Fantastic Fantasies Co., Crap

So I finally got around to drawing basic color pictures of the Midgard Knights, a group that showed up when the Red Jackets rallied a bunch of heroes to take on the Space Banshee.  They exist in the same world as Laserwing but usually deal with entirely different adventures.  Here they are, explained at last!

Hansen Q. Phillips is the unofficial, unwilling leader of the team, despite his rampant apathy and inexperience.  He is a sound elemental, meaning he has excellent hearing and ‘eats’ sounds.  Prolonged silence can kill him.  Because human society is such a noisy clusterfuck there are thousands of sound elementals disguised as humans, living amongst them.  He was raised in a perfectly normal American family that just happen to be magical monster things.  He’s got decent physical strength, good common sense, and can imitate most sounds and voices to near-perfection.  His knowledge of the magical world is limited but he does a good job of bridging the gap between his human life and the magical jerks who hang around him.

Amy Daniels, the token human, is Hansen’s best friend since middle school.  She’s the kind of girl who likes video games and internets and blah blah blahs, and makes sure EVERYONE knows it because guys on the internet would slit their own throats for the chance to be with a girl like that.  She’s pretty laid back and just a tad sarcastic.  A lifelong fan of Zelda and bad fantasy novels, she gets extremely enthusiastic when Hansen reveals to her that he’s more than human.  Because she’s more sociable than Hansen, she quickly started making friends amongst the mythical world, and drags Hansen along with her on her escapades.  She has no special abilities beyond her willingness to learn and quick thinking skills, and on their long-winded quests she fights with a snubnose revolver.

Marco Trykkleif is a shapeshifting faery who lives in the woods surrounding Amy and Hansen’s town.  When Hansen was small, Marco was like a protective big brother, and helped him learn and understand the magical world.  But faerys age much slower than most creatures, and now an 18-year-old Hansen can’t believe how immature Marco still is.  Marco has the ability to change into any living thing, without limitations.  If he morphs into something with super-strength then he gets that super-strength.  If he morphs into something that breathes fire he gets to breathe fire.  The only thing that limits this talent is his weakness to plain ol’ mundane iron, which burns the skin of all faerys.  Because of this weakness he can’t enter human cities safely.  Also, he is a huge slut.

Haaken is the crown prince of Trollebotten, a troll city hidden under the mountains of Norway.  Due to a longstanding curse, trolls cannot touch sunlight or they’ll turn to stone, and they do NOT change back when you get them out of the sun.  The first adventure the Midgard Knights take is a long-winded rigamarole to remove the curse.  Since his father is super old and super ill, Haaken is the effective ruler of Trollebotten but isn’t as good at it as he wishes he were.  He’s good at making people like him, but his understanding of politics and legislation is what you’d expect from a kid who’s only 16.  He gets by on advice from his older sister Sonja.  He and Marco are boyfriend and boyfriend, which is exactly as gross and disturbing as it sounds.

Trygve is one of the younger, non-heir princes of Jotunheim, the ice giant kingdom up at the north pole.  Trolls and Jotuns have been allies since creation, and for half of the year the trollish royal family vacations at Jotunheim, where the sun doesn’t rise in winter.  Trygve and Haaken’s sister Sonja have been in an arranged engagement since the both of them were born, but he’s much closer to Haaken and acts like a big brother to him.  He is an accomplished warrior, but owes at least a fraction of his strength to the Dwarf-forged gauntlet he never removes.  His right arm is much smaller than it should be and he only has three fingers on that hand, but if you tell anyone he’ll kill you.  Otherwise he’s a friendly guy, really.

Miriam Feckshire, an Elfin farm girl from Lemuria, walked out on a dull marriage and left Alfheim for Midgard (Earth), where she spent a hundred years having madcap adventures as a mercenary and spy.  Her most recent job is as head of security in the Trollebotten palace, but somehow that translates into practically babysitting Haaken.  He has her run all kinds of bullshit errands that aren’t in her job description, but she’s usually happy to help.  She’s somehow managed to get a working internet connection in her office at the palace and keeps in touch with Amy via AIM.  She got Haaken an account too, but he’s not very good with electronics.  And Amy keeps making internet troll jokes.  Miriam has a hundred years of experience as a spymaster, and her preferred weapon is a crossbow.  She’s the most capable member of the team but allows the younger scalawags to lead, so that they can learn to stand on their own.

