#27 Meliai the Dryad
Everyone always portrays demure & peaceful dryads, as they’re supposed to be serene & peaceful like the trees they’re apart of/represent. But what if one gets mean? This is Meliai. She hates any living thing that isn’t vegetation. Instead of making her weapon out of sticks, she’s used bones. I always wanted to draw a dryad but never did. And for some reason, while people usually give the hair a leafy feel, I wondered how a root structure would look. Yeah.
#26 The Infirm
Being stricken by illness has never stood in his way. The Infirm is mysterious & not widely known out of the circles of his business, but he is a gentleman assassin. For someone on the verge of it himself, he knows death well.
However, given his own condition, who is he to say who should live or who should die? It seems cruel to him in theory. Having your life snuffed out by a man so close to death himself. So instead of just murdering his target like every other assassin, he challenges them to a duel. A fighting chance.
He is, of course, undefeated though.
Basically, with this thing coming to an end, I wanted to cover all the bases & the only category I’ve been missing out on is Steampunk. This wasn’t the first steampunk character I started, however he’s the first one I ended up finishing. But don’t worry, the other’s coming with #29.
#25 Anna “Boyhair” Boydkin
If you could sum up Anna Boydkin (or Boyhair to her friends for obvious reasons) in one word, it would be Emphatic.
Vegan. Feminist. Environmentalist. Pro-Choice. These are all causes Boyhair’s willing to die for. But her day job is a nurse at a blood bank. And the apathy of the people she deals with on a daily basis is really starting to urk her. When her fellow nurse made an offhanded remark about taking blood, Boyhair’s wheels started turning. They left the mall blood drive only to come back with heavy artillery & a shop vac. They’re out for blood.
Sorry, these past three have felt pretty lame. Probably my least favorite out of all of my things for this month. I started them about the second week, but kept putting them off longer & longer & I had to do them at some point so here they are. Don’t worry though, I’ve been saving some of the nicer ones to post last.
#24 Oksana
Another Blood Bank Nurse. An exchange nurse from “the old country.” There, if they can’t make their blood quota, they take it. She mentions this & plants the seed of the idea. This of course was embellishment. But she’s too cold & aloof to stop her gung ho comrades. Still her aim is quite impressive.
#23 Gwen Lu
So I kept having this idea for a comic that was inspired by real life events. You see, I donated blood to the local blood bank. So my number was on their mailing list. But then, every couple of months, I’d get this call telling me there was going to be a blood drive at such & such place. Problem was, no one would ever introduce them self or say where they were from. So I’d have these strangers calling up & wanting my blood. The premise for this comic morphed into something where there was this extremely unsuccessful blood drive & the nurses go crazy, deciding to go out & take blood rather than wait for those to give. Because who in a mall on a Wednesday afternoon really needs their blood that badly? But it was never much more than a premise. So now I’m trying to flesh out the characters for real, so I can do this story at some point.
So this is the first of three in a series of nurses out for blood. This is Gwen. Of the three, she is the reluctant one. So instead of carting around weapons like the other two, she follows them around with a shop vac. A shop vac for all the blood. Was trying to make her look a little short & rounder to have more variety in the shapes I’ve been drawing. Although she starts out going along with the other two, she’s probably the ultimate hero of the story.
#22 EPOX 1.7.2
In the future, robots do most of the menial tasks humans used to do. And as time goes on, robots replace more obsolete models. Their indentured servitude over, the robots are free to do what they want. Most end up in robotic ghettos, isolated from humanity, but gathered amongst themselves & watching each others’ backs.
EPOX 1.7.2 is one such robot. That was until one day, when a gang of young humans came & started to beat the robots to the point of deactivation. After destroying some more helpless models, they turned their bats on EPOX. At one point, a hit in the right spot, caused EPOX to override the program that kept him from harming organic beings. And so he fought back, & when the dust settled, EPOX had survived.
His programming parameters do not give EPOX emotion, so revenge didn’t figure into the equation. But now as a robot capable of fighting back, EPOX is now the hero to the helpless robots. At least as long as he can keep himself going.
#21 Parker Peters
Yeah. I went there.
