We have videos up now! Here’s the latest one. It features a rare appearance of artist Joshua Pina and even rarer appearance of his significant other, Kriska!
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At the asking of Tigerbunny, I’ve decided to try and explain my part in the creation of my characters of this “little” project.
…and at the at-gunpoint-I-am-serious-he-straight-up-pointed-a-gun-at-me-persuasion of Chris, however, I am also sharing some more personal stuff, too. So, without further ado, my little story.
As Chris stated before, we met at Westwood College of Los Angeles. Like him, I joined because the recruiter was very, very, convincing. While I ended up burned out by the whole experience, it wasn’t all for naught. I learned a lot, re-learned some skills, and gained some new insights. So really, not too bad of an experience.
As you all know now, we had our own little artist group there, and that’s where I met Chris. One day, after a project, I guess something in him clicked and he approached me about this idea for a comic he’s had. I had my own stories I was itching to tell as well, so I said “yes.”
That was 5 or so years ago, I think. Close to when we all sort of went our separate ways, though Chris and I obviously kept in touch. For a long time, I wanted to draw the comic, but my skills were (and still are) lacking. Biting off more than you can chew and all that. You can read all that hullabaloo on Chris’ many entries as well. Josh is a damn good artist and friend, and I’m glad that he’s come through for us time and time again.
Er, right, this post is supposed to be about me. Sorry. I take care of the day-to-day on the site. Press a few buttons, update the site, write the comic with Chris, draw some sketch designs for characters and send them off to Josh to make them not crap, cut down stories and convert them to scripts, and basically any behind-the-scenes sort of stuff on this site. I like creating characters the most though. You won’t be seeing me post my sketches here anytime soon, though, that’s my blog’s job (NSFW). Who knows, maybe someday when I grow up I’ll be posting comics alongside Josh!
Anyway, now that the boring part is over, let’s talk about something much more interesting: my characters!
Let’s start with my earliest babies: Gato and Calavera. I created these two way back in 2010 for a school project. At the time, they were for a cover-based shooter akin to Time Crisis. At the time, they were antagonists, part of a special forces unit similar to Interpol, or something. You could either work with them or against them, and were an example of the game’s branching path system. The protagonist was- er, well, let’s save him for a later date, eh? At first, they didn’t have much in the way of personality besides “Antonio Banderas in Mariachi x2.” Over the years, as the story progressed and things got recycled and rewritten, Gato gained the more “dashing” parts, leaving Calavera with the more “Fuck you, I do what I want” mentality.
The one I hear folks ask about (nobody asked me I am lying) is Ryan Senno, AKA not-appearing-in-this-chapter-again. He has a bit of a complicated story. He was basically a Power Ranger knock-off at first, giant robot and all, and now, so much more than that. I honestly can’t wait until we get to his chapter. The way he slowly became one of the most in-depth characters I’ve ever had to write makes me very proud of him. He’s the standard at which I write other characters when it comes to level of detail. Remember Shenmue’s backstories of every NPC? That detailed.
Alright, let’s get the elephant out of the room. Yes, I see the irony in creating a tokusatsu character with Chris around. No, he’s not based in any way on him, so calm your tits, folks. While I did grow up with the Power Rangers, yes, his included, Ryan’s a mix of everything I liked growing up. Superheroes, costumes, awesome powers, and the responsibilities and risks associated with being a hero. He’s a walking 90’s reference, really. I really, REALLY want to talk more about him, but I’ve already spoiled enough, so let’s drop it.
Finally, as Chris said, we’ve got a LOT of characters. He’s not exaggerating when he says we’ve got over 200+(!) characters. The last official count was at freakin’ 66! So yeah, definitely need a recount. It even says so in our Codex (what we call our massive character archive.)
For funsies, I made a short list of how many characters Chris and I created (though a few are shared, I didn’t account for that here) way back when:
For me, Danny: 37. 16 Males, 20 Females, 1 Intersex
For Chris: 29. 23 Males, 6 Females
Phew, that’s a lot of words. Hope I didn’t bore you folks. Back to the shadows I go~
