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Jul 2020

Ah, yeah. I guess I'm pretty safe from spoiling people since I think I'm not well-known enough that there'll be much people who will dissect my artwork for story hints XD

Well the worse I do is just drawing characters that will appear later on the story,
I never say they are for the comic but...
laughs nervously at all the characters I have just casually shared.

I’ve spoiled so much on my dA. It’s fine tho whatever. Not really plot so much as character details. My comic will take years to draw so I’m not too concerned. I think teasing some things is a good way to hype people for the comic’s future

I just don't draw anything like this, because I will have no one to show it to anyone who is interested without spoiling and will have to suffer by myself :nervous_candy:

I draw spoilery scenes all the time and shamelessly post most of them on Instagram; last inktober for example was about 50% spoilers. The key is to show scenes that still don't have context in the story, so probably no one can tell if it's an event that hasn't yet happened or just a random image. The only spoilers I don't show are specific character interactions, because they would be easy to connect with the current events in the story.
Also the covers I've drawn recently are filled with spoilers, but in a symbolic way. I hope that once the main conflict of the story is revealed, they will make sense.

My story is so lose and criptic, that even when I would post the images I've drawn it would be nigh impossible to connect anything. I don't have any social media besides tapaz though, so I won't be sharing anything.

Ha! Yesterday I literally posted a drawing to my Instagram with the caption "Hey look everyone it's a dead character". The character has yet to even be introduced in the comic.

I mean, so far I've posted drawings that show Norman with whip scars, Alise killing her step-father, Shilo's secret deceased mate, Tala pregnant with Shade's kits, the Queen with her arm ripped off by Alise, Norman getting his teeth forcefully sharpened as a kit, Alise holding her brother's dead body, and Mitch desperately trying to crawl his way out from purgatory as blood seeps from a bullet wound.

Needless to say, I draw and post what I see to be enjoyable. I mean, I'm a horror artist! You can't expect me to draw and post things that don't relate to character deaths or spoilers somehow. Also, I save the biggest and juiciest spoilers for the comic, so I guess all the other ones are just red herrings in a way.

idk I have fewer followers on my instagran where Ipost some art than in my actual comic - and most of them are online stors and boits. So I don't think I will spoil something - I bet most of my instafollowers don't read my comic. So I guess you won't spoil it untill you post it directly on episode, but it may also cause more engagement - readers would want to know how did the story get there

The cover for Errant actually spoils something I considered keeping secret for ages, which is what adult Sarin looks like. In the end, it was like... well, anyone could read the old comic Errant reboots or look at my old deviantart or my twitter images whatever and find images of what she looks like... so I was like... ah screw it, I don't want to leave her off the cover! So she's on there. SPOILER: SHE'S HOT AND GAY. (really though, was there any doubt Sarin would grow up to be hot and gay?).


Hell, in a way it was a spoiler that for months when we were in the prologue the thumbnail for the comic was adult Rekki before she'd appeared or got that haircolour or the giant sword. :sweat_02:

Other things though I keep to myself and close friends, like spoilery images of certain pairings or dramatic events... :supicious_stache:

Honestly, since it's about the journey and not the destination, I allow myself little spoilers. For example, Mortimer wearing bandages around his hands in scenes where the gloves won't make sense, or all the imagery about out-of-control black magic, or characters that aren't appearing for a while, because they won't make sense right now anyway. And thankfully, for the more "oh my god I want to make this scene RIGHT NOW" stuff, my own messy schedule helps me, because there's always a fun meme, fanart, or study to make that's going to take my mind off of it.

Yeah all the time. I draw characters and talk about them before they even show up xD

Part of the issue is that many of these characters I've had for going on 10 years, way before I even started working on the comic officially.

┐( ˘_˘)┌ Oh well. How many people will actually stick around that long to see them come into fruition? I dunno. How many people will actually remember the spoiled characters? Probably not that many. Why worry about it?

It's funny, long before my story publicly got to the point, I drew two of its characters in some adult situations (which I only shared on Patreon, but still). I figured if anyone saw it and thought anything of it that it would be no more than a crack pairing. But lo and behold it's canon.
However, I can't bring myself to draw the end game because I think it's too plausible and I don't want to confirm anyone's suspicions ahead of time haha!

Oof I definitely have this problem... Usually the extremely spoilery stuff is just doodles I wouldn't want to post online anyway, but when I have an idea for a more complete illustration with a spoilery concept, it is a struggle, since I would love to post it, but can't :frowning: So it's either rethink the idea to make it less obvious, or don't draw it. Not that there are many people who'd care, but still :joy:

There are some stuff that are technically minor spoilers for my comic but I don't mind showing art related to them because they are going to be revealed relatively early (eg. Nate not being a normal human), or because I found a way to portray them that is too vague for anyone other than me to understand?
I mean, certainly, it's possible to make theories off them, but I think that's actually a pretty cool thing and would not mind if anyone did that :joy: Casually dropping hints and foreshadowing in art, yes, pls. I love it when creators do that.
(I think this is how good anime openings work too, btw - the okay one will just literally spoil the events of the whole season, but the good one will show them in a way that fuels the imagination and makes the viewer want to know more.)

Having readers make theories off of my art would be a dream come true xD

Haha, I do that sometimes. Usually I keep the drawings to myself - for example, I have the entirety of my protagonist's outfits for the entire comic planned out (seems small but it's a fairly big deal), but sometimes I can't help myself and I publish the art, luckily it tends to be vague.

I try to solve the issue by using metaphors in my drawings. I do have drawings in which I just want to visualize major plot points (and writing them out fully for late use in my chapters) but uh...those...those I keep locked up somewhere haha.

Coming from a reader's perspective, I remember a lot of people I used to follow avidly would post art of things that were way in the future, or background info that would never be revealed in the story but would affect it later on. The thing was, it never ruined my enjoyment of the series, it just made me ravenous for more. I wanted to get to the really cool thing! It helped that there was never much, if any, context for the spoilers, and I kind of had to seek out that additional content. I could have easily avoided it if I didn't want to be spoiled.

I have posted pics of characters years before they appeared in my series, I don’t really have a following so no one really noticed. I also post a pic of a character which was later cut, which I guess is weird.