*CapnFlynn

Personal Stuff

Who are you?
My name is Kat Laurange; I live in Texas; I like cheese. That about covers it.

What do you do for a living?
I'm a freelance animator and illustrator. It sounds a lot more glamorous than it actually is, unfortunately. Mostly I wait for interesting jobs to crop up, and then I jump on them. I end up doing a lot of short-term jobs, usually doing storyboards, character designs, animation, or illustrations. My speciality, and what I studied in school, is 2-D animation, but there aren't that many 2-D jobs in Dallas.... yet.

That sounds cool. How can I get into that?
I can only really tell you how I got into it, which was a combination of luck and meeting the right people at the right time. My first job came about right after I graduated; someone saw my artwork at a portfolio show, liked what she saw, and showed it to someone who just happened to need exactly what I could do.

I would say the first step is having the right skills. If you don't know 'em, learn 'em. After that, put yourself in the way of people who need what you can do.

Simple, right? Well, sure. Sometimes not easy, though.

Do you have any pets?
Haha, I have two cats. Lily is an 18-year-old Burmese or Himalayan or something like that, and Luna is a 7-year-old pocket panther (I forget what the breed's actually called).

Do you really smoke a pipe?
Now and then.

Art-Related

How do you create your artworks?
That's a big question. Let's break it down, shall we?

What do you use for drawing?
For drawing I use blue or red col-erase pencils. For illustrations I think I want to finish, I usually start with a cool idea (or at least, I think it's cool) and do a few really ruff thumbnails with pen or charcoal or something equally messy. Once I've got a thumb I like, I'll blow it up to the final size using Photoshop (that keeps the proportions of the original thumbnail intact) and print it out. I then put the print on a light-table with a fresh piece of paper and draw over it, correcting any anatomical mistakes I might have (probably) made. Once I've got a drawing I'm happy with, I nail it down with a regular old mechanical pencil.

What about inking?
What I use for inking depends on the final product I'm aiming at. Sometimes I simply put the drawing on the light-table with a new piece of paper and trace the lines with pencil for that animation clean-up drawing look. It's fast, it's easy, and if you're doing cell-shading, it's really all you need.

My favorite inking tools, though, are a Winsor-Newton round sable brush and plain old black India ink. I still use a separate piece of paper when I'm inking because I make a lot of mistakes.

Coloring?
I do my coloring in Photoshop. I'm kind of drooling a little about trying Open Canvas or Painter, but my computer is old and slow and I don't want to tax its limited resources too much... I made a tutorial on how I usually do my coloring. You can see it here: [link]

Any fancy hardware you like to use?
Eh, not so much. The light-table was really cheap at the local art supply store; I taped a peg bar onto the bottom of it, because I like to draw on animation paper.

Do what now?
Animation paper has holes on the bottom. The peg bar has little pegs (appropriately enough) that line up with the holes, thus allowing the animator to stack pages on top of each other without worrying about them getting out of alignment.


Story-Related

What is this "story" I keep hearing about?
It's a tale of adventure, intrigue and espionage on the high seas--and in the skies. In the Quadra Terrarum airship technology has recently taken off (so to speak), and the rapidly changing face of the world has created fertile ground for conflict. Pirate Captain Franceline Drake finds herself in the middle of that conflict when the Royal Navy of Camembert sends one of its youngest and most ambitious captains to put a stop to her capers.

The Quadra Terrarum?
Yup.

It's a flat world, shaped like a square (hence the name), bounded by seas, supported by the Four Elemental Poles, one at each corner. At the time the stories are set, it is recovering from a war with a villanous wizard. The technology is not dissimilar to early 19th-century Earth, although there are probably more wizards in the Quadra Terrarum than in 19th-century Earth. I'm just guessing, though.

Sounds cool. Can I read it?
I'm working on self-publishing it. Once it's available, I would be happy for people to read it. More than happy. Ecstatic.

Tell me more about your characters.
Franceline Drake, Acheron Zeal, and Flynn Freeborn are the three main characters. I'm working on profiles of them, which you'll be able to view soonishly. I hope.

What inspired you to create your story?
A happy confluence of events, I suppose. Many years ago I had begun working on a three-volume novel set in the Quadra Terrarum, before the Quadra Terrarum even had a name or much of a history. Then I went to art school, and suddenly I had a lot less spare time in which to write a three-volume novel (volume two is still lying fallow on my harddrive). It was about that time I discovered the novels of Patrick O'Brian, and my long-dormant obsession with ships, sailing, the sea, and pirates, was reawakened. I've always loved airships (I'm a longtime Final Fantasy fan; played the first one when it first came out), and I've long wanted to write rousing adventure stories, so that's where the kernel of the idea started.

In the beginning (if you will) I didn't have a plot, or any idea what story I would tell, exactly. I had Drake, the free-spirited captain of the flying ship Eschaton, and that was it. She didn't even have a first name. I created Acheron Zeal to be her fiendish arch-nemesis (hence the name "Acheron", one of the rivers in Hades), but from the very start of their very first story together it became clear things were not going to go as I had anticipated.

For which, let me just say, I am profoundly grateful. I'm having way too much fun with these.

How did you come up with Flynn?
I steel myself for the inevitable laughter on this one. My husband was running a D&D campaign, and he decided to start up a side-quest for the weekends when the full group couldn't make it. He had the two or three people who did make it every weekend roll up side-characters, and I decided to make mine a pirate. I don't remember any of his stats exactly, but he had the common sense of a gnat. I named him Flynn Freeborn ("Flynn" for Errol Flynn, and "Freeborn" mostly because it alliterates).

We only played a couple of sessions with those characters before the campaign fell apart entirely, and I appropriated Flynn for my stories. He was just too much fun to leave in D&D limbo!


deviantArt-related

Do you take requests? Will you draw my character for me?
Short answer: no. Longer answer: I'm currently trying to make my living by my drawings; I simply don't have the time, the energy or the inclination to give drawings out for free when there are people out there willing to pay me. Please don't ask. I am unlikely to make an exception for you.

On the other hand, if I know you, and I like you, and I like your characters, you may find yourself randomly getting gift-art from me, because I just can't help myself. Make of that what you will.

Do you do art trades?
Only with people I know and trust.

Do you accept commissions?
Yes. If you're interested, please send me a note and we can discuss details.