As you guys know for our recently completed trailer I did everything. This includes the music. I can play music by ear so I just created something that I was hearing in my head and that I thought sounded good. I cannot read or write music and I am by no means a professional. So the music for the trailer left a lot to be desired. You can have another look at the trailer here:

I had planned to do the same for the Celflux animated short and hope for the best. However, Matthew Curtis (The voice of the High Councilor), on his own initiative, shared the Celflux project with a friend of his. This friend was a classicly trained musician who, according to him, fell in love with the project and expressed an interest in coming on board.

His name is Gwenael Mario Grisi and he started playing the piano at the age of six. He’s studied composition at the Conservatory in Belgium and graduated with three (3) master’s degrees. He’s also studied film editing with the purpose of learning how to better use music to tell stories. As with our amazingly talented voice cast, we are overwhelmed by how lucky we are to have such a talented and professional individual as part of the Celflux team. We would again like to acknowledge Matt’s role in making this happen. Mario had this to say about the Celflux project.

Your story is very touching and I’m still completely down for this project.
Your art is absolutely amazing, it gives me a lot of good vibes and I’m really happy I can help you for the music. It reminds me some old animated movies I was watching when I was younger, I’m in love with this project!

Here’s a sample of Mario’s work performed by the Brussels Phil Harmonic.

You can find out more about Mario and support his work at the following links:

Gwenael Mario Grisi on IMDB
Gwenael Grisi on Soundcloud
Gwenael Mario Grisi on Facebook

I always say when we first started working on Celflux we did not have any distinctive plans. We just wanted to do something as the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. We never imagined that Celflux would grow into what it has become and seems poised to become. Thank you to all our fans and those who have given of their time and energy to make it happen.

Everard J. McBain Jr.

Everard is the Creative Director and CEO of GemGfx. GemGfx is a multidisciplinary design consultancy based in Trinidad and Tobago. He has been involved in the field of Graphic Design for over 14 years. He is also the art director and co-author of the graphic novel Celflux which he created along with his wife Dixie Ann Archer-McBain.

ww.gemgfx.com

The post Gwenael Mario Grisi To Create Celflux Musical Score appeared first on Celflux - Graphic Novel & Animated Series.

If you are interested in doing a review of Celflux, please feel free to contact us and we will supply a complimentary digital copy. Click The images below to see where to purchase your copy of Celflux.

Thank you for supporting our project.

The post Where Can I Purchase Celflux? appeared first on Celflux - Graphic Novel & Animated Series.

The event is going to be held online, with updates as the days and week progresses. We’ll be giving away free downloads during the week. Each purchase of the print copy, entitles you to a free download of the digital version. Each purchase of the print copy also gives you a chance to win some cool Celflux Merchandise. Join the #Free event on Google Plus or on Facebook.

We’d really appreciate it if you would spread the word about our event so as many people as possible will attend. Look forward to seeing you there.

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When we first started the Celflux project, it was more a project of love. Just to realize a childhood dream of creating your own characters and stories and sharing it with others. We really did not have any stated goals or directions we wanted to go in other than knowing we had six volumes that we wanted to create. Let me say here that it’s not always a good idea to start something without a plan, but sometimes the journey of discovery is the most rewarding. Celflux has grown into a lot more since we first started. The research we’ve done has helped us create solid achievable goals that we can work towards. So we’ve decided that we’ll be creating six volumes with approximately four issues each. When we’ve completed the volumes, we’ll be compiling them into the graphic novel for that volume. May be hard cover, may be soft cover, we’re not sure yet.

So we recently completed Issue no.1 of Vol.I, and we’ve made digital copies available on DriveThru Comics for sale. We’d also sent it off to the printers to get print copies ready. Recently we received the proofs for the print copies. We were blown away by how fantastic the book looked. No, it’s not me tooting my own horn, it’s me genuinely surprised at how cool the book looked. It did not look like something we did. It looked like someone else did it. It gave us a really good feeling. A feeling like the thing you created came to life. Which brings me back to the Oprah moment I was having earlier. Holding the print copy in our hands we realized that we were not in this for the money. We felt a sense of accomplishment just by being able to create something and see it in physical form in our hands. We’d done it.

So our goal is to finish all six volumes, which is approx 24 issues and bring them all to print. If we can do this we will be content. We’re already satisfied with completing the first one and feel a sense of accomplishment. This little print comic book is a big deal to us. So it’s good to set goals, and work towards them, but find your accomplishment in the little things. This would make it even better when you achieve the big goals and you’ll still feel accomplished even if you don’t reach them.

Oh and The print copies of Celflux will be available on DriveThru Comics soon.

Till next time.

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When I was growing up many can confirm that I used to draw a lot. I was always drawing. Many sleepless nights just being engrossed in drawing some character, or some scene. The amount of time I spent was irrelevant. What was important, was the finished product and weather or not I was happy with it. As life took me into another direction, I became a graphic designer. Graphic designers operate by rules that are a bit different to fine artists or other creators. Because of the deadline oriented nature of the industry, quality sometimes has to take a back seat to speed. This is not to say that the quality of the work produced by graphic designers is of a lesser quality than others, but what I am saying is that graphic designers have to find a delicate balance between speed and quality and sometimes things lean towards the side of speed.

When my wife and I started working on Celflux I came to the realization that I had to break out of that graphic designer mentality and approach this project with an emphasis on quality. This is not to say deadlines were to be ignored, or to say that deadlines are not important, but they were not to take precedence over producing something of quality. The work on Celflux had to be the best that I could produce, because that’s one of the things people will remember it for. Sure the story needs to be engaging with strong character development, flowing story arcs and a captivating plot. But if the quality of the product is less than stellar, it will not have the impact that it needs to. I heard one person say it like this “The artwork is what grabs the reader, and the story is what keeps them.”

