Septimus, my new favorite!

I'm currently working on an art series with now one of my favorite secondary characters, Septimus. And I came to a realization today while sketching the sixth piece... 

Septimus is an updated version of my boy, Sonny, a hightop fade teen bear-boy I came up with back in middle school! Septimus is instead a dog instead of a bear, an adult, lighter-skin, more excitable, even more outrageous, and q*eer. 

I know I promised my Pride Month artwork and will do so after this post! Again, thank you Dear Readers for indulging me!  

Decolonizing my own work...

When I drew a cat character back in high school, this was around the time I began to formulate characters for my Tabber the Red series. One of the more important female characters, a male student called her 'thunder thighs'. A male character 'looked gay'*.When working on characters for my scifi dog comic, one athletic-looking female character 'looked like a lesbian', as if one's body type determined one's orientation! 

I have gotten a lot of flack, criticism, and insults towards my OCs (original characters) since I could put pencil/pen to paper. And when people attack my characters, I feel as if they're attacking me. One particular hurtful comment was when a close friend and fellow artist told me to kill off my main female character because she wasn't 'good enough for the main male character', who happened to be a gangster! 

Now you probably noticed a pattern here. Most of the harshest critiques are towards my female or femme looking characters. We already know why this is and I can discuss it another time, but, the point of this post is to understand how important it is to me as an artist to show diversity even within my speculative fictional worlds. That's why even my anthro cat characters will have locs and braids. That's why I make sure that this October artist month, when I show my Tabber the Red fantasy-sword&sorcery characters who happened to be tattooed, scarred, or wearing mendhi and/or henna, I put a footnote that all those body markings have nothing to do with war or becoming a warrior and everything to do with cultural/ethnic/tribal/national identity. 

Since I pull inspiration from real-life beliefs and practices, the same respect I will accord to others, I will do so for my fictional people. To me, culture and ethnic identity is important and not to be appropriated as gimmick or 'trendy'. I'm doing my research. I'm speaking to others. I will learn, so that when my characters express themselves, the identity will be as seamless as the 'air they breathe'.

There will be more 'decolonizing' for my OCs and in my writings. Just you wait and see.

*That character that was called gay? It seems that even if that person meant it as an insult, I realized while writing the character that he is indeed QUILTBAG and I'm writing in his sexual identity and orientation into the story. So, I guess that long ago person did me a favor by 'outing' my cat character! 

From the Twitterverse - Musings

I love The Twilight Zone, but I'm keen on the episodes written by the man himself, Rod Serling, whose dialogue is sharp without being cynical, his tone sentimental and hopeful without being schmaltzy, and who lent a poetic dynamism to his characters' words. 

My Writing In A Nutshell

I've been writing my own stories since Pre-K, and get frustrated because I didn't know enough words. With parents showing me how to use a dictionary and encyclopedias, I wrote for fun. Then by 4th Grade all the way to high school, I wrote and drew stories to escape bullying and harassment. 

Now I use my stories to do what bards, griots, and other cultural storytellers do, tell the stories that will help others to not feel alone. To let them know that problems aren't unique but are familiar and shared. And therefore, there is comfort in the idea one isn't in a box and cloistered. 

I have been inclusive with my characters from the get-go. Especially now in hindsight of being this age. In this age. When I remember showing my character sheets, the comments were cruel enough, uncalled for, that for a long while, I doubted my abilities and capabilities.  

"Why is his skin so dark?" (We forget there are darker-toned people in this world?)

"Why does she look gay?" (Don't know how someone can 'look their sexual orientation' but the characters that were pointed out as 'gay' ended up being future LGBTQA+ in their stories)

"This girl has thunder thighs." (Aren't there many body types?)

"Why does this character have a foreign name?" (We all have names from countless cultures/ethnicities/and belief systems)

"Why do you make your characters SO OLD?" (They were in their mid-20s to early-30s. People also spoke out with my actual elderly characters. Why do characters have to be super-young? Won't there be other kinds of adults in one's world?)

I continue along this trajectory in my writing. I don't understand the limitations people impose on characters. It's an imaginary world. This reality has limits. Shouldn't the skies and imagination of the creator be the story's limit? Diversity and inclusivity are simply the tools to stretch the already imposing limits placed on a work of art. On a creative project. Not only must art reflect one's world, it must push further the boundaries of one's world. 

Why can't there be various ethnic groups in space or meeting aliens? Why can't a fat woman be the next wife to an emperor after the last wife passed away in childbirth? Why can't elderly people be leads in a scifi epic? Why does the lead have to be a certain shade? And why can't there be multiple characters who are LGBT+? Who is to tell me that the Patwah I grew up with can't be in the same scifi with aliens living among us? And why should I erase the reality that give my imaginary worlds' gravitas? Heft and weight? 

