Not because I had to do overtime, but because I need to be alone.

When I started The book of Tharexis, the amount of joy was off the charts. Today I finished one of the last pages of the second book. Me and Veronica (@betweencolors__) managed to do the double of the pages in the same time we did the first book. That also surprised me with so much joy.

The page I finished today marks a big event in the story, probably the biggest, at least for me. I won’t tell you because I don’t want to give you spoilers.

It wasn’t unplanned, it was in the script, but planned, expected, doesn’t means it will not impact you.

Today I had to say good bye to a character that meant so much to me. This is maybe a farewell letter to him. Might sound stupid for many, but it is what it is. I finally understood what it is a writer to give a piece of themselves to their characters. It is brutally true.

Today I finally realised the weight of the theory becoming real life. I felt the pain of let this piece of me, go.

The tears that follow these words have flashes of my rational mind telling me this is all fiction. It is, I know.

Part of it.

The other part is a part of myself.

Today was set to be sad, I was avoiding it, but the story must go on. It is contraditory, but I am glad this sadness came sudenlly. Feels like a glimpse of confirmation that the story might be good, feels real, and the purpose of @bulletturtle , the stories and these books are all to connect with hearts that are missing or looking to connect with something real.

Here it is.

Abstract from the original product into others is something I always liked to play with. Like I am to showcasing here, taking characters from the Book of Tharexis and bringing them to a different media, different context and keep the storytelling going beyond the book.

There is a term for that, called transmedia, that is literally, taking an IP from one media to another, expanding the original world. The Book of Tharexis was born already with this in mind.

It goes beyond creating products. What it expands actually, is the connection with the audience. That~s why it needs to be done over the storytelling. That~s why I started the short stories here for the paid supporters, to become a new book in the end, that’s why I created wishbirds for the events, first in crochet and later 3d printed inside mystery boxes for Toycon (here in Malta).

Over the past months I’ve been thinking how to bring more from the characters to this transmedia thing, and I wanted to start with Tharexis.

The line of thinking went back to who Tharexis is, how he is presented in the story and if you read the book you know about his issues with guilty, anxiety and fear.

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The Zine culture is booming, something that ran for so long in the underground have survived and is reaching the world in so many formats.

Cheap, accessible, dirty, colorful and mind blowing creative. It was enough to put me in research mode.

I have found that many friends are into it, some also living in the Riso Printing universe. Don’t get me started into this one because it is something incredible.

The first close encounter I had with a Riso artist was when I was Animation Team Lead at a studio and one of my animators in Budapest was also publishing and printing Riso. Soma Sebesvari. He runs Bpzines also in Budapest, together with another artist and their work is really cool.

Last week I was asking for some printing info at our local Maltese Artists Discord server and I met Michelle Gruppetta, she runs Purcinella Press, a local Riso Studio and she also runs workshops around that.

We will meet soon, because this whole zines research and the research I am doing for the next Bullet Turtle’s book (a horror story) drove me towards Hellboy and Mike Mignola art style, and as a writing exercise, to make the transition from fantasy to horror, beyond a lot of reading, I started experimenting writing short stories and how I could add my twist to it.

So, I came up with few short stories, based on horror premisses, like you will see bellow, alien abduction, but with a comedy twist. This is the first one that probably I will finish.

It won’t be a book, but it will be also an experimentation with the zine format. The classic punk format that consists in an A4 folded to become an 8 pages booklet. So I will be probably photocopying it, but then I met Michelle, and maybe she can help me taking it to Riso if things go well and I manage to finish some.

You can try it at home and do your own as well!

My idea is to populate the pages with this short alien story, that I will not tell you now to not give you any spoiler. but also because this is not a priority right now. I am just putting a lot of studies and research together and I found the zine a charming format to play with. Let’s try one and we will see hat happens next.

Priority number ZERO now is to keep the flow of pages so me and Veronica can finish the Book of Tharexis Vol2 soon. We are very, very close.

You can get your signed copy of Vol 1 at Bullet Turtle Shop, I pack and ship the books myself, together with some goodies, and you will help us to keep going with the books we want to create. You can also get the digital version at GlobalComix! AAAANNND you can become a paid subscriber here and support us along the way.

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Thank you for all the support along the way, you all are amazing and thanks for being following our content here and on instagram. We need you!

All the best! Always! 🍻

Juliano

This Friday I was preparing to share a new original story. It is still the plan. However, I am presenting to you something from the original text from The Book of Tharexis - Moonlight.

Let me give you a little bit of context from last year, when I started this with Veronica. I had a story, but I had never wrote a story as a comic script as it “should” be written. That was one of my biggest insecurities, to write it in a wrong way, and working with Veronica, that had some knowledge of how colorists receive the scripts and guidelines to do their work properly, I was very afraid to mess things up.

After some thought and anxiety, I decided to write as knew how to write. As if it was a book. One of the reasons is to create a check point, where I could at some point read the story for myself and understand is the narrative was working, then, somehow, I knew deep inside, I could adapt the story text to a comic text format.

I spoke with a friend that is a big artist in Brazil, we went through college together and he is also a storyteller first and at that point, he had already many comics and graphic novels in the shelves and many awards - Vitor Cafaggi.

So, I reached out to Vitor and asked him about how he used to work, and what he told me, brought a big relief.

He used to do exactly the same when writing for himself. Like a book.

So you are about to read a beautiful part of the story, when Tharexis and Ginsei are getting to the place they were looking for. They were still lost but they made a pause to rest and think about how to keep moving on. That moment ended up being a very emotional and intimate moment that made their bond even more solid, preparing them for what would come next.