Leigh Wyllowynd is a sylph assigned by the Seelie Court to accompany the team on their first quest through the faery realm, which I call Faerheim to keep with the Norse theme.  She is a healer but also originally meant to keep an eye on the Midgard Knights to prevent them from doing anything that might jeapordize the court’s power.  When certain events lead the team to switch sides and help some rebels take down the court, she has a personal crisis of loyalty, but in the end she sticks with the team.  She’s very small and frail, and usually sticks to the sidelines.

 Welp, that’s enough for now.  There’s others, but these are the ones who go on the first adventure, so I’m stopping here.

So a few days ago I was thinking, if Taylor and Matt did the fusion dance (which sounds kind of dirty actually) I could name the guy ‘Firewall.’  So I drew it.

Firewall turned out great, especially that wavy-hair mullet.  The others all have dumb names (though ‘Velocilaser’ could be an 80’s band) and I realized that Jenny has no superhero name.  She used to have a few prototypes but they were all stupid.  Warmi…I’ve never explained Warmi, have I?  She doesn’t show up for a long time.

This was a quick flash of inspiration.  I think I’ve been getting cartoonier with my expressions.  I really like birds but it wasn’t meant to be, pretty bird.

My weird dumb boyfriend insists that he doens’t have an ear fetish and I believe him one hundred percent.

And here’s another cupcake!  These are fun to do.  My sister wants me to print one out for her wall but WHATEVER.  I don’t do requests for sisters.

I’ve been doing some wholly digital work lately and it’s been going much more smoothly than usual.  Here, let me show off for you.

This was done as a pet trade on Sandbox Farm.  I was just showing a few pictures I did and got the offer.  This was my end of the deal, and what I got in return was this:

In a word:  Squee.

This was a Sandbox Farm commission that netted me 2 mil in imaginary money.  I’m still not sure if that’s a lot, but still pretty good!

This is a balloon.  I was in an artist’s block and told Hundera to name something cute.  He said a balloon, and here it is.  It’s gonna go on a button eventually.

I’m not sure where the inspiration for this sucker came from but I’m really, really pleased with the result.  He’s gonna get’choo!

This is just an abstraction.  I digitally painted this with the sepia underpainting technique I’ve been playing around with.  My only regret is that I made it at 72 dpi so it’ll print shittily.

I got inspired and drew my girls all dressed up.  With these I really let loose and didn’t bother with connecting the lines, nor coloring within them.  I really like how Clarisse’s skin turned out here, it’s the best I’ve ever done for her.  She’s the kind of white person who’s more red than white, because you can kinda see through her skin, as if she had a perpetual blush.  I made these at 300dpi so I have a bookmark-worthy version if I ever want to make some.  Do you think anyone would actually buy ‘em, nonexistent blog readers?

That’s it for now.  I’ve had a good run.

So I found a new internet game called Sandbox Farm.  It’s not actually a farm sim because there are no plants.  No plants!  Just animals, so it’s more like a ranch.  But the animals range from worms and ants to friggin’ centaurs, so less of a ranch and more of a zoo.  I guess ’sandbox’ comes from how you can add species to the game, but doing that costs real money.  So instead of ’sandbox farm’ it’s more of a ‘corporate zoo.’  It’s fascinating for me, because I’m the kind of person who can look at some numerical stats next to the word ‘ferret’ or ‘gerbil’ and create an emotional connection.  I don’t know how long it’ll STAY fascinating to me but hey.

Though the game has like zero graphics, it gives you the option of adding your own picture to a pet’s page.  So I’m going to pretty up my corporate zoo with pictures of what the animals are supposed to be!  So far all I’ve done are a chinchilla and a tetra (the aquarium fish, not the Princess Zelda).

