Hello from Castrum Lusitania, my fortress in northern Portugal. Welcome to another edition of our weekly newsletter.
This week was a fairly productive one but solely focused on one discipline. No prizes for guessing what, the title gave it away: almost all working time was focused on inking, apart to some inbox cleaning.
A task I was fairly successful, reaching 0 unread emails for the first time after early December (already gone, but it was good while it lasted). I know some people enjoy having their 173464758 unread emails notifications, but that ain’t how I play.
Let’s see some of that sweet inking
Well, say no more. The images I’ll post here are the same from last week’s newsletter, which, I feel, makes for a more interesting view instead of other random examples.
I decided to dedicate this week to nothing but inking to give a good push into these pages and see how much I could get done. Last week I wrote that some types of pages are particularly fast to pencil (action shots with lots of speed lines and no backgrounds, for example) but also how that time advantage dissipates when the inking time arrives - those speediness now need to be drawn for real (see image above), not just scratched hastily like I do with pencils.
Things went slightly better than expected, though, and I’m typing these words with my laptop laying on top of 11,5 inked pages. Since my weekly goal is 10, I’d say this week went pretty well. I still have 12,5 to finish this batch, which makes wrapping inks next week nearly impossible, but now I know I’ll be pretty close to that.
Now for those interested, almost everything here (except for the straight lines) was drawn with the same nib: a Tachikawa Maru. You can get any nib holder that you want, but I prefer these Deleter ones. I find them to be the easiest to grip and they look lovely in that yellow.
To not go insane, I usually have things on the background while inking - that’s how I get to watch so many shows. I joked on Twitter that since this is such a joyful book that I was going to balance things out by choosing True Detective season 1 to keep me company. Which I did and let me tell you, maybe I overcompensated. I knew what was coming because it was a rewatch, but still… as tough as it is good. Nonetheless, there’s always Phenomena to keep that light shining.
Recommendations
You might remember me saying last week how I had all these articles to read and how I’d share those interesting enough? Well, I did no such thing. The tabs are still open waiting for their time.
What I did though, was watching movies on my minuscule free time. And I got some good words to write about a couple of them. For research purposes I’ve been watching a few war movies. This week I went all in World War I.
All Quiet On The Western Front
This is about the 2022 Netflix German movie. Let’s not beat around the bush, this is a masterpiece. Directed by Edward Berger, the movie is an adaptation of the Erich-Maria Remarque novel of the same name and tells the story of a group of 18 year old German soldiers who happily join the front in 1917, being sold a swift victory over the French army and an arrival into Paris within days. Which perfectly encapsulates the spirit that led to WWI - that it would be fought quickly and decisively, and things would be done in a matter of weeks, if not days.
We all know it didn’t went down like this. The development of weaponry created tanks, planes, gas, machine guns and the only thing quick was how fast those 18 year old kids were dying. And this is what the film is all about. Youth, wasted for nothing. The trench lines barely moved in 4 years while wave upon wave of young men were sent into each other to die. Those with more to spare, won.
All terribly well represented in the movie. In fact, the first few minutes put things very clear and show precisely this, making it clear what this story is all about: the waste of everything that a war is - above all, a waste of human life. You won’t find heroic moments here. All you’ll find is despair, confusion, death with brief glimpses of joy. You’ll see men that, after months in a trench killing each other, are on the edge of a darkness so thick that most of them would never come out of it, even if they escaped all the bullets and shells.
Although the movie is hard to watch at points, because all WWI and WWII stories are inevitably like that, it’s visually stunning through and through. Almost every shot could be a painting, with incredibly well crafted compositions. It’s beautifully shot, as good as anything I’ve ever seen. It will rip your heart out of your chest, but I think we all need that sometimes.
An interesting phenomenon is that all criticism seems to be very positive about the movie (it was even nominated for a bunch of oscars) except in Germany, where not many reviews have been positive. Mostly it seems that Germans felt it was a poor adaptation of the original book, leaning too much into war visuals rather than the more philosophical nature of the original story.
As someone who hasn’t read the book, all I can say is that the movie is an extraordinary feat. And the anti-war message comes through, with more power than you can imagine. No one will end up watching it thinking that anything about that was cool, let me tell you that.
The Long Road To War
A great pairing for this movie was The Long Road To War, a fascinating documentary by Milos Skundric. The issues leading to WWI are many and fairly complex, but this doc explains everything very well, going over the motivations of all nations and how war was inevitable after a certain point. It was just a question of time. It’s weird seeing now how much everyone seemed to want the war, both in terms of the each country’s government and people. A sign of how wrong everyone was about what this war was going to be like and how long it would take.
The most fascinating aspect of the documentary, however, is the focus on Serbia and the Balkans and its overall importance in the conflict. It’s always great to see great historical events through the eyes of smaller nations. Many times, like in this case, it’s where you’ll find many of the causes of major developments.
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Time to recharge batteries for next week. See you all soon!
André
Inking=superb!
As for All Quiet on the Western Front - I agree excellent movie, and - as someone who has read the book twice - has very little to do with the internal narrative of the novel. Doesn’t detract from the film, though
Consistently BADASS!!! 👍🏾👏🏾✊🏾