Parker Peters is a teenage wunderkind. At age 16, he was on his way to MIT. But thanks to a paperwork foul up, he’s going to have to spend his first semester at a crappy nearby community college in the interim. The only thing on his schedule that looked remotely interesting was Theoretical Sciences. And little does he know how much that class will change his life.
A character a friend & I are kicking around for a Challengers of the Unknown/Fantastic Four Pre-Powers style story. This is the nerd guy. But thanks to the way things work out these days, that makes him among one of the cooler students on campus, although he doesn’t even realize it. And the patriotic get up is his “lab” uniform.
#20 Saul the Goronge
A monster’s no better than a man. Sometimes, a monster has needs. And Saul’s no different.
Sometimes, Saul likes to dress up. That’s not a crime. But he’s worried about what other people might think. Now there’s some jerkweed kid that’s got some “Compromising Images” of Saul. For now, the brat’s trying his patience, extorting him into doing menial tasks for him. Meanwhile, he’s trying his best to snag the incriminating material & get on with his life. Or maybe he could just come to terms with being exposed for what he is. It might be a weight off his shoulders. But until that day, it’s beating up bullies & monsters, & doing math homework (poorly).
#19 Milo
Milo used to be scared of the monsters in his closet & under his bed. But Milo was a smart kid with resources. He knows a little thing or two about computers & cameras & surveillance methods. That’s how he came across the dirt he came across. You see, a monster by the name of Saul the Goronge used to mortify young Milo. Then one night, after their typical interaction, Milo used his computer to follow Saul’s movements, which were into Milo’s Mom’s closet & into her underwear drawer. Apparently Saul likes to play dress up.
Now, holding a manila envelope labeled “compromising images,” Milo’s reluctantly come to an understanding with Saul. Saul’s now gone rogue. He wards off other monsters in Milo & sometimes even other kids’ closets too. He even got Saul to start taking care of the day to day issues he runs into, like bullies & math homework. Yeah, everything is coming up Milo, for now.
#18 Mikan
Mikan-chan was always a bright & chipper girl. She had good grades, came from a good family & everything was great. But that was until she was dumped by the boy of her dreams. Broken hearted, the girl with the sunny disposition didn’t know how to cope. She ran away from home. Her destination? Aokigahara, the sea of trees, also known as the Suicide Forest.
Her family tracked her down. A week had passed since she had left & they feared the worst. But she was sitting there, at the edge of the parking lot, seemingly safe & sound, but not quite herself. She’s colder, emotionless, much more robotic. And lately, she’s been coming & going at all hours. Her family has no idea what to make of it.
That’s because she’s been on the prowl. Watching the movements of Yakuza in the nastier part of town. Definitely an environment much rougher than she’s used to. But she’s unphased. Her motives are unclear. But her objective’s pretty apparent: collecting the head of Ikegami Hideo.
Probably drew her a little too stout & emotive. Also she doesn’t look very Japanese but whatever. I like how the rest of it turned out. Didn’t mention it but she has an arsenal of traditional Japanese weapons she seems to have stockpiled. Every time she tries to attack Hideo, it’s something else.
#17 Ikegami Hideo
Every group needs a funny guy. And that was Hideo when it came to the rest of the gang. After years & years of service, he’s only officially reached the rank of big brother. And only because he’s funny. In fact, in every other regard, Hideo was pretty much a screw up. He’s lucky to have lasted as long as he have among the ranks, with as many fingers as he still has. But luckily, he’s laid low enough to keep the blade away from his belly. Funny & lucky. That was Hideo. At least until one day, when that luck seemingly ran out.
There was a raid. Tokyo police clamped down & arrested every high ranking member of the family. In the commotion, Hideo started to run. He made his way to an alley, only to lead police on a back street chase. For his trouble, he received two gunshot wounds: one to the gut & one to the side of the head. He died. He remembered it happening.
So imagine his surprise when he woke up, with gaping wounds & permanently red eyes (like his retinas detached). He should be dead, but he’s not & he doesn’t know how or why. And while he’s not the head of the family, his standing among the remaining family is now substantially higher. And they’re looking to hold down their remaining territory from their violent rivals & possibly spring their captive comrades. If that wasn’t stressful enough, some mysterious young girl is after him. Every time he turns around, there she is. Worst yet, despite her innocuous appearance, she’s apparently an unstoppable killing machine. And he’s her main target. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s received this second chance & he’s not going to give it up without a fight.
