Getting Started on The GREAT GOBLIN WAR
So, here we are at the beginning of ideas and imaginations and possibilities! How do I start? Well, ideas for art and stories come ‘round in the oddest and most magnificently typical ways! So don’t ignore the out of the ordinary ordinary thoughts! You know the ones: they brush against your brain like a falling leaf and fall past quickly to be forgotten under foot, but if examined closely, you’ll see they might be worth snagging up and tucking into your brain pocket!
That’s just about how the idea for this story began. Actually, not at all like that but I had to start somewhere. Here’s what really happened:
My son and I have been conjuring this imaginary landscape full of every kind of creature we could come up with and the stories revolve around certain timelines, geography, magic trees, and mythical creatures. The Tickles are the central characters in most of our stories. They’re close with the fairie folk, friends with dragons (most dragons) and they ranch giant caterpillars.
Yep, caterpillars. Anyway, one of our chronological tethers has been The Great Goblin War. “Was that before or after the Great Goblin War?” Oh, that had to be after the Great Goblin War because the Ogre Grim moved the Crystal Tree past the Dragon Lakes right in the middle of that dark time.
We were constantly refering to The Great Goblin War (from here on out it’s TGGW) and one day, while we were exploring a tunnel beneath one of the Dragon Lakes and fighting off on inexplicably large bridge Troll—a bridge troll in a CAVE!—I was asked if this tunnel was dug by the Goblins during TGGW. It was at that very moment (or maybe after the obligatory two second lightbulb-over-brain daydream stare) that I realized we had never really explored the whos, whats, hows or whys of TGGW.
Well, I obviously had enough criteria, an arsenal of made up monsters, an expansive landscape, and some massive missing history in our imaginary world. I could have left the hole there or filled it in with things I probably shouldn’t have. Or maybe even ignored it completely. But I won’t. I like stories a lot more than I like holes and a hell of a lot more than I like stories with holes in them.
That’s the way the idea for this particular project came about. While I let the idea sit, I like to stick some kindling under it by pulling out my sketchbook and doodling just about anything. I let my doodles circle the little embers starting under the idea. My mind has the idea for the story, no beginning, no end, just the vast void clutched with a chaos of possibles. Now how to put order to that mess….
You can look at the mess as I post ideas, plots, character sketches, illustration/story ideas, storyboards, coffee stains etc from my sketchbook.
Where? Oh yeah, right! The Great Goblin War Journal . Go ahead, click on it. Seriously, go on.
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