Character Sheets....Because I CAN

Oh, gosh, I feel so weird being the only one posting here. And about my COMIC, of all things!

Weird. So weird.

Well, anyways....here are character designs. Please give suggestions! I only have two so far (Yul is still being worked out....she's so hard to drraaaawww), so I guess I'll post that one as well. Eventually. Maybe. If I'm feeling brave. Oh, gosh....

Character design is of utmost importance in comicking, obviously, so seriously, if there is something about the aesthetics that bothers you, something you feel could left out or put in, please tell me.

Anyways. Here's Gehnn:

NOTES: She hails from a tribe of desert people who like to wear bright colors, hence the random sash and head covering. The head covering is actually of religious importance - when a girl/boy reaches the age of 14, they cut their hair and pull it back, signifying their willingness to work hard, to support their family and their village. The head-cloth signifies devotion, and to take it off (when you're not sleeping, anyways) is very, VERY much frowned upon. Much like the Native American tribes of today, Gehnn's tribe has gradually lost many of their traditions and is currently struggling to revive them. Thus, the importance of the head-cloth. 

Also, her tribe is known for their skill in glass and stonework, which is highly prized as little of it is allowed to leave the village (again, because of holding on to traditions and not allowing anyone to trivialize them). The necklace Gehnn's wearing would probably go for a small fortune on the market. 

In other news, I am going to give her different sandals. Because the ones she's wearing in this drawing would be less than functional in her line of work (i.e. a lot of running around and occasionally climbing things)

Also, they're just plain ugly. Don't know what I was thinking. 

ANYWAYS! Now on to Rex: 

NOTES: Yeah, a lot more...um...detailing on this one. I don't know why I drew a glowy-face down in the corner - I think I just really messed up the face and so decided it would be a grand opportunity to mess around with lighting. Didn't work out so well. Sort of turned into radioactive jaundice. Oh, well. 

Anyways....Rex has always been my stumbling block when it comes to design. Primarily because, beyond his magnificent sideburns (oh, thirteen-year-old me, when are you ever going to get over Javert?) he was just never all that interesting-looking. So I added some things. 

So, Rex is a member of an ancient and powerful race called the Rems, or rather the Remish (as they prefer). They ARE human, but sort of distantly so. Like, a gorilla as related to a chimpanzee. Sort of. So I made them a little more 'alien', in that they have longer arms, bigger eyes, and a bit more hair, which grows a little differently than a 'normal' human's does. For instance: those sideburns? That's not beard hair. He was literally born with those. I mean, they were a lot smaller and less bodacious back then, but you get my drift. It's actually a part of their hairline. Girls have them too, but they're considerably less hairy and easier to trim. Perhaps in light of this, Remish men don't actually have facial 'beard hair' as we know it. Their hair just extends down their jawline and stops, and that's it. They can't grow goatees or mustaches. They actually find the concept of growing hair around your mouth rather gross. 

Also, eyes! Rems have what look like permanently dilated pupils, but in actuality that's just coloration. They have a thick black ring around their pupils (which are the same size as ours and work exactly the same way), around which is a thinner ring which we would call the retina, but which is actually just a small part of it. This smaller ring is the one that's colored, and in Rex's case they're a sort of dark orange. This is pretty common among the Remish, where eye colors range from bright orange to pure black. There isn't a single green, gray or blue-eyed person among them. No one is really sure why this is - scientists just assume that the black ring must have served some sort of function at one time, but now it's just decoration. So who knows. 

Also, hair color! Rems have normal-colored hair for the most part, although their hair tends to be more red-ish than most humans. Rex is a prime example of this. 

It has just occurred to me that my description of Rex is almost twice as long as my description of Gehnn. Huh. Well, I guess that's what happens when your character is a member of a different species. More or less. 

Anyways....yeah. Those are my characters. Well, two of them, anyways. Yul is coming. Someday. Maybe. If I finish. 

BRAINSTORMING sort of

So I need help with brainstorming some stuff. Well, one thing mostly. Also, I guess this is a good way of catching plotholes and stuff. I've had major writer's block with this story for years, and am just now sort of getting past it. Sort of.

So here is the result of my personal brainstorming session! Sorry if it's...um....incredibly convoluted and confusing. It's almost pure stream-of-consciousnesses writing right here.

Anyways:

JADRUS BRAINSTORMING SESSION

Okay, so I need to figure out what the story to this stupid story is.

I have (most) of the setting and characters figured out but no story. I mean, I HAD a story but it sucks. Badly. I need to fix it NOW. ALSO I need to put the setting all the way together. But that can come later.

So, the story starts off with Gehnn meeting Rex. Why is Rex there? What incentive do Gehnn and Yul have for joining him on his journeys? I’ve already looked at the whole “bad people are stalking G and Y so they need R’s protection or whatever” but that is so overdone and stupid and it just doesn’t work with G and Y as characters at all. I’m not going for TOTALLY original here (that’s kind of impossible), but I do want something interesting at the very least.

So, to start off, why did Rex leave Asorame in the first place? Who are his enemies and why? Etc., etc.

