{"id":1508,"date":"2025-01-12T22:33:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T22:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entia.in\/?page_id=1508"},"modified":"2026-04-04T23:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:12:53","slug":"what-is-the-universe-of-elza","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/entia.in\/?page_id=1508","title":{"rendered":"What is The Universe of ELZA?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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There is nothing more intimidating than staring at a blank page…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Universe of ELZA can be described as the ultimate escapist science fiction fantasy for grownups… Or “What if the sense of adventure from Star Wars met the complex realism of The Expanse and was generously garnished with wackyness of 80s-90s sci-fi B-movies?”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core narrative of the Universe of ELZA revolves around characters from multiple human civilizations on different levels of sociocultural and technological advancement trying to find their way in the Universe. Such setting allows for a vibrant variety of stories that organically merge grounded science fiction with fantasy, horror and other complementary genres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Brief Historical Detour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This project had very humble beginnings as a small hobby venture that has rapidly snowballed into a vast fictional universe with over a 1000 years of developed lore and near-endless narrative potential. Below you can read a brief summary about how the Universe of ELZA has started and get a glimpse of plans for its future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ELZA is a Passion Project that Went Too Far<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Universe of ELZA began with an attempt to make an adult comic. Intention behind this comic was pretty simple – to tell a compelling interspecies romance story from a female point of view… Where the object of desire is a semi-sentient alien plant with tentacles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While writing behind this story rapidly grew to cover a trilogy of issues with some lore, conflict and multiple characters involved – one problem remained. A complete lack of artistic skills beyond doodling a simplistic storyboard for a film. Since these events took place in early 2023, the solution was simple – to create illustrations with Generative AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AI model of choice became a locally installed fine-tuned Stable Diffusion 1.5 – it was completely uncensored and could produce unlimited illustrations without consuming more resources then PC gaming. After one month of work all three issues of ELZA were complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With no real hopes to be noticed, the first issue was released to the public on few thematic forums with a promise to release the second issue in a month and so forth. At this stage the Patreon account was set up merely as a tip jar for those who want to read an upcoming issue a weak early. Only after some positive response and few paid subscribers ELZA started to be considered as a project that is worth to continue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, by the time when the last issue of ELZA got released in August 2023 a problem arose – there were no more comics to post and no more material written beyond bare bones lore about the setting of ELZA. With one month left to the next release date one question remained: What’s next?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Unexpected Hit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Instead of continuing the story of first three issues, there was another option – to write a prequel based on the existing lore. Conveniently Elza’s backstory included an illustration of her crawling over he snow. This image became a starting point for a story that will later become ELZA: Origins, the first graphic novel of the series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As it comes from the wording of “graphic novel” this story have grown far beyond a single monthly issue and took long three months to produce. Production came with major changes compared to previous three issues: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The style of illustrations has shifted from semi-photo realism to western animation that felt much more congruent with the medium of a comic. This “drawn” style of illustrations also allowed for extensive manual input that turned illustrations of ELZA: Origins into less of AI-Generated and more of AI-Assisted since each of them was digitally edited or completely redrawn before the final AI-Upscale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The genre of the story has also significantly evolved compared to previously released comics. Unlike tentacle erotica of ELZA 1,2,3, this graphic novel became a a fast-paced space adventure tale in the coming-of-age\/survival genre. Some erotic elements like nudity were still present, but they could be considered more of artifacts from ELZA’s previous format then vital parts of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These narrative changes, manual hands-on approach and extensive production time turned out to be steps in the right direction. Despite delays, ELZA: Origin was praised by both the small existing fan base of the original comic and new readers alike. Its release has also made ELZA a financially viable project as proceedings from Patreon began to cover monthly life expanses for a full-time comic production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Deadly Ambition and Reboot of the Project<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After the triumphant release of ELZA: Origins the plan to move forward became to focus on monthly comic releases while developing the lore and expanding the universe with a broader range of stories. This commitment turned out to be a tricky one though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, there