I screwed up the legs & feet because I was running out of paper & had to fudge it in photoshop. His feet make him look like he’s floating right now. And that works for his character, so whatever.
#16 Djoabe & Ashwa
Inspired by Rhino Jockey by Amon Tobin, I’ve always liked the idea that the title of that song gave me. So here’s a girl that rides the vast plains on the back of a huge rhino. Why a rhino? Because no one messes with a rhino. On account of it being a friggin’ rhino.
Sorry to flood the site, but I gotta catch up somehow. I’m behind. In fact, I’m actually really behind. I know, I know. I’m not looking to quit. I’m looking to do the best job I’m capable of. I’ve actually gone back & recolored most of the other characters I’ve created so far.
But being realistic, I think if I really want to hit the full 30, I ought to stop doing the full body shots & opt for more head shots & busts & such. This however, would kind of mess with the goal I’ve set for myself, which again is to combine all 30 in a big crowd shot. Here’s my first week‘s worth composited as such. Anyone in a similar boat? should I opt for making them all good & possibly falling short, or just hitting the quota?
#15 Ghalib Freshness
Not only is he among the highest paid actors in Asia, Ghalib Freshness, 67, found he’s not quite like other bollywood actors. This is because Ghalib’s singing voice can effect the resonance of the very strings that control subatomic particles. What does that mean? Well, whenever Ghalib sings, he can change reality to bend to his whim. Whatever Ghalib wants, Ghalib gets. That is at least until the song ends. Then things very abruptly revert back to the way they were.
#14 Karate King of Bushwick Ave.
After opening up a dojo on Bushwick Ave, Michael Dawson did his part to help clean up the neighborhood. And he did that, gaining some notoriety in the process. But that was years ago. Now gentrification rolled through. Vegans & playgroups have replaced most of the pushers & the dealers. He’s not totally obsolete, but he’s more likely to meet a pack of roving trust fund kids than danger. So he’s gone back to trying to focus on his first love, Karate.
Originally, the forums for the site Entervoid.com had an art jam to create a superhero using a name & a power generator. I got Karate King on the name generator, & the unstoppability of the Juggernaut with the power generator (though they also called it the Rhinoceros Effect, which I really, really like). Anyway, I’m not an art jam kind of guy, but that was kind of too cool to pass up. So I finally made good on it & drew him up. I added the Bushwick bit because I was kind of thinking of Shonuff the Shogun of Harem, but also had this kind of silly idea about what happens to a street level superhero with gentrification.
#13 Union
Talented Guitarist who really just cares about the music, but is in a punk band with superpowered political activists.
Union’s got talent. He’s a classically trained musician. He’s one of the best at what he does. Too bad that the only band that will take him is Mein Deutsch Herbst. Lead by Emil, an overzealous sociopath who aspires to being a left wing criminal activist, the music industry, law enforcement, world leaders, & superhumans everywhere are starting to take notice. But Union only cares about the music.
Still, he does have another unique talent. Union was able to practice guitar for hours on end, because he can split into multiple copies of himself. Upon reforming, all of the experiences merge & become one. Each one has it’s own sentience but really, all share the same goals & opinions. There’s been no limit reached as to how many duplicates he can make, however, after the first ten, every copy starts to lose density. There’s a point where each copy starts to become almost ghost like. He (each) also has a bit of a problem focusing once he’s past five copies. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.
Also, he can be his own rhythm section.
#12 Emil
Natural Born Dissenter & lead singer of a superpowered rock group with a mod/Euro Left Wing Activist thing going on.
Emil could always kind of get his way, but things really started to click once he was away at University. He used his “Charisma” to gain a following of impassioned students to march & protest school policies. He was able to work them into a fever pitch. The louder he got, the more entranced & violent his followers became. Even the most docile pacifists among them. It lead to 21 deaths & a lot of injuries. Emil was institutionalized & isolated from the general patients. Now, after two years of what amounted to solitary confinement, he’s free & he’s started a band. He has his own views on the world. And he’s looking to change it. But first, he needs to get out there. He needs his voice to be heard.
