Tag: @eccentricOrbits
Day# 16 Thomas “Weeks” Kelsey
#16 Thomas "Weeks" Kelsey, for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe
Thomas J. Kelsey, dubbed “Weeks”, short for “Wee Kelsey”, which was what most of the other kids called him from the first day he attended Maple Public School. Snarky remarks during his first recess period about his diminutive size –about two thirds the height of the shortest of his peers– soon gave way to awe when he aptly demonstrated not only his aptitude and skill at most sports, but his well honed sportsmanship as well. He could take joke and a pounding on the sports field better than most boys twice his physical stature. He was built heavy for his height, yet he was agile, too.
He did well in his academic studies, got along well with other boys, and excelled on the sportsfield. The one thing he’s have no truck with was girls, and he held strong opinions as to their place in sports, mostly negative. Where girls were concerned he was implacable. If a girl wanted to play on his team, he would stare at them without a sound until they fled. Unless of course they fled to a teacher who forced him to comply, which he did readily, but gave no quarter to the girl, so that finally she had to give up in defeat.
Aedre, of course, didn’t know this until she smashed into his prejudice head-on. She had asked the recess teacher if she could play soccer, and he had agreed she could. Fully confident of himself and his view of the world, Weeks bested her simply by being himself. No hard feelings on his part. That’s just the way the world works. She never had a chance to even see the ball. She may as well have been invisible. For Aedre, who had hopes and dreams of a different world than the lost and lonely one in which she found herself, it was just another entry carved into her psyche on the very long list of grievances that would push her to the very edge of either going mad, or giving up completely.
Weeks didn’t know anything about Aedre of course, except what the other boys told him, that she was a cootie-bag and a witch besides, but whether or not he believed them didn’t matter. She was a girl and girls had no value in Week’s world.
Day# 15 ReldoRurr
#15 ReldoRurr for Wheeler's Orbits by Jande Rowe
It Ain’t Easy Being Tween
ReldoRurr is an Adnirovjyna youngling, eldest offspring of (#12)Thaddeursus, and therefore a source of great embarrassment to his parent. At the age of dissent, rebellion, and world-weary long-suffering of elders, his passionate nature has more than once brought him before the council whom he refers to as those old fligmarrons* (*a grumpy indecisive animal so set in its ways that it will often run right into an obvious trap rather than deviate from its normal routine–needless to say, they are now a protected species on the planet Adnirovjyn).
Although his father has more sympathy for the age ReldoRurr is going through than the cub may realise, he is still an Adnirovjyna, and therefore feels the censure of his kind deeply. Thus it is his way of trying to keep ReldoRurr out of the way of others that he often gives him the task of collecting (far afield) the small tubers that sprout from the (#14)Sqorthk animal variants.
These can be plucked from the Sqorthk just after the rainy season as they pull themselves ponderously along but this has proven to have a traumatic effect on them, and so usually the younglings are sent to gather the ones that have matured and fallen off to the ground where, if they are not scooped up will root there and grow into the Sqorthk plants far from the villages. Much more convenient to have them growing under controlled conditions in pots within the villages proper. And much better for all concerned if the wilder younglings are kept busy at a useful tiring task far from the village.
Unfortunately, ReldoRurr finds this kind of work beneath him, even though he enjoys it, sensing that no matter how useful it is to his people, they really are trying to get rid of him, because in his own mind, he is right about them when he keeps calling them on their “Griiftakk’s Invisible Sceptre” policies** (** a fairy tale told to Adnirovjyni children about a ruler of their people who was sold by a pair of scoundrels from the south, a non-existant magical sceptre that only the most wisest rulers could see). His resentment came to fruition when he reported the existence of an alien invasion from outer space and was given extra duties as a “curb to youthful imaginings”.
Fortunately for ReldoRurr, his pater did accept his story, mostly from the excitement and passion with which it was delivered ((shudder)), and after the fiasco with the council, went with his cub to see with his own eyes those very strange beings, whom he later learned called themselves Wee’hlir and Hie-ke, and hailed from the stars themselves, although actually from an earth-like planet in Andromeda. It was inevitable perhaps that ReldoRurr developed a strong case of hero-worship for the hairless ones, well one of them, for the consequences of that were long remembered.