Rex’s backstory: he is the grandson of Jadrus Aevarden, the Traitor, who invented many weapons for the Three-Day War and finally went insane and triggered his last weapon, which destroyed most of Asorame. Sort of. Wait, how does this make sense? What did the weapon do?

(for background, Asorame is Rex and Jadrus’s home country. It is known for being awful. Which is why it went to war with pretty much everyone else. I do explain this in a few paragraphs. Sorry for the randomness.)

Let’s start there. The weapon released some sort of chemical in the air, which Jadrus intended to destroy ‘everyone’ because he thought they were all evil (he witnessed some pretty horrifying things during the war). The chemicals caused the air to change and become poisonous, and now strange things grow in Asorame. Wait, that sounds way too much like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Hm. Okay, keep the air change – the plot point that Asorame destroyed itself, basically. It is a wasteland, but still more or less inhabitable. Asorame lives off of indoor gardens and small sanctuaries where the air is made clean by filters.

Okay! Idea: The Remish discovered that their time is limited. Their gardens are failing and soon there will be no food. Wait, isn’t there magic? Well…um….the chemical extends to magic? YES! Well, more or less. It inhibits peoples’ ability to channel it. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t do small things with it (the enchantments on Rex’s staff, etc.), but you can’t do big things that last a long time like make plants grow and thrive.

It is thought that Jadrus had created something that might remedy this, as it is hinted at in his journals that he was working on something to ‘repair the land’ before he went insane. It’s thought that whatever he created, it must be in his hidden laboratory outside of Asorame (he was one of the few Remish to leave Asorame on a regular basis, being somewhat paranoid about his rivals trying to steal his work). Rex, being Jadrus’s descendant and a highly esteemed Craftsman himself, is tasked with finding it, deciphering clues from Jadrus’s journals and asking for aide from the other magical races who were in contact with Jadrus before the Three-Day War.

Hey, that’s not too bad. But there needs to be opposition…hmm.

Maybe there’s a group that doesn’t want the Remish to survive? Or doesn’t want them to go back to their former glory? Something like that?

How about this for a backstory for Asorame: before the Three-Day War, the Remish were the most powerful and technologically/magically advanced race on the Continent. They let other people live in peace, sort of (if only because of their xenophobic culture….might have to re-draw the map to explain this), but generally lorded it over everyone else, taking what they wanted and threatening attack if anyone complained. Basically. So one nation finally got fed up and attacked, and then EVERYONE (except Samare) attacked. Asorame would have won the war if Jadrus hadn’t lost it and blown everything up (more or less).

So, there are these people who are spying on the Remish people, making sure they don’t come back into power again who hear about Rex’s mission. They’re afraid that if Asorame is brought back into power because of Jadrus’s ‘miracle invention’ (which no one understands the true nature of), then everything would go back to the way it was or else there would another horrible war and this time they would lose and everything would be awful again. Anyways, they go after Rex and try to stop him.

There are also some races that agree with this sentiment and are in league with the Opposition, and so they too try to stop Rex.

So, this is a sort of story of seeking redemption, sparking rebirth and questioning whether or not something is worth saving. There’s also stuff about judgment and responsibility and how one person’s idiocy can make a whole nation suffer and stuff like that. Should probably decide on a certain collection of related themes.

The Opposition (as I have mentally labeled them) can’t directly confront/capture Rex because outside of Asorame he is very, very powerful because the magic is a lot more, um, heightened outside of Asorame’s poisonous atmosphere. They aren’t sure what he’s going to do. They’ve tried speaking with him/detaining him before, but….it really didn’t work. They have evidence of his heightened abilities because this particular confrontation.

Okay, so that’s Rex’s incentive for starting his journey. So why would Gehnn and Yul leave behind their peaceful, quiet lives to help a total stranger who claims to be a member of a race that’s supposed to be extinct?

Well, it can’t just be for the curiosity value. Hm.

Okay, well, let’s go back to G and Y’s backstory:

G ran away from home at a young age and immediately got into trouble in the Big City. A Big Bad named Jethr got her out, on the condition that she become part of his gang. She became a thief, and a very valuable one. Yul was also a thief, but more of the bruiser type. They both decided to run away from Jethr, who tried to get them back and failed. They ran all the way to Yeggronn, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the Continent and is known as the City on the Border – it’s right between the Northlands and Southlands. It’s a good place to get lost in, so they did.

So Gehnn saves Rex from dehydration and starving to death in the desert (he was pretty exhausted from his confrontation with the Opposition, as well as low on food since they stole his supplies (all they can really do is hinder him at this point)).

Still not sure why he wants them to come with him or why they would want to go with him. This is always where I get stuck: The Call to Heroism. The Hero’s Call. Whatever you want to call it. I get stuck when it comes to this point. It took me forever to figure out the stuff about Rex. So I know why HE’S on this journey. But no idea why anyone else would be. 

(also, I have a feeling that I should clarify that the Remish/Rems are the natives of Asorame - Asorame is pronounced AH-sor-REM. Similar to how the River Thames is pronounced, basically.) 

Some more of my comic script. This is actually from the beginning, so hopefully it'll make sense. 