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I changed my mind about what story and art to post, after Veronica sent me a page preview for the moment they reach the unknown desert.

Here it is:

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But it is not.

It is not called art by coincidence. The Art of NOT Doing requires, like any other art skill, lots of practice.

In fact, if you remember the graph I posted related to Scott Belsky’s book, it explains a lot.

When I quoted Scott’s Action Method, I told you about resisting the urge to start a new project in the middle of another project, when your energy and excitement settle, and how this can become a habit cycle that stops you from moving forward with anything.

Resisting the urge. This is where the NOT doing comes in.

You can call it by many names. Scott called it a backburner, but you can make it a list, a document in the cloud that you can access from anywhere, a note app on your mobile, or your journal. I recommend the journal or diary, as you prefer. NOT necessarily a physical notebook, but we artists, we like to feel things. Still, life is not always generous with time. I personally use Notion.so. This post is not sponsored 😁 (but maybe they can think about it. lol).

Notion helps me keep ideas organized, and it is easily accessible from anywhere I am. Laptop, desktop, mobile, always at hand. But I do love paper and writing by hand as well. Nowadays, with full-time work, Bullet Turtle writing and drawing work, creating content to make the world of Tharexis reach people — ❤️nice people like you❤️ — creating animation courses for Spinemation, taking care of things around the house, driving everyone everywhere, and trying to have a healthy exercise and basketball routine, time has become my most precious thing.

Amidst all of the madness, developing the ability to filter what must be done, what can wait, and what won’t be done has also become an art, demanding a lot of discipline.

Thank God my introverted and observing personality helped me a lot throughout my life. Patience and calm are usually words that people attach to me when we are talking about life. I discovered early in life that I was patient, not because I said I was, but because others told me I was. So, I realized many things were working in my life due to this habit of not rushing, observing, not acting by impulse and waiting.

It was a matter of developing it further, and it became very handy when I started building my career. Today, I see how self-knowledge can help us navigate life.

Just by acknowledging your qualities, developing them, and most important, searching and acknowledging the things that are off place, and WORK on them. I am highlighting this because many, maaany people go halfway with this… they recognize and acknowledge what needs to change or improve, but they stop there. Don’t stop!

I mentioned personality above, and that helped me a lot, but know that personality is not a sentence.

What I mean by that is that you don’t need to be introverted to be patient. And you don’t need to be patient to develop a good work ethic and methods. This is the beauty of the technique.

The process of creating, or more specifically, doing art as a career, has some very unique facets that don’t rely on talent. There is a very wise popular saying that reminds us that “Hard work beats talent.” As cliché as it may sound, it is true. I have fought focus deficit all my life, way before it was recognized and named, most of the time as ADHD.

I still fight with mine in most areas of my life, from work to relationships. What I am saying is that there are tools and methods to make life better and allow you to thrive.

Creating a “method” and kind of building discipline — with time, of course — is a powerful tool for self-knowledge and a tool for you to GYSHIDO, but what you should look for, first in the method + discipline process is to learn how to filter, learn to prioritize stuff, and lear what NOT to do.

Easier said than done, I know.

I see many people relying on “feeling” when they face prioritizing. Learning how to prioritize also takes time, but the good news is that it is technical, not intuition.

The key thing in this article is to learn how to say no to new ideas without losing them. They could become something life-changing in the future, at the right time, with some thought and with resources in place. Having a method to write them down without knocking them out is the way to go.

Ideas are these tricky creatures that, when they are born, first try to convince you of how life-changing they will be and how you will possibly save the world with them. Bullshit. They just want to survive.

What you will do is actually provide them with a way to survive, at least for a moment. Ideas need to settle. They are like fresh-squeezed fruit juice. When you blend them, they are beautiful, colorful, strong. But let them rest a bit, and you will see what is foam and what is liquid.

You should go for the juice, not the foam, which is basically air bubbles and has no consistency. All ideas have foam, and they need time to show you what they really are. This is the other main reason you should NOT start a new one in the middle of one that was already “foamless.”

I hope you can see now how, by NOT doing, you are actually doing a lot.

Make sure what you are doing now is actually solid and has consistency, so the chances of it becoming a good product, a good book, a good song, or whatever you are actually doing, increase significantly. This is the foamless future you should aim for.

Slow cooking, slow building, but consistent.

This is how you thrive. And the ideas coming out of this method, after so much care — these ideas, yes, they can possibly change your life and change the world. At least the world that is really important.

Yours.

Consider to support us. We have exclusive content for paid subscribers and you are helping us to keep going with more stories and more books.

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You can get your physical/signed copy of The book of Tharexis Vol 1, here! I ship worldwide from Malta.

And if you like it digital, we got you covered! You can find it on Globalcomix and it is on sale for 5.99$

Other than that, support us by giving us a following on instagram and youtube.

Here is our Art Drop #2. The poster that was missing in the trilogy with our heroes. Poster and phone wallpaper can be downloaded in the link below.

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Looks simple, right? Just a monster hand holding a ball. It is simple. This is a practice illustration done by Nataliia Kolesnykova.

What made me stop and think about it was the simplicity at the surface level in contrast with the complexity behind the curtains, and that led me to consider A.I generative in the mix.

Now that Nataliia brought the image to life, anyone can input this into an AI image generator (don’t do it!😊 ) and get countless versions of the same,

But think about prompting it from scratch. No references.

How would you describe the main light, the back light, the surface for the skin and for the ball. I see these light and surface details as the easiest parameters you can describe to the machine, but still, probably the output would be very very different.