#11 Udarnik
Mysterious Drummer for a punk band with superpowers & a pretty intense political agenda.
Always sporting a balaklava, Udarnik is down with the cause, but a complete enigma. He just showed up for band practice one day & filled the role of a drummer. No questions asked. It all just worked. No one knows where he originally came from. Only that he only speaks Russian, & he has a fairly good handle on his own innate ability: time manipulation. Faster. Slower. Pausing. Occasionally even reverse somehow. He often maintains control by maintaining a rhythm. Even when he’s not behind a drumkit, you’ll see fingers tapping or hands slapping. And with his tempo, he sets the beat, & the passage of time.
He calls himself Udarnik. Of course “Udarnik” is the Russian word for Drummer.
#10 Siebzehn
Loopy Keyboardist for a punky sort of superpowered rock group that kind of exude a weird kind of mod/baader meinhof kind of thing. You’ll see more of them shortly.
Siebzehn is wacked. She believes she is haunted. She innocuously calls them “Dots,” but believes them to be a pack of poltergeists. Tiny orbs of light that streak about her person. They knock things over & make things happen. She can sometime get them to do her bidding. What she doesn’t know is that these “Dots” are in fact, not ghosts or spirits, but the manifestation of her own latent telekinesis abilities.
Kind of catching up but not really. I think if I get enough free time, I might be able to wrap it up with the kind of quality I want to. This one isn’t quite there. I did however go back & color some of the others I’ve already done. Check ’em out if you get a chance!
#9 Simon Swinden
Simon Swinden. Snarky music blogger extraordinaire. He would tear the recording industry apart from his solitary studio Williamsburg apartment (paid for by trust funds). His blog got thousands of hits a day. But that wasn’t enough.
He wanted to go pro. And that’s when Debase magazine came a-knocking. They had an important assignment, but didn’t want to delegate it to one of their regular staffers (unbeknownst to Simon, on account of the sheer danger). Now Simon’s got a nice new computer, an expense account, & a pretty ok-ish per diem. And all he’s got to do is follow a motley combination of very strange, very intense bands on an unofficial world tour. Can he do it? Or will he get eaten alive (literally)?
A friend & myself were talking about doing a story where a bunch of bands, going from town to town, not only trying to top the other band but kind of destroy the other bands in the process, before running off to the next tour stop. Problem was, some of the bands were so cool, we had problems trying to match that level of “Holy Crap! That’s Awesome!” so it ended up backburnered. But we reckoned that it should all be from the point of view of a fairly expendable music blogger trying to get his first big story. We never had anything more than that. So here’s kind of the typical look. Didn’t want to veer too hipster with his look, but kind of pretentious & pseudointellectual.
#8 Ol’ Rupe
I had a character idea for that Entervoid site I go to a while ago, about a big, bandaged bum that’s impossible to kill & just gets into these brutal battles. But I kind of wanted to give him a chatty sidekick & in my head I kept thinking of like an old prospector from a cheesy western. Like back in the day you’d have the hero, the love interest, & the goofy old codger comedy relief guy. I designed the other character but never fleshed out the sidekick, so here he is. I imagine him to be the kind of bum that would talk your ear off, with tons of stories. And perhaps inexplicably have a cockney accent. He lives in a cardboard box with a tarp for a door. Every waking cent he gets doesn’t go into booze or drugs though, as he’s really into Gunpla.
#7 Double Godzilla
Gang enforcer. A Heavy in every sense of the word. Like Godzilla but twice as bad.
#6 Jaidee “The Machine”
A Muay Thai Prodigy, Jaidee was a star on the rise. Not only in the Martial Arts world, but nationally, as a pop icon even in her native Thailand as well. By the time she was ready to start high school, she was the star of three blockbuster films & preparing to release her debut album. That was until a plane crash during a press junket in Hong Kong. Jaidee survived, but just barely. Still her celebrity was mourned all the same, because as a result of her injuries, her left arm & both legs required amputation.
