Crankyman at the Beach and Sketchdumps

Ros and Kylee in swim gear. Nicodemus was draw on the same sheet, but he was severely crowded and is in the process of being relocated to a different sheet of paper.


And these are just incomplete pieces or plain old sketchdumps, but all are the product of a two-hour nap period at my workplace during which I have nothing better to do.

An Update

Boy howdy, it's been a sadly long period of time since I've actually drawn anything. Just last month I made a new Psychonauts piece, but the only fanart that'll ever crop up here will be from the Kingdom Hearts Divergence project.

NOW THEN, after an ineffectual spiel, I actually do have a reason for calling you here today, and that is to share an admittedly poorly-conceived experiment with my new tablet. I'd like you to meet Dean Rommesfeld:



So I didn't know who he was initially, he was just some avian that decided to show up while I attempted to draw with a tablet for the first time in my life. Later that evening, this is what I learned:

He's a college dropout and takes night classes for bar-tending. Apparently he's not as angry as he looks here, but he didn't seem like a bucket of sunshine, either. I'll find out in due time, I guess. He also informed me that once he starts working at a lounge, he has this weird, not-quite-relationship with a raccoon regular named Cassie Burlap.

Cassie's apparently somewhat spacey and harbours a fantasy that an adventure-filled life will confront her at the bar because she had a vision that played out like that. Well, it wasn't really a vision, it was a feeling, but she said her feelings have never been wrong. I think she's a little tipsy, but Dean seems to like her well enough.

Crankyman: Origin and Introduction (Toxic Waste Girl)

So here we have an ACTUAL post about Toxic Waste Girl; you've seen her early concept, now you'll see her as she is at present. After a bit of tedious background information on her source series.

Crankyman is a meandering project initially conceptualised by my friend Alesca and myself one evening about two years ago. We had been discussing the taxing lifestyles of superheroes: managing a normal job and life during the day and fighting crime by night; we decided they'd have to be pretty damn exhausted with so little sleeping time between. From there we designed a character whose personality would show how little sleep he gets, someone who doesn't have a fabulous day job with money to spare, someone who was probably near the range of "getting too old" to do hero work. He was jokingly nicknamed "Crankyman" by the two of us until we could think of something better for him.

The codename, unfortunately, stuck, but I'd later come up with his normal name, Nicodemus Rupert. At this point, another friend of mine, Rav, jumped on board and other characters trickled their way in; Rosaline Epp was the first supporting character to emerge though she'd grow to steal the spotlight and claim the role of main character. I can recall the progression of this idea in great detail, but I'm not quite willing to type that much, so I'll move on to the actual gist of the story.

The story is set in a fictional city of Davenburg, a city like most in comics. At the start, we meet a metahuman with the powers of light manipulation named Rosaline Epp; she's seventeen, strung out on caffeine, loud, and far too enthusiastic about everything... she's also looking for a replacement sidekick. Ros, like so many young metas in the city, participates in an activity that the current generation has dubbed "the Game" under the moniker of Prisma. The Game is a highly regulated registry of metahumans (and skilled non-metas) who take on roles of superheroes and supervillains and are assigned arch nemeses among each other according to their skill levels. Damage caused during this Game is taken into account and damage costs are charged to the perpetrators. Ros finds a replacement in the form of a 44-year-old non-meta named Nicodemus, whom she encounters defending himself from a mugger while taking out garbage in the ally behind Grocer Mart.

Through a series of events practically willed by Ros, Nicodemus reluctantly agrees to go along with her proposition. From there they fight their assigned villain(s) and a few strays and wait for something exciting to happen. Well, Ros waits, Nicodemus dreads. The bulk of Nicodemus's story will be kept under wraps here until I can write out enough of the story to reach the False arc... that's where things heat up.

Of course, there's an assload of smaller stories running through this series, but we've got so many built up that it'd defeat the point of moving forward with the comic/writing if I summarised it all here; not to mention there are a few linear arcs that compose a larger story that I'd hate to ruin for everyone. The series as a whole focuses on humour, but it has dramatic points (some very serious events, as well); the underlying theme is stagnation followed by bursts of evolution and the overall story reflects mess the old generation of heroes left in the wake of the silver age. We've pretty much got the big details of the next ten years of these characters' lives plotted out.