And so it was that ReldoRurr was the first person ever to lay eyes upon the magnificence that was the space entrepreneurial partnership known as Wheeler’s Orbits and the beginning of a tale so strange it is told to the children of Adnirovjyn to this very day.
~~~
Well I’ve finally reached the half-way point and what a fun ride it’s been so far! Meeting some wonderful artists and storytellers, as well as challenging myself to keep innovating and trying different styles of art, have been the highlights for me during this Challenge. I’m psyched to get the next fifteen Characters out there, as each one contributes much more than one can imagine to the ongoing stories for both Wheeler’s Orbits and Aedre’s Firefly, not to mention a few new story ideas as well.
I hope everyone else is enjoying this Challenge and the fruits of all our labours as much as I am.
Day# 14 Sqorthk, Animal Phase
a Sqorthk in animal stage for Wheeler's Orbits, by Jande Rowe
Tastes Like Chicken!
Adnirovjyna Sqorthk, Animal Phase: During the rainy season the shell becomes leathery, then soft and peels off to reveal the third phase of this fascinating creature: it is now an animal, capable of pulling itself along the ground in a kind of inch-worm motion, digging its front fin-arms into the soil an hauling itself forward, then stopping to let its long back legs catch up. then it hunches its back and repeats this activity until it is far from the plant of its origin. That is, if carnivorous predators don’t eat it first.
The animal-Squorth gives off a honey-like odour from it’s pebbly skin that carnivores find strangely attractive, and many have learned that the meat under that skin is deliciously sweet and satisfying (As Wheeler soon learns). In the animal stage the Sqorthk is easy prey. It cannot move quickly and has no natural defenses.
In the animal stage it neither eats nor drinks, its main purpose seems apparently to be to move itself as far as possible from the parent plant so to drop its developing tubers to begin the cycle again. In this regard the Sqorthk has allies in the native peoples as they will protect them from predators, often keeping them as pets, and regularly harvesting their tubers for planting once the rainy season has passed.
Since the Adnirovjyna have a strong taboo against eating the Sqorthk during their animal stage, would it be any wonder that Wheeler’s appetites could bring them to the very brink of interplanetary war? Or at least, very bad feelings?
Day# 13 a Sqorthk: plant stage.
#13 a Sqorthk, by Jande Rowe
Adnirovjyni Sqorthk, Vegetable Phase: a vine-like animal that spends part of its life-cycle as a plant, used as a food source for the dominant sentient bear-like species known simply as (#12) Adnirovjyna.
During the vegetative stage, each vine becomes translucent and produces pebbled protrubances that can grow to be quite large. In the early stages these can be broken off and used as vegetables either cooked or raw, which contain starches, cellulose, vitamins and minerals conducive to the good nature and health of the indigenous sentient race of Adnirovjyn. It is a favourite item to be combined with other Adnirovjyni flora to produce a delicious frothy alcoholic beverage well loved by the native peoples which they call Frooshk.
Once the protuberances grow beyond a certain size they lose their translucence and by their own weight droop toward the ground. Here they remain inert for a period of weeks developing a hard knobbly shell –a cocoon of sorts you might say, which protects them from predators to a certain extent, though some have been known to find ingenious ways of cracking them open. It is within this shell that the plant-Sqorthk undergoes the unique transformation from plant to animal.
Next up #14 a Sqorthk in animal phase.
Enjoy!
Day# 10 Mad Maggot
#10 Mad Maggot for Aedre's Firefly by Jande Rowe
Mad Maggot! That’s what everyone calls him. The stories about him elicit responses from sympathy, to disgust, to outrage. He is crazy, but no one can catch him. The kids at school say he steals babies in the night and eats them for breakfast. But no-one believes that, or it would have been news on the television and he would be hunted down and arrested, instead of being left alone to rummage through people’s garbage.
