carefully, I might be able to get things done faster. In the next coming months, I'm trying to bring more character arts and sneak peeks of our project.


Tl;dr: Lot of stress and setbacks, but we're getting back on our feet.

I want to thank everybody, who has supported our project by watching, favoring and commenting. Although we're silent most of the time, it means a lot to us.
'Til we me meet again.

Mara from Project-Sazzon here, hi.

Well, we've been mostly silent for a year. We've uploaded a couple of character concept arts, but that's mostly it. This is for multiple reasons. First of all, due to massive amounts of schoolwork, I haven't been able to spend as much time drawing as I used to. Secondly, this spring, Jole and I decided, that I will draw the actual comics, and he will remain a character and story designer. That means I've had to learn to draw characters designed by him.

We haven't been idle though. The 119 page Prologue is now now basically finished! It's completely drawn and now all I have to do is the digital post-production (cleanup, speech bubbles etc.). It'll take some time, but my goal is to finish it by this august, so that we can launch later this month or early september. We've also written and made storyboards for the next couple of chapters, and will start work on it as soon as the prologue is launched.

We're looking into other social media outlets as well, to promote this project, and possibly crowdfunding options. We've also commissioned a website, where the actual comic will be published.

If you're at all interested, stay tuned for updates.

Mara out

• How long have you been on DeviantArt? A little less than a year.

• What does your username mean? It's the name of the continent where the comic takes place.

• Describe yourself in three words. Two different people

• Are you left or right handed? Right.

• What was your first deviation? Project Sazzon Announcement

• What is your favourite type of art to create? Character design concepts.

• If you could instantly master a different art style, what would it be? Whatever Kentaro Miura does.

• What was your first favourite? Sir Ian McKellen

• What type of art do you tend to favourite the most? Traditional ink drawings.

• Who is your all-time favourite deviant artist? Yoji Shinkawa

• If you could meet anyone on DeviantArt in person, who would it be? gambargin.deviantart.com/

• How has a fellow deviant impacted your life? Not really, no.

• What are your preferred tools to create art? Ink, ink and ink.

• What is the most inspirational place for you to create art? Chair in front of my computer.

• What is your favourite DeviantArt memory? When I got my first watch.