NOW THEN. The central characters include more than just Ros and Nicodemus (hereafter referred to as Nic), but rather than introduce ALL of them in a single post, we'll share a bit of Toxic Waste Girl as this post's focus:



Kylee Dyyvers/ Toxic Waste Girl is the only child of renowned former superhero Admiral Earth (normal alias, Brian Dyyvers). As the daughter of a famous environmentalist and all-around activist, Kylee has never had a very normal life; her youth was spent at rallies and conventions and her father forbade any television sets in the house. In addition to a lack of television and extensive travel, Kylee was also raised on a strict vegan diet, though she resents it greatly and consumes meat whenever away from her father’s watch. She doesn’t know her mother well; the woman showed up unexpectedly at Brian’s door eighteen years ago and left Kylee with him. She only visits Kylee on birthdays.

In a rebellious move against her father at fourteen years of age, Kylee took advantage of her damaging radioactive superpowers that she had kept secret from her father and joined the city’s Game as a villain. As the villain Toxic Waste Girl, Kylee provided semi-professional menace for Prisma and Sidebitch and now arches Crankyman and Prisma.

At school, Kylee is considered untouchably cool; with her bold hair and quiet and severe personality her classmates believe she emits an aura of superior confidence and thus rarely approach her. Ros apparently missed this memo and now serves as Kylee’s only close friend. In her junior year Ros learned that Toxic Waste Girl was in fact Kylee, but she kept the knowledge to herself and continued her rivalry with Toxic as if nothing else connected them.

For her own part, Kylee is a fierce and passionate young woman who has simply learned to contain her fire. Most people don't peg her as the kind of girl who'd have a jock-like sense of humour, but get to know her and you'll see that she's got something of a vulgar streak. She tires of Ros from time-to-time, but truly appreciates having the loud young woman in her life. Though she remains unaware of her nemeses’ identities in-Game. Maybe she'll catch on sometime.

Allow Me To Introduce Mark and Kent

These boys have been around for a while, but the way you see them now is their sparkly new 2008 reboot. The personalities they bear in this revamp are almost completely different from their old personalities.

The dude with glasses is Makuro Nishimura, known as Mark to everyone (a Shadow Crafter by inclination, that is, he's a light manipulator who subconsciously chose to remove light rather than enhance it) and the guy with the underbite is Kent Dabrowski (an electrokinetic, what his peers like to call a "Lightning Rod"). Both are natives of Bar Harbor, Maine (where most of my characters originate, it seems) and are BFFs, albeit ambiguously so at times XD.

And here we have both boys as college students, Mark with dreads and facial hair and Kent with a pitiful attempt at a goatee. Mark's been retconned to have had the glasses all through his grade school years, but the hair changes came along during his first year at his community college. Kent's pursuing a degree in Psychology at NYU and Mark's shooting first for a B.A. in biology and then he'll start on a long pursuit of a Ph.D in botany. My nerdy plant boy <3.

And because the HTML for this post is being an absolute dick, here's the direct link to the larger image.

So Mark's the kind of person that cranks his music up as loud as his ears can handle and buries himself in calculus or trig when he's angry, bummed, or stressed. It's therapeutic, I guess. He's not above dabbling in algebra, either, or any sort of arithmetic, he just favours calc and trig.

So the thing with Mark's real name is this: He's got a Japanese name... Yeah. The story he comes from is a relic from a very long period of my life where everything had to be manga/anime influenced. He's had that name since I created him and though he's gotten a new look, new story, new relationships, and a completely new personality I still can't bear to change his name. So it goes like this, he's half Japanese (mother's from the US and father's from Japan) and his father wanted to name his son but his mom got to nickname him.

Anyway, I'll let the boys speak now:

I. Basic Info
Name: Kent Dabrowski
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Ht and Wt: 5’9” and 145 lbs
Body Type: Ectomorphic
Shoe Size: Er… I don’t know men’s sizes so I’ll come back to this.
Smoke?: On occasion,
Drink?: With his family.
Race/Ethnicity: Heavily Polish.
Nationality: U.S.
Religion: Catholicism
Allegiance: Hm?
Languages: English, basic French, and a bit of Polish.