I really should redo that Chinchilla.

You can find Sandbox Farm at, simply enough, http://www.sandboxfarm.com

Meet Jiro, the Japanese White-Eye.  Some websites claim they’re the most common bird on Hawaii but I hardly ever see them.  My sister thought one was a hummingbird the first time she saw one (so stupid!).  Jiro is about the same age as Manini.  He is friendly but shy, and primarily a side character who occasionally reacts to Boof and Geet’s antics, for laughs.  I took some liberties with his colors, the tail really shouldn’t be so bright.

Here are the birdies so far created:

 I’m working on a cutesy sort of merchandise-whore idea about birds.  They’re basically just cute characters who have occasional shenanigans.  Don’t they look like they’re born for Tshirts?  I’m going to kill Sanrio with birds.  That’s my dream right there.

Name:  Ricky
Gender:  Male
Species:  Red-crested Cardinal
Age:  Young adult
Personality:  Ricky is a straight man character, usually on the ball but not always able to keep up with the others.

Name:  Boof
Gender:  Female
Species:  Zebra Dove
Age:  Chick
Personality:  Boof…she’s not very smart.  I mean, by PIGEON standards she’s not very smart.  But dammit, she tries!  She’s a loopy little weirdo who’s prone to get into trouble at a moment’s notice.

Name:  Manini
Gender:  Female
Species:  Common Myna
Age:  Fledgling
Personality:  Manini is an archetypal teenage girl, but with the added chattiness of myna birds.  Seriously, there’s a pair nesting outside my window and their vocal range is amazing.  Mynas CAN be taught to talk.  So naturally, Manini doesn’t ever stop.

Name:  Geet
Gender:  Male
Species:  Indian Fantail Pigeon
Age:  Chick
Personality:  Geet and Boof are bestest friends forever!  He is a very pretty, pretty bird but doesn’t seem to know it, because he and Boof get into all kinds of messes.  He’s a very nice guy but a little too trusting.

I have toyed with designs for a Japanese White-Eye, a Jungle Fowl, some Common Waxbills, and Boof’s war hero guardian, Uncle Captain Stump (who is so totally based on a real bird).

The first merchandising step will be to put them on buttons.  Ricky’s design is made but the others I haven’t worried about yet.  I’m not actually selling things right now.  Once the semester is over I’m gonna figure out how to deal with the postage and such, because I have a ceramics class and hope to get rid of some of the pieces through Etsy (though my grandparents get first pick).

Finally I get around to scans!  It’s not even a lot.

 I’m going to open with art that I commissioned from Kawaii Kon.  Oh my goodness these are so awesome:

The first two I commissioned for seven bucks each.  The artist is a friend of a friend so I’ll try and wrangle some gallery info to show you all who it was.  The last one was an art trade.  I think they all turned out pretty great.  Surely there’s one gal in our studio audience that’s intrigued by Josh’s bishie pout.

Mini-comic:  Vampire and Werewolf Sexfest Epiphany

I got bored sitting at my Artist’s Alley table (where FREAKING NOBODY BOUGHT NOTHING) so I drew this.  They got motherfucking werewolves!

Drew this in Sociology class.  For once I included Warmi Kallisad amongst the female heroines.

This was GOING to be a height scale but turned into an exaggerated farce.  Look how short Matt is there!  The differences between these guys heights is supposed to be measurable in inches, not miles!  I ran out of paper when Trieg came along.

A kirin and a pegasus.  What you see is what you get.

Here’s a picture of me doing some kind of…criss-cross pounce.  Shut up.

So Hundera and I were talkin’ about how it might be cool to make a card game, and for a plot I suggested my Somnium world, which was originally created for Gaia but GAIA SUCKS so now it’s a card game thing.  These three are semi-important characters in my personal stories of that world.  Ice Dragon and Nesmouse are doing their poutygirl routine, but Thysall on the end just kinda looks like a monkey.  She’s not good at being mad.

And our last picture for now, here’s some of the god-figures of Somnium.  Thysall’s still not sure what expression she wants to use.