That was until a generous donation from the Korean firm Ohdaesu Motors. She was offered to be the first to try out their new line of highly functional, top of the line prosthetic limbs.
The “adaptation” stage was expected to be slow & arduous. Rejection was always a possibility. But muscle memory took over & upon her first test, Jaidee was able to complete three hours worth of Muay Thai routines with more accuracy & more grace than she was ever capable of before. In other words, she didn’t need to take to them. It was like she was upgraded.
Banned from competition for obvious reasons, she devoted herself to her films. Now she is the world’s first cyborg action star. This high profile distinction has even caught Hollywood’s attention.
The main idea in mind here was fighting game character rather than a comics character I guess. Not too in love with the get up I ended up giving her, but the clothes I had in mind would have covered up the cybernetic seams & then what would’ve been the point? On the war path to catching up! Imma do it, dammit!!
#5 Bellerophon the Atomic Space Ape
A “necessary casualty of progress” is what they called him. The space race was on after all. So after a bit of “training,” they dressed him up in a fancy little suit & strapped him into the center of a rocket. He hardly knew any better. He assumed he’d be getting a banana for his troubles. Then came launch. The noise, the vibration, the chaos. It was all a bit much. Then the floating. That wasn’t so bad. But it went on for a while. Then came the light.
You see, they fired his capsule right into the path of a gamma ray burst. Just to see what would happen. The result? One spurned space Simian hopped up on all sorts of cosmic radiation. After a long, cold trip to the outer reaches of our solar system & around again, he’s back, & livid. NASA never prepared for this contingency. Who can stop this monkey menace?
#4 Demonique: Hell on Wheels
In the 60’s, a French driver tore up the European auto-racing standings; a woman named Monique DeVitesse. Some said her talent was almost unholy, as she coldly left her top competitors in the dust. That was until a tragic accident during the ’68 Monaco Grand Prix when DeVitesse’s pit crew decided to try a new grade of fuel. The flames were intense. So intense, no one thought twice when little trace of a body was found.
Now there are rumors that DeVitesse (or someone… or something bearing her likeness) is back. And looking to reclaim the top of the racing ranks. Some claim that the only difference between the Monique of yesteryear, & this new, ominous one, are the retractable horns & tail. With the help of her demonic cherub pit crew that appear & disappears in puffs of acrid black smoke, the Hell on Wheels racing team is looking for a few trophies. And souls.
Fallen pretty behind on account of some busy days I had in a row, but I’m not out yet. I’ll try to catch up as soon as I can. Thanks for the response! Digging what I’ve seen when I’ve been checking the site.
#3 El Presidente MagnÃfico
Forty one years ago, a renowned champion luchador known to the public only as El Lobo Loco was booked on his first tour north of the Rio Grande, along the border states. Leaving his native Mexico for the first time in his life, he took this tour very seriously, despite the fact that his young wife was extremely close to giving birth to their first son. So it was decided that she would come along as the young Luchador went to make a name for himself to audiences abroad.
Soon after, El Lobo found himself outside of Nogales, on the Arizona side, fighting a tyrannic trio of tiny wrestlers known as El Totem. It was there where his young wife suddenly went into labor. But the nearest hospital was hours away, & the hall was very dimly lit. Except of course, the center of the ring. And it was there that the child was born.
After the tour was finished, the new family returned home. Years past, & it became quite clear that the child was to follow in the footsteps of his father & his father’s father, & walk the mighty path of the Luchador. His training began at a very early age. The child lived, ate, & breathed Lucha Libre. It was all he knew. Upon coming of age, he was awarded his own mask & set out on his own. He started wrestling under the moniker El Lobo Loco Jr. in tribute to his old man, El Lobo Loco Sr. who at this time, was one of the preeminent wrestlers in all of Mexico, appearing not only in the ring up to five times a week, but even starring in his own film serials & endorsing a full line of toothpastes.
Nepotism was never part of El Lobo Jr’s path to glory. He fought long, & he fought hard. Cage Matches. Ladder Matches. Sudden Death Kerosene Heater Matches with thumbtacks. It was hard to say El Lobo Jr didn’t pay his dues. And finally, on that long & hard road, recognition slowly started to come his way. He worked his way up the ranks to become a headliner, selling out shows all over Mexico. A star on the rise.
