An Interview with Jamie Jennings of Emerald Winter
Comic title: Emerald Winter
Comic URL: http://www.emeraldwinter.net/ew
Creator(s): Jamie Jennings (writer, artist) Brandon England (co-writer)
Genre: Fantasy Adventure
1) What is your comic about?
Emerald Winter is whatever you’d like it to be. It could be about self-discovery and personal responsibility, the quest of a young person to find what they are supposed to do in the world as well as the regrets of the old. It could be a presumptuous fantasy world analogy about the nature of death and the afterlife, the corruption of power, or even that old “good versus evil” shtick. It could just be about pretty young guys and hot elf chicks. It is what you get out of it.
2) How did you get started making webcomics?
I rarely read comic books when I was little because they were considered “for boys” as well as “violent” and “a waste of good money.” However, I have been drawing pictures of scenes from little stories in my head since I was very little. When I got older I realized that what I was doing was basically drawing comics. I began to read comics—mostly manga since they appealed to my 13-year-old-girl tastes at the time.
As for how I got into webcomics, well… I couldn’t stand the idea of only being a writer OR an artist, and I wouldn’t stand for conforming to what was “hot at the time” either. I just wasn’t mainstream comics industry material. I turned to the interwebs.
3) Five years from now, what do you see your comic becoming? Will it be over? Will it have grown larger?
I hope that five years from now I will be at least HALF-WAY through Emerald Winter.
4) Tell us about your main character. What are his/her motivations? How did he/she join up with your other characters and why?
Rien Everazure is really inspired by that group of people who have ended up working dead-end jobs into their 30’s, only Rien works as an assistant teacher in a sword-and-magic world, and has never heard of YouTube. One day something happens to spur him out of this loop and he realizes that if he’s going to do something with his life, he has to do it now no matter what the costs. Now if only he knew what that was…
Like all of us, Rien is often conflicted between doing what he wants to do, what other people want him to do, and what he has to do to get by. He can be a bit of a doormat, easily swayed into other people’s problems. Gisela, whose reputation is little better than that of a thief, insists that she will help him find his mentor after he helps her “rescue” her friend.
5) Who is your favorite secondary character and why?
Gisela is everybody’s favorite buxom, blonde-haired, half-elf warrior woman and I’m not going to argue with them. She’s a tough and foul-mouthed adventuring expert who has a poor concept of the passage of time and a deeply hidden insecurity about death.
6) What is your favorite comic page?
So far, I like the page where Cyrrus appeared because he’s awesome and I love to draw him.
7) Is there a storyline you’re really looking forward to? What is it about? Give us a spoiler warning if necessary!
I really can’t wait for Rien, Gisela, and Lorta to unite so that they can play off of each other. Rien isn’t as fun when there aren’t pretty women around to make him woefully awkward. I also like that Vere (green-haired elf boy, ’nuff said) is going to be present during this part of the story.
8 ) Can you give us a short explanation on how you make your pages? If you have a tutorial or anything, please link it.
I sketch my pages in photoshop using a tablet. I find it’s easier to sketch this way because you can scale, move things around, you don’t have to erase, etc. I can also see clearly how the text will look on the finished product. I print it out lightly onto drawing paper and ink it using nib pens and india ink. I scan the lineart back into photoshop. Once I clean it up, I print it out again. No, I’m not crazy. I print it out again, this time onto watercolor paper. I paint the pages using an ink wash. This is difficult because printer ink isn’t very water-proof. Then I scan it again, match it up to my template which already has the words in the right place, and it’s done.
9) Be your own critic! When it comes to your comic, what are you looking to improve upon?
Most importantly, my stamina for working on the same project constantly. Emerald Winter has such a rich plot that it doesn’t move quickly. I need to put out more pages to keep up the kind of pace that attracts readers.
Other than that, I’d say my paneling and the sense of movement in my pictures. Sure, you can read along without wondering what frame is supposed to be next and you can tell when a guy is running opposed to just standing there, but I’d really like it to be more like WOW and AWESOME.
10) What about your other projects?
Lavender Legend is another webcomic I’m running. Although it is unrelated to Emerald Winter, it is related to a series of short stories I’ve been writing. Lavender Legend is about a young person born to play the role of someone else who searches for identity. And maids.
I also write, but only as a hobby as I’m not very good at prose. Right now I’m trying to write something about an army mom who fights vampires. I am also a pixel artist for an avatar community, AvariciaRPG.com.