Moving now to the pose of the hand. how would you describe the positions of the fingers, how far or how close they are from each other, the length of the nails and the curve it has on it. How to handle the imperfections, the difference in size between them?

How would you describe the angles of the thumb, the pinkie and the mid fingers. How much each one of them should bend, how the thumb is anatomically slightly off place but creates a very satisfying sensation of holding the ball firmly. The breaks, the imperfections.

You might have notice by now, the amount of decisions an artist should make, consciously, technically or just to create a feel. None. NONE of these can be made by and algorithm. Because it depends on parameters and not perception.

I had a teacher in college that told me that and it was imprinted in my head since them. Perception is the result of sensation + experience.

A sensation is something only you can feel. The experience means the moment, the place, the conditions happening at that very moment you felt the sensation. This combination gives you a perception.

That’s why perception is not reality. Perception is subjective and change accordingly as life moves on.

This is the missing link for a machine to start creating as we do, and it can’t be replaced. First because it depends on perception, second because perception is a moving target, it is changing with our experiences.

Data can be collected, behaviours can be mapped, feelings can be described, anatomy can be learned, but still, there will be a huge gap between a database and the result of the signals all your senses send to our brains to process and mix to become our perception of anything.

This is the value of an artist.

Support the artists that you know. They need you right now because the picture being painted now is frightening. Like their stuff, share their stuff, support by subscribing or buying their craft. I use to say AI will not destroy us but it will make us Premium.

It will come the time, everything will look the same. This is when the artist will get their value at the spotlight. They will pay for creativity and originality, but until this time comes, artists need support to keep going.

If you feel our content is good and brings value, consider support us as well. Following us, sharing our stuff, subscribing here, buying our book and or Merch. We are creating these books with a message coming straight from our experiences and we believe you will connect with them. Stories are the way we survived until here, they are the vehicle for healing, for change, for connection.

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Kind reminder for you:

• we have articles/updates every Tuesday

• We have exclusive art drops and original stories every Friday

• We have Notes everyday!

See you friday!

Juliano

Today it will be a mix of art, story and some first time showing pages for The Book of Tharexis Vol 2. - Sunrise.

Today You will meet Risa and Mikka. An interesting duo, living in the forest and they will help our friends Tharexis and Ginsei in their journey.

I will not give you spoilers because the Book 2 is coming out really amazing! Art is incredible. I discuss with Veronica from time to time about how much we learned from the first book experience and how we are producing faster and with a high level. I am really excited for the printing day.

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I was participating in a project where one of my ideas for an animation pilot was selected. Then I got the opportunity to participate in this workshop with the creator of one of the biggest successful animated shows in Brazil, My Big Big Friend, Andres Lieban.

I must confess that workshop planted a seed in my head.

Animated shows with international scale were starting to bloom in Brazil by then. I had a small animation studio at the time and I was dreaming of taking part in the TV shows wagon, but I realized this was more than just cool ideas and visuals. I was beaten by my lack of executive producer knowledge, or how to properly play professionally with the big boys.

That disappointment was a BIG reality check for me. I felt desolated knowing that any ideas I might possibly have would be stuck within my lack of competence in business. Sounds tragic, but it might have been the best thing that ever happened. This time of deep frustration led to me reaching places I had never imagined before, including being here in Europe now writing this article under the name of a studio created for telling stories with comics and animation.

From that workshop, what stuck with me and spread to every part of my life was: “show, don’t tell”.

That’s pretty obvious but not easy to apply, and the workshop was coming from someone who was very successful in talking with the hardest audience ever: kids. Kids are very open, and they still have the innocence we grown-ups have lost, but for them to understand you, you need to be clear. No hidden meaning, all concepts and ideas in plain daylight.

For storytelling, more specifically for older audiences, especially for visual storytelling, this is the treasure we should chase… not showing everything, but knowing what to show and what to hide, knowing when to show and when to hide, and so on.

“Telling and not showing” means you are assuming the audience knows what is in your head. It is assuming they know what you know about the character, world, situation, or plot. When sitting to write or draw your story, we realize maybe things are not that obvious. That’s one of the reasons to have people you trust read or listen to your story from time to time, so you know you are not giving too much or not delivering that key information.

Before starting writing The Book of Tharexis, I went for a coffee with my friend John and I told him the full story. The first time I did it. John is very honest about feedback, and I knew if there was something off, he would tell me.

The Book of Tharexis’ starting point was a very personal one to me. I mention it in one of the first posts I did for this Substack. So, the chances of me falling blind to the story were very high. So, someone outside the context really helped me to stay inside the lane and shape the story as it should.

Another very recent experience was with Veronica, Bullet Turtle’s color wizard. I was telling her about the story idea for our next book, the one I am writing now. A horror story, and Veronica is very much into horror. Different from what happened with The Book of Tharexis and John, which worked as a confirmation I was on the right track, the conversation with her showed me how much I was lacking in the structure of the story, and made me step back and research more, guided by the things she showed me. (Thanks, Veronica!)

Sometimes we fall in love with our ideas, and this is honest, and you shouldn’t start anything you are not in love with, but as they say, love is blind. Having good and honest people you can count on around you is key for you to improve and create something that will bridge your story with someone else’s story.

Stories are there to be shared and to find hearts that will connect with them. Ideas need to be shown in detail, and sometimes this means you have to search within yourself for what has touched you to the point that you want to share that story with the world. This is showing. This is not always easy because it will mess with hidden or suppressed emotions, this will bring back something you hid deeply, but for the audience to truly understand your point, you need to create the bridge, and this bridge is built over truth. If the bridge is not solid enough, the whole thing will collapse and your story will feel hollow, missing something.