This all culminated in what some deem the greatest Lucha Libre match up of all time: El Lobo Loco Jr. challenging El Lobo Loco Sr. for the World Title in Mexico City 1994. Both men shed manly tears of both pride & joy throughout the contentious match up. But at the end of the day, only one luchador could come out on top. And four hours later, that luchador was El Lobo Loco Jr. His father not only presented him with his belt personally, but promptly retired, calling it the pinnacle of his storied career. And upon his leave, announced to millions of fans that his son was no longer El Lobo Loco Jr. but the new & future El Lobo Loco!
Adopting his father’s persona, his stardom only grew, as he branched out & only surpassed the original Lobo’s success. But still, he only knew the life of a luchador. And over time, that life starts to take its toll.
In recent years, it had started to become apparent that El Lobo Loco was in the twilight of his career. Unlike his father, his pace was not steady & he was soon to burnout. Fans were becoming bored of him. Things weren’t looking so good. With waning interest in the one time great, Lobo’s promoters decided to play up Lobo’s dual citizenship status in a gimmick storyline where El Lobo Loco ran for President of the United States during each of their shows. And everyone was willing to play along. For a month or so, Lobo’s entrance music (which around this time had just been changed to the licensed “The Wolf is Loose” by Mastodon) was traded out for Hail to the Chief. As he walked down the ramp, he’d pass out buttons & kiss a (planted) baby or two. Since running for office requires a lot of paperwork, a stipulation to one of his matches at this time forced his defeated opponent had to fill out these extensive records in triplicate. But it was all part of the show. The gimmick had fair to middling success for most viewers & started a slow, but steady resurgence amongst Lobo’s fan base.
Time passed & wrestling storylines moved on. A year later, campaign season, this publicity stunt was nearly forgotten. But somehow, some way, without any knowledge to him, El Lobo Loco’s named appeared on the ballots across each of the 50 states. And it just so happened that this election cycle, most of the usual voters were jaded to the point of extreme apathy. And while only a fraction of the size of his fan base in Mexico, apparently polls reported very high numbers of El Lobo Loco fans, shocked & yet overjoyed that their one time hero was actually on the ballot.
As polls were closing, Lobo was in the middle 0f a brutal no-holds barred match against his long time rival Dr. Dolor for his Undisputed World Title in Guadalajara. Suddenly, the phone rang, & the message was passed up the ranks & told to the referee & the ring announcers, who hastily stopped the match & declared El Lobo Loco the new president elect of the United States. The wrestler, having only known wrestling & only wrestling all his life, was in a state of shock.
His citizenship was viciously contested by the opposition & the press. Rigged ballots & international conspiracies came into question. But everything checked out & that following January 20th, before a record crowd gathered on the lawn of the National Mall in Washington, the hapless wrestler prepared to be sworn in. It was on that day that El Lobo Loco traded in his wolf mask for the stars & stripes. The decision was heartbreaking, but fully supported by his father (who would go on to resume the mantle of El Lobo Loco). From that day forward, the child that was born in that wrestling ring in Nogales, Arizona all those years ago would be known only as El Presidente Magnifico, America’s First Luchador President!
Still, many wonder how this could ever happen. Some say El Lobo Loco Sr. is secretly behind his son’s meteoric rise into the world of politics, & may have some ulterior motives in play. No one can be sure if his schemes are nefarious or not, but nothing’s been able to be proven.
Some thought his former in-ring demeanor meant an aggressive foreign policy, but it has so far been stern, but fair. It’s become customary for other foreign dignitaries to pose with him while attempting to flex, actually. Opinion polls among the public put him in very high regard. This may be on account of his micro-management approach, where he pounds the pavement, meets people & tries to solve each of their problems on a one to one basis. Some say it’s something that couldn’t be done. Presidente responds (in Spanish of course, his English is at present, still very weak) “Perhaps for a mere man. But I am a Luchador!” And while he may in fact hold the highest position in the land, very little is known about El Presidente’s true identity.
