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Never grow old.

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I am on a holy mission.

I am on a mission to stay forever young and vigilant, forever excited and positive about life and what it brings, and my only nemesis is called growing old.

Now bear with me for I don’t mean any harm against aging – I’m all for aging and I can’t wait to be smarter, wiser, and more handsome in a way that only a fine aged wine or whisky can be. You know when you see it with some people, and you can’t but admire them.

This has nothing to do with age.

What I am against is the dreading sense of feeling jaded, as if growing old was sucking out all the adventure and surprise out of life, and I don’t like it.

I believe that life should be lived unconventionally. I want to live in an environment of fun and play, where experimenting and dreams rule the day. Where even the craziest of whims get unconditional support, and ambition and greed is not only rewarded, but expected.

And I believe it has to start with the little things in life. Here is a small list of fun, exciting things that we do to keep ourselves challenged.

1. Get a ping pong table.

And get rid of that old dining table! Sure it takes a lot of space, so much we that we had this feeling of “We’ve made a terrible mistake” when got the box home, but it has been all worth it. Trust me – there’s not a person in the world who’s not going to be jealous of it for Ping Pong is not just a great game, it’s also a fun form of exercise.

Sure some may claim it not to be, but they are filthy liars.

ping pong ping pong ping pong

Best fun ever!

Also try: Billiard tables.

 

2. Write on walls.

Just go for it and be a kid again! What’s the worst that can happen? There shouldn’t be anything so sacred in the wall that you couldn’t make a little mark or two on it, and if there is – I recommend you reconsider your relationship to the wall paint. Worst case, you can always repaint it.

writeonwalls

“Bla bla bla bla blaa!” Says Kaija.

3. Learn a new skill.

We thought making a webcomic would be easy; moderately time consuming, but easy. Little did we realize that we weren’t just making a webcomic anymore, but we also had to learn to write blog posts, get groovy with social media and marketing practises, learn graphic design and understand web tech stuff –  all the while trying to better ourselves as storytellers and artists. It has been scary, frustrating and mind-blowingly confusing at times, but if I’d had to start all over again, I’d do it in a second.

powerbluedrawing

Starting something new and massive is supposed to be scary and difficult, you’re supposed to be filled with self-doubt and dread, for learning is challenging. But out of all the little things, it’s also the most rewarding experience of them all. It will take you to places you never saw coming; you’ll meet people who you admire, with similar passions and mindsets and it will always keep you on your toes, for learning never ends.

Unless you decide to stop learning, and grow old instead.

 

Love,
Silver

Never grow old with me @runfreakrun

Game of Goats

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Yay for internet!

I’m a big fan of Game of Thrones, so you can imagine my joy when my friends Frank and Armin told me about this video. There’s something so wonderfully special about this, that it should be used as an official ad. I think tv-themes are the best when you can easily hum along with them, and HBO has succeeded in that one show after another.

 

Love,

Silver
tweet-tweet @runfreakrun

Silver behind the camera

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Silver taking a picture of a framed page for our Etsy shop

Silver taking a picture of a framed page for our Etsy shop

silver (2 of 2) copy3

Ha! For once I have a picture of Silver here. I feel guilty every time he runs around snapping shots of me on the drawing board. I tend to be the one that has a strict deadline to finish a page a week, so I zone out in concentration while drawing, and Silver stays alert tackling other tasks like marketing, improving the page, lettering and snapping pictures on top of his writing. Hats off to Silver for being a such a multitasker.

 

I want to be of more use in these smaller tasks, so I vow to give Silver a little more screen time and get behind the camera once in a while, documenting more of his journey as a writer :)

 

Smiles,

Kaija

Drawing the rooftops of RFR

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intro

One of our favorite things in life is experimenting with art.

Be it with written words, drawing, storytelling or even photography – we love to mess around. It’s what keeps everything fresh, interesting and fun.

It’s easy to get stuck with your creative influences; photographers look at other photographs, illustrators at other illustrators and bla bla, you get the idea. Everyone tends to look for easy influences, because it’s safe and convenient and you can’t really go wrong. But you can’t really grow out of the box then either.

The whole Run Freak Run experience has been one big playground for me. Besides writing and lettering, I get to battle website code and graphic design. Extremely frustrating at times, but super educational and it has improved my professional concept art work in ways I wouldn’t have imagined.

For a while, we’ve been trying my dearest with photography in the mix and just to make things more complicated, we decided to mix in video as well!

We’ve made one mood video of Kaija drawing a future RFR-page from the upcoming chapter (starting tomorrow!) and we mixed in music from Indie Folker. Check it out, it’s just under this text!

It’s quite a lot of production work, so we don’t know where we go with this video thing yet, but we’re going to keep experimenting with music mood videos to behind-the-scenes office tours to what ever we happen to fancy.

So bear with us, stay interested and thanks for taking part of this journey! :)

 

And now check out the video and leave us comments!

