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Creator Highlights are featured posts where we interview comic artists and novelists within the Tapas community. Veleries is the creator of Traceless Knight, a brand new series exclusive to Tapas. We thought it would be fun to get to know Veleries a little bit more and explore what goes into bringing a story to life! 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and where you're from and what originally got you interested in art?

Hey! I’m Veleries. I’m a cartoonist, Visual Development Artist and TV Animation Production Designer from Indonesia. I’m pretty sure I have been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil. I grew up with shows like Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Cardcaptor Sakura. So growing up, my parents spent a lot of time cleaning my various attempts at drawing characters from these shows off of every surface available around the house, hahaha.

I haven’t always wanted to make comics as a career. This is due to the circumstances of the industry in my country. Then I came across an open call for comic creators to work with a local publisher and I just kind of jumped in. “What could possibly go wrong?”, I thought. But, oh boy, how naive I was. My first published work was a 400 page fantasy mini series created over the span of 2 years while I was also working full time at an animation studio. Let’s just say that was when I developed (and sometimes abused) my coffee drinking habit. But, despite the struggles, I fell in love with the medium. I haven’t stopped drawing comics since then.

Your first published work was 400 pages?! Wow, that’s incredible. Is there somewhere online where your fans can find it?

Unfortunately no, It’s only available in Indonesia in printed form an there are no plans to make it available online. However, you can check out some of the old comic work I’ve done in the past at veleries.com/tagged/comic

Haha, that’s all right. So, what was your main inspiration for Traceless Knight? I know that you had created the series prior to working with us, and re-drew it for its debut on Premium! What inspired that decision?

The concept of Traceless Knight was conceived while I worked on that same fantasy mini series in 2010, a kind of spin off of the existing characters in that book. But the idea just kinda hung there and my life went on. I worked a full time job, I moved countries. I also begun reading many fantasy series by authors like Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Robert Jordan. You can say that I found my ‘type’ of fantasy then.

Then in 2013, I decided to seriously develop Traceless Knight as a story of its own. I had just about finalized the plot outline for Traceless Knight when Tapas first approached me regarding making a premium series, so submitting Traceless Knight and redrawing it to fit Tapas’ market felt like the only logical thing to do.

Do you have a character in Traceless Knight that you're particularly fond of?

That’s a rather hard question to answer. When I write characters I try to construct them around a theme or two, so for me there will always be something special about each and every one of them. For example, Albion and Laura (Fabian’s mother) are the characters I can respect most in terms of the choices they made; Eam for the things he has to overcome; And Fabian, well, Fabian is the protagonist.

No spoilers! Haha, I haven’t gotten to Laura yet in the story. Anyway, Traceless Knight is a frame narrative, like a story within a story, what led to decision of using that narrative device?

Well, in thinking about the overall story structure it just felt right. In the first iteration of the comic, before the plot was fully fleshed out, the story actually began quite differently, in a more non-linear fashion. In that original version, the prologue took place at a point well into the future but before the final events of the story. While I felt that was an interesting way to tell the story at the time, the frame narrative is definitely more effective for what I want to achieve with Traceless Knight.

Honestly, my process usually just starts with me going off to another world, wondering about the life of the characters I want to write about. I’d like to spend some times getting to know them, their purpose, their goals, their setbacks and heartbreaks and the important decisions they’ve had to make. Then I jot it all down on paper and figure out how to fit those thoughts into the bigger narrative.

The hard part is always turning it into a finished product. Since creating a comic requires a lot time and effort I sometimes struggle in balancing the amount of work I put in with my desire to do everything to the absolute best of my abilities. At a certain point I have to know when to tell myself to stop chasing after perfection.

I love how you light scenes in Traceless Knight. I don't really have a question, I just want you to know that I really love the lighting in the series, it's divine. And for the readers of this interview you have to check out Veleries' instagram post (here)!

That’s very kind, thanks Michael! :D

Haha, since you've worked on Traceless Knight as well as your previous 400 page story, this isn't your first experience with comics. Do you have any advice for creators that are just starting out?

I think above all, take care of your health. Health is expensive and as a wise friend once said, “you can’t create if you’re dead, so it’s okay to work at your own pace.”

A lot of people talk about how making comics is a very isolating experience, especially in webcomics when so many comics are created by a single person. But! Do you have any special shout outs or thank you's to people that have helped on Traceless Knight?

Definitely! While the actually process can be lonely, I was fortunate enough to be able to get help from a lot of people for this project. Notably from my partner/editor/science guy, Farhan; without him, Traceless Knight would be a far inferior product. The assistants I worked with so far, Nora, Dika, and Lia for saving my life during crunch time. My very wonderful and super hard working editor from Tapas, Michael Son  and Tapas’s own Chang Kim. I’m very privileged to be able to work with all of you.

Last but not least, the people who had read and supported this series, whether from the first pilot back in 2013, or those who have just picked it up recently. Thank you so much, I hope you’ll enjoy this series as much as I enjoy making it.

And lastly, where can people find more of your work?

You can visit my website at veleries.com or find me on twitter and instagram @veleries.

Traceless Knight updates every Monday exclusively on Tapas. You can read the prologue and first episode right now: here!

Stay tuned for more Creator Highlights. See you next time!