#2 Kannon & Ichi
Inspired by watching the trailer for Seijun Suzuki’s Pistol Opera, this is Kannon, who can only be described as a Geisha Gun Witch, I guess. A natural markswoman (marksperson?), it is rumored that at any one moment, she’s carrying an arsenal large enough to outfit a full battalion. To some, it’s downright impossible, almost supernatural. What only supports these claims is her unspoken bond with a large, hellish, blind wolf simply called Ichi. Some claim it’s not a pet, but a familiar as the ominous canine often acts as her ears & nose. Not so much eyes. Working mostly as an assassin, clients find that she picks & chooses her jobs for reasons unrelated to money. Everyone has their own theories about her shrouded past, but at the end of the day, they all share the same uneasy feeling in her presence.
I got carried away with this, as posting this late can attest to. I got too into adding details that are ultimately hard to see in this scan, like barbed wire weaved into her hair & bandoleers wrapped around her obi. Even speed loaders faceted onto a ribbon she wears around her shoulders. And it’s probably something everyone already gets but her name comes from the Japanese Bodhisattva of Mercy. I’m going to get a little more done with my #3 (though if I wanted to cheat, I’d count the wolf), & then come back, clean this up, & add some colors on this one. So maybe check back if you remember. I’m thinking when I reach 30, I wanna composite all of them together in a big crowd shot.
#1 THiO
Imagine the ‘My Buddy’ dolls from the 80’s were cutesy androids, programmed to hang with their young owners. Now imagine that one powers on again after the apocalypse. Not one to break protocols, this unit is on a quest to seek out the young boy he once belonged to.
Whatever synthetic skin he’s got left is slowly deteriorating, getting sandblasted away. His goggles are less for necessity & more to just keep the grains out of the ball joints in his eye sockets. And the geiger counter is to make sure he doesn’t wander into a spot too radioactive & contaminate himself before finding his owner again. The stop sign pole with nails through it doubles as both protection & a walking stick.
My first go & I think I have a little something something I can roll into a story with a bit more thought. I’m thinking that it might be a neat challenge to try to make it gritty but still keep it all-(or at least ‘most’) ages. But certainly something worth looking into as I look ahead.
30 Characters Challenger: Jared Lewis
Word. My name is Jared, I’m 27, & from the Eastern side of Pennsylvania.
Like everyone else here, I was drawing since forever. What really sealed the deal for me was when I was 5, I met & toured the studio of a very prolific freelance illustrator. The guy’s style was firmly old school, but seeing that someone was capable of producing that much quality stuff over a lifetime had a fairly profound effect on me. That same weekend, I also saw the actual life sized Powerloader & Queen models from Aliens, but there was concept art around & it was really striking to see that no matter what people think up, it mostly starts out with just a sketch.
And ever since, I’ve been an indoor kid, pencil in hand, drawing on anything.
Comics have always been a first love, but my parents always feared (rightfully so) there was no money in them. So for years I developed stories & sketches on the side while I tried to make a career out of making 3D game art. Then some pretty bad experiences kind of turned me off of that. Right now, I mostly work at a local cable station to pay the bills & in my off hours work on honing skills & ideas, in hopes of soon going pro with my comic stuff. In the meantime, I try to maintain a sketchblog, which I tend to update in spurts & post the occasional comic on the sequential art battling site Entervoid.com.
Some friends from there that competed in Zuda turned me onto Daniel Govar‘s work, & from his twitter feed, I found out about the challenge. People always tell me I’m an idea guy, but my biggest problem is lacking discipline & follow through. That’s why I’m signing up for this. I have loads of ‘wouldn’t it be cool if…’ sort of half-baked ideas & concepts I concocted, but never took the time to develop into something meaningful or scribble out onto a page. So this is an outlet for that. I hope that focusing on them will get the wheels going & I can turn them into something constructive down the road. Also, this is great initiative to get things started again on my blog & try to keep it daily, or at the very least a lot more frequent, for more than just a spurt.
Here are a few more examples of my stuff. If you would like to see more, visit FacebusterDeluxe.wordpress.com or check me out @kurohux on twitter.
Really I’m looking forward to this whole shebang, both as a challenger & a spectator. Hope I don’t disappoint on my end. Good luck, Everybody!
#30Characters Chatter…