Here are some birds!!!  Two of them.  The cardinal is awesome, I am pleased and surprised at how well that came out.  I don’t have a name for him, but he looks like a ‘Ricky’ to me.  I don’t know his personality.  The zebra dove is Boof, an idea I’ve tossed around in my head a few times.  She is shaped more like a baby chick than a dove, but that’s okay, she’s got personality.  Boof is an airhead to the highest degree.  Her personality is modeled after my (idiot) sister, but somehow her facial expressions remind me of someone I knew in high school who was pretty wacky.

Non-birds:

Okay, so Myna Medila is PART a bird.  These two were semi-major players in the last Laserwing arc, and they are pretty fun to draw.  I like how the hood physics turned out on both of these, you can tell where their ears are poking the fabric.  I may color them.  Nobody’s ever seen these two in color yet.

Wow, more art already?  I’m on a roll.

 ANOTHER chapter draft of Laserwing is up on the Bonus Stage forums.  For convenience: scroll down a bit.

So, I found a webcomic I hadn’t read before:  Daisy is Dead.  It’s pretty good!  I found it because the guy who does Girly did a guest comic and linked.  Now, I think what fascinates me about this comic is the character Elwynn, who seems to have the same hair as Hundera, my demented boyfriend.  SO, I wound up, somehow, drawing a fanart.  Then I colored it very, very, very (very) quickly.  Normally I abhor zombies and abombinations like them, but these guys kinda look more like Frankensteins, which are inherently good, than full-on zombies.  I guess that’s why I’m not angry at their existence.

Hmm…I’ve developed a theory on the possibility of turning undead into other undead via body modification.  We all know that stripping the flesh off a zombie makes it a skeleton.  This is common sense.  But, perhaps, if fed human blood for long enough periods of time, you can turn zombies into vampires?  And I’m confident that stapling dogs to a zombie will make it a werewolf, the sexiest and most alive of all undead.  As for ghosts, I could probably turn a zombie into a ghost by setting it on fire.  Yes.

 Enough of that.  Here’s my comic-related sketches.

This one has thumbprints on it because of the plague of ants I seem to be experiencing.  I refuse to explain this train of logic.  ANYWAYS.  I picked out my Earthly characters and decided on who they would crush on as kids.  We all had crushes like that.  Mine was Ash Ketchum.  Of Pallet Town.  ESPECIALLY in the early episodes where he would twist his hat backwards before a battle?  Intense.  Ahem.  I should point out that Taylor is based off a guy I know, and since I don’t know what his fictional crushes were, I’m not gonna put words in his speech bubble.  Anyways, Taylor is Very Blonde and it’s hard to imagine him focusing enough on a person to create a solid mental image like the others do.  Quick note- Josh’s crush is on live-action Lydia, not the cartoon one, who is like eight.

This character showed up in the background during the last arc of Laserwing, so I felt like drawing her.  Generique is just a generic (ha) 80’s and 90’s sort of superhero.  She’s not QUITE Liefeldian, and she’s not QUITE Starfire, but a little of everything.  Her powers include flight, glowing, flight, and leotards.  I suppose it’s disturbing that the prepubescent Gina turns into Generique, but that’s the sort of thing we aren’t supposed to question, I’ve been told.

“Son, you’re a robot.”  “I’m a robot?  That explains a couple of things.  Like this.”  “Son, let’s go to Canada…and canade.”  It would make SO much sense if Matt were a robot.  He’s inexplciably durable, resistant to poison, eats ungodly amounts of sugar while staying slim, hasn’t aged since the supposed start of puberty, wins fights against superpowered alien wizards, never loses at video games, understands complicated chemistry and physics, functions on extemely little sleep, and has an eccentric scientist for a father.  But he’s NOT a robot.  He’s just weird.  He’d probably like being a robot though.  Keep livin’ the dream, little dude.