He makes silly trashy ornaments from things he finds in the garbage, too. paper and tinfoil pendents on greasy string. He tries to sell them to other people on the streets of small town Maple, Ontario, too. But no one wants to buy, because they stink of whence they came. He never begs. Never. But when he offers his creative excesses while cursing and swearing loudly and waving his arms around frantically, then hugging himself and crying, people will sometimes drop coins into his filth-blacked hands. He is a very large man, but sometimes he seems so small and pathetic you want to cry at the sorrows of the world right along with him.
Now and then he simply disappears for a month or so, and when he shows up again, he has usually had a hair cut and lost his beard, but it’s growing back in already, and he may have on a different, slightly cleaner overcoat, but he usually tears the sleeves off those within a week. He is more to be pitied than despised. Yet there are always those who go out of their way to further torture the tortured. Everyone knows that you should never push him too far. He carries a stick in his pocket that bears a sharpened end and larger blunt one. Once when the kids had him circled down by the tracks at the back of the football field down the hill behind the school, bear-baiting him, he pulled that nasty weapon out in a rage and brandishing it, began chasing them. He scared the hell out of them and they never went that far with him again. But they ran so fast they didn’t see him stop and fall to his knees, tears of rage and self-pity carving tracks in the grime on his weathered face. they didn’t hear his anguished lonely howl…
As Aedre continues her Escape to Freedom, she meets many strange and wonderful creatures. This one may be one of the strangest, and most certainly is one of the most dangerous. But Aedre has lived with danger all her life and has survived this far. Always before though, there were others around who could bear witness if the punishments and harassments of her family got out of hand. This time there was no-one else, just Aedre and the madman, everyone reviled and called Mad Maggot. Somehow, being drawn near this creature, Aedre could see that in some ways they had much in common, both being chosen as one to be reviled. It is this meeting that makes Aedre wonder if she is being made to take the place of this despised and crazy thing that was once as human as she. Could there be another fate? If Aedre was to seek it out, could another, possibly better, more humane fate be hers? Stay tuned to Aedre’s long journey of discovery in Aedre’s Firefly, the online graphic novel (updates Wednesday morning at the stroke of midnight).
Day# 08 the POISON PENN
#08 the Poison Penn by Jande Rowe
My first ever Super-hero-type Villain. :`)
Jhorn’l Ag’Penn hails from a religious colony of Grythf’ah‘s (Worshippers of Agh) on a nondescript planet circling a small red giant in the sparser areas near the Rim of the Galaxy.
Like most religious fanatics, the beliefs of the Grythf’ah brook no quarter with any other religious practices. Sure in their divine arrogance, they send out their most devout acolytes to bring word to the heathens (that’s the rest of us).
Jhorn’l is no slouch when it comes to converting the unenlightened. At some point he became convinced that he was doing Agh’s work; he was Agh’s Right Hand in this world to help others to the next. And of course what better way than to first test them, then when, er… if they fail, show them the error of their ways with a little fear of Agh, and a little Holy Poison to help them on their way into the Light of Agh’s Truth.
When did that happen? Oh, perhaps around the time Jhorn’l found a derelict ship full of humanity’s bones, and many useful artifacts, including some Golden Age comics from DC and Marvel. Of course he couldn’t read them, but being the vain and contemptuous being he was, he delighted in the idea of Spandex to match his particularly bright and beautiful green skin.
‘Twas then that he hit upon his Master Plan to weed out the Unworthy, and deliver the Holy Message of his Holyness, Agh! At this point he underwent Grimstolaet, changing himself from the inside out and donning his new Spandex, took upon himself the Holy Name of Poison Penn, the Right Hand of Agh.
All over the Galactic Rim he sped enticing the weak to evil, putting the fear of Agh into all those who succumbed with poison pen letters, then blackmailing them in the name of the Holy Church of Agh, (in order to defray costs), and finally when they refuse to repent, descending on them in a poisonous cloud and stabbing them to death with his poison-tipped spear-pen, while chanting the one thousand four hundred and fifty-three names of Agh.
Of course sooner or later he would run into our Dysfunctional Duo, Wheeler and Ikey. And so its possible that even Prima will have her hands full trying to rescue Wheeler and Co in order to bring them to Justice, while the Poison Penn is trying his best to bring them to Agh.
