H. Gorlitz Scott<\/em>: <\/strong>Honestly, I was a consumer first. I always had my nose in a book or could be found watching movies. Following that, I suppose I was an artist, but I always drew with the intent of complimenting stories.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>You also do work for others. What are some of those projects and how have they influenced your own work?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Working for others has actually improved the quality of the stuff that I do for myself. It used to be that I was content with simply getting my ideas down in sketches and notes. Working for other helped me realize that I could complete large projects with quality. They also helped me understand that the way I use my art to tell stories is something people desire.<\/p>\n My best example is that early on in my art career (fresh out of high school, in fact), I came across a contest to illustrate a children\u2019s book. We had to draw our interpretation of the text for the first page and submit it in order to win the rest of the paid gig. As it turned out, I was the only artist out of hundreds to not \u201csubmit something that looked like Scooby Doo\u201d and one of few that actually paid attention to the writing. I won that contest and the title character of Captain Halloween wound up being a prominent character in the St. Louis Halloween parade.<\/p>\n More recently, I have illustrated battle campaign maps for the Historical Game Company, which creates table-top alternate history games. I want to say that this particular project is why Sivoa currently does not have a map. It made me realize that I could do a much better one than the one that I have.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> What inspired you to start writing?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Self entertainment I suppose. I used to write assorted scenes in sketch\/notebooks that I thought would seem cool in other stories. At some point I combined my two creative outlets and started doing little one-shot comics for my brother.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Sivoa: Sunrise has obviously taken up some of your time. How long ago did you begin working on it, and how did the process begin?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Throwing back to my childhood, Sivoa was born of a friend\u2019s typo and a group desire to make Mortal Kombat 3. After MK3 came out, it changed into these ongoing free-form tabletop game sessions that didn\u2019t really go anywhere, but I kept the groups character notes anyway. Eventually, I came up with a real story for some of them in my sketchbooks \u2013 which were discovered by my friend Sarah many years later. She asked me so many questions about it that I eventually made a comic series to appease her. Many years of doing that led me to realize that I wasn\u2019t a fast enough artist to get the story told within my lifetime. In 2014 I stopped the comic and started on the novels. There are three planned in total for the main story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>What about spin-offs and things of that nature? Sivoa seems like a world rich with content and other tales.<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>: <\/strong>I would be lying if I said I didn\u2019t have supplemental publications and spin-offs in mind. One of the things I\u2019ve always dreamed of was doing a table-top role-playing game for it. My husband dabbles in creating such game systems, so we might have one eventually.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Are you thinking something as robust as D&D or Pathfinder? Being able to pull something off like that has got my nerd senses tingling!<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Awww!!! Yeah, pretty much – though, perhaps a little more narrative than statistical. Something rules-light to medium. He\u2019s been working on a new dice rolling system that seems relatively easy to build settings for and I can\u2019t wait to try it out! Much of Sivoa is already put together in a DM\u2019s guide-styled compendium because of its roots.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n T:<\/strong> How did you come up with Dragonira as a character?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> She was my only made-up MK3 character. For 10yr old me, I figured a dark-haired, punk, teenage version of myself would be cool. I also decided having a dragon tattoo on her would be cool, so I named her after the fact that she had a dragon tattoo.<\/p>\n When MK3 launched and we gave up the delusion of being the prodigal group of kids that made the next game in the series, I redesigned her.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n T:<\/strong> But now you have the opportunity to make a Sivoa fighting game!<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>: <\/strong>Haha! Funny you say that. There was a M.U.G.E.N set for it, made by some fans of the comic series. Maybe someone with a mastery of delving into the archives of the internet will be able to dig them back out again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Considering your background and where you find inspiration, would that be another area you could see yourself moving into in the future?\u00a0 Some sort of game development with your own stories at the forefront? Besides tabletop, of course.<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> With video games? No, not really. Even back then, I think that what we were looking for was the creative input and interactivity that tabletop offers, though we might not have known it at the time. That said, I would be willing to work with a video game studio if they were really interested. It\u2019s just not something in the plans at current.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n T:<\/strong> Who is your favorite character to write about in the Sivoa series?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> It\u2019s almost an exact toss-up between Dragonira and her Father. Both of them were fun to write for different reasons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> Could you tell us a little about Sivoa: Mourning?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Without going into spoilers, there\u2019s a few characters that kind of fall out of the spotlight between Sivoa: Sunrise and Sivoa: Zenith (The second book in the series). I wanted to commemorate them with their own little illustrated scenes. I also like calendars, so I decided to release one of these stories a month throughout 2018.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong>Can you give folks a sneak peek of sorts to Zenith? Without going too deep into spoiler territory, who is your favorite new character you introduce?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> There is actually a preview for it in the back of Sivoa: Sunrise – sandwiched between the glossary and acknowledgements segments. There is a significant time jump, which that chapter spells out. Because of this, there is a big cast of new characters and picking a favorite from them is difficult for me. I will say that I do enjoy playing Dragonira off of her antagonists, so I particularly enjoy writing this crazy high-priestess sort by the name of Majika.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>It sounds like Dragonira has her work cut out for herself in Zenith!<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> Boy does she! Haha!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T:<\/strong> What are some of the other stories you\u2019re trying to tell outside of the Sivoa books?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> I have a pirate story on the backburner, as well a dream-based anthology that needs to be cleaned up. I have a comic scripted that delves into the dilemma of being an artist \u201cwithout a style,\u201d but the only non-Sivoa thing that I am currently working on is a web-comic collaboration with a friend. That\u2019s primarily her work, but I do the lettering, background colors, and special effects for it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n T: <\/strong>Folks can find you on your website, www.dragonmun.com<\/a> \u2013 since you do so much, that site is like getting lost in one of the most awesome mazes. It\u2019s definitely a cool kind of rabbit hole to go down. Where would you recommend folks start?<\/p>\n HGS<\/em>:<\/strong> It really is kind of a maze, isn\u2019t it? I guess the best place to start would be the slider at the very top as it highlights my biggest projects and will take you to them specifically. I also have a sitemap linked from the top menu. It\u2019s a simple page, but it divides the sections up so that anyone can easily go to what they came to the site for.<\/p>\n Of course if anyone needs a guide, they are welcome to email me at heather@dragonmun.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/ME2017.jpg\")
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