I don’t know why, but I had the urge to draw this character.  When depressed she’s very creepy-looking and her skin starts to crack, revealing her insides to be hollow.  When she’s happy she’s apparently full flesh-and-blood, and has this still-slightly-creepy gothic lolita thing going down.  Of course, a creature of this much creepiness must be Josh’s love interest.

Some doodles of Tony being a psycho bitch.  I’m not doing to use that Evil!Bishie!Tony concept, but it was fun to see what he could look like if going into villainy.

And to close up this post, Trieg felt it necessary to set things straight about his actions in the most recent chapter.  He may be on the good guys’ side, but he’s a born-and-raised killing machine and he will punch a bitch.  What I like about triceratopseses is that they can stab you in the face, WITH their face.

Scans again!  Also, chapter 12 of Laserwing is up at the Bonus Stage forum.

Here’s an experiment with two hypothetical forms of Tony.  On the one hand we have a wild, feral Tony, a little intimidating but not inherently bad.  If Tony were to lose his mind and run solely on bird-instinct, that’d be him.  Or, we have eeeeevil Tony.  Matt and Josh are intrigued.  Personally, I don’t think he pulls it off well.  Tony has huge eyes that just don’t translate well into villainous expressions.  I intend for him to look that way, because he’s supposed to be the hero.

So from there I thought, what would evil mirror universe versions of the characters look like?  Well, Tony, being a slightly simplistic classical do-gooder, would be a one-dimensional supervillain.  Y’know, the mwa-ha-ha type.  Josh would go from an eerie, secretive hunter of the undead, to an eerie, secretive hunter of the non-dead.  Matt, well, he’s already two or three steps away from reality, and just sliiightly desensitized to violence and atrocities…  I can imagine him going Columbine on all our asses if circumstances were different.

Since Josh’s evil hair looked so impossibly gay, I drew it again!  It confuses Matt in ways he doesn’t like to be confused.  I noticed a similarity between his natural hairstyle and Mistaire’s assymetrical dealie, so she came in to take her hair back.

This page was complete coincidence.  I started off with Matt and that knife, which is weird, because he’s not a stabbity sort of person.  Then he came up with that PAINFULLY nerdy one-liner.  Josh caught wind of it and feels he has to assert his position as creepy death guy.  Then he realized that was his knife.  And to add insult to more different insult, Matt took the shirt off his back.  Well, the first shirt.  Goths like to layer.

Matt continues his shirt rampage.  I love to draw him in tall peoples’ clothes because he drowns in ‘em.  Most of the tall dudes are skinnier than Matt is, but their clothes are still so big.  Josh gets his revenge this time.  Poor Martha.

Here’s some vague slash.  While I tend to draw them pissing each other off, OR doing something hot, I never tried to really combine the two.  Here they seem to be both cuddling and threatening each other.  Josh’s knife is obvious, but I don’t know if you can tell if Matt is using Martha’s cord to choke Josh.  I used both pre- and post-timeskip hairs just for variety.

When Matt plays dress-up, he plays to win.

Clarisse is a churchy girl.  Perhaps unhealthily churchy.  Notice that her two love interests are a guy with wings and a guy with horns.  Who’s she gonna chose?  Trieg objects to this because he is a dinosaur, a noble beast from a pure age untouched by man’s corruption, and not a demon.  Especially not a winged one.

Hey, what can I say?  I felt bad for the big dork, so I let him have one happy picture where he gets Clarisse.  Now I just have to somehow appease Tony.

Trieg needs to shut up.  When I draw him in doodles he becomes an outlet for self-criticism, but in the comics he’s not really like that at all.  Also, I’m thinking he’s starting to turn into Strong Sad.

On the Poppl-y side of things I’ve finally started thinking about the next chapters.  It might be time to introduce the other teams of Hamarkia:  Team Flora, Team Fauna, and Team Apocalypse.  Here are their significant members.  And by significant I mean Charlie and Angel will run into them.

To wrap up this post, here’s me and my Hundera’s counterparts in a team that exists in the Laserwing world.  Man, I should explain all these characters someday.  Well, I/she seems to be more interested in the Venus of Willendorf than Hundera’s goofy romantic ass.