Another "Linkage" illustration

Linkage has been a nebulous original character. They started out as a cisgender boy, and when I revived the character a few years back, I thought they were a trans teen. Imagine my surprise and delight when I decided to make Linkage nonbinary and suddenly, the character became this cheeky little [insert your expletive of choice here] and so much more interesting a personality than my first draft ideas.

Linkage is descended from South Asian
peoples of Old Earth, specifically from several Indonesian ethnic groups. I wanted to showcase Linkage finding out their old earth roots with some headdresses and emblems from different Indonesian cultural groups in yellows, oranges, and reds while showcasing their hacking profession via digital text and Linkage's virtual headphones(they can activate these psychically) are in blues.

My mom told me how she appreciates the fabrics on my characters and that they look like the fabric they're emulating(she sews and makes clothing). 

All I can think about was that time in high school art class when one of the fashion design folks left her seat from the front to walk around and view other classmate's work and she became angered by how dare I, the 'cartoon/comic artist', draw such an incredible dress on one of my characters(who was an anthro cat, no less!). 

The character's accessories and outfits should also reflect their cultural background and sense of modernity in the far future, yet not look bland as scifi clothing tends to. I mean, clothing in fantasy often looks interesting and culturally significant, so why can't science fiction clothes too?

I also love SF book covers which tend to highlight other aspects of the character's life or several characters' lives in the story. 

Here, Linkage has a pet from another world they once visited. I deliberately create my aliens, but sometimes, an alien, or its species, turns up on the fly. When that happens, lI'll use that first sketch as a template to further expand. 

So I will be expanding on this cockatrice-type creature later on!

Hope you liked this post about me explaining my process! You can see the entire slide show from start to finish on my Insta @ Handdrawnbycarmenjr

Until next time, Dear Readers!

Ages when I "discovered" my favorite authors

Andre Norton 

Age 10-11 "Warlock of the Witchworld"

My oldest big brother brought home a coverless used paperback copy. My introduction to adult Fantasy. Magic as personal, unique, familial legacy, and frightening. The rest is history... 

Lois Duncan

Age 12 "A Gift of Magic"

I lost a lot of Summertime as a kid because I was always stuck in Summer School(which is also a favorite 80s movie of mine. My first film showing a pregnant teen and the storyline NOT punishing her for that). I found this book on the school library spinner rack(found so many favorites over the years on the spinner rack). The cover was a touched-up photograph of an eerie-looking pre-teen white girl. Her eyes aglow while she sat crouched in an easy chair, her fingers digging into its arms while she stared at the viewer. Behind her was another photo of a younger girl seemingly floating in shades of blue. The story was as surreal and real as a story could get about a regular girl inheriting her matriarchal line's ability to telepathy, telekinesis, and prescience.

Anne McCaffrey 

Age 20 "The Rowan"

Now in the realm of far-future SF with a psychic woman protagonist(thanks to A Gift of Magic) I started to relish reading about. This title was the first in a family drama/space opera series. The protagonist is in blue clothing and seat on a seat likened to a throne, appearing as regal as any queen. An orphan, she is considered one of the most powerful psychics in human-inhabited space. She sits straight with her ankles crossed, her arms straight with her fingertips on her seat's arms. She is flanked by a smallish(serval-size?) snow leopard-like domesticated cat. More psychic abilities and alien-implied invasions of the galaxy. The first story where the protagonist and her intended get together, she gets pregnant, and they don't immediately marry(they marry in the second book when she's pregnant with their third child). That blew my mind and I appreciated this subplot point. 

Ursula K. le Guin

Age 23(?) "Catwings Returns"

I know I read this story late in my local library, not even realizing it was a series. It had cats with bird wings born to a regular black cat mama. The cats flying through a city felt very real to me and delighted me that another writer could make a story about a cat character that could fly. Disclaimer: My first character I made up as a kid was a brown and white cat with bat wings I called Cat the Bat.😊😄 I worked as a substitute teacher at the time.

RIP Lois Duncan

     Last week Wednesday, June 15, 2016 an important literary figure died. Her name was Lois Duncan, and she was important in my life. Writers are often asked who are the people that influenced them, and no self-respecting writer can remember all those inspiring titles or even the authors that penned them. Unfortunately, it is often when such an influential writer dies that the living, whether they also became writers or went into other professions, that we suddenly remember what such a personage did for us.

     Let me give a scenario, despite others' ideas about me, I was a poor student while in grade school. Often sickly, I would miss enough days that would put me behind certain subjects. Therefore, from 6th grade to 10th grade (with at least two summers I did well enough), I was in summer school. In 1986, I had to attend summer school (sequentially) for the first time. Because it was a private school tied in with a religious denomination, this it did not offer a summer school program, and therefore, I had to attend a middle school near the elementary school where my mom taught.

     This particular middle school was in a rough neighborhood and had some rough children. I understood the work because it was not sixth-grade but actually 4-5th level. I also did not dress as my classmates did. This wasn't my neighborhood. I didn't speak like them. My parents made sure I always had $2. My classmates hated me for this. I was bullied every day. Eventually, our class went on the prerequisite trip to the school library. I was in heaven. At this time, maybe others have noticed this, but, a lot of YA (Young Adult) novel front covers often had photographs with models posing a scene from the story, or, realistic paintings. Mostly, though, I noticed they used real people.

     Paperbacks were often on spinning racks then and the school libraries were no exception. One particular cover struck me with its blonde teen girl, sitting in an armchair with her whole body curled in it. Her unnerving stare at the reader and a ghostly image of a little girl in blue floating behind her.

From Jezebel.com 

     This looks really cool! I thought and immediately rushed to the check-out desk. I received snide remarks and under-the-breath "nerd" comments, but I didn't care.
I began to read the novel "A Gift of Magic" and was sucked in by Duncan's use of flashback, memory, and especially how her protagonist, a teenage girl with psychic abilities navigated her life. Often interested in the supernatural growing up, psychic phenomenon has often fascinated me. I credit "A Gift of Magic" for my first time reading about psychic powers. And though I have since digested other stories dealing with this subject, and perhaps, have dealt with it better, Duncan's "A Gift of Magic" was sincere, non-condescending, and a good read during a difficult moment in my childhood that I can't recommend it enough.