II.Personality
A. Likes/Favourites
-TV Show: Various superhero cartoons and live-action shows, Whose Line is it Anyway, South Park, Most Evil and other shows like it, some reality shows, and various stand-up programs, cartoons.
-Movie/s: Superhero movies, 70s and 80s B movies, science fiction

-Music: Mostly big band, jazz, and orchestral/instrumental stuff like classical compositions, movie scores, videogame scores, techno, etc. He makes exceptions for a few lyrical pieces here and there.
-Food: Kluski, chop suey, rice pilaf, Mediterranean foods, chicken strips, fried mushrooms, lunchmeat, string cheese, cereal bars.
-Drink: Sunkist
-Fashion: Generally a button-up dress shirt and slacks. Dresses tastefully, but often appears overdressed for day-to-day life (especially in his hometown), when he opts for a polo shirt instead of a button-up.
-Gizmo/Gadget: A block phone… He’s gone through too many fancier cell phones and complex electronics they’ve all met violent (albeit accidental) ends, so he sticks with the cheapest model. Comes with the electrokinetic territory.
-Animal: Orangutans.
-Colour: Electric blue.
-Topic to talk about: Whatever comes to mind first. He’s a chatterbox and usually about things no one really cares about.
-Restaurant/Fast Food: La Bella Vita Ristorante/ Arby's
-Place: The bowling alley
-Actor/Actress: Gary Oldman/ Nicole Kidman
-Sport: Soccer.
-Hobbies: Video games, driving, ranting, sleeping, reading, assembling and painting model aircraft, making phoney/offensive business cards, doodling in the margins of homework.

B. Dislikes
-TV Show: Medical dramas and game shows.
-Movie: Horror and suspense, dance movies, football movies, and over-the-top children’s films.

-Music: Eighties, rap, country, hip-hop, metal, easy listening. Mostly eighties, though.
-Food: Czernina, bratwurst, pork chops, sushi, most seafood.
-Drink: Tomato juice and V8.
-Fashion: Baggy pants, baggy shirts, corporate goth regalia, “witty” t-shirts, sweatpants.
-Gizmo/Gadget: His VCR.
-Animal: Birds.
-Colour: Baby poop green. Yes, that specific colour.
-Topic: Finances.
-Restauraunt: Waffle House.
-Place: Arizona.
-Sport: Pole vaulting and hockey.

C. Strengths
-No fear of public speaking or one-on-one speaking

-Reads emotion and body language well

-Excellent control with electrokinesis

-Holds decent grades while balancing a social life

-Makes friends rather easily

-Has a bowling average of 205

D. Weaknesses
-Abuses his electrokinesis (usually for goofing off)

-Likes to slack, especially with household chores

-Talks too much and too loudly sometimes

-Handles money poorly

-Possessive and stubborn

-Tends to see conflict where none exists.

-Lapses into black-and-white reasoning

III. Beliefs

Ghosts: Yes, though he believes they’re more of a mental presence than an actual one.
Magic: In a way.
God: Yes.
Evolution: Yes.
Legends: Legend stems from history.
Heroes: In a way.

IV. Love/Sexuality
Wife/Girlfriend: A fair amount of exes from senior high (junior high doesn’t count).
Husband/Boyfriends: No.
Romantic?: Unintentionally and in a cheesy way.
What does he/she likes in a man/woman?: A broad sense of humour that includes an occasional static shock (or in the very least, someone who wouldn’t leave him over it), physically active to an extent, a willingness to bowl even if they suck, someone who accepts that he’s a member of a metahuman supremacy group or at least tolerates it, someone who has a normal sleep schedule.
Virgin? (If not please state the age and the name of his/her first): Yes, actually.
Sexually Active?: Nothing intense at this point in his life yet.
Crushes: Yeah, that he isn’t too aware of.

V. Fighting
Mentor/s: No one.
Fighting Style/s: No style, he’s never needed to fight in anything more extreme than a school scuffle. He figures he’ll just zap his opponent if that’s what it came down to.
Preferred Weapon/s: A bat, preferably a metal one.
Were did he/she first train?: Nowhere.
Wins/Losses/Draws: Too far back to remember and it was over something lame like a bicycle race.
What fighting style he/she weak at?: Apparently all existing forms that aren’t street/freestyle/winging it.
Dominant hand: Right.

VI. Criminal Record
Wanted for?: Vigilantism and murder (both as Powersurge).
Wanted where?: Bar Harbor and NYC.
Prize of Bounty: None.
Been to Jail?: No.

VII. Health
Allergies: Shellfish.
Diseases/Illness: Hypoglycaemic.
Injuries: Broke his arm once when he was thirteen, sprained both wrists at the same time when he was fifteen, and stubs his toes quite frequently on door frames.