If the scene sounds familiar...well, it is. I drastically revised the script from Chapter 1, so hopefully this is a bit more interesting and better paced.  

Chapter 1: The Man in the Thicket (revised)

(scene: Gehnn at the stall. It’s dead. She is very bored.)

(Yul comes up behind her and grabs her shoulders.)

Yul: GOTCHA!

Heh heh heh, sorry, sorry. You just…sorry. You were there and I couldn’t resist.

So….slow day, I take it?

Gehnn: Mmmrrgh.

Yul: Heh. Well, it’s a rest day. What else did you expect?

Gehnn: I didn’t expect anything. Min said we could do with the extra hours.

Yul: Selling fruit and tea to…..air?

Gehnn: Not my idea.

Yul: Hmm. Why do you work for him again?

Gehnn: I pay my rent and eat well, thank you very much.

Yul: On what he’s paying you?

Gehnn: He pays fine. Better than what you get paid.

Yul:…..true.

Gehnn: Besides, he actually teaches me things. I’ll have a stand of my own one of these days.

Yul: Oh yeah? And what’ll you sell, Miss Eyepatch?

Gehnn: I’ll sell freshly carved wooden legs. Finest make in the land. Visitors will come from all corners of the Continent just to get a glimpse of the fabled woodwork of my wooden legs. And then you’ll gaze upon my gloriously wealthy visage and weep from awe.

Yul: You have a strange mind, Gehnn.

Gehnn: Sure I do. I’ve got all this time to daydream.

Yul: Hm. Well, you know, Gehnn, you don’t have to stick around here all day.

Gehnn: Oh, yes I do.

Yul: I mean, it’s not like Min is going to just appear around the corner, ri-

Min: Hey, GEHNN!

Gehnn: See?

Yul: Woah.

(Min runs up to them)

Min: Lucky day, Gehnn – you’re free to go. I have a customer who wants to come down and talk terms with me, and by the looks of it, we’re not getting much business anyway.

Gehnn: Gods bless you, Min. You’re a treat.

Min: Yeah, yeah, just get out of here.

Gehnn: Supper at Moiah’s tonight, Yul?

Yul: Yeah, sure. We’ve only got one more shipment in, and it looks like they’ve got enough hands to handle it already.

Gehnn: Great. See ya!

Yul: Wait, where are you going?

Gehnn: Out for a walk. Need to get outside the walls for a bit.

Yul: But there’s a warning out –

Gehnn: Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!

Yul: Wait, Gehnn-

Gehnn: See you at Moiah’s, Yul!

(Yul and Min stand there for a minute.)

Yul: What goes on in that girl’s head…

Min: Funny you should be the one wondering about that.

Yul: Funny you should talk and think I give a rat’s -

 (scene: Gehnn walks through the city. She passes by some arguing men, and a bunch of kids running through the street. She comes up to the gate.)

Guard: You know there’s a warning out for skin hounds, right?

Gehnn: Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m not going out that far, it’s fine.

Guard: Hm. Well, it’s your hide, I suppose. And it’s not like there was a pack reported or anything.

Just stick to the creek and you should be fine. Don’t think they’ll be coming down that far from their caves.

Gehnn: Right.

Guard: Here ya go. Just be back before sundown.

Gehnn: No problem. Thank you!

Guard: Yeah, yeah.

(Gehn walks down a path. It is pretty. She looks to her left, and walks off the path. She comes to a small patch of bushes and other assorted plants. She kneels down and starts cutting off leaves from one of the bushes.)

(She hears a noise, turns. Nothing. She turns back, still alert, and cuts herself on the clippers. She eyes it distastefully, and then gathers up her things and makes to head out. She heads down the path, and suddenly sees a skin hound right by the path. She freezes, and then looks behind her. There are more coming out of the bushes, setting on their haunches. )

(she stands there. One of them leaps forward. She leaps out of their grasp, and starts running. They chase her. She falls, and is cornered. One leaps on her, and suddenly is blown off. She looks around. A man has his hand raised. There is air whirling around him. The skin hounds are blown away. They run away.)

 (Gehnn stares at him. The man stumbles forward, and falls to his knees. Gehnn rushes over to him. They look at each other, and then the man reaches out and touches Gehnn's forehead.)

(She suddenly has the image of kneeling in an empty space, her surroundings melting away. A soft whispering speaks in her ear. Gehnn looks confused, and then speaks, slowly.)

Gehnn: R....Rrrex?

 (She sees the eyes behind the mask's lenses - they are half-shut, exhausted. She stares at him, and then, slowly, reaches out to touch his face. He collapses.)

(Gehnn stares at him for a few more seconds. Then, she reaches down, and pulls him up, draping him over her back. She is surprisingly strong for her size. As an afterthought, she reaches down and picks up his staff, and with that, she takes off with him towards the city.)

(She comes to the gate, banging on it. It opens, and the guard comes out, looking concerned.)

Guard: What -

(she rushes past. The guard looks astounded. His partner comes out, staring after Gehnn.)

(Gehnn takes Rex to the hospital. She bursts through the door, Rex drooping over her shoulders)

Doctor: Well, hello, Gehnn.