So, yes, it sounds like therapy, because it is therapy.

Honest writing is hard, but it is very effective. I was caught by surprise with the reception of The Book of Tharexis. I was really not expecting that kind of feedback, first because it was my first “official” writing piece and my first publication, doing something I was not used to doing. I have a career in animation, not in sequential art.

But publishing it taught me the perks of being open, showed me a stage to talk about things I usually don’t talk to anyone about, helped me to process feelings and emotions, made me vulnerable and open to the generosity of others.

Suddenly, there was the connection I was looking for. People were coming back to tell me about the book. I was finally talking with others using the language I developed all my life: art.

All of this because I finally understood and learned that for my stories to work and connect with people, they needed to be truthful.

They have to show, not tell.

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Kind reminder of our Schedule, Today is Tuesday, thats why you are reading this article, and more news about everything. Next Friday we will have the second Art Drop, and more updates, and next week we will have our second original story. I will also make available the first collectable issue for the first one, A Hare Thing, together with the second Story.

These Stories will become a new book. The Chronicles of the Infinite Forest, expanding the world building for The Book of Tharexis with new characters and new places.

Supporters will have all spearated stories in collectables pdfs, and the full digital book at the end. Also a special “Thank you” page, with their names, dedicated to them.

Consider to subscribe and support the project. There is a lot coming, but we need your help! ;)

Also, if you can, follow us on Instagram, Youtube and get your copy of The Book of Tharexis Vol 1.

That’s all for today. Thanks for being here! See you soon!

Juliano

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A whole new world

When I moved from Brazil to Malta in 2018, a whole new world opened up to me, not only literally, like, geographically, but also with all the new things, all the amazingness, weirdness, and mess that comes with cultural shock.

I never saw it as a struggling time adapting because learning new stuff was one of my favorite things. Being thrown into unknown situations sounds very, very scary for many introverts, like me, but something I learned throughout life is how to turn these moments into something I can learn from and grow from. So I put myself in that state, and I can better fight the feelings and emotions that introverts tend to embrace as a safe place. In exchange for that, I grew out of the super-introvert zone into a sociable one, which helped me with many things professionally.

The studio I was hired to work for as an animator used to do yearly kickoffs. Every year, they happened in one of the company’s locations. During the years I was working with them, they flew everyone to Poland, and we had a 2-3 day event to be presented with the company’s plans for the next year, catch up about the past year, connect with people from the other studios in person, and have some fun.

I was lucky to have the chance to know two amazing places, Krakow and Warsaw, thanks to these company trips. The last one we had, the CEO presented this talk about GYSHIDO.

The joke is on us

Of course, it was a joke. Gyshido sounds Japanese, but it is as Gen X/Y American as it can be, with that “live to work” mentality of being productive all the time, and if you are not productive, you are not successful.

Obviously, we all need to be productive, just not paranoid or obsessed with it. Rest is important, and having hobbies or other activities is one of the healthiest and most creative choices you can make to have a healthy brain and stay away from burnout — and closer to being more productive.

Gyshido is a wordplay meaning Get Your SHit DOne.

Sounds harsh, but here is a part of Gyshido that stayed with me and, with time, proved to be true. Getting our shit done is the main struggle for a good bunch of artists. Blame it on ADHD, blame it on inspiration, or lack of it, blame it on energy, but at the end of the day, we artists have a hard time finishing things. Discipline is a skill to be developed, just as important as art skills. Don’t ignore it because your career depends on it.

We have been called dreamers, but it is a fancy name for the overflow of imagination artists have, sometimes leaving this world, or reality, to go around something in our imagination. If you are reading this and are not an artist but have artist friends or family, you have already spotted us staring at nothing, like we are hypnotized. This is the moment when we are not there but dancing with some crazy idea.

That is normal, people. That’s normal!

Bringing ideas to planet earth.

Back when I had my little animation studio in Brazil, I got into a stream of readings about creativity and productivity. One of the nicest books I read at the time was Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, by Scott Belsky.

You can still watch his talk about the book at TED, from 15 years ago, here.

Scott created a method to, as the subtitle says, overcome the obstacles between ideas and reality. It is a good read. The method has not been in the trends for a good while, but it is solid. It got me almost instantaneously because it is visual, but also because it has structure and method.

But I mentioned Scott because a part of his book explains the whys of the temptation when new ideas come and overlap the current idea production, and why we keep jumping around from one unfinished project to another.

Again, this is normal, and this doesn’t happen only with creatives. This happens because we all have this fluctuation of interests, aka energy and excitement fighting with the time it takes for something to get completed.

It may sound controversial because we fetishize the generation of ideas. Now more than ever, with AI taking the wheel of idea generation, but new ideas are the worst enemies of any idea in the process of getting ready.

Getting our shit done puts a break in the loop. It helps us to at least slow down the cycle and think about what we are about to do when considering leaving one idea behind and starting another.

I decided to write about this now because I am finally seeing it happen clearly before my eyes. It took me many years, one self-published book, almost two, and having a new one coming.

So, what I have shown above in the graph is literally happening right now! But not only because we have ideas all the time. Now it is happening because it is part of the plan. What is the difference?

The Action Method

The difference is that ideas keep showing up and trying to get their mind space, but now I have learned what happens if I don’t let them start. Instead, I create a backlog with actionable points, so I make sure they will not be forgotten and that they will first be evaluated to see if they are really doable and when.

The method created by Scott is called the Action Method. It was designed specifically to handle these idea gaps. Even though it was published in 2010, the method works like a charm for people dealing with lack of focus because it is based on action steps, references, and a backburner to keep your ideas in a hierarchy.

