{"id":9009,"date":"2025-07-17T19:34:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T22:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/2026\/05\/30\/what-have-you-been-up-to\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T21:28:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T00:28:51","slug":"what-have-you-been-up-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/2025\/07\/17\/what-have-you-been-up-to\/","title":{"rendered":"What have you been up to?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My last post in this newsletter was in May, and although I had promised myself to update it every other week, I hadn\u2019t taken one important factor into account: life. I haven\u2019t been drawing much since my previous post, but I have been busy with other projects, so I thought I\u2019d kick off this kind of sub-section with some mini updates. Here we go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizing Ideas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A while back, I published a note on Substack talking about how Obsidian helped me with the graphic novel I introduced to you all in April.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I discovered Obsidian to organize my notes for the graphic novel. I spent two non-stop days dumping everything in there, and the graph view revealed more things I had overlooked. The colored dots are the characters, and the turquoise dots are the notes, ideas, and related themes. I’m truly fascinated by this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– vester<\/p>\n

Read on Substack<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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But what is Obsidian? Essentially, it\u2019s a notepad on steroids. It\u2019s a plain-text software that, through various features and plugins, lets you categorize and structure your writing projects. You can download it here<\/a>, but be warned: you might feel overwhelmed at first. There\u2019s a lot to learn and configure. For me, the key was already having (or at least outlining) my own organizational system\u2014I built mine on the fly, using a writer\u2019s advice as a starting point. I won\u2019t dwell on this too much, but if you\u2019re curious, feel free to message me. Otherwise, stay tuned for a future post where I\u2019ll break down my process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Journey Full of Symbolism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These past few months, we took a short trip to Ushuaia\u2014my first time in that southern corner of our country. Beyond the wild landscapes and rugged trekking trails, there was one particular spot calling to me: the famous Lighthouse at the End of the World<\/em>. And this ties back to my graphic novel, since its working title was, in fact, The Lighthouse at the End of the World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In my story, the characters converge at a lighthouse they believed abandoned at the edge of the continent, only to find others who\u2019ve reimagined it as a refuge and a site of resistance. The lighthouse symbol resurfaces throughout the pages, but the comic\u2019s title began to fade as another symbol\u2014one that emerged unannounced in Obsidian\u2014took narrative precedence: a garden. What could possibly bloom in a desolate wasteland?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During one of our treks, I spotted a flower pushing through rocks near a lake on an icy, sunlit day. I don\u2019t know if it was fate (if such a thing exists), but something about it moved me. I took it as a good omen for my story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stirring Up Memories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Back in Buenos Aires, I settled into my usual routine. One of my favorite weekend activities is my collecting expeditions. As an incurable nostalgia addict, my main hobby is rescuing old sticker albums from my childhood or tracking down promotional items from early-2000s kiosks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s something thrilling about rummaging through boxes of forgotten treasures waiting to be rediscovered\u2014sorting, even restoring them. To me, it\u2019s like recovering fragments of history and bringing them into the present. Maybe that\u2019s why I was able to help my in-laws catalog their extensive collection of records and vinyl.2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I began to appreciate Zappa’s album artworks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This monumental task got me thinking: Where will all my books, my trinkets, my papers, and my collections end up when I\u2019m gone? Sometimes I dwell on the futility of material things in the grand scheme of the universe. What will a well-worn 1998 sticker album mean compared to the next Big Bang in a thousand years? Probably nothing. But I\u2019m the one living this present moment, and I\u2019m the one brimming with joy when I reconnect with a memory I thought was lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Comic That Travels Through Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of lost things, this year unearthed several characters I\u2019d dreamed up in my preteen years. Late last year, I enrolled in a month-long workshop called Comic Mentorship, hosted by La Lejana<\/a>, hoping to equip myself with just enough tools to develop a comic project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while now, I\u2019ve toyed with the idea of a football-themed comic. But I needed to figure out what I wanted to say through the sport. While wrestling with the why, I also had to settle on the who: Who would drive this story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in my preteen years, I\u2019d invented a fictional football team called \u00c1guilas F\u00fatbol Club\u2014and I decided it was time to revisit them for this workshop project. Just like that, these characters stepped back into the present, assuring my younger self that they wouldn\u2019t stay forever abandoned in the damp pages of an old notebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comic will be 22 pages, a self-contained volume, and focuses on the team\u2019s captain during a decisive match. I\u2019ve already outlined each page, complete with dialogue and a final scene. The only thing left is the hard part: actually drawing the panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To keep myself motivated, I created fictional documentation to flesh out this world. Taking the workshop\u2019s advice to obsess over my characters, I mocked up magazine covers and photos of key moments in the team\u2019s history<\/a>. Subscribers, stay tuned\u2014these panels are on their way!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lines Yet to Be Drawn<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A few topics didn\u2019t make it into this post\u2014the book I\u2019m reading, recent movies, my desk reorganization, and other little things. And right before writing these lines, I even got an exciting collaboration proposal (fingers crossed it comes through!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was there anything here that caught your attention? Want to ask me more about any of my projects?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you made it this far, thank you\u2014from the bottom of my heart. It means the world that you\u2019d take the time to read about me and my work. I\u2019ll see you in the next edition of this newsletter, hopefully with my ideas fully bloomed amid the harsh wasteland we call reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last post in this newsletter was in May, and although I had promised myself to update it every other week, I hadn\u2019t taken one important factor into account: life. I haven\u2019t been drawing much since my previous post, but I have been busy with other projects, so I thought I\u2019d kick off this kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9036,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009\/revisions\/9036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.pablovester.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}