Q: What inspired you?
A: Well it started off when I was watching the third episode of
Walking with Beasts: Time before the Dinosaurs and was really intrigued by the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, so I did more research on earth's timeline only to be even further intrigued by Prehistory. So what happened what I began sketching some of the oddest looking prehistoric creatures (Dunkleosteus, Sauropods, Tyrannosaurus, titanoboa, gorgonopsidae, dimetrodon for example) and then beginning to wonder just what caused their demise in the first place. Then I began to wonder what life would be like if the extinctions never happened in the first place, which is when I began sketching early concepts of the yet-named planet of Atlas.
Putting paleontology aside another source of inspiration came from Greek mythology... err actually, I should say mythology in general! One thing I always love in a good fantasy story/movie/comic is seeing mythological animals appear such as pegasus, unicorns, griffins, dragons, hippogriffs, chimeras, ect. As a kid I used to have a lot of toys that fit along the lines of mythology. In the fourth grade I remember being estatic whenever my teacher began teaching history, because in every class she would combine both ancient culture and mythology at the same time! Mind you, this was quite sometime before Harry Potter really caught on as a fad and was still just a book. :P
So anyways, back on topic, I started taking common creatures that were potrayed as benevolent in fantasy works and began twisting them around to make some brutal predators- Pegasus being one of my examples.
Q: Do you plan on making this into a webcomic?
A: At the moment, no. Until I feel more comfortable with my art skills there is no way I am going to be making it into a webcomic. However, I will be using this blog to record new ideas that do pop up so perhaps someday there might be one. My problem right now, aside from skill, is just knowing where to even start... no one wants to read some pseudo-science about Atlas starting from the Hadal period (unless you want me to be REALLY nerdy and give TL;DR descriptons that is... actually that might be the topic of my next blog post LOL).
And then there's time, I'm a hardcore procrastinator as it is- throw in a webcomic and it might take me on averge three months before there is a new page.
Q: So does that mean you ARE going to make a geological timeline for this?!
A: Yup.
Q: About the Ormr and TaMarr culture- do you plan on going into more details about them?
A: I do actually, and I will again record ideas that I get about them. I'm planning on even going into breif histories about their intergalatic conflicts with other races too.
Q: So... how do humans fit into all of this?
A: Great question! My thought is that by the time they have discovered Atlas, Earth has begun another mass extinction which has started to wipe the human race out. This is partially based on the belief I have in that someday humans will get another taste of a mass extinction event, however only few of us will either A) be able to re-colonize another planet or B) survive the famine, disease or any continuous natural disasters that occur. In fact, the great extinction wiped out a good 90% of the human population on earth, and it drove the remainder to other planets to recover.
Q: Does this mean Earth has some new species of animals now?!
A: Yes and no. It's for now a hellhole where only a small percentage of animals are still alive and coping with the change. In the meantime they are going through some physical changes- stay tuned for those sketches. :)
Q: How does Ceres fit into this? And what is with their military?
A: Ceres is a dwarf planet that had become a sanctuary for all sorts of people but at the same time it is a human military base where space soldiers recieve their basic training- mind youfor a person to be able to join their military they need a strong understanding of biology, geography, psychology, bio-chemistry, cytology, physics and they have to have basic knowledge of space travel and laser technology. Why? Because if they plan on travelling all over the galaxy, they need that type of knowledge if they even hope to survive.
Q: Who/what is the Claudandus sect?
A: They are a cult movement who want to have religon to have power once again- but this time on an intergalatic level. They use blind faith to motivate their followers into acting out radically to prove their point- that their god Claudandus is the one and only true god that sends non-believers into the abyss (their equilivent of hell) once they die. Although it started off as a small cult-movement, it has grown to the point of being an intergalatic threat.
Q: Since this is the future, how are controversial subjects like abortion handled?
A: Well in the future abortion is treated like any other medical procedure. Since the mass extinction period has occured on Earth has wiped out a good majority of human culture, so did many political ideals. In this period, the pro-life movement was active for a while but a combination of progression and cold science has weeded them out. But then you have Claudandus Sect...
Q: Just to get it out of the way, are you religious?
A: The short answer of it is that I have some Chistian idealology. If you want the long answer of it: Yes and no. No, I do not go to church nor do I even pray and I most certainly do not read the bible unless I am proving to an over-zealous Christian that God is not pro-life or to prove to another that they don't even practice what they preach- then I'll throw bible quotes. For as much as I believe in God, I feel that life is too short to worry about the afterlife or to even care. With that said I am a very strong believer in things like evolution- how anyone can deny it baffles me to end. There's just so much fossil and geographical evidence pointing towards evolution being very real that it would be hard for me to buy into creationism. I honestly don't see just how evolution affects the authenticy of the bible anyway: whose to say that 7 days in God's time isn't 500 million years for us? And considering the book was written by MAN, I don't see it holding any meat in just about any science-related discussions.
TL;DR: I consider myself a mild protestant that is broaderline agnostic.
Q: Are you going to draw the geography throughout Atlas?
A: Oh hell yeah!
Q: Why the hell are unicorns and dragons present, they have no scientific basis!
A: The nice thing about Science Fiction fantasy is that you can combine the two by cutting some corners. Now then, neither the Unicotherium(unicorn) nor Dracosaurus (dragon) are going to be magical by any standards: they're just organisms that live on Atlas.
Q: Those terror birds remind me of Yuutryanosaurs Huali, don't they remind you of it?
A: funny that should be mentioned because I only just found out about them last week- it's fascinating to think that T-Rex had a fluffy cousin all the way over in the Himalayas. It makes me feel a bad better about the Terror bird (for fucksakes, I still haven't given these therapod birds a real name yet) looking so silly.
Q: So how big are the unicotherium in comparison to horses?
A: Roughly about 22.1 hands high- look up the belgian horse Big Jake and then look at the pics, then you have your size!
Q: So what are your plans on the animals of Atlas anyway?
A: I plan on doing ref pics for all of them