 

lumix

The video was recorded with our new Panasonic Lumix GH3, and we love it.

kaijalumix

Here’s Kaija recording material for a film she’s working on now.

facesmush

FACESMUSH!!! The secret ingredient behind Run Freak Run is kisses.

Have a great Sunday!
Love,

Silver
Tweet-tweet me @runfreakrun

First you suck, and then you’re kind of bad at it.

4 Comments on First you suck, and then you’re kind of bad at it.

I just want to throw this out there. Ira Glass is a wonderful storyteller, and beyond that, he has a great understanding what goes on in the creative mind.

Not only in the content producing way, but about the inner struggle one can go through in effort to become better at their craft or interest. I suggest you find all the interviews with him on youtube and learn and get inspired.

I think that the toughest thing in starting our personal projects is the fear that it’s going to be crap. That we’re going to spend hours on something that will only embarrass and shame us. That fear makes us feel like we have no right to even try and we’d be better off spending that time procrastinating, watching re-runs of House. The fear and pain is then multiplied by the utter lack of knowledge how long would it even take to become reasonably decent. If only there was a program that would track my progress and tell me when I’ve leveled up or how many more hours I have to go until the next epiphany.

But there isn’t.

Some say it takes ten thousand hours to master a skill, about seven to five years and I agree more or less. But what’s important is that it takes a lot less time to be bad at something.

Being bad at something, only requires that you start it.

And once you’re bad at something, you can pinpoint those faults and attack them one by one, and get kind of bad at it. Until one day you’ll be okay or maybe even, dare I say, decent?

Starting to blog was really tough for me.

It’s not just writing something down. It’s writing something down that should be interesting and about my life and thoughts, and even worse, I have to share it with everyone. It’s a lot of pressure. Trust me, there were all kinds of feelings from fear to dread involved, and there still is, but if I hadn’t forced myself to do it, I would had never gotten better at it. I wouldn’t have written something that I feel particularly proud of, like this little piece.

And even more, If I wasn’t sharing my likes, dislikes and thoughts, then I wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to some of our readers about them; there’s really nothing better than that feeling of a connection, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

I’m still not where I’d like to be with blogging and I’m constantly struggling in justifying the act. And to make things harder, we’ve been thinking of starting Vlogging, and that’s going to be another challenge that I have to start afresh. But I have a feeling, that after a few years, I’ll be kind of good at it too. And if not, at least I can say that I tried.

So, on that note. Let’s all suck together, until we’re awesome.

Love,
Silver

 

Give me a Twittericious shout out @runfreakrun and check out RFR ebook!

Run Freak Run behind-the-scenes: The Chamber of Saint Dominic

6 Comments on Run Freak Run behind-the-scenes: The Chamber of Saint Dominic

hell yeah making of comic

One of my favorite things in the world is taking photos of Kaija drawing.

Not only because it’s so hypnotizing to watch the pages come to life from nothing, or because I love her, but because I’m always giddy about the opportunity to post it on the blog and share with you guys.

I know it’s not the same as being here, its only pictures after all. It won’t really explain the creative process and the why’s and what’s that are happening. I don’t even think we can understand why we do everything. During creation, so much of it happens subconsciously, and while we can justify and explain the routs we took after, the process itself relies on guts and self-confidence.

So, tonight Kaija was working on one of the pages for the next chapter. We’re gonna show you guys more of the Queen, and her servants and how echo’s, (remember the baby) are located. Personally I think it’s going to be one of our best chapters yet, but I’m biaised.

Kaija’s been tweeting and facebooking her progress constantly and you should follow those streams if you want to see more of that!

stdominic1

“Well hello there stranger!”

stdominic2

A regular night in the RFR studio. It’s wild.

stdominic3

We party with our tattoos instead. Speaking of tattoos, it’s about time we got some new ones, right?

stdominic5

He’s really a nice guy. He just looks evil.

stdominic7

Line drawing done!

stdominic6

“IIIIINK MEEEE, HUMAAN!”

stdominic8

And she will, Mr. Dominic. She will.

 

 

Thank you for joining for another behind-the-scenes tour!  Hope you had fun!

Love,
Silver

Follow Silver Twitter: @runfreakrun

Banner Saga, Scalzi and Beksinski

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cover

Dun, dun, duuuuun!

There’s rarely a game so stunning that I’ll stop everything just to stare at it.

I’m an avid gamer, and I’ve played so many games through the years that most of them have started to blend together at some point, all trapped in the same art troupes, just repeating each other. You might even say I’m bored with a lot of the new games, and BOOM then comes in Banner Saga with it’s beautiful, hand-drawn art, viking themed fantasy adventure. I first heard about Stoic Games and Banner Saga through their kickstarter, which succeeded netting them enough capita and a fanbase to create the game.

It’s unique art direction is what really makes it different. The graphic backgrounds are inspired by Eyvind Earle, the legendary art director, and the animations remind me of old Disney movies mixed with He-man. No matter how much 3D games keep pushing those shaders and resolutions, there’s something fantastical in 2D that 3D has yet to achieve.

