Oren's Forge

GENERAL QUESTIONS

– WHAT IS OREN’S FORGE ABOUT?
It’s about a group of prey animals who are tired of living their lives in fear of predators, so they band together. One of them has brought the knowledge of bronze and they’ve begun to forge bronze ‘teeth’ to help them make their stand.

The story follows Rask, a pine marten, who is both predator to some, and prey to others. When he arrives seeking sanctuary from the larger hunters that roam the world, the prey animals of the Stone Hollow must decide— what are they building and who will they fight to protect? Rask, too, must come to terms with his bloody past and find a role in this new world.

– IS OREN’S FORGE OVER?
Nope, the story is ongoing, though the first volume (197 pages) can be stand-alone if you hate being left on a cliffhanger. Beginning November 15th, 2021, I’m posting new pages to Patreon. The story picks up right where the first volume leaves off!

– WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT A KICKSTARTER?
The KickStarter happened in May 2021 and was fully funded in under 24 hours! The book looks amazing, you can check out some photos from the a recent update. I will have more about the book, how you can potentially get a copy if you missed a KickStarter, and all that later this year.

– IS OREN’S FORGE APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES?
It’s probably best for ages 10 and up (the characters are animals and need to eat one another to survive.

 

– HOW CAN I SUPPORT OREN’S FORGE?
First, thanks for asking!
Patreon – you get the whole first volume, plus a the 13 bonus comic Oren and the One-Eyed Wolf, bonus work-in-progress art and you get to read new pages months before they’re posted publicly. All for $5— a fine deal!

Gumroad – I have a PDF of the first part of volume one (85 pages) on Gumroad for Free/Pay-What-You-Want.

Tell a friend (or two)! Seriously, that’s really helpful— I get a new reader and you get someone to talk about the comic to. Win-win!

 

– WHEN DO YOU POST NEW PAGES?
Mondays! Patreon is scheduled at 3PM MST, other sites I can’t schedule on so it’s whenever that day. If I don’t post publicly, I probably still posted on Patreon.

– WILL THE ENTIRE STORY BE POSTED ONLINE?
Yes. I don’t want to paywall the story— if you like my comic, I wand you to be able to read it.

Patreons do read pages months in advance, however, and get bonus stuff. Some side stories (like Oren and the One-Eyed Wolf) are exclusively on Patreon and Gumroad.

– WHAT IS OREN AND THE ONE-EYED WOLF?
It’s a short (13 page) comic, exclusive to Patreon (read for $5) and Gumroad (download a PDF for $8). Taking place between Volume One and Two, it tells the tale of Oren and the One-Eyed Wolf (alluded to on page 119). The story sheds insight into Oren and his decision to leave the valley for the Conclave, plus delves into the wolf mindset and sets them up for volume two.

 

STORY/WORLD QUESTIONS

-WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL IS RASK?
Rask is a North American pine marten, which is a medium sized tree-climbing weasel.

-WHERE IS OREN’S FORGE SET?
The story is set in a fictional region based on the Black Hills of South Dakota.

-WHY NOT EAT_____?
A lot of folks have a lot of questions about why they don’t eat this or that to avoid the moral dilemma. Most of the characters/cultures shown in the comic are toeing the line between Paleolithic and the Neolithic. They don’t have the concept of farming or animal (avian) husbandry, or building sustainable fishing ponds, etc. This is an age where it’s still novel to scrape two kinds of stone together and make one break away sharper.

That said, they aren’t human anyway and I don’t want them to be analogous to human development (their cultural development is based on need— as animals, they don’t need clothes, so they will probably be slow to make textiles, if ever. Maybe one day solely for pockets.) Carnivores are behind the curve because they don’t need a lot other than food (they’ve got built-in weapons, speed, fur, ect).
Prey are figuring out new ways to avoid, overpower, or side-step predators, and predators are finding new ways to catch and keep prey. One day, that might lead sustainable places (farmed turkeys, grouse, etc), but it took humans about 10,000 years or so from the Paleolithic to get to recognizable animal husbandry in the Neolithic.

-BUT THEY HAVE BRONZE—!
I hear you, but again— they’re moving at different rates than humans and different rates than each other. Oren learns about bronze from the Conclave, which is set in a fictional American Southwest. Bronze is being used by pronghorns (animals with no living predators), and peccaries (social, tough little native pig-like animals.) Between the two of them, I felt like they had the space and resources to advance in ways other places couldn’t. I’m going to throw this out here in a random FAQ answer, but the animal culture that originally discovered bronze lies even further south…
(Relatedly– I recommend the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond if you’re curious about how stuff like geography or local wildlife play into cultural advancement.)

-WHAT ANIMALS ARE IN THE CONCLAVE?
It’s primarily made up of Prairie Dogs, Collared Peccaries (Javelinas) and Pronghorns.

-WHY IS OREN MISSING FINGERS?
Good question! I won’t say how, but it happened during his time at the Conclave. (You can see on page 120.)

-HOW BIG ARE THE MARTENS COMPARED TO…?
While sketching pages, I tend to class animals together in size groups. If martens/rabbits/hares are medium sized and roughly the same height, wolves and cougars are large, bears and bison are huge, mice are small, etc. This keeps everyone (roughly) in relation to one another. I suppose in real-space, I picture Rask to be around 4-feet tall.

-WHY DO YOU USE EUROPEANS NAMES FOR SOME ANIMALS?
Context, usually— “Gluttons” is such a cool, descriptive name for wolverines. It’s also more organic, just like the word ‘bear’ comes from ‘the brown one,’ I feel like people would call them something akin to “those guys that are always hungry” rather than make up a new word like ‘wolverine’.

-WHY…ANIMALS?
In general, I like animals for allegorical purposes, but I also just like animals. I try to incorporate biology into my characters and settings. I also like the specific challenge a non-human character brings– how do they think, what do they value or seek out or need. In Oren’s Forge, I like the question of how do they change (as individuals and as a species) once one sentient animal begins to change/evolve. What does that moment look like when the first human went from being an ape to… well, the ape we have today.

 

ART QUESTIONS

-HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING ART/COMICS?
A long time— I originally went to school for traditional animation and graduated right as the industry buckled in the early 2000s. I still wanted to tell visual stories, however, so I gravitated toward comics amid freelancing. It’s been a long grind but I’m glad to be somewhere I can work on comics full time and tell the weird animal stories I want to tell.

-WHAT DO YOU MAKE OREN’S FORGE WITH?
A lot of coffee, Photoshop CS6, a Cintiq 13HD and a handful of my favorite curse words.

-HOW LONG DOES EACH PAGE TAKE?
Depends on how many panels or characters are in a page, how complex the backgrounds are, etc. On average, from thumbnail, to sketch, to inking to coloring, pages take between 12 – 18 hours.

-WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS LIKE?
I have a few panel/page break downs on Patreon that go in depth, but in brief:
I thumbnail out a complete scene (which are usually between 4 – 12 pages.) I like to thumbnail scenes all at once because it makes the action flow better and I don’t lose track of characters.
Next, I’ll start sketching a page, tweaking stuff, sleep on it, etc. Then inking, then inking, flat colors, shading and lines.

-WHAT FONT DO YOU USE FOR DIALOGUE?
It’s Unmasked BB from Blambot.