VIII. Family
Parents?: Mother and father, they’re still together.
Siblings?: None
Grandparents?: Both alive on his father’s side, grandmother and step-grandfather on mother’s side.
Uncle/Aunts?: Before his grandmother on his mother’s side remarried, the combined total was fifteen, but it’s gone up to nineteen now. Big. Polish. Family.
Cousins?: Twenty-nine.
Godfather/mother?: His aunt Sharon Dzienski and uncle Marty Dzienski.
Best Friends?: Mark, Jake, Cody, Austin, and Alexis. His cousins Racie and Stephanie can come, too.

IX. Education and Work
High school?: Attending boarding school at Beauregard through graduation.
College?: Working toward a Master’s in psychology at NYU.
Current Occupation?: Works for Housing on campus.

X. Music and Arts
Can he/she draw/paint/write poetry?: Er… he scrawls mock-emo poetry in the corner of his notes, he likes to doodle on his homework… But we aren’t inclined to say he’s good at what he does.
Can he/she play a musical instrument?: He’s pretty good with a piano.
Is he/she creative?: In his own way, but it’s more of a mechanical creativity than an artsy kind.
What music does he/she like?: See earlier.

I. Basic Info
Name: Makuro “Mark” Nishimura
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Ht and Wt: 5’6” and 140 lbs
Body Type: Ectomorph... sort of.
Shoe Size: Er… I don’t know men’s sizes so I’ll come back to this.
Smoke?: On occasion,
Drink?: Very rarely.
Race/Ethnicity: Japanese/U.S. American
Nationality: U.S.
Religion: Casual Methodist. Lol wut.
Allegiance: Hm?
Languages: English, Japanese, and a bit of Polish (from being around Kent’s family so long) and German (senior high language credit).

II.Personality
A. Likes/Favourites
-TV Show: Mostly programs on Discovery Science, cold case/murder style shows, and cooking programs, though he does like cheesy stuff along the lines of Unsolved Mysteries and Ghost Hunters. He's got a few tasteless guilty pleasures, too.
-Movie/s: Anything in the horror/mindfuck vein, suspense, the occasional chick flick comedy/romantic comedy.

-Music: Eighties, thrash, metal, emo, modern rock, classic rock, orchestral compositions, swing, folk, bluegrass, pop, a little hip-hop.
-Food: Pumpkin blossoms, canned tuna, tomatoes, avocado, grilled cheese, and chicken parmesan, meat subs, sukiyaki, and okonomiyaki.
-Drink: 7-Up
-Fashion: Hoodies, t-shirts, tanks, button-ups, jeans, dress pants, loafers, high-top sneakers. His preferred dress sense is casual, usually a hoodie and jeans, but he occasionally dons dress slacks and a nice shirt just for the hell of it.
-Gizmo/Gadget: His laptop.
-Animal: Dogs.
-Colour: Green.
-Topic to talk about: He usually rolls with a conversation, though he does favour topics in his field of study or on a show he likes.
-Restaurant/Fast Food: Blue Sage Bistro/ Whataburger
-Place: The bowling alley
-Actor/Actress: George Clooney/ Sandra Bullock
-Sport: Track and badminton
-Hobbies: Video games, cooking, music, sleeping, reading, mapping out board game ideas, window garden, math tutoring lab, table tennis, napping in the study carrels, debating/quarreling with Kent and Racie.

B. Dislikes
-TV Show: Game shows, reality TV, reality documentaries, and music channels.
-Movie: Football movies, parodies, dance movies, most sci-fi (due to an annoying inability to suspend disbelief when space is concerned), romance (excluding comedies), and “family” films.

-Music: Heavy rap, smooth jazz, elevator music, Elton John, Jimmy Buffet, R&B.
-Food: Liver, squid, veal, gyros, frog legs, pickled eggs, and smelt.
-Drink: Gin and tonic.
-Fashion: Baggy pants, baggy shirts, corporate goth regalia, “witty” t-shirts.
-Gizmo/Gadget: Cord phones.
-Animal: Squirrels and chipmunks.
-Colour: Orange.
-Topic: Cars and relationship updates from friends.
-Restaurant: Burger King and Wendy’s.
-Place: Miami
-Sport: Dodgeball and warball.