The gameplay is solid, a tad slow at times and it can take a while to get the story rolling. But while there’s room to improve, the art and the setting (VIKINGS WOOO!) themselves are worth many times the price of the game. If you’re a gamer, then I recommend supporting this little indie gem from Texas, Austin and grabbing it from Steam!

TLDR: Epic Disney Viking Adventure is stunning.
banner saga

All the towns and cities are illustrated like this. Easily the best looking game for the year.

banner saga

Travelling bits of the game are full of decision making mini-games. Most decisions have severe consequences.

banner saga

In-game action turn-based combat. It’s fun, simple and fast. Also the animations are stellar.

Speaking of stories,

I still haven’t lost my bad habit of buying more books than I have time to read. But – I’m trying!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of finishing Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. It was a solid and fun hard science-fiction adventure that kept me interested the whole way through. To be honest, I didn’t want to put it down. If I had to describe more, I’d say it’s like Mass Effect and Starship Troopers (novel, not the movie) put together, at least that’s the vibe I got. There’s a universe to explore, alien races to meet and fight with, uncomprehensible technology of the future and philosophical speculation over the morality of it all. I’m pretty sure I’ll pick up the sequels too, right after I clear my read-list.
Next books are: Huckleberry Finn, Perfume and The Bone Season.
TLDR: I like books and sci-fi, and so should you.
old mans war by john scalzi

What happens when a 75-year old gets a young, enhanced body and is sent to war in the space colonies? Lots of stuff, that’s what.

Art is a funny thing.

No matter how many artists you know, art books you’ve bought or how many hours you’ve scanned through internet, there’s always an artist you’ve never heard of before.

To me, it was Zdzisław Beksiński, a now passed Polish contemporary artist whose paintings are made of dreams. They are macabre, dark, twisted and full of grotesque imaginary. Just the way I like it. It has this vibe of apocalypse and fantasy and while it’s kind of dated, in the sense that everyone’s into gritty and realistic art at the moment, I still find it captivating. Maybe this means that high-fantasy is making a come-back? After all, Game of Thrones was kind of a counter-attack against the high elves and paladins fantasy, and boy have the roles reversed since. Thank you to our new friend Seda for introducing this artist to me :)
Check it out, and I hope you enjoy the trip!
TLDR; Here’s some weird paintings.

Beksiński

Zdzisław-Beksiński-night-creeper Beksiński

Love,
Silver

Blackout Poems

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A faded version of an amused feeling

A faded
version of
an amused
feeling

Last time I posted a blackout poem for you guys was around half a year ago. To be honest, I haven’t been doing much of those for a while now. Distractions, obligations and little time tends to come between people and their guilty pleasures. Yesterday, I picked up a pen, a book neither me or Silver mind destroying and started looking for words, meanings, abstractions waiting to be put together and stories to be taken apart and reassembled. In short, I did a few blackout poems and had a blast doing so.

I noticed I never explained where the whole blackout poem concept came from. A year or two ago either me or Silver stumbled on Austin Kleon’s work. In his own words he is a writer who draws. He’s published three books: “Steal like an artist”, “Newspaper blackout” and the newest addition “Show your work!”. He also posts blackout poems on his blog and among other talks he’s given a TEDtalk on this very subject.

He is very generous and open about his process and talking about creativity, taking a very practical view instead of dressing it up in mystery. Not surprisingly his work inspired us to give blackout poems a go. We were on a roll, and filled multiple square meters of our walls with funny, thoughtful or just plain weird poems. If nothing else, they make for an interesting wallpaper and it’s time well spent.

The ghost of the wrong room.

The ghost of the wrong room.

The coming alive was slower than usual; This was a bitter contrast to the pleasant, indifferent poison.

The coming alive was slower than usual;
This was a bitter contrast to the pleasant, indifferent poison.

The doomed fool had taken the burden of guilt of hell many years ago

The doomed fool
had taken the burden of guilt of hell
many years ago

What writers write is a judgement on fiction actually worth saying.

What writers write
is a judgement on fiction
actually worth saying.

Find a tale of wonder. Fall under the spell a little bit.

Find a tale of wonder.
Fall under the spell a little bit.

I recommend you to familiarize yourself with Austin Kleon’s work, blog and talks. Maybe it’ll give you ideas for projects of your own. If not, it’s still interesting to explore the amount of ideas he puts forward.

Smiles,

Kaija

Ebook PDF option added!

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powered by PDF

Powered by PDF, technology of tomorrow.

Hello dear readers!

We just added a .PDF option of Ebook for those who are not fond of .CBR files! Check it out! :)

Or if you’re a good old fashioned .CBR user, then we have you covered too.

Remember, the ebook has en exclusive story in it that has never appeared on the webpage. So if you’re in for some more adventure, and looking for ways to support the making of RFR – then read on!

Love,
Silver