Quick Update

Hey everyone! I am sorry it's been so long since I updated here, so much has been happening in my personal life (mostly because of my lung disease getting worse and spending most of my time working through it), although my project hasn't been far from my mind. In fact, it has been keeping me sane over the last year or so when the shit really hit the fan.

So, where to start?...

In have been working on stories and artwork by hand (some of which was done from my bed in hospital) and writing down pretty much every idea that comes to mind. I had a great idea for a story arc and I experimented on Twitter with it some time ago. The story involves an incident where a bomb goes off in the building, some characters will die in this story, others are badly hurt and some of them even manage feats of heroism among the chaos. So it's an interesting story idea to play around with as well as some revelations and other things to happen, I can't really say too much as it would spoil the story. And well, I don't really want to go and do that do I?

Another thing I have been working on is learning to use DAZ3D. DAZ and Poser enables you to have a 3D "doll" in your computer of your characters and you can do whatever you want with them. I have been using it to put together some ideas and images of the characters. I'll post some of them up in due time and even update the Yola site eventually. I just wanted to give you a quick update and to make sure you don't think I have forgotten my beloved project.

-Wendy

Again it's been WAY too long since I last posted anything here. For no other reason though than there has been so much going on right now and I have been so overwhelmed by the whole thing. Over the last month I have been in and out of the hospital again with a lung infection that hes been stubborn and refused to budge. I have had to teach myself (with help from Becky) to get the confidence to draw well again. Things have been mad recently and as a result I have been feeling overwhelmed, confused and my head is still kind of spinning a little. It'll pass in time. So for not, I will leave you with something I drew this week.Once I feel a bit more with it, I'll update further.

Wendy

A New Recruit.

Hey!

My name is Emilie Counton. I'm a noble born from Banora and I am 23 years old with blue eyes and bright red hair.
7 years ago, I became a Turk. I made new friends and I met 2 of the nicest friends that anyone could wish for: Angeal Hewley and Sephiroth Crescent, since Genesis and I were dating until a few months back, where we split.

I just thought I should introduce myself, as that is what a Lady does.

Currently, I am residing in Banora with my fiance, Sephiroth. We are staying at Counton Manor (which belongs to my parents, Alexandra and Benjamin Bambury-Counton), where Seph can get some fresh air, not all of the smog that Midgar is full of. Seph is currently  getting over a horrible chest infection and he is doing rather well, with my help. The only reason I can do this is all thanks to Angeal. He is a genius.


Anyway, Perhaps I should stop rambling, now. Now you know me, find me in the SOLDIER barracks! (Yes. I stay there with Seph as it is more comfortable than my barrack with the Turks.)

- Emilie

UPDATE...

So I have had to scrap a huge part of ADIM and start again, from scratch. After a huge blow out and the departure of Steve from the team, ADIM has had to be started again, all the written files are erased and it is going back to what ADIM started off as, a multi-media project with written word, art, sound and even eventually video. Ahab won't be appearing as it was decided that he was not within keeping with the characters and although the idea of a dimention jumping Vampire/Ware wolf could have been entertaining, I feel that I want to keep it to the original cast members as well as some of the weird and wonderful people that appear around Midgar and the Slums.

I have started, however on writing some back-story for Sephiroth. Some of my ideas involve a disturbed childhood, an angst filled teenager and the Sephiroth we have all come to know, love and want to at times tie down and make him do as he is told!!

I am hoping by the end of the week to add a short I was writing with some inspiration from my boyfriend, Tom, about the Teenage Sephiroth, with his red dreadlocks and guitar painting his bedroom to make it look like an art studio! What will the people in charge have to say? Well friends, let us wait and see!!

Best Wishes
Wendy xx

It's been a while...

A long while to be honest. Since I really looked back and did some more on the Another Day In Midgar project. I came up with some ideas, found some more reference works and other things that can make headway towards something happening. I'm really not too sure what is going to come of this project, or when it (or if it) is ever finished, but its just such a fun way of spending my free time.

Our resident composer, Mr Anthony Tremaine has given me some themes which have really inspired my writing and given us all something to work from. So, I hand the baton to him, and here is what he had to say:

"Hey guys Ant here your resident composer. When Wendy approached me 6 months ago to compose music for her project, Another Day in Midgar, I won’t lie I started to feel a little nervous having never played a Final Fantasy game in my life and knew very little about its characters or the magical worlds the franchise is based in. Luckily for me Wendy was on hand to share with me her vast knowledge of the games. We sat down and had a meeting during which she produced images she had drawn of the four characters she wanted themes for and characteristics to work on. From the word go ideas began to spring to mind and the results are as follows. Here is a quick guide to the themes themselves.

                The first theme I composed was for Sephiroth which was described as needing to sound as though he was hiding his own madness and yet it still simmers through. To find this a lot of dark almost sorrowful strings were used but even when the flute or the French horn play an almost playful motif they still sound sorrowful in tone. Then there was Angeal who needed to sound majestic and proud much like a hero. I composed this theme round Wendy’s house much to her approval as the themes soaring choir and brass section carry it to new heights. It also lent itself nicely to being a piano theme which took it down in size but still keeping the same feel. And finally there was Genisis who proved somewhat vexing. Described as being reckless, playful and a bit of a show off it became difficult to define musically. It took several retries (once I almost finished it and scraped the whole thing and started again from scratch) I settled on the playful and bouncy rhythm on the cellos that set the pace for the rest of the theme to grow on.

                And there you have 6 months later and they are finished there was supposed to be two more themes one for all three characters as one and one for the city of Midgar itself but due to tight deadlines with other musical projects (as opposed to Wendy’s finish them when you can deadline)  I have had to call it at the four you see now. However this is not the end of my involvement I shall be returning to project in the future to compose new themes!"