The disheartening comments reveal more about the persons than about my talents and ability to tell a story.

Dreaming into Work or The Muse Doesn't Do Your Work

Another writer asked how important dreams are to one's work-in-progress.

I've gotten a couple of stories from my dreams.

If I'm not stressed out and sleep well, my dreams are often sequential, full color, with a cast of characters.

I find this crazy. Some may find this manah from Heaven. It probably isn't in that the work of putting together a viable writing project is still involved.

I have two comic WIPs, a SF novelette, and a Fantasy novella strictly from dreams alone. And still working out each and every one of them to this day.

I've gotten a couple of stories from dreams. If I'm not stressed out and sleep well, my dreams are often sequential, full color, with a cast of characters. It's crazy.

Well, we were asked what was one's craziest dream. I have plenty, as Disney's Ariel would say.

One in which I was chased by robotic dogs.
Another, I witnessed a naiad (I think that's a freshwater nymph?) carried off from her swampland lake by her love interest, a centaur.

Both yielded two story drafts and their accompanying artwork. There's more but that will be for other posts.

Why the Teacher(s)?

Happy 2019!

I tend to have a lot of educator characters (main and minor) in my slice-of-life comics and I wondered about that. 

And then it occurred to me: While reading "Archie", I was often curious about teacher, Miss Grundy, and the school principal, Mr. Weatherbee. 

What did they do after school? Did they like each other? What kind of families did they have or come from? What were their hobbies? 

As the child of a schoolteacher, I knew that teachers didn't live at the school but had homes like everybody else. Also, why were story teachers always old?

These sorts of questions drove me crazy as a kid. I also had to stop a lot of stupid rumors among my fellow elementary school classmates.

No, teachers didn't live at the school. They didn't sleep under their desks.
No, teachers had families and kids.
They do have spouses.
And teachers had nothing to do with the cafeteria food menu.
That's why they often bring their own lunches.
And no, teachers didn't give out homework to torment us.
Oftentimes, they had to answer to a higher authority, such as the school administrators and school boards.

Why did I only see a scratching of the surface on these musings when I watched those Hollywood films about a teacher going into a ghetto neighborhood to 'save the children'? What about the teachers who already lived there? Didn't they have a say?

Family, friends, family friends, I was always surrounded by teachers. Why not tell the stories I overheard? Why not come up with my own?

Teachers have a life, let's all acknowledge that, shall we?

The Art of Plugging Away

Wow, I haven't done an 'Art of Plugging Away' post in a LONG time!

One of the side effects since updating my characters to Caribbean(or the diaspora), I realize I don't know how to spell most of the food/drink I've grown up with and have taken for granted.😄😍

Will list those words I had to do an Internet search on for an upcoming post.

INKTOBER 2017 PROJECTIONS

Last year, I worked on most of the characters from the dog Great Depression novel.

While I'm still working on that, during many of the disasters, and Irma, a curious thing happened: a science fiction story near and dear to me, that I've had in mind since childhood, started to figuratively write itself! These will be a series of shorts that I'm currently compiling.

For this Inktober, I'll showcase these SF characters with updated looks!

Just as I did with NaNoWriMo and Camps NaNoWriMo to pen most of the Great Depression novel, I'm using #Inktober2017 to work on a slice-of-life comic series. So, HAPPY INKTOBER!

P.S. If you wish to see my Inktober 2016, hop over to my DeviantArt profile at http://coppersphinx.deviantart.com

Somebody's Become A Bad Guy

Someone's becoming a villain.

A character who I thought would be a help to my main protagonists is frightfully becoming an antagonist. The more scenes with his best friend, my male main character, he is showing another side that no one who knows him is especially liking.

The more my hero gets close to my shero/heroine, the more antagonistic this 'friend' becomes!

Also, the schoolmate friend who I thought would simply be a weak secondary character is actually getting stronger the more he interacts with my protags as well as with other characters. He is becoming my main couple's 'cheerleader' and doing his best to support them both emotionally, not just in obvious material means.

These writerly revelations has changed several chapters and relationships as well as the tone of the story in a dynamic way. Because of such revelatory mutations, I don't have to rely on several of my journal notes. I can simply write blindly and freely.

More to come...

Imagine Nation (Pop culture TV show)

Imagine Nation is a show on NHK World TV's channel (a Japanese news' channel for English-speaking viewers) that deals with anime, manga, animation, video games, cartooning, and speaking to industry insiders. The show is less than half an hour and I'll talk about it in another post. Right now, I want to bring up a quote I wrote down.