This post is not sponsored by Scott 😂 but he also has a Substack I keep following, called Implications.

Getting Our Books Done

Getting the first book ready — and I owe this also to Veronica, who is working on Bullet Turtle with me — was a big accomplishment. It was getting something done! Not perfect, but done! Printed! Posted via traditional mail, something I can flip through the pages of, smell, and feel in my hands. This means a lot.

This meant so much to me that it boosted my confidence to keep going, and we are about to finish The Book of Tharexis Vol. 2. On top of that, there is a Vol. 3 in the plans for next year, and there will be another new one for this year.

These coming books are the shockwave of putting something into this reality. Taking an idea from the imagination realms and building it here, on planet Earth, in the years 2025 and 2026.

Some people might call it manifestation, but for lack of knowing exactly what the term means, and because at first, manifestation sounds “too easy,” while the process was (and has been) actually too hard.

I will call it Getting My Shit Done!

I hope you feel inspired to get yours done too! If you like the article, please share! You can support us in many ways, and we need it so much.

We now have Substack content on Tuesdays and Fridays.

On Fridays, for paid subscribers, we have an Art Drop, where you can get original art, files, and freebies, or an original story expanding the world of The Infinite Forest, with exclusive art, new characters, and explorations. The subscription is very cheap, and we promise you will love it.

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Thanks for being here.

All the best,

Juliano

We couldn´t be happier with this opportunity to share more with you!

For the first art drop, we had some spoilers over Instagram, but here is the real thing.

A set of posters, inspired by vintage/retro Japanese designs.

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**…AND… **

We have a weekly schedulle now:

Tuesdays - Creative Talks /News / Comics Updates - Free for everyone

Fridays - Art Drops / Original Short Stories - For paid subscribers.

The Art Drops will come in 2 formats:

• -One week, an art from the books, from a poster or a postal card art, a sticker, tshirt. We don’t have products yet but I will give you access to files and mockups.

• -The next week, a new short story. With text and images, Expanding the world of The Infinite Forest. New characters, daily happenings or small adventures from all creatures living there.

This series of short stories will probably become a new book when we reach a good amount of tales…

That said…let‘s get to the (creative) businessssss, then…

Soaring…

Since we have birds all around this place, including Bullet Turtle logo, using them for creative analogies won’t feel strange at all, right?

What led me to start this article was some recent conversation with other artists about range. By range I mean, literally, how far can you reach off your main focus. Let’s say you are an animator, how constrained you are to your animation skills?

I met artists that were very rigid about what they do and how they are not open to do anything else beyond that. It is not a problem when related to the craft itself, I am not here to judge or say that there is a single or specific way to do things. The art field is diverse and flexible as it can be. There is no such thing as a shape you need to fit in.

What I am trying to do here is just a spread some thought around so we can think about them together.

I met also artists that are really open to try, experiment and add new complementary skills for their toolbelt. I guess I can’t say I am not one of those, because, you know…comics.

Although there is no right or wrong, there are relevant factors connected to the career path that might be considered for the artists that has the desire to make a better living out of their craft.

In this post I am talking about industry, so every time I mention ART, that means an art job, an art career. That means money needs to be made in order to survive using your skills. This is the place where the “There is no right way to do it” meets the “Why nothing is really working for me?”

Career development is more technical than you might think, maybe this is why so many artist struggle with it, it is not organic or subjective as most of the things we do, and believe me, we, artists we tend to create this fantasy of the misunderstood person or the creative hustler that is fighting creative blocks all the time, but the career path of an artist is not that different form an executive career.

you need skill, planning, knowledge, practice, and the most important, networking and strategy.

Shouldn’t we be talking about birds and wings?

Yes, you are correct. We should.

You might have heard this expression already,“Spreading the wings”.

It refers to situations related to getting comfortable with something to the point you are “gliding”, also refers to push what you do to new boundaries and learning new things.

Circling back to birds, usually they spread their wings to soar or to glide. Both, to save energy, make use of wind and hot air currents to keep flying without spending energy.

When creating Tharexis, I dived into the basic anatomy of birds and found out the wonderful world of wings. From long and large wings to soar, like eagles, to tiny and sharp wings for fast maneuvering, and all types in between.

I see artists as privileged individuals capable of shapeshifting their wings. Like unlocking skills in a game.

We start flying with our original wings, shaped to our personality as we grow. To glide, to soar, to burst, we flex them up and down as life demands. With time, and with our life experiences, we can adapt and change the shape of our skills to react faster to the changes in the wing, to navigate a dense forest, to just passive soaring and contemplate the view.

As I mentioned above, some artists are resistant to change, by comfort, by some limitation or by imposed life situations. Not always we can set to fly and we are sure about how it will be. Turbulence is always there. And it is ok, it is part of life ups and downs, and if we reflect back and learn from them, these situations could turn into a powerful wing shaper.

My main advice for starting or junior artists that come to me for mentorship is always the same. Flex your wings and spread them. Focus in a main skill, that wil be your guide and build around it. We have a saying in Brazil that is “knowledge doesn’t take space.” If you research the fundamentals of how creativity happens, it is tightly connected to the amount of diverse stimulus you can feed to your brain, so later it can cross all of them to come up with some cool idea, or some useful solution.

I am a fierce promoter of self learning. Because it is a great way to keep feeding your brain with health food. Food for thought. I know not everyone likes it, but what I can see underneath the “I can’t learn that way” is most of the time, a resistance to change, that necessary force to break the inertia.

