Characters/Story Questions

Hello! This is just a little place where I thought I'd ask myself various questions about my characters just for fun. Some of these I took from forums and others I just made up myself.

If you could get a plushie of any character, which one would it be?

Chester all the way. In fact, I want two hundred little Chesters and one 5'10 life-size Chester, like the Buc-ees truck. I guess only one Chester that is Build-A-Bear sized would suffice, though...

I've tried to make plushies in the past but it is simply not a skill I could achieve in several years, too much patience and finger dexterity needed for my tastes. But maybe if I save up money I could commission someone. Maybe I could even get the whole surfer gang together. (6/26/24)

What stories would you consider publishing?

This is a hard one. I definitely feel like all of my stories have their own unique faults, whether it's in plot, theme, or characters. I suppose that's where editors come in, to be fair.

To give specific examples, I think Summer of Blooms could work as a silly little novel with all-human characters, but as an animated movie (like my art style might suggest I'm planning)? It would definitely need reworking, especially the antagonists. But at the same time, removing their whole parody gimmick would probably just turn it into a meager version of Surf's Up arbitarily set in '60s California. Well, for a number of people, anyway.

Then there's my musician characters. They all each have themes that would be real easy to portray incorrectly, or even harmfully. Main reason that I cut Clover down to two paragraphs and will probably keep it that way unless he's completely overhauled. It's a little better when you look at Warren Kipner or Custer Buckley, especially since they were inspired more by my own experiences and (generally) have nicer endings that stay true to some message.

Now hold it. This makes it sound like I hate my characters. Truth is, I still love them and want to continue drawing and writing about them. It's fun to be self-indulgent, that's why we create fan characters, for example. Anyway, to answer the question directly, I personally think my most ready-for-publishing plot is the Night Falcon. It has a little bit of everything: outlaws, adventure, decay, redemption, and romance. I also think the Burning Butterfly has a solid framework going for it. Both would also probably be novels, especially the former. Samuel's head is too interesting for me to not explore. (6/26/24)

What was your first character/story?

I have no idea lol. Well, if I had to guess, I started working on a story called Elemental Tales around 6th grade. It was originally called Random Story, and Chime and Turtor were about the first characters I designed for it. Although I no longer work on this one, you can still find some art for it in my Deviantart gallery. I think my most famous character from it was Graukae, the villain, sort of a weasel-looking thing.

There's a few others that might be earlier. I knew I had this super edgy Fakemon character back in 4th grade who, similar to Mewtwo, was an unsuccessful Mew clone. I was obsessed with making Fakemon in general through those years. (6/26/24)

Something you were obsessed with drawing but aren't anymore?

Sorry this is just my excuse to talk about Dialians (and Nillians by extension). I don't know what it was with these guys. They were these griffin-like creatures with giant antlered carapace heads and I shoved them into every story imaginable.

But nowadays you don't see them anymore. In fact, I pictured the last time I really ever drew one way back in June of 2021. A few reasons. I don't really draw a ton of fantasy creatures these days, and suppose I did draw a Dialian now... I think they would look pretty different. Their design changed very little from back when I made them. I think I was just nervous about going out of my comfort zone back then. (6/26/24)