Ok last of the character book sketch posts because
if I wrote about all of them I’d be here forever.
This time specifically looking at a couple more of
the early characters, two of whom ended up being the basis for a species called
extropians. In my usual half-cocked fashion this group were first named teks
because it was the easiest title to say what I needed whilst getting on with
the actual writing.
Once the initial writing and art had settled in I did some
homework and voila, there is such a thing as extropianism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extropianism
Dealing with that first here are Bug and Elgar our
two main extropians thus far.
Another loveable early was Kha’Rii, still only a
bit character at present but certainly worth noting.
This post is also set to give credit to external contributors
to this project. I’d like to give a nod to those people who submitted a written
character sheet that I then took hold of and both visually and narratively
designed.
In no particular order then, the bit-chars, the donated
small players in narrative that I decided to make portraits of are as follows:
None of these characters had pre-sketches or doodles
prior to their portraits; feel free to click their names to read their interviews
over on Black Wednesday Isle.
On top of that we have had two major contributors
whose praises I continue to sing.
My wonderful ‘online little brother,’ a Finnish
fellow named Lauri Kouvivaara and my most marvellously mad ‘online little sister,’
an American named Dan Johnson. Now Dan is actually male and I was quite annoyed
that Facebook wouldn’t let me list him as my sister!
I have dubbed them my siblings because I am an only
child and because we have at one time or another worked quite closely on these
characters together. The reason Dan is a sister rather than another brother is
because he makes fantastic female characters.
I on the other hand seem to make
better male characters.
This becomes quite amusing or confusing depending
on how you look at it as Dan has his own narratives and we sometimes do instant
role-play via messenger to explore our characters, I always play a man and he
always plays a woman.
Dan’s biggest addition to this body of work has
been Zyaxine. Naturally, I took the character and with his permission made it
my own.
Zya
Zya
Another thing Dan excels at, a point I am not too
well versed in, is that of mecca or android-esq characters. He has been a great
help in smoothing out the finer points, has written insanely detailed backstories
and continues to guide me in the right direction regarding the characters he
submitted. Zya is a concept I find very interesting. I always double check that
Dan is happy and confident in how I portray her and have gained confidence in
writing about ‘teks’ from that experience. Karst is another of his characters I
haven’t drawn many times but have a good feel for since she is one he often
uses in our role-play bounces.
Oh yes, in those instances I played Kale. The two make
parallel foils because they are both utterly insane. Dan’s most recent addition
has been a conversion of his character Fedura. To put it simply she is a prostitute
and we converted her to be a drek elf by species in order to fit this universe.
I look forward to working her into the mire, boy he does like to set me
challenge!
As for ‘little brother,’ aka Lauri, well he is a
poet no doubt. I am in awe and envy that he can phrase so well in a second
language. He’s showed me Finnish many times and my brain almost exploded trying
to fathom it. You win the smarts there little bro.
Most importantly Lauri, or as his screen-name was
once, Adeth, gifted me a character by the same name. I can scarce predict how
these additions will evolve but this one has become most involved. Whether he
likes it or not (I am assured he does) the character he submitted became
integral. Much like the very first submission by lovely Ross Hvidsten, who
became our hero of tale bearing the same surname this character has demanded
space.
There are stages of exploration and progression with all of the main characters I create before I can really hone down who they are and how they will act or react to the planned scenarios. One thing I love about writing this way is that the characters continue to surprise me, once dropped into the given setting and social situations I cannot predict how the scene will pan out and I swear some of the things that come out of their mouths are not written by me!!
Whilst this method of writing is interesting and
does delight me, it can cause obstacles that make it difficult to move the plot
forward. It is very easy for me to happily scribe their idle chatter and forget
that I am actually trying to tell a larger tale alongside showing all their
foibles.
Art-wise it is fair to say that sometimes characters
evolve in this same unplanned way, things occasionally appear out of no-where
and transform into new in-world creatures and unexpected personalities.
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