Art Department Strikes! 2

Well Dan, I hope you're happy.

Continuing with this week's theme of "Art Department Strikes!" (not to be confused with 'UAW Strikes!' different stories altogether), here is another blast from my past. Conceived back in those heady days of college, this character was yet another half-formed idea that had no home. However, unlike most of the others in my notebooks, I gave this idea away to my friend Dan, in the hopes that he would do something cool with it.

(listens to sounds of crickets)

But, since he's been on my case for the past hmmm... 10 years to do something about any of the ideas I'd/we'd had back then, I figured he wouldn't mind if I borrowed the character back for a return visit.

Let's see if I can remember the gist of the character... oh, wait, I remember now. Pretty much I came up with the name, 'technopire', and left it at that. Pretty sure I couldn't copyright that... okay, a little more detail. I think I came up with the basic idea back in one of our biology classes back in the start of my college career. Something about a bunch of evil government scientists (my favorite kind!)getting their mitts on a real vampire, and attempting to make a supernatural predator into some manner of controllable weapon. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the plan wouldn't work out and some manner of over-the-top action/violence would ensue.

That's about it, really. Yeah, honestly, a lot of these ideas weren't exactly groundbreaking or visionary. I kinda feel like the Jerry Bruckheimer of daydreamt story ideas. Except without, you know, money. Or connections. Or power. Or Kiera Knightley's cell number. You get the picture. But, they were a lot of fun to work on- again, that world-building I love so much. Even more fun was the collaborative process with my friends. It is a tremendous amount of fun to brainstorm with friends- ideas will build on top of ideas, and the craziest of them seem perfectly reasonable, and everyone is always more than ready to take it to even higher levels- things you would never have thought of, and things you only dreamt of, all seem to fall into place like they were meant to be, when working out these ideas with your friends.

That, my friends, is gold.

Oh, one last thing- he never had a name before. This one is an homage to a well-known comic and gaming artist, Tim Bradstreet. When I first started drawing this out, I was very definitely trying to emulate the stark, detailed style he's made his signature, while keeping it true to my own particular artistic quirks. And then I got all Photoshop on its ass. Visit Tim's site here.

I'll be out of the labs this Friday (even a mad scientist's ghost needs let out now and again, especially when it's to vacation with friends), so there will be no post then. However, since I like y'all, I'll post something up Thursday.

Until then...

Music: "Supernaut" - 10,000 Homo DJs (with Reznor vocals)