Holy shrimp, it's already been a year since that last journal.
Funny how most of the things I had planned here were absolutly not done, but eh, did other things instead.
Felt like doing a lil' tag for once, cause free time is overrated. Thanks Mel.
RULES
- I'm supposed to feature the first ten users who comment on this journal below. (You'll be less than ten plz.)
-Next to their avatars, I'll probably not say horrible things about what they do, and link three or more of my favourite gallery pieces with full thumbnails. (Yeah, sure, if I manage to remember how to put pics on a journal)
-If you comment here you must make a journal like this and do the same thing as I have, putting me in the first slot. (Or else the Deviantart police department of memes and tags righteousness will break your door and send you in a jail full of people wearing furrsuits.)
Featurz tiem :v
- There's a bunch of accuracy on the subjects you draw, while interpreting them in your own way, and that's hella satisfying to look at.
- It feels to me like that you got a whole universe under your sleeve, and each time you post we get to see a tiny bit of it. Guess you only need to train those worldbuilding muscles, eh ? I agree that's not easy ! x')
- Kinda amazing how you seem to take the things you struggle with, to german suplex them into your comfort zone.
- Also, i freaking love your little reference sheets, simple but constant and clever. Do moar plz.
- Your random/improvised designs are usually stellar, often more than the things you put efforts and thoughts in. Maybe that's the downside when you think too much or take a theme too seriously while drawing. I can relate, tho. x)
- Frow what I've seen, you can have a lot of focus/resolution, able to stick on drawing a complex panel or a huge scene that'd discourage more than one. Seems like if you feel it's worth showing a big thing, it's worth the trouble to draw it. Shame the momentum that can proc such occurrences is so rare, hm ?
- Your black and white are gud. Keep up the good work towards this direction I'd say.
- I still don't get why you didn't started a blacksad-like series, with your godhand when it comes to draw animals. :y
...but I think it was about giving facts about characters. From .
If I recall, I've been asked 8 facts on Gordon by and 8 facts about Gordon and Sylvia by .
...That's a lot of facts about Gordon, here. Let's try to give 8 facts for each of these dorks, and then some random facts about my TSI entry, shall we ?
Gordon - The holy Grump
- At first Gordon wasn't supposed to be a character taking part to the hunt, but just a monitor responsible for ensuring that Sylvia don't go berserk and kill any innocent citizen. As starting the audition his cagey and grumpy behavior amused me enough to rise him as a protagonist. Though I still feel like He didn't got enough spotlight compared to that little vampire, making him a sidekick. This could have been different if I had chose a different story route for my rounds, tho. I'll get back to those possibilities later.
- Also, I chose to pick that kind of character because of the first premise of Salt Islands, that was saying the main bounty was given by the pope himself. Taking a priest took sense for me. Welp, despite the fact that I had a promiscuous Christian education I know very few about the Church, but I thought it could be interesting to oppose him with that nooby vampire.
- He never had a strong faith in God. His interest for the church was firstly motivated by the simplified access to knowledge it could provide to him. but being a strong agnostic, he obviously missed his vocation as a researcher.
- Despite that, he managed to respect his oaths as a priest, so as a rough half of TSI contestants already asked, yes he's virgin. And no, do not make that Hellsing fanfiction.
- The traits under his eyes are not dark circles, but marks made by the gift he received. Morgana also had these.
- I really should have made him speak in archaic/Shakespearian english when using his voice from above.
- *Spoilerz* yep, he really died between round 2 and 3. Though I admit it can be funny to use various tropes and deus ex machina to save dying characters, I also really like the fact that anyone can die in a story. I think that's the first time I did it with a non-secondary/extra character in a comic I drew. It was frustrating, since there was a bunch of other things I would've liked to experience with him. But the fact that this OCT had only 4 rounds pushed me for it.
- I really enjoyed the fact that his power was randomly effective on people, leaving the choice to my opponents and see who they'd decide to be sensitive or resistant to it was pretty fun !
Sylvia - The awkward leech
- I created Sylvia years ago, she was supposed to be an NPC for an interactive comic competition. A bit like an OCT, but the thing was that I was drawing all of it. Needless to say that the crazy project ended before page 10. She looked more mature back then, had sneakers and a pullover. Her main -if not only- trait was that she was trying to suppress her blood addiction with a coffee based one. Kept that for TSI. Added drama to it. But the scene was deleted because time is a thing.
- Vampires are often highlighted with strong physical or psychical abilities. I tried to focus Sylvia on a more social axis, so yeah, her most advanced perk before drinking Anthony's blood was to talk with bats to gather information.
- Speaking of blood consumption, I had set the tacit rule that each time she drank human's blood, she'll unlock a new vampire perk. Next after bat morphing would probably have been flight and shadow merging, maybe mist too. In my improvised vampire lore, raw meat is enough to feed a vampire, unspecific blood allow them to cicatrize and regenerate, and human blood makes them stronger.
- I'm sometime trying to find musical themes for my OCT characters. Though I totally failed to find one for Gordon, this one would totally fit for Sylvia : ~Link~
- I really sucked to put forward her weakness to sun, due to time constraints. A shame, I think that's a neat thing to cope with when you try using a vampire.
- I learned later a funny thing in vampires folklore : They often can't enter in a house if they are uninvited. This could have make some hilarious scene.
- The main link between Sylvia and Gordon was that he had unconsciously created the murderer of her parents. By ordering Rassel to "go to hell". Strongly convinced that Hell didn't exist, the guy tried to turn his surroundings in an improvised hell, to get a compromise with the command that haunt him and drives him crazy. Best way he could do that was to bring legions of monsters down to Earth, and to do so, making newborns vampires.
Other random thingz
- You were more than one to think that Fofo could have been a bad guy, or even Rassel himself. I find it hilarious to think about him as a villain now. But nah, he is just a bit gawky. x)
- Gordon's ghostly visions of Morgana due to alcohol/weaning are freely inspired of the absinth's green fairy.
- Rassel means maracasses in german. I think it fits well with that dude, especially since Gordon toasted his brain with an impossible command.
- Pietro could have been my third character. But I kinda liked the feeling to let the shady character slightly out of the team, at least for a time.
- I had planned different routes for my plot, in which characters could die or not. My two most ridiculous options were to get Gordon turned into a vampire by accident, or to have Sylvia being attacked by the Death's spirit, losing what's left of her soul and becoming Gordon's spiritless puppet. That last one would have been even more depressing than killing someone, I think.
- The blue flames caused by salt on undead skin is obviously a reference to Castlevania's holy water.
- Gordon's main in street fighter series would totally be Guile.
- If I had to allot RPG-like elements to my main characters from TSI, Gordon would be darkness, Pietro would be light and Sylvia water.
- The easily-afraid religious man in the audition and first round introduction was my only try to include an actual person in my story. His name was Luigi Bignami and he was archbishop of Syracuse when The Salt Islands would have take place. Here, have a pic : ~Link~
Since he was called Luigi, The mandatory name of his moustached interlocutor was Mario. Yes; I'm that hopeless.
- What else could I say ? Despite the terrible schedule I've been through that was quite fun ! Enjoyed it as much as Walking City, in a different way. I'll write something about my experiences on these two first OCT of mine, someday ! I grew a bit attached to those characters, tho. Maybe one day I'll try to reboot their story, without TSI elements. I think a black'n'white manga-like format could be good with them…
Oh, and I'm supposed to tag someone now.
How about you ? Yes, you. Pick some characters and do the thing.
Now.