These were preliminary sketches of Molly and Griffen from Jenn Manley Lee‘s Dicebox webcomic. I did an illustration of the two for Jenn’s birthday.
Category Archives: 1999
More Oblivion Seas
More character sketches for Oblivion Seas. I’m not sure who (or what the figure in the top left is). The guy with the muttonchops is the first mate. The kid with the scarred lip is the slave of the guy in the powdered wig. I’d planned to set the series in the mid-1900s or earlier. The masked figure was inspired by Hodgson’s novel The Ghost Pirates
Shipwreck Survivors
Here are rough sketches of the some of shipwreck survivor characters featured in Oblivion Seas. I remember planning to have about a dozen of them to begin with. Then, of course, I’d start whittling them down as the horrors of the Sargasso took their toll.
Someday I’d like to do the story as a graphic novel. One of many someday projects. Sigh.
Kip’s Project
These are character sketches for a proposal Kip Manley wrote for the webertainment company. I’ve forgotten what the title was. It was set at the 19th century during the irrational exuberance of the telegraph boom.
Logo Design
These were sketches for a logo design. Right now I don’t remember what the project was. It was either for a business that trained other businesses in being more green or it was for a website promoting environmental stewardship. Jason Oxrieder did the final logo design, whatever it was. If you ever need a logo done perfectly Jason’s your man.
Oblivion Seas
Another series that made it to the proposal stage was Oblivion Seas. It was inspired by the writing of William Hope Hodgson, especially the novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig. The series was to feature the adventures of a band of castaways trapped in the Sargasso Sea. One of the menaces that they must overcome were “weedmen”, intelligent amphibious creatures that liked the taste of human blood. Hodgson was somewhat vague in his description of the creatures; they seemed to have aspects of human shape but weren’t strictly humanoid.
Mostly Malekin
Nothing new to say. I often do sketches of a character making faces. I often make faces myself.
Malekin
The elf detective’s name was Malekin.
The basic premise behind the series came up while tossing back and forth imaginary taglines for cop shows. You know the sort of things – “She’s a wacky underwear model, he’s an uptight venture capitalist, what mysteries will they solve before they unlock the puzzle of their love?” or “He’s a priest, she’s a vampire, they fight crime!”
The original tag for The Cauldron was “She’s a hard-boiled big city cop. Her new partner is a fairy. They’re detectives.”
Lame. Definitely not a tag I’d actually use. But you’ve got to start somewhere. From there it was a matter of figuring out what sort of fairy the new cop was. What sort of relationships did humans and the fey have? What sort of crimes did they investigate? It would have been a fun series to write.
Cauldron Cops
The Cauldron was to be a sort of Law and Order for supernatural crimes. Besides the two protagonists there were to be four or five other detectives. They were all at least a little crazy. Dealing with demons and monsters on a regular basis can have that effect.
Cauldron Plot Ideas
More development work for The Cauldron. The webertainment company asked for a summary of the first ten episodes. The notes here are the rough ideas behind each plot. Each episode was to run about 8 minutes so none of the plots could be terribly complex.