"There are things I don't want others to know about me. And there are things about people close to me that I wouldn't want to have disclosed either. I feel the same way about characters. I mean, not everything has to be revealed to the readers, because it's more beautiful when some things are left unsaid. I think the readers will appreciate it more." - Reiko Shimizu (mangaka)

This is an important quote to a writer from a comic writer. I don't know how to better place this in the context of the life of writing. The best I can understand from this quote from Mangaka (Comic writer) Reiko Shimizu is that a writer, not even the creator of whatever given media can absolutely know every bit and detail about one's characters. These clues may only be revealed in the process of writing. While in the moment of writing one's story can the stranger become the friend. The unfamiliar becomes the familiar. What is the mystery can only be understood and revealed through the active process of WRITING.

To learn more about "Imagine Nation" the show:

Imagine Nation official site

Imagine Nation On Demand

Imagine-Nation on NHK-World on Facebook

How Does Your Reader Feel?

On the telephone with a family friend, she brought up something interesting:
She not only asked about characters as if they were real. My friend believed that my rate of progress (drafts that I'd shown her) was greater than how I felt about my output. What I saw as the tip of the iceberg, she viewed as a great deal and fascinating. It not only opened my eyes to what I was attempting to accomplish, but lifted a veil of discontent I had been feeling for weeks.
There is no excuse for it, the feeling of inadequacy a creator feels for the project. Is it because we as creative types strive to outdo our last job? Does this feeling help us to create better and hopefully stronger each time?

Earlier fans of my storytelling was my oldest niece. Or rather, she being younger, became an unwilling audience once my stories became tiresome.

School friends were my next readers, except I was known as the Artist, illustrating my tales first.
One summer in 1989 (I think), stuck in summer school for math and all of us watching "Summer School" vhs tape from the library, I completed a full comic story. I used notebook paper and my favorite writing pens at the time. I used highlighters for color. I used a copier machine, and then, passed the copies around (I think they were two) during class. I'd like to feel this helped me and my classmates get through the monotony. By the time the booklets were passed around, everybody had their opinions: the story was good but the ending was rushed, or they didn't like how the hero's problem was solved so coincidentally. These comments came from friends and foes alike. And though I was annoyed by the reactions at the time (so sue me! I was 12-14 years old), I learned how much I had to delay resolutions. There had to be delayed satisfaction and a solution (if any) solved organically.

Fast forward to a secretarial position with the public education district office, and another short story was published. With many of my tales and ideas, I use my latest obsessions or readymade knowledge. Mine at the time was the history of the Middle east. Always fascinated by the cultures that gave us astronomy, algebra and the number zero, I decided it was time I wrote another story within my 'Tabber the Red' series. These are standalone yet linked stories set on a feline world. Yet, unlike what I was reading and seeing on shelves, my cats were upright, wore clothing, had different cultures, religions, were separated by ethnic groups and/or nations. So much like our world but so different.

My story took place during the ancient world of the lynx people. There was a messianic figure and the prophecy that drew him and his followers. Adventures ensued and this was one such tale. When my editor learned I could draw, he insisted I illustrate my story. I drew a caracal (a lynx cousin that inhabits the deserts) character wearing a head covering. The story was published both online and in a trade paperback edition. When I told one of my coworkers, who had showed interest in my writing, a budget analyst, about how to easily obtain the story, she told me that I must never give a story away. She told me that when it was available in print, she would purchase it.
I belatedly realized my coworker was Muslim and began to wonder if she would take offense to my story.
Later, she exclaimed excitement to me about the story and its characters. She thought that the Middle Eastern flavor of the book was thrilling. Its dark fantastic undertones she brushed off as she was used to reading horror. I was elated and told her I was glad she enjoyed it. That coworker told me she would keep up with my stories from now on.

Again and again, there is validation to this lonely life. It never fails to excite me that such seclusion from living in one's head can still lead to touching others.

"Bascomb" & "Slash"

"Bascomb Thompkins" (c) by Carmen K. Welsh

"'Slash' Castellano" (c) by Carmen K. Welsh

Art again! Jeez, I really need more breaks! Was so drained, I couldn't even lift myself to do more image uploads to this blog.
But now I am back and, hopefully, in FULL FORCE.

Here are two characters from the dog novel (Yes, it is still being typed). The one on the left is my adorable Newfoundland (Yay, I like these dogs the same reason I like Saint Bernards and Great Pyrenees - the later used in an 80's Japanese anime "Belle & Sebastian"). As pups, these breeds tend to resemble bear cubs, and these dogs seem to know they are of immense size, and so, they are often good with children.

Bascomb is my straight-shooter, a down-to-earth guy. In the middle of the story, he meets my canine gang leader to the right.
Both men, though worlds apart, become fast friends. Yet, in spite of my dog gang boss' ties to the underworld, he does not try to besmirch his boxer friend.

I also have Boxers who are boxers, but I did not want to use the breed for my champion heavyweight character. Too obvious, done to death.
Also, though the Newfoundland is considered a gentle giant, I think, in a boxing match, could take on a Boxer any day! But, I digress. I don't want the dog lovers to come with torches and pitchforks!