Enjoy!
Day# 07 Growl, Rain’s Dog
#07 Growl, (#6) Rain's Dog, by Jande Rowe
And Growl makes three. Rain’s little pet, Growl.  Part this and part that –maybe even Wolf, ya think? Rain found Growl when he was a puppy, wandering at the side of a busy highway, and rescued him from certain death. The two have been together ever since. Rain’s family were alarmed by how huge Growl ended up growing, but were happy to have him in the family. They’ve grown used to him now, but there has always been something strange about Growl, something… almost unearthly.
Luckily the family never resorts to corporal punishment, or their lives may not be worth the cost. Growl is supremely protective of Rain. Nobody, but nobody messes with Rain.
Drawn in Manga Studio Ex4, then Photoshopped a bit. I added Rain so that you could see how big Growl is. Rain’s attitude has changed slightly from his debut picture. If I had Growl as a friend, mine would too. ;`)
Someday the three of them, Sarah Sorry (#5), Rain Reeves (#6), and Growl, will have some interesting urban adventures together.
Enjoy!
Day#06 Rain Reeves
#06 Rain Reeves by Jande Rowe
Rain Reeves is best friends with his next-door neighbour, (#05) Sarah Sorry. His favourite colour is pink, he hates sports, enjoys playing with dolls and doll houses, loves reading books, computers, and animals, and wants to grow up to cure cancer.
His parents think he will become an interior designer, but they love him and encourage him to be himself. Sometimes he can be opinionated, and friends and family use the phrase “Right as Rain” with a wink, when he verges on the pompous.
They don’t worry too much about the possibility that his apparent effeminate ways could bring the bullies down on him, since he has a great protector in the more aggressively active Sarah Sorry –and of course his little pet dog, Growl (#07)
I’m not that happy with the way this one turned out. Created in Manga Studio Ex4 White background made transparent in Gimp2, and Coloured in Photoshop. I was thinking of making a “statement” about gender issues with these guys, perhaps a childrens book aimed at parents –lol– but at the moment I’m not excited about the idea. Maybe later.
Day#05 Sarah Sorry
#05 Sarah Sorry by Jande Rowe
Well, she’s in trouble again. Not surprising. If she isn’t getting into a scrape once an hour or so, her family would think the world had come to an end. She doesn’t mean to cause trouble, she just rushes into things, and she’s always repentant afterwards (well mostly!). That’s why they all call her Sarah Sorry.
It’s her insatiable curiosity, overactive imagination, and abundant physical energy that help her into (and sometimes out of ) trouble –especially in a world where all three attributes are frowned on and particularly in girls.
Boys are often encouraged to be loud and rambunctious. Her two older brothers certainly are, but Sarah must “behave”, “be quiet”, “sit still”, “stop fidgeting”. This repression makes her clumsy and nervous. It drives her crazy! She wants to play ball, go fishing, climb trees, build tree houses, chase cats and squirrels, and when she grows up she wants to be a fireman! Fire Engine Red is her favourite colour.
Her best friend, Rain, doesn’t want to be a fireman. His favourite colour is pink, he hates sports, and when he grows up he wants to be a scientist and discover the cure for cancer. Sarah thinks that would be nice, but that rushing into burning houses and saving people is a much more noble profession.
Maybe, by the time Sarah grows up, girls can be anything they want. And so can boys.
This Character has no particular place in any of my stories or comics. I was teaching myself to use Manga Studio EX4 this morning and she popped out. Perhaps she and Rain have stories of their own to tell.
Day#01- Angus “Fergie” Fergus
Angus will be showing up during the present arc of Aedre’s Firefly. It was a joy to flesh him out from vague words on a page (“here she meets a squatter”) to a full personality. I think having these sketches done beforehand in the storylines will make the stories themselves much richer as they evolve.
Thanks, Dan, for the lovely template! It really made the process painless. :`)
Now to see what everyone is doing and to finish my “Webcomics: What’s Cooking?” contribution page.
#30Characters Chatter…