THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Finished working on the story reel for show 1. It was screened yesterday so I don’t know how it went yet. I have a Storyboard revisions meeting for that show tomorrow so I’ll find out then.  Next week I begin my new position as a storyboard revision artist.

As for now, I’m helping out show 2 on some Itchi and Scratchy scenes.  Fun stuff.

FAMILY

This is very sad for me, so I’ll be very very brief. My Abuelita passed away earlier this week. She was the last of my grandparents.  I loved her very much and I miss her.  Still, I can’t be too sad since she is now probably reunited with my Abuelito and more importantly, God.  Please pray for her and my family.

ART

I’ve started my next project. It’s going to be a Motion Comic/Ghettomation.  The last project I did I wanted to keep it all secret until I was ready to publish it. Problem with that is, I can’t really write about it or the process since I can’t reveal the details I’m working on. It’s not as interesting to read. I’ve decided this time to write about everything. This means spoiling the story.  It also means I can write about everything I’m thinking about.  How I’m going approaching the story, the problems I’m coming across and how I’m trying to solve them.  So in this post, I’m going to write about the basic set up of the world I’m going to be writing about as well as how I came up with it.

Sometimes on the way home from work (which is often a bit over an hour), I challenge myself to come up with story ideas or, at the very least, story concepts. Mostly for fun.  On one of these occasions I decided to come up with an “antithesis character”.  I was thinking about Robert E. Howard‘s Conan the Cimmerian  and Michael Moorcock‘s Elric of Melniboné. How Elric is the antithesis of Conan. Where Conan is a dark skinned barbarian, Elric is an albino aristocrat.  Where Conan is a powerful warrior, Elric is a weak but powerful sorcerer.  Both these characters are entertaining to read and both are great characters.  I was thinking, that for fun, I’d do the same thing with a contemporary modern character that everyone knows.  I was wondering if it would be possible to get just as interesting a character. The “no brainer” character I chose to make an antithesis character from was, Harry Potter.

First both Harry Potter‘s story and my story would take place in the modern world. If Harry was a scrawny white skinned boy, my character, who I later named Rob Howard, would be very fit and dark skinned. If Harry went to school, Rob would not. If Harry was a wizard, Rob would be a warrior. So here’s where things started getting interesting for me, if Harry was destined to fight and defeat the big bad evil guy, Rob would be prophesied to BECOME the big bad evil guy.

So this is how I put it all together:

Rob Howard was born into a family of vile villains who’s only goal in life was to take over and conquer the world.  According to prophesy (I haven’t work out details of it just yet), Rob is destined to fulfill this goal. He is prophesied to become the Dark Lord that will enslave the world and rule it with an iron fist. Unlike his family, Rob was born decent, honest, and moral. Everything he believes in, is the opposite of what his family believes. He wants no part of his supposed destiny.  To this end, he ran away from home while still in high school. Not only to get away from his evil family but also, to try to get away from the constant assassination attempts by The Sorcerers.  The Sorcerers are a group of self appointed protectors of the earth who seek out apparent evil and thwart it. Upon hearing about the prophesy, they decided to use their magick to stop it before it had a chance to come true, by killing Rob. Rob attempted to explain to the Sorcerers that he had no desire to conquer anything or rule over anyone, but they wouldn’t listen. Going into hiding was his only chance of ever finding any kind of peace at all.

Sometime during his self imposed exile, he came across a weapon (I haven’t figure out the details of how yet). In one occasion, when the Sorcerers discovered his whereabouts, he discovered the weapon had the ability to nullify their magick. It also increased his strength, agility, and stamina.  Not too soon after that, Rob also met his first ally. A mysterious wise, one eyed man who taught Rob virtue, wisdom, how to survive on his own, as well as, how to best hide and defend himself from his family and the Sorcerers. He also gave Rob a very intelligent Raven to keep him company.  A Raven that soon became Rob’s best friend.

It was this mysterious man who discovered that the weapon Rob had found had an apparent sinister side. It seems the weapon’s power came at a price.  Whenever it was used, it tried to take control of the wielder. It tried to possess the wielder, control him and enslave him to it’s will. Upon hearing this, Rob decided to rid himself of the weapon, only to discover, to his dismay, that it always found a way back to him.  So Rob decided to no longer use it, only the Sorcerers would still find him once in a while and the their attacks had become more fierce and powerful.  These attack would often force Rob to use the weapon if he wanted to have any chance of surviving.

Now the questions are: Will Rob succumb to the weapon? Is succumbing to the weapon how he becomes the Dark Lord?  Will the constant attack by the Sorcerers CAUSE the creation of the Dark Lord they so desperately want to prevent? I don’t know the answers.  It sounds like fun to me, to try to answer them though.

So that’s the set up for my next project. Next time, I’ll tell you the story I’m going to animate based on this set up.  Below is a very rough sketch I did of Rob, some Raven exploration sketches and an attempt at the cursed weapon.

Let me know what you think of it all.

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