C. Strengths
-Natural with mathematics (quite gifted, actually)

-Practical/Mechanically-minded

-Cooking

-Reasonably organised and punctual

-Driven

D. Weaknesses
-When he does get angry, has poor control over power (both his raw physical strength and light manipulation)

-Fosters a cold and pitiless streak

-Can be talked into objectionable situations if persuaded with something he likes

-Tender scalp

-Single-minded in pursuit of a goal

-Has a bowling average of 92

III. Beliefs
Ghosts: To an extent; he believes the law of conservation of energy applies with animal expiration, that the energy merely assumes a different form once passing from the body.
Magic: In a way.
God: Yes, but not the same God Christianity believes in.
Evolution: Yes.
Legends: Legend stems from history.
Heroes: No.

IV. Love/Sexuality
Wife/Girlfriend: A fair amount of exes from senior high (junior high doesn’t count).
Husband/Boyfriends: Not presently. There's a phenomenally short period in junior high involving Kai, but no one mentions this around Mark: it's something he'd prefer to ignore.
Romantic?: On whim.
What does he/she like in a man/woman?: Someone who respects his beliefs, accepts (not tolerates) that he’s a metahuman, doesn’t mind long dreaded hair, has some degree of appreciation for science, has goals in life that go beyond “just sliding by,” doesn’t mind periods of silence for the sake of silence, puts up with his taste in movies and music (preferably LIKES said taste), and someone who is willing to speak up for her/his beliefs.
Virgin? (If not please state the age and the name of his/her first): Nope. The first was Jennifer Dunnam when both were sixteen.
Sexually Active?: Not for a while.
Crushes: In a manner of speaking and Mark’s aware of it.

V. Fighting
Mentor/s: No one.
Fighting Style/s: No style formal style, though he has a noticeable pattern when he does get into a fight. He favours stealth.
Preffered Weapon/s: Something blunt and heavy.
Were did he/she first train?: Nowhere.
Wins/Losses/Draws: Mark: 3, Kai: 2, Draws: 4. He hasn't been keeping tabs on how many time he's bailed Kent out of a situation.
What fighting style he/she weak at?: Likely all existing forms, but noticeably straightforward assaults.
Dominant hand: Right.

VI. Criminal Record
Wanted for?: Aiding Powersurge (as Shadow Watch).
Wanted where?: NYC.
Prize of Bounty: None.
Been to Jail?: No.

VII. Health
Allergies: Pollen, dust, and cat dander.
Diseases/Illness: Just mild allergies.
Injuries: Broke his ankle in his preteen years while playing soccer (still has problems with it from time to time), has somewhat weak wrists.

VIII. Family
Parents?: Mother and father; they’re still together.
Siblings?: A younger brother.
Grandparents?: Alive on his father’s side.
Uncle/Aunts?: Two aunts and uncles on his mother’s side; one uncle on his father’s side.
Cousins?: One and one on the way.
Godfather/mother?: Sharon Dzienski and Marty Dzienski.
Best Friends?: Kent, Racie, Jake, Cody, Austin, and Alexis. He gets along pretty well with Stephanie, too.

IX. Education and Work
High school?: Attending boarding school at Beauregard through graduation.
College?: Working toward a doctorate in botany at NYU.
Current Occupation?: T.A. In the biology labs.

X. Music and Arts
Can he/she draw/paint/write poetry?: Not too bad with writing in general, but pretty mediocre with visual arts.
Can he/she play a musical instrument?: Er… Well, he remembers how to play the recorder. He’s not very good with pacing in music.
Is he/she creative?: Sure.
What music does he/she like?: See earlier.

Early Concepts: Part I

If anyone here happens to be from my deviantART gallery, you'll know Kylee Dyyvers, Toxic Waste Girl. Here's a sample of her current design (ignore the Akira Toriyama style, please):



She's a badass antihero with a neon green mohawk and a penchant for all things radioactive... But what only a select few of my online galleries have seen is her earliest design as Hazardous Waste Girl:



This early incarnation was named Kylie, had no last name yet, had naturally black eyes that she disguised with lenses, and had a more complex villain costume. Very little about her was developed at this point; she was based around a single idea for a Captain Planet parody to have a villain daughter with environmentally dangerous powers.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

I present to you the next step of Raven's online invasion campaign... Blogging. The function of this blog, however, will differ from that of my LiveJournal and my deviantART journal as this blog is reserved almost exclusively for all things fictional. That is, here I'll be updating content related to my original stories and characters; anything from art, to bios, to surveys, to small story snippets, and even some musings on the possible outcomes/AUs/changes I may feel like inflicting.

So sit back and enjoy the ride, guys, and if you have any questions regarding a post, by all means ask.