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Doodlies.update

2018-01-23T11:56:00.004-08:00

Something has severed Anna's spirit from her body. Soal the Demon finds her in limbo, all full of anxiety and amnesia. As a collector of strays, he takes on a contract with her and he becomes her guardian on her journey to find her body. They set out on the trail of a bountied criminal who has been kidnapping children with his giant robots. On the way, they discover Anna is an Empath, meaning she is overtaken by & feels the emotions of those around her. A strong reaction to guilt triggers a panic attack that makes her start to remember her mother.

Nov 2017

2017-11-07T18:51:00.001-08:00

Missing Angel Juan

2017-08-10T14:42:00.001-07:00

About a month ago I was rereading the Dangerous Angels anthology, a series of interconnected novels by my favorite author FLB, which I must've read about ten times in fifteen years. I got as far as to the book, Missing Angel Juan, in the span of the afternoon. I set it down and have been meaning to pick it back up, my mind the whole time having flitters of thoughts like, 'Angel Juan is gonna be stuck in [his predicament] until I read him out of there' and get a little wistful on his behalf. It's been months since I worked on my graphic novel, and I think of my own characters, pages closed on them while they were climbing through desert canyons. I should probably help them get out of there.

Contract

2017-03-22T18:19:00.002-07:00

Solemn Prayer for Mother Earth

2017-01-21T14:26:00.001-08:00

Como podrias tu vivir
Como podrias tu vivir
Sin ella

Sketchbook 2016

2017-01-15T14:32:00.001-08:00

Wake Up

2016-12-10T21:28:00.003-08:00

Trust and Herds

2016-07-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

What if the Puppet Masters (or the Illuminati or what-have-you) are actually benevolent and working toward pro-social ends? Would we trust them?

Meditation Soal

2016-06-14T14:25:00.003-07:00

Kaelen character concept

2016-06-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

.

2016-05-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

I need practice on making text additions look better.

Digital Editing

2016-05-11T13:58:00.001-07:00

I'll probably change this up more later (still doing everything with a trackpad and I can tell where it shows) but here's my first edit. Click for big.

Spirit River

2016-05-10T11:33:00.001-07:00

Finally got a good photo of this painting. Click for big.

Plot Notes and Concept Art (Act One!)

2016-04-29T23:34:00.001-07:00

Anna is a ten year old girl who wakes up in limbo with very few memories of her lived experiences. Limbo is represented as a Waiting Room for spirits. She is trapped in there for a few months.

The Waiting Room is occasionally curated by groups of Demons bringing through other spirits and entities to the other side. She tries to get their attention, but the only person to ever respond is the demon Soal Storge.

Anna, astrologically Cancer, is guided by water and the moon. She is an Empath, meaning she uncontrollably feels what other people feel. Soal, astrologically Aries, is guided by fire and Mars. These are also indicative of feminine and masculine qualities. I have my qualms with astrology irl, but it makes for cool symbolism and studying it in terms of the project is fun.

Soal reveals to Anna that she’s been trapped in the Waiting Room, unable to be sorted like the rest of the
spirits, because she never died. Something has happened to sever her spirit from her body. He suggests she has a body somewhere, and that he’ll help her find it if they make a blood contract.

After they make the contract, he makes a Totem out of his spit, his blood, and both of their hair and uses magic to bind her spirit to the Totem. The Totem takes the shape of her human form.

They cross a river and come to a technology called a Teleportation Phaser. Phasers are a common method of travel created by the premier engineering conglomerate Charles Corp.

I like to think of Anna as the Calvin to Soal’s Hobbes.

Soal leads them first to a small town to find his friend Marla and get Marla to go to his house and watch his pets. In this town Anna sees bounty posters detailing a villain called The Mechromancer, whose insignia is a sugar skull.

She learns that The Mechromancer has been kidnapping children with a giant robot.

They decide it’s a good lead to follow. They learn rumors place him far in the south, south of a community called Santa Rojo, and decide to travel to the next city where they use the Phaser.

They have to hike through a forest for a few days on their way to that town and they come across the monster Gemini- Maggie and Mayhem- a conjoined twin and old friends of Soal’s who have been hired to bring Anna back to the Waiting Room.

We learn that magic can be cast using blood sacrifice, but truly creative people can just intend spells into reality- usually through some form of creative expression. Maggie is a spell caster where Mayhem is a warrior. Maggie casts a guilt hex on Anna, but they get away.

Soal changes course from Santa Rojo to the east, to San Ayong, where a healer named Lorna lives.

Soal knows she can lift Gemini’s hex. While they travel, the guilt manifests itself in weird, uncomfortable physical ways. Uncontrollable magic guilt mixed with uncontrollable empathy make for a strange and dangerous combination. Along the way to San Ayong, being impacted by the hex, we learn Anna has immense feelings of guilt toward something that happened with her mother while she was alive.

When they finally get to San Ayong, Lorna cares for Anna in a very maternal and loving way. They make food together, clean together; Lorna gives Anna a bath etc. Lorna encourages Soal and Anna to take up meditation so as to keep the effects of the hex at bay. They are waiting for Lorna’s friend Kaelen, a cleric, to come and help perform the ritual to lift the hex.

to be continued...

Children

2016-04-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

We talk a lot about gun violence and mass shootings in this country, but I notice at least twice a week there are stories about parents here killing either their own children or their partner's child and that's been fairly consistent. I of course have my own complex sociological theories about why this going on- some of the root causes, which are many of the same root causes as gun violence. If gun violence is an epidemic in this country, than infanticide is as well.

(I don't know much about guns. I've heard both sides of the arguments on gun control and my opinion on gun regulation is that they should be at least as difficult to obtain/maintain as a car.)

Anna painting

2016-04-19T16:38:00.001-07:00

I Really Do Love Scarlett Johansson, but

2016-04-16T00:35:00.001-07:00

News articles call the quiet, indignant reluctance to see Ghost in the Shell with the casting a white actress as "outrage". We're just a little disappointed.

Wip 3

2016-04-15T02:13:00.000-07:00

It's hard to get good photos of this piece due to its size

Scan dump

2016-04-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

Doodles/ concept art for novel

Calavera Anna at the River

2016-04-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

After escaping limbo, Anna and her demon travel over a spirit river to get to the physical realm

large painting wip 2

2016-03-19T21:48:00.001-07:00

wip large painting

2016-03-16T22:26:00.001-07:00

Anxiety Attack

2016-02-27T20:12:00.002-08:00

Illustration from my writing workshop this week

Black America

2016-02-22T11:20:00.002-08:00

Blaming Black America for Black-on-Black crime is like blaming the gladiators for gladiator-on-gladiator crime.

Doodles Feb 2016

2016-02-11T18:17:00.003-08:00

Anna & Soal and the Mechromancers Insignia.