was an explosion of worldbuilding through Database<\/a> articles and launch of a limited prequel series NADIA together with few stories branded TALES From the Universe of ELZA<\/em> on the way… But the whole project screeched to a halt in mid-2024. The reason was simple: good writing requires time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The option to step back to production of simpler erotic stories like the original ELZA was rejected for multiple reasons: Development of generative AI made it much easier for anyone to make such stories so over-saturation of market seemed like a question of time. A loss of a screenwriting job has also added a strong motivation to fully apply those skills on the Universe of ELZA – the only viable job back then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Good Student became a swan song of the old narrative direction as the last truly erotic work in the series. After its release production was put on hold until a complete rewrite of the Universe is complete. As this work progressed, all old comics had to be scrapped with best pieces like ELZA: Origins remaining as part of the non-canonical Legacy Collection<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this narrative heavy lifting, including creation of ENTIA.in<\/a> was completed only in January 2025. Unfortunately, it did not mean the restart of production of the comics – new stories turned out to be much more ambitious then all previous releases combined and were impossible to produce with AI tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of that the rest of 2025 and the first half of 2026 were spent on artistic training and creation of handcrafted 3D assets<\/a>. All this hard work have turned the Universe of ELZA into a truly handcrafted art project with level of detail and depth that rivals similar products from established studios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Vision Behind the Universe of ELZA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After the reboot this project became much more action-focused and lore rich while maintaining that deeply human (and alien)<\/em> narrative DNA that made the original ELZA feel so compelling to its readers. Below is a summary of principles that compose the direction of this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stories that Build the Universe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Each story for the Universe of ELZA is written in a format of a graphic novel (80-100+ pages). It means that smaller ideas are either being expanded to become complete novels, or are integrated inside larger narratives. In order to maintain monthly release cadence each story is meant to be published as a series of 20-page chapters and at the end of the run re-released as a complete graphic novel for collectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite shared mythology each novel from the Universe of ELZA is written to be experienced as a solid standalone story, with little to no prior knowledge required to enjoy it. Idea behind this principle is to avoid confusion among new readers. Those who choose to read all entries will experience a deeper level of immersion, as each subsequent story builds up and expands the shared mythology of the whole series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-published approach to the distribution of the series means that no narrative compromises are ever needs to be made. This way each story from the Universe of ELZA is presented to its readers as it was conceived, with no censorship or corners cut. In order to respect some sensitive readers a small disclaimer with trigger warnings is supplied on the second page of each comic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Road to the Endgame<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Universe of ELZA was conceived with deep awareness about most traps that similar projects have fallen into. To keep keep stakes high, all stories are written in a grounded way with no lazy and tired tropes like time travel, multiverses and other instances of deus ex machina. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being made by one single person is a advantage in this regard as it becomes much easier to maintain a coherent narrative over all intertwined plot threads. The comic-format of the Universe of ELZA is meant to be a finite narrative with an expected runtime of around a decade with approximately 20 graphic novels produced. Finale means a definitive satisfactory end for all storylines with no mysteries unsolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Role of the Reader<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because the Universe of ELZA is a quintessentially independent production that is written, modeled, drawn, prompted, designed and assembled by one single person – all help becomes highly valuable. From supporting it with financial donations, to reporting typos on the website or applying to become an alpha-reader – every act of engagement may become vital support for a smooth release of the next story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way to stay in touch with ENTIA and follow the development of his project is by joining the official Discord server. There readers can find a unified place to keep track of the most recent production updates and to socialize with each other. The server can be assessed by clicking the banner below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is nothing more intimidating than staring at a blank page… The Universe of ELZA can be described as the ultimate escapist science fiction fantasy for grownups… Or “What if the sense of adventure from Star Wars met the complex realism of The Expanse and was generously garnished with wackyness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1883,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1508","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":57,"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2836,"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508\/revisions\/2836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entia.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}