Ankh Lounging

Probably my best picture to date, here's Ankh, one of my Sanitize and Eli characters. As you can see by the numerous other books lying untouched around him, he's ignoring