Today we have the privilege and comfort of having almost infinite sources to start learning basically everything. Still we have so much offered to us that we don’t know how to focus and follow a path anymore. This lack of focus impacts directly our ability to follow a strategy, later, impacting our learning and obviously, our career.

We don’t have to try to embrace the world, to know everything that has to be known. That’s not the point. The point is to have a strong core and flexible wings.

The core

There is one last thing I need to tell you about wings and about flying.

Wings are symmetrical limbs, when not flying, they act like our limbs, independent, but the bird can only take flight if they can coordinate the wings together. They need also a core, proportional to the wings size to be able to find balance.

If the core is not strong enough or if it is too big, birds won’t even take flight. Look at the ostriches or even the chickens. Big body, tiny wings.

Once again I remind you that we are privileged for having the power of shapeshift our wings, but now we know if we don’t take care of the core, there will be a lot of misalignments and no flight at all. As I mentioned few lines above, what we feed to our brain will impact directly the quality of our creative output, so my advice is the same of our nutritionist friends: Avoid the ultra processed food. They will make you heavy, slow and cut off your ability to fly.

Once again, thanks for being here, I hope you like what is coming! Remember to follow us on our socials and to get a copy of the Book of Tharexis to support us!🙏 We ship (almost) worldwide. if your country is not on the list, send a message to us and we will make it happen! 😉

From our hearts to yours.❤️

Juliano

Not a new conversation for sure. Not new questions…Will AI do this? Will AI do that? Short answer is yes for all, but things are not that black and white.

Before we dive into this, I would like to let you know that this space will be finally be taken and used regurlarly. I have other Substack I use for my platorm of aniamtion Courses (Spinemation) and I created this one for updates from The Book of Tharexis and all books we will do.

It will be used to that as well, so if you joined for this, you will get this delivered as well. But I was looking for a space to share my thoughts on creativity, storytelling and the state of art industry, technology and related stuff that I am inveitably close everyday due my full time job as Animation Artist.

Also, Bullet Turtle Studio was born from that instinct to share stories and art, collaborate with artists, like I am doing with Veronica Fralleoni for the books.

We just completed 1 year of doing this. Amazing and transformative journey so far. Sitting and drawing pages, writing has lighted up a creative flame inside of me and is pushing me through and helping me through some hard times. So, I hope you like and feel inspired by what I will share here.

Let’s get back to the topic. If you are an artist, AI has become a ghost haunting you. I get it. It hunts me too. Everyday.

But as I do with everything in my life, I try to breakdown things and look at them from a distance, so I can try to see the big picture, find and ask the hard questions and act upon data.

Is AI a menace? Yes it is.

Is AI an artist killer. No.

Will AI replace me as an artist? It depends.

This falls in another infinite loop hole. What is art? I wont spent time trying to shape a definition here but I will bring up a question embbeded in this main, broad, generic “what is art?” question.

What makes art relevant?

The short answer is connection between a creator that wants to express their emotions to someone that was hooked by something in that manifestation. The poet Charlotte Ward defines it very well:

When we create from the soul, we offer it as a gift, but the response belongs entirely to the receiver. A poem may not land exactly as intended, and “that’s okay.” Every reader brings their own history and heart to the lines, becoming a co-creator in the process.

Independent of all answers to “What is art"?” The process of creating art, or even the process of creating is something it is not what is running on actuall AI models and algorithms that is in front of the general audience, like the GPTs and Open Claws.

What these things do are put together ton and tons of data, collected from any imaginable source, even human complex behaviours. Yes, it is scary, but some AI is learning from everything you do EVERYDAY if not every moment.

However, they still can’t create. This is why they are generative. They generate (impressive) stuff. What impress people usually are the beautiful pictures and the ability to generate realistic videos. This is not exactly new, as deep fakes and AI training is being used in the movies for a while, but off the media radar. Now it is accessible and much more powerful.

If we consider art, something thats bridges expression and emotional connection. Machines (last time I checked) still can’t handle neither expression nor emotional reactions. They hardly do. because these are not based in an algorithm. Our relationship with the world around and with other humans is , yes, chemical and can be mapped, but it has a layer that is totally subjeective and relates directly with our personal experiences, good and bad. This is basically what make us humans and this is not replicable because each one of us intereprete things based on our own experiences.

However, this doesn’t make the menace less menacing. Emotions also have layers and reactions can be mapped. So, the same way, a generative model can copy visuals from a particular artist and generate similar outputs, this is still based on what that artists had translated from their experiences to their expression and AI took it from there not from the experience.

So the mechanism of generation and creation already creates a separation between artists and machines.

But if there is this unbreakable difference, why is it a menace?

We are talking now about comercial art now. Not less important, because this is the part of art that is our job, put food on our table and pay the bills. This is not exclusively human expression (but hold this in your mind because we will be back at it).

Again, art became comercial because someone understood how our senses could me manipulated to feel something that could be useful for something, not only to generate profit, but mostly. I know, as Metallica said, “sad but true.”

I am not saying this is a bad thing. As everything we create as humans, things can be used in both ways, good or bad, and we love books, video games, movies, music, everything that touches our emotions to give us pleasure somehow.

The menace rises in two fronts, in my opinion. First is manipulation, media manipulation to be more specific and politics are included in media, not the opposite.

Second in labour, and I believe this is where all the attention is going nowadays becuase it is happening in front of our naked eyes. This goes beyond the artists circle,a lmos every field is beign touched by AI and this has no return. It is here to stay. Yes, I know and it freaks me out as well.

Before bring you some hope, let me share my point of view of the bigger danger in my field, from here I can share a clear vision and I believe it will be similar in other fields.

