DIY Cultures Fair 2013
Alan and I sold together at DIY Cultures two weeks ago in RichMix London. We had all our new gear, hot off the printers, new risographs courtesy of Ditto Press and screen prints from our session with Print Club London.
Our time there had been quite different to our experiences at MCM as well as Thought Bubble, mostly because the word ‘zine’ turns out means many more things than just short stories, in fact we were very odd one out. Arriving at Richmix before noon, we were given our table right at the end of the row, shadowed in the darkness. We weren’t too chuffed about our position, but it paid off through the day when we had plenty of space for our friends to sit and chat, as compared to the other crowded tables.
Despite being out of place, in whole it was a fun experience, there were a lot of speakers, generally talking about feminism and anarchy, so much so I recon DIY Cultures should be renamed to Femicon 2013. And of course we are grateful to our friends who came and made the whole thing really exciting, we look forward to returning to MCM Expo next month, where our community and family live.
(Source: vandtree)
Look what we just got hot from the printers! Heres a sneak peak at our new limited edition risograph zines and screen prints, for this Sunday’s DIY Cultures at RichMix, London.
We will be there from 12-7pm selling our new zine - The Purple Pages, as well as our original Alovera Comic for now at £5 each. We will also be selling our bloodlun prints for £1 each and a small handful of our toys at £5 for the event!
Please come and visit as we would love to see everyone again from previous expos, if you would like a certain toy for Sunday, heres the list, some might be sold out, but otherwise just pop me a note or email!
5 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
zines purple pages alovera comic DIY Cultures RichMix London screen print
Heres a set of the whole gang made on Icon Generator, I’ve now finished uni for Easter, so Alan and I are catching up on work for the first of the series, due to be finished next year ‘Alovera: The Dawn of Eve’.
In the mean time, we are going to be selling our zine on April 7th at DIY Cultures in Bethnal Green, London. We also hope to create new merch too, as were booked up for ready for this years May MCM Expo and selling off everything for £5 each. Please come visit us as we would love to see everyone again!
4 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
DIY Cultures MCM ALOVERA alovera comic alovera studio icon generator
Hello there Alan here,
The current story of the Alovera Universe is set at around the year 2060 in a futuristic tone, with its Pompeon-Bots and new age newspapers. We wanted to fully paint the picture of Alovera with its unique past that determines a lot of what is going on today. Especially since the story is the cause and effect of so many events that happened in the past, such as ones giving birth to new races, the relationships between races and their population.
Alongside a book holding four intense chapters of the Alovera Universe, we wanted to include one more chapter overlooking a major historical event. We follow the Evander family throughout the ages, as you see first hand events that will be the foundations of the Alovera Universe.
I’ve been awfully sick of late so this took so much longer than I wanted to but I do hope you enjoy our direction in filling out an Universe to the brim with romance and tragedy.
Hello there Alan here,
Once again we are exploring and expanding the Alovera Universe and this time we look at the new character to be introduced in chapter two. She plays a huge role in the story and introduces herself to us as Ashely Hoxton. The surname coming from her father who is a detective rescued her as a baby from a terrible incident known as the Hallows Massacre.
A problem with most future based stories is that warm, cosy homes are often replaced with white, sterile, minimalistic architecture instead. Also that robots will do everything for their owners, clean them, cook for them making people seem lazy. However we see the robots in the Alovera Universe more simular to an iPhone, essentially a gadget, something that can be a map, a light source but not a replacement for a way of life. Now with Ashely, Zukka, her Pompeon-Bot was more than just a gadget, it was family, as being raised in a single fathers home leaves a hole to be filled.
Zukka, being an early model couldn’t speak like the bots we see in the story, but that never was a problem with Ashely, longing for more family grew up with this loyal and friendly robot. However one terrible day would see that Zukka sacrificed itself for Ashely safety, leaving behind no regrets but an empty shell. Now we see her as a tough fighter in chapter two making short work of some Bloodlun grunts, however she is still unaware that life has more surprises in store for her and one of them is looking for her.
You may realise there is a QR code in the top left corner of the page, for the book we want to make we want to include QR codes to link the audience with animation clips and music, if you have a smart phone, please scan it and listen to the music as you read the story.
Anywho, I’m really enjoying exploring our universe and making it much fleshier than original anticipated. I hope you enjoy them too, we are planning of maybe putting them in the back of the book where you usually see concept work and credits.
Keep warm!
2 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
Alovera comic Purple Detective Qr Robot
Hello there Alan here (again). Going on with the exploration of the Alovera universe decided to tackle the small robots aracnos have. Being targeted by bloodluns, the robots that were designed and created by Robotic’s Inc help protect its owner. First they were basic insect like shapes, but then we were put off by the similarities between them and Super Paper Mario’s ‘pixls’, in addition to feeling they weren’t clear enough as robots. The question is, should they have faces? Should they be more than just spheres of goodness? Moving on…
Healers are people with the wonder touch, taking a patients pain and injury and absorbing it onto themselves. They are, by their name, fast healers and so a first degree burn will go in about a day but it still hurts them the same. I wanted these healers/ nurses who look scarred to also look heroic, not by holding a sword and shield, but by burdening the scars of their work. I don’t want to glorify hurt women but rather concentrate on the fact on how great their responsibility is. Even through war injuries, fire and disease, they will cure all. At then end showcases more bloodlins, including a rogue healer, which is not uncommon in our universe.
5 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
Alovera Purple comic Healers robots
Alan here. As Vic and I are reworking the first chapter we are trying to thicken the immersion and introduction of all the traits related to this world of ours. We get very excited like children at Christmas deepening the universe and reworking the story making it more epic than we could have ever first imagined.
Since commencing the Alovera project, we have improved so much since making the first chapter, that we plan to redo some panels. We kept selling to our audience the idea of a modern-future London, but many comics are based in London and so far as we see in chapter one, we don’t shed much light on how different it is and how its not 2012 but rather 2060 or somewhere along those lines.
Here I drew a page of details that make the Alovera universe. Be it ( a poor attempt on cars) vehicles, the sharp horizon that spikes over the old one and reworking of a few panels. Its been fun to draw what Longnecks look like underneath, imagine a race of people that usually atire head scarfs or have headgear attached to support/ hide their necks, as they have stronger and angular features than the smoothly drawn people of Alovera.
We are also making our panels more dynamic and cinematic. You’ll like it, I promise you. It’s a project that is very close to our hearts, we get excited yet frustrated at how slowly we progress. To keep our table fresh, we were planning on releasing our hourly comic day book, alongside hopefully another story drawn like this, further exploring the history of the world we have created. A three part special will also be at the end of each book, shedding light on key events of the Alovera history. Events such as the Longneck war and the introduction of the inner evil, the aracno virus and how that changed the world and a prequel to the Alovera story connecting past to the current day.
Also with every new page we make, I’ve been keeping a scrapbook of images so that we can pamper them into something presentable to prove how much work goes behind the scenes. Some pages takes us seven redo’s of the entire page till we are perfectly satisfied with it. That and making new plushies with our new designs that we showcased as stickers on October con.
See you soon!
5 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
Alovera Purple Comic races Future
Alan and my go at the Ramona Style contest, of course long after its over. So this is to you our friends, what we have been doing since wednesday!
12 notes
Leave Note / Reblog
ramona style scott pilgrim ramonastyle ramona flowers
To all my friends and followers alike, thank you so much for being so supportive to me, Alan and our work both in and out of uni, its truly amazing, so here is our christmas card this year to you! Wishing you all a Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year from Alovera! These are the 20 joys we have felt this month and I am due to watch some christmas specials, so be high and spirits and see you all in the new year!
