I made decisions in the last year or so to move ahead on a completely different project as I approach the end of my normal career. Although I had some movement towards restoring some of the comics to a fuller state of voice and music, and the tools are substantially better (Rave was going to be my choice).
Downshift to PG-13?
In another brainstorming set of months, I considered rebuilding DarkBrain content to be PG-13 and remove all R and X stuff completely, to allow it to surface as a general discussion point instead of a niche effort. The amount of work was pretty substantial and I wondered if you can ever really re-invent something so charged in one direction?
3d animation or AI art?
Another brainstorming set of months, I worked on potentially moving into 3d animation as well, rebuilding the content as more of an animated movie approach. This also would pivot me away from custom art, which was very expensive to do. I also pondered using AI to do art. So, I did explore a lot of options. All of them had a very different “soul” than the original DarkBrain, which wasn’t clicking.
A moment caught in time
All in all, I decided my creativity is better served on a new effort. Something targeted properly for this phase of my life and allowing me to dig into my strengths. So, this is the wrap on DarkBrain. I’ll keep the site up as long as I can, and I’m proud the work – even though it is very much a moment caught in time.
-Andrew Zar, signing off