We have seen larger impacts in Concept Art. The part of the pipeline that is risponsible for generating concepts and generate ideas, many ideas, and AI is very good in generate volume and while an artists can generate few solid ideas per day, because the process would involve research, both visual and historical, sometimes philosophical, AI can spit hundreds of visual with prompts that could point the model to literature, paintings, history sources, characters from other IPs, it is a range of references no human can handle at the same time.

Good thing right? Not exacltly. looping back to what I mentioned above, it is still crossing references and generating based on what’s there, nothing new. Nothing inovative. for some studios, that’s ok, that’s enough, for the ones caring a little bit, keep the senior Concept Artist and let them operate the machines. Still, a full team was cut, collaboration was cut, and one person is at the driving sit of an (autonomous) car.

This will be the model that will last for a bit yet.

Speaking of Senior positions, this in my opinion is from where the big hit will come. The extinction of Seniors.

The Senior artists is that one that came through all the process, that understands all the production, the efficient way to do things, the creative way to do things. Most of the times, they start as Junior Artists and climb up to the head of the team.

What if there is no more Juniors? Who will take the Senior seat when the Seniors we have today have gone?

This is where the wave will really crash , and the big danger here is apathy. Empty things coming to the forefront of what we consume. Lack of connection because there will be an endless number of souless movies, music and literature. Zero expression.

Generation triggers

An contradictory as it may sound. AI is not an emotional animal, but that doesn’t means it can’t create emotional response and empathy. It (dangerously) can, and it will. this is already part of our lives. The simpler and closer examples are movies and games. These medias shows how much we are accessible from the surface of our emotional response. From there, we give way to the deeper layers and how much reponse we give to that feelings started by that specific moment. This varies from person to person of course.

What will be out there maybe will be empty of meaning, but what if we as human are growing up to the same point? Emotionally numb?

Sounds too pessimistic right?

Well, it is, so maybe this is where I can leave my sparkle of hope with you, so we can work together towards something that will keep us rooted in what makes this connection between expression and human emotional response, alive.

I firmly believe in the power of what we do with our hands. What we don’t delegate to the conveninence of a machine. Devices supposed to be here as a support for our needs, but what happens very often is we became the support for the apps. We give too much, and we get hooked by the dopamine cycle so easily.

What we do with our hands demands presence. Demands, nowadays, time and we feel like we are stealling time from the devices, that we should be there, connected to a screen.

I am not advocating for an offline life or bannning devices from it. I love the devices I have that makes my life easier, that makes this post and we excahnging experiences possible. I am advocating for keep doing or bringing back what can make the human connection stronger. I am not telling you to go out and meet new people, but to go inside yourself and make friends with the many creative selves that live there, and let them take the wheel and be creative.

I often say that AI will not make artists obsolte, it will make us unique. In a sea of boring things that will look the same, we will stand out because we have our own perspective. This is something that never changed, and it is about to become even more valuable. Your perspective, your vision, not your technique, not your tools. You.

There is this widely comom misconception that creativity is something visual, artistic, but it is not. It is connected to ourselves and with the new ways we can find to express and connect to each other. If it is a drawing, great! If it is a song, great! If it is a book, great! But most important, it needs to be you, because only YOU can do YOUR stuff.

Emotions can be partially generated, yes, but humanity is what makes them full of meaning.

Let’s hold to that!

See you soon!

Juliano

We have been through busy and stormy times times, but first and foremost, let me show what you came here for…the cover for the Vol 2…Sunrise.

That cover is really special. As it happened with Moonlight (vol 1). It shows a key moment of the story. I can’t tell you more as I will give you a big spoiler if I do, but this second part of the story goes towards a more fantastic scenario.

I was very excited to get to this second part. because there are new characters involved, there are tons of dangers, deeper conversations and development for our beloved crow and rat. You will be introduced to new places as they reach the unknown end of their journey to find a solution for what have happened with Jaethor.

I wrote this story from a starting point that came very unexpected in my life. The passing of my father, I mentioned that before. But even though this is not a story about him, it started with some hard to face reality check about our time here, and this evolved with the processing of what we hold inside, emotionally, and the struggles we have, everyday to overcome our fears, anxiety and tough days.

So I can say there is a part of me in each one of the characters, there is also a part of experiences I had diluted in between the lines and I am really greatful for this project for how much I learned about myself while writing, drawing and going through decisions WITH the characters.

To get to this cover moment, wasn’t an easy road. Life is not an easy road and isn’t suppose to be. But I guess we all find comfort in learning and when looking back, recognizing our self development and progress, even in small things, even with small steps.

This project takes the main character and put it to stress, without asking if he wants to be in those situations. This also puts him in a position of being helped, and being helped demands a lot of humbleness, giving up on our pride. This always was a big reflection for me, because in my life journey I got help from many, I couldnt be here writing these words if some people weren’t kind and generous enough to take me by the hand, point me in a direction or offer me a door to pass. This helped me to learn to listen.

This is maybe the biggest slice of life I share with Tharexis. Learn to be open to others, to listen and watch, to learn how to ask.

What western society embedded in our way of life is that let others help you is a weakness. A debt you need to pay. What you realize when you are open to learn from others and let them help you is that will become a path to freedom and the key to unlock your willingness to do the same to others. Some will call empathy. For me, personaly, this should’nt even have a name. Offer your hand, your support and accept the same when they offer it to you should be our natural ways to treat and to show respect to anyone.