Again, I am not saying that speed is not important. Nor am I saying that it is impossible to create quality with speed. Nor am I trying to downplay the importance of meeting deadlines especially in the comic book industry. But that at this time, for Celflux, speed needs to take a back seat.

When we first started putting Celflux online, we were putting out two pages a week. Between my day job and other responsibilities it became a situation where I was just trying to get the pages finished and not really concentrating on achieving, or maintaining a particular type of quality. I eventually had to stop, take a step back and decide which was more important to me. To meet a self imposed deadline, or stay committed to the quality I was trying to achieve. While writing this blog post, I got an email from Tapastic (one of the platforms we used to put Celflux online) letting me know they missed me because we haven’t posted anything in a while. That aught to tell you what was the decision I made. Quality, is more important to me than speed. So I will slow it down, and focus on the quality. There are instances that even after I had completely finished a panel, if I was not happy with it, I did it over from scratch. In time, Celflux if it is good enough, will be recognized for it’s quality, and will come into it’s own.

The reality is that there are literally, thousands of extremely talented creators out there. Many, many, many of them far more talented than I will ever be. So if Celflux has any hope of being noticed on a Comic Book shelf or in the catalogue of an online digital comic store, it at least has to look like it belongs next to the already stellar stuff that is already out there. There’s a little experiment I did to put this to the test and I’d like to share it with you.

I went to the Comixology website, and I took a screenshot of their homepage. I then went into Photoshop, and placed the Celflux cover artwork alongside the titles there to see if it fit. Here’s how it looked. Judge for yourself.

My desire, is that Celflux will look good enough to be alongside the great titles already there, but be unique enough that it would stand out. While I will always see room for improvement, I think Celflux looks pretty good there. The most I can do is hope that Celflux fans, other comic enthusiasts and the folks at Comixology, when the time comes, think the same.

So for the sake of achieving and maintaining a certain level of quality, at this time, some things need to be sacrificed. One of those things, is speed. In time as my skill improves my speed will also improve. For the time being, quality takes priority.

Food for thought. Till next time.

Everard J. McBain Jr.

Everard is the Creative Director and CEO of GemGfx. GemGfx is a multidisciplinary design consultancy based in Trinidad and Tobago. He has been involved in the field of Graphic Design for over 14 years. He is also the art director and co-author of the graphic novel Celflux which he created along with his wife Dixie Ann Archer-McBain.

ww.gemgfx.com

The post Sacrificing Speed on The Altar of Quality appeared first on Celflux - Graphic Novel & Animated Series.

When we as creators slave over our labour of love, we face the pitfall of thinking that it is the best thing ever. While it is quite possible that it would be the best thing that we have done so far, it is by no means the best that we will ever be able to do, and it most certainly is not the best thing available out there. To us it might be, but that’s where the admiration stops. It takes a lot of maturity to look objectively at your own work, and not be satisfied by what you see. To look at it and see room for improvement, and strive to improve. This is not about perfectionism, but objectivity. The ability to critique your work and by that improve your skill.

When we first started posting Celflux artwork and comic page, we got really good reviews, and we are still getting. I want to send a big thank you out to all those who gave their feedback, encouragement and kind words. I however have always practised trying to improve and never being satisfied with the level that I’m at, therefore I saw room for improvement in the work that we put out. So I decided to look again at the artwork for Celflux, and I went over everything and tried to improve in the areas where I saw deficiencies. Here are some things that I did in examining the work.

Removing Emotion From The Equation.

I had to divorce myself from my creations. That emotional attachment that I felt with them. The type of attachment that anyone who has had a part in bringing something into being has. Sometimes that attachment is beneficial and necessary. Let’s say in the case of a mother bringing a child into the world. But in the case of artwork, it can be detrimental. It’s ok to detach yourself from your art, in order to look at it in a critical manner and thus be able to see the deficiencies and improve in those areas. Pride and emotions makes the critical process murky, and you can’t see clearly.

Setting A High Standard

Using yourself as the measuring stick to measure yourself is not a good idea. You are at one level and you want to get to a higher level. So the key thing would be to measure yourself against someone who is at the level you would like to attain. Look at the artwork of others, and see what they have that you lack. Is it their line-work, inking, colouring or that foundation one everybody struggles with Anatomy. I’ve said it before one of my favourite artists is Joe Madureira. I think his work is extremely dynamic and I use his level of work to compare my work to.

It’s important that I state here, it’s not about mimicking, or copying someone else’s style. It’s about looking at their work and finding the points where they excel in, and building your own style from it.

Reworking Celflux

So that lead me to redoing the artwork for Celflux. I created a few new promotional images, and I went back over all the pages and reworked them. I even reworked the cover artwork. Here is an image of the new and old side by side, so you can make the comparison.

The old cover is on the left and the new is on the right. While you can still see there’s room for improvement, there is a vast difference in the two. The one on the right is far better.

So in conclusion, always be critical of your own work and looking at room for improvement. You will never grow as a creator, if you think to yourself that there’s no room to grow.

Till next time.
Celflux Team

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UPDATE:

I’ve updated the artwork for the cover of the first volume. I’ve left the first one up so you can compare. Here is the new artwork.

And here’s the group together in a promo shot.

The post Celflux Volume One Cover Design appeared first on Celflux - Graphic Novel & Animated Series.