Wendy (and the rest of the ADIM team!)

Wutai Flu...

Sorry we haven't been so active just lately. I have been unwell myself (again) and in my mind, everyone in the barrack has the dreaded Wutai Flu. It is just like our version of the flu, but with a heck of an attitude problem! Genesis will be burning snot filled tissues which seem to burn green. Angeal is just sleeping on the sofa, and Sephiroth has buried himself under his quilt and is refusing to come out!

I got the idea of this by watching myself and the rest of the team when we get snotty and fluey. And trust me, there is an awful lot of it going round at the moment. So in this idea, I have the thought of them all curling up in the living room, and falling asleep, rather like 3 very happy kittens. I think Shin - Ra will start developing a vaccine, but that could take a while.

I talk a lot about them as if they are my friends, but the things I see are just ideas I come up with, sometimes with a basis in real situations. I actually came up with Wutai Flu a long time ago, but not really thought about how to work it or what it would look like!

Wendy x

Taking some time...

Sadly there hasn't been much by the way of developments this side of Midgar as we had taken a bit of a break over the last week or so. This was due to the fact tthat one of the Guinea Pigs that are kept by 2 members of the team became so sick last week that we couldn't really do much by way of work as we were busy nursing that poor little animal. It is unfortunate to say that he didn't make it and on Tuesday it was decided that poor little Alphonse Bostock-Tomes had to be put to sleep in order to end his suffering. The team was very sad about this understandably.

But, we did gain some insight as to how Sephiroth would cope with the sudden loss of Splodge, the old, balding and suicidal Nibelswine (their version of the humble Guinea Pig). Splodge will leave quite a dent in his departure, but I really can't say exactly what is going to happen, but I can say that it is going to be very funny and would make most Darwin Awards contestants look quite normal and tame.

Wendy xx

Happy (belated) New Year!!

I wish to take this opportunity now to wish you a Happy New Year from the ADIM team. We are looking forward to a very productive new year and hopefully have something interesting to show for our toils.

Before I get in to the plans for 2011, I would like to apologize for my absence as of late. I was very poorly recently with a nasty chest infection, although I have been using this time to consider a few things, pull together some rudimentary artwork, but I really would prefer to get most of that finished before presenting it. However, I do have something for you all.

A nice mood-board showing our lovely Sephiroth as he grows up from an Infantryman at the age of 14 to the hero we all know and love so well. I have also been working on some character developments but will post these later at another point.

Our music composer, Mr Tremaine has been working hard on his scoring of the themes for the characters. He has played these to me and I am really impressed by them so far and cannot wait to show them to you all when they're finished and ready for presentation.

Steve and I have had some rather interesting story sessions where we have both laughed ourselves silly over some of the ideas of Barrack pets. The way we wanted to do that was have a little tradition in the block. Where we live, we aren't allowed to have animals, but we have pets ourselves and the housing officer officially calls them a coffee table. We liked this idea so much that we decided that all pets in the SOLDIER Block should be named after objects found around the house. Hence the cat being called Rug, a Great Dane appearing who we call Trouser Press and a Jack Russell Terrier that we wanted to call Pouffe. More on that when we know where we're going with it.

Its good to give you a more meaty update for a change rather than 1 or 2 lines of just nothingness.

Loves
Wendy xx

Update

OK, we have a few new updates for ADIM, first of all, I would like to welcome the newest member of Team ADIM, Mr Anthony Tremaine, who has scored some music inspired by some of my illustrations, as well as writing for the role of Angeal Hewley.

Wendy x

Concept Art

As promised, here is some of my concept art. I borrowed the original idea for this from an artist on Deviant Art called Dizziness, but adapted it to my own style and added some shading and colour. I love this as it shows the 3 of them at play. Before it all, they really were friends. I hope this image makes someone here smile.

I am also working on images of the 3 operatives as they mature from Infantrymen to the SOLDIERs they become in the stories.

Wendy x

Sorry another slow week...

I really wish we had more going on, but to be honest, I had been slacking a bit. OK a lot.

The only thing that has happened this week is the Another Day In Midgar Team would like to graciously welcome our newest member of the team- Josh Phillips. Who will be writing for our very own Zack Fair, although he doesn't come in to the story just yet. But he has given some inspiration for background characters.

Wendy x

Slow week...

OK writing wise it has been a bit of a slow week, but that could have had something to do with me not being at all well (for those who follow my personal blog, you already know the score here so I won't worry about detailing it all here if you don't then click here and you will soon, but yesterday we held my "Unofficial Birthday" where the story team actually all came together and we all had a bit of fun with some stories and I laughed so hard I used up about 8 Ventolin nebs which is a good sign.

My job this week is to (somehow) get an illustration of Ahab up... This could get interesting as I have NO idea on what the guy will look like, but one can guess...

Keep you posted.

Wendy

Website Launched!

OK I did it, it took most of last night and today, but it is done. Another Day In Midgar has finally launched it's website.

Another Day In Midgar Website

I will be linking it from this blog and my personal blog as well. So enjoy and don't forget to tell me what you think.

Wendy

The Blog is Launched!

Its only taken me 2 years to get to this point! I have started really making steps to get my works ready for people to enjoy, just need to set up the main website... I am REALLY not looking forward to that, the HTML coding is actually harder work than writing the bloody things themselves. The illustrations are the easy bit. That's worrying.

So, here we go...

"Please remain seated and keep arms and legs inside the vehicle. Management will not be held responcible for limbs removed or bruises sustained by being beaten repeatedly with a magazine..."