Translating this to Tharexis was the most challenging because it requires a lot of breakdowns and self learning. I am still learning as we move into the last pages. Production of Vol 2 was much easier compared to Vol 1 in terms of production because me and Veronica were very much aligned and we got this sinergy of working together, to trust in each other work, this has been wonderful and I could find this with very few people. On the other hand, the smoothness of production was always in contrast with life behind the curtains. All the struggles that life put ahead of us. It hasn’t been an easy road, but we both agree and we spoke about how coming back to the pages give us meaning and peace. It is a place where we can focus and do our best.

This is priceless and precious. This translates also an important part of this story that is the resilience. One way or another, he is getting there. Chased by owls, helped by strangers, with luck, without luck, with fear, with anxiety, with his demons hunting him. He is getting there.

We are getting there as well, within the same chaotic conditions.

We read and write stories to connect. To find comfort and to not feel alone about whatever we are going through. I am lucky enough to have found the right companions for this journey, in real and fictional life.

When you read through the pages you are not reading a completely fictional point of view, there is a part of me, a part of Veronica and if you connect with our story, a part of you too.

So, as Tharexis gets closer to the end of this journey, we expect you to be with us, as well.

Thanks for beign here. You are important!

Make sure you follow us for updates on the release of Volume 2 and the other projects that we will do after it.
Bullet Turtle Instagram
Juliano and Veronica Instagram

Want to support us? Share our content, subscribe to this substack or get your copy of Vol 1 here at our shop.

All the best!

Just posted this reel and for this volume I would like to show more about out process and the behind the scenes.

I hope you enjoy! More coming!

Creating Thumbnails

Jokes apart, the Bullet Turtle wishes you a happy holiday season. This time of the year many of us use to reflect on the year behind us and look for reasons to be grateful and aim for a better year ahead, learning with the falls, pride of the perfect flights.

No matter the ups and downs we have been through, The Book of Tharexis Vol 1 was a BIG achievement for us, and you are also a BIG part of that. We are thankful for your support and we promise to deliver Vol2, bigger and better. You will be impressed with what’s coming. If you want to follow closer, you can subscribe to our newsletter at bulletturtle.subsctack. and we are also on instagram. Consider to give us a follow! @bulletturtle @betweencolors__ @julianocastro

We prepared a small thank you gift to you. We hope you enjoy and we wish you to spend this time with people you love and people who love you.

You can get it digital at Global Comix - https://globalcomix.com/.../the-book-of-tharexis-vol1...

Or physical signed copy here:

https://bulletturtle.studio/shop

Thanks for all the support!

We live surrounded by stories—woven into the very fabric of our existence. From the moment we come into the world, we inherit the narratives of those who came before us. Our parents’ dreams, struggles, and choices merge to form the first chapters of who we are. Then, as we grow, we begin writing our own, consciously or not, intertw…

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I stole the title of this post from Alastair Humphreys’ book title. It means the first step into any adventure is the hardest one, because it involves preparation, psychological and material, scheduling time, organizing resources, and pack what you need so you are ready for the adventure ahead.

He was talking about an adventure literally. Going out home, travelling, camping, etc…But the concept stuck in my mind since then and every time I am about to start something new, I go back and remember this book, because he breakdown the fear we usually have when the unknown is presented ahead. The point is that “present fears are less than horrible imaginings”. Get going! You’ll be fine!

So, trusting this concept and after proving it in real life many times since then, fear don’t go away, but becomes manageable and less scary, at least to the point you don’t freeze anymore and you do the most important step of any journey, the first one.

The book

Starting something new, that came out from a mix of a passion and a hobby, comics and writing, was not just scary, but also probably the most challenging project I have ever done. It’s been an year with tons of learning. It is like going through the newbie feeling and all the excitement again, even after 20+ years working with animation and dealing with challenging projects, adapting to new technologies, managing teams and dealing with people in many levels. It is something completely new, and it is great!

We will talk here mostly about the first original project from Bullet Turtle Studio. A graphic Novel split in 2 volumes, called: The Book of Tharexis.

Why now? The time felt right. All the pieces started to came together on a way it was hard to believe, the initial funding that allowed me to start this, my partner in crime for this project, super talented colorist, Veronica Fralleoni, who I call The Color Wizard, the characters, the story, that started from a short animation idea and evolved to this amazing journey. Everything! Everything came together and now, close to the printing date, we still can’t believe all the magic that brought us here.

I will not give you any spoilers because I want to get you into the details of everything on the next posts. The release has a date already.

We planned for The Malta Comic Con 2025, happening 8-9 November. I hope you get as exited as we are to finally hold the book in our hands. If you are in Malta, stop by our table, in the Artist alley, chat a little bit and get your signed copy. If you are abroad, fear not! There will be an online shop where you can get the book too. 😉

I created this channel in Substack to keep track of the development and share with the community all the backstage, the making of, exclusive live sessions while drawing the pages or sketching the characters. We would love to see you here and supporting us. So far, I am investing by myself in the volume 1 and making it happen because I believe we have a great story that will connect with people. Volume 2 is coming early in 2026, and for this, we need your help.❤️

The characters always carry a piece of the author with them. It is something impossible to separate, because we put our hearts there, and what happens with us also happens with everybody, we share stories, we share joy and also share the struggles. We believe stories, they are a way to learn from each other, to help bring healing and hope. We have something important to share and you can help us to get this message out there.

So, if you feel like, you can support us here, in Substack, by becoming a paying subscriber with access to exclusive content, and of course you can help us buying the book, giving it as a gift to someone, any help counts to make this project complete.

The Making of…

I will not leave you here, without anything. I have prepared the first episode of the making of, called “Journey”. You can watch it HERE, or on our YouTube Channel or Instagram.

I hope you like it and share it! You support means the world to us!

See you soon!