I'm having issues.

Okay, my last post here was about designing a new character. Since then, I have made a little headway in creating her, but I'm still getting frustrated. I did countless drawings before her true self was revealed to me, and her outfit is 90% there. She has a history, roughly. Father was a scientist, mother was a drunk, portals, kidnapping, horrible accident, blah blah blah. She has a motivation, which is to say, there's a reason for her existing and for wanting to make her the protagonist for a story. Hell, I even found a way to tie it into Black Hole Ghost and possibly ANOTHER story of mine under this folder entitled "Cyberpunk Blues." Inspiration comes from various sources. Some primary influences on this character and her story are my favorite anime, Outlaw Star, A Drowning, which is the first single from Trent Reznor's new band How to Destroy Angels, Fringe of course, David Mack's excellent comic masterpiece Kabuki, and some other stuff I can't think of. Also this photo:

It's still just a painfully slow process. She still doesn't have a name, and while I usually pull female character names from songs, I'm having no luck there. Her personality is having a hard time showing itself as well. I know that when I get to the comic, it will be her telling her story about her past to another character, but that's ALL I know. I don't know how to get the story kicking into gear. Is she being chased? No. Hurm. I REALLY want to throw her into outer space. I just...don't have a terribly great reason. Not yet, anyways.

So when I'm not screaming at my sketchbook to figure these things out, I keep busy with other stuff. Today, I started a large painting of a baby sloth coiled around the outstretched arm of a nude woman. Part of me wants to pretentiously name it "Deadly Sins" when it's finished, tongue placed firmly in cheek, but no. Also wanting to do a large drawing, charcoal maybe, of a sloth. I TOLD YOU I WANTED TO DO SLOTHS.

The sloth baby painting is on an old canvas that already had two other paintings done. So there's two thick layers of gesso under this thing. I also gesso'd over another couple old paintings I had done in the past few years and disliked greatly. One of those canvases will be an attempted painting of our unnamed chick with prosthetic legs in some acrobatic pose. The other one...um, I dunno. I'll think of something. If I don't think of something, I'll fall back to my usual standby: A robot or a naked chick. Or a robot WITH a naked chick.

I'm also pulling out a script I did last year for a 22-page comic that fit under the "Cyberpunk Blues" folder. It's the kind of story I'd love to submit to Heavy Metal. I had ditched the script and started a rewrite, but never finished it, so I'm looking over it again, thinking about those characters.

Also, just gorging myself on reading material. Snow Crash is approaching its conclusion, and after that I'll open up Flicker, some novel that my odd friend Ruta got me for my birthday. Finished reading From Hell, finally. Read a Kabuki volume I found at the local used book store, read Warren Ellis' first Astonishing X-Men run, Ghost Box, as well as his excellent-but-all-too-short Ignition City, now finishing up the first volume of Planetary. Also rereading Elektra Assassin (I saw similarities between her and my nameless chick), and I set up a few subscriptions at G2K Games for myself and my girlfriend. She wanted American Vampire and iZombie, I'm getting King City, Electric Ant (based on the Philip K. Dick story, adapted by David Mack), and Joe the Barbarian. This is the first time I've picked up regular comics in FOREVER. And starting in June, I look forward to the updated Casanova, also known as one of the best comics no one ever read.

Erm. That's all for now. Got some stuff to finish here. DOWN DOWN DOWN

[Brett]