'Slash' with little girl

"Slash with little girl" (c)

This is a darling picture, but without giving away the plot, I can tell you I outlined the above scene.

Miss Francis as a young girl (circa 1923)

"Miss Francis as a young girl" (c)

This is my gangster's secretary, at age 13 or 14, I believe.

Man, I just love that little gem I discovered online: "Children's Fashions 1900-1950".

Miss Francis is about to enter her apartment building. In the scene where this image comes from, she will encounter her future employer.

I am studying Hester Street, an area famous for being predominately Jewish, with immigrants from many Eastern-European countries.

Isabella Spinoli

"Isabella Spinoli" (c) by Carmen K. Welsh

Someone noted that this character reminds them of those "Rosie the Riveter" WWII posters, and it makes sense.
She is no stranger to hard work: as a young child, she labored in the factories during the 'Teens (circa 1913, 1914, and 1915).

Isabella is my gangster's childhood friend. They grew up on the same block. Because of Slash's reputation and lifestyle, she does not keep in touch. However, when the gangster shows up again to do him the favor of checking out his young pal, Stacey Hankin, Isabella feels a new affection for him that he trusted and thought enough about her to such an important task.

"Grace & 'Slash'"

And while we are on the subject of couples, please know that my canine crime boss is very much a lady's man!
Grace and 'Slash' Castellano met at a casino and have been together for 5 years. Of his many girlfriends, she's his favorite.

"'Slash' & Stacey (embrace)"

A coworker's first words to me about this sketch (paraphrased): "Aww..She feels so safe in his arms. He looks so strong, as though he will protect her always."
That statement stuck with me.
When my coworker said that, it gave me new appreciation for this rough sketch.
Oftentimes, artists, we meet people who GET IT. Who GET our art. Who GET our meaning, what we were trying to say in a particular piece.

Since I write other stories besides this WIP, I have my favorites. These two, since I envisioned them in 6th grade Summer School (it seems I thought up a lot of stuff in Summer School!), are one of my favorite couples!

"Children Isabella & Giovanni ages 8 and 9"

Sometimes, you get an image so perfect, so right, that you really don't want to redo it to final form. This rough sketch is one of them.

I'm not saying that, as an artist, I don't think it needs improvement or refinement. It most certainly does. What I mean is the spirit of the draft, how both characters' personalities shine through, at least, to me.

Isabella and Giovanni grow up together. As adolescents, they become lovers. They break up, each going their separate ways. She marries respectively as he grows into a life of crime. In spite of this, the childhood sweethearts still keep in touch on occasion.
Even in this picture, circa 1914, as they walk side-by-side, they appear to hold hands.

There are several periods and/or decades that are my personal favorites. While I often mention the 1940s being my earliest love, I was especially fond of the 1880s - 1900s, what would be quaintly named 'Turn-of-the-century', or the more aptly historical 'Industrial Age'. I especially like drawing Isabella's pinafore (I believe that's the 'apron' or 'smock' that went over most girl's dresses at the time). They wore these during school and house/yard work, and almost never in church or special occasions such as house parties.
Notice the laced up boots both genders wore. I like drawing these. Also, I have Giovanni in knickerbockers.
My dad once mentioned he wore these as a boy!
I LOVE History.

"Child Giovanni & Adult Benniamo"

On the left-side is my male protagonist at 14. This is a crucial time in his life as he is one year after experiencing family tragedy. He's spent time on the streets. He hasn't hit puberty yet. He's not yet 'discovered' by the mob boss who will irrevocably change his life's direction.

On the right-hand is my protagonist's youngest brother as an adult.
He wears, what I learned from research, what's called a Chesterfield coat, a favorite of mine.
This look was iconoclastic of the 1930s/40s.

The brothers are opposites: 'Slash' Castellano is the eldest son, born in Italy, arrived in the U.S. as an infant, and was raised in the States. He is sullen, even as a boy, moody with a ferocious temper. He was lean as a child and later developed an athletic body in his mid-teens.

His youngest brother, affectionately called 'Benny-amo', on the other hand, is slightly pudgy, and though he looks more wolfish, holds a happier outlook.
Benniamo will play a crucial role in the family dynamics as well as prove to be a catalyst for major changes to the Castellano family.

"Meeting Minny"

 

"Meeting Minny"

In the above scene, Stacey makes the rounds with Slash, meeting and eating with the gang boss's 'subordinates'. Minerva aka 'Minny', is the alpha female among the lieutenants' wives and girlfriends, though her own husband is low-ranking in the organization.

Minerva is quite nervy and spunky, and, to prove she submits to no one, especially the gang leader whom she grew up with, she makes a point about how handsome he is by grabbing hold of his face, much to her satisfaction and the embarrassment of everyone else at the table!