Master Juggler

...And in this entry, we shall travel back and and forth(but mostly back) through the sporadic mess that is my oeuvre, as we attempt to distil genius and bottle inspiration.  Okay, well maybe it's not as dramatic as that, but this entry does focus largely on updates of older works and ideas that I've had for a while. This may come as a shock to some, but over the years, I have come up with a multitude of ideas and concepts that have sparked my imagination that I simply have not had time to work on (be it due to to a lack of motivation or an actual lack of time), which has inevitably led to a mass of my properties left neglected and unnurtured (which I'm shocked to find is widely not recognised as a real word!).

Oh, Daikan... Will your will the hardships and perils of your quest ever be told?  This, as the date suggests, is a fairly old image, being done in '09, although the concept was thought up as early as '07.  The basic idea of this story revolves around a spiky-haired protagonist (don't they all?) known as the Daikan, who single-handedly challenges an empire of  monsters known as the Sheyde. That's it.  A lot of these ideas may not sound that complicated or even that original but frankly I've long given up on trying to create a completely original story.  That feat has proven, in this day and age, to be quite literally impossible, as well as superfluous when you consider that the highest grossing film of all time is basically cookie-cutter copy of the most common tropes and story structures ever known.  Even Harry Potter is incredibly derivative in it's nature! No. What matters is the execution of the idea you have, the dimensions and believability of the worlds you create(which sadly, still doesn't apply to Avatar).

I dug up the Daikan property in the efforts of honing those aforementioned qualities in my storytelling and illustration. But my head is a fickle one and I've only recently gotten around to developing the world of the Daikan, this being the first step:

Character consistency aside, I think this series of sketches I did begin to capture the spirit and attitude of the world I'm trying to create.  The script for a Daikan one-shot has already been written.  It's only seven pages long and there's very little dialogue (there's roughly a page dedicated to exposition. The rest is all action) but I've packed in as much mystery and intrigue as I could into it.  Oh. Yeah. There's a bit of a "mystery" element to the narrative (did I mention?).  Not a "whodunit" type-deal or anything, but rather a mystery in the behaviour of the characters.

Speaking of characters...

If you'll recall, I proposed the idea of pitting some of my favourite characters from my "Four-A-Day" phase against in each other in a hypothetical universe.  That day has finally come(well, in reality it came a few months ago, but...)!  Remember Night Owl? Or Red Mist? (Probably not, since I didn't actually mention the name Red Mist in the entry I debuted the character)  Well, I do remember, fortunately, and I decided that they'd go toe-to-toe on one Midsummer Night.  Yeah, I know. The moon's a bit of a compositional copout, but Night Owl is a ninja, goddammit! And what kind of a ninja doesn't prance about accompanied by a full moon?! That's just...!

And SPEAKING OF "Four-A-Day" phase...

Here's the last picture I did from that era. Not in the finality sense. Just chronologically. Although, After I finished this I thought I might never go back there again, due to (as I've mentioned so many times before) how much my style has changed! Look at those legs! This is a character I really liked, which is why I proceeded(in spite of the bogus anatomy), but I think if I do do another one from back then, it probably wouldn't be without an update.

So that about wraps it up for today.  Next entry, we'll be getting back to the FuZioN U and it's infinite glory!  My swing has never been so full (think about that for a minute)!

"The Hand That Reaches From the Grave..."

Within the effort to articulate the impetus behind my art and the need to escape the banalty of being uninspired, I've finally found my inevitable return to be necessary (Yes. I talk like this now).  You may have all (three of you) been wondering what eventually became of the self-absorption and inscrutability that was this blog, well the answer is finally here, and it is an emphatic and admittedly underwhelming "Still Alive"... Things have certainly been happening, many of which I cannot discuss until the appropriate time.  In the mean time, though, let's discuss these things:

That's right!  FuZioN things!  I'm back, full-force and so is TJ.  Adjusted colour-pallet and all!  I have to say, the script for the this property is coming along so well! I'm like 50 pages in with no end in sight, but who needs to worry about things like "page count" and "Frames per page" at his stage, amiright?  Even though I'm not a 14-year-old boy any more, TJ's character (who essentially started out as nothing more than a self-insert) still fairly vivid in my head and I'm having the best time coming up with all the dialogue and character interactions.  Guess all the pre-production development and characterisations really paid off... Exactly what is up with those random floating hair things???

In the midst of all the universe moulding(which is still technically in the process, just far ahead enough to start working on basic scripts and such),  I developed a love for drawing TJ and Strike doing the most arbitrary of tasks.  Funnily enough, though, this image was integral to the development of the Sandal Empire (TEASER!) as at the time I was exploring the designs and aesthetics of various cultures 'n such...

"Merlin's Bird!" (Terrible pun)

Another important aspect of the FuZioN-U is the monsters in it.  The thing you have to learn about me is, if there's an opportunity to work cute little monsters into a story, I will do it!  Thankfully (as I'm sure I've mentioned before) the FuZioN-U is essentially built around the interactions of humans with these Pets... named as such mainly because... People keep them as pets(that's the official name for them until I can come up with something better)!  Trust me.  It's not as derivative as it sounds!... I mean, at first it was. Obviously! I was 13 and Pokemon was beyond Colossal at the time and I thought, "Hey.  Wouldn't it be great if we could each have our own little Pokemon to hang out with all the time?"  Which is why a retooling of the concept was necessary...Although, to be fair, the comics I made were never really about the Pets.  All those elements occurred in the background while the story focused on all the high-school dramedy.  Currently, I think I've managed to distance it enough from Pokemon comparisons (story-wise) that it can stand on its own.

The two new creatures featured in the images are Bolt and Merlin's yet-to-be-named Pet. Bolt (the yellow one)  belongs to Raex.  More of this shall be discussed in due time. I think that's a decent batch for now...

It has been over a year since this blog began!  Somewhere during the month of October last year, I decided it was absolutely necessary to have my drawings exhibited and discussed over the internet!  I probably should have had a "Birthday-Halloween-Double-Whammy-Special" sometime ago, but sadly the I missed both ships.  And as I watch them both sail away into that temporal sunset from whence they shall never return,  I can't help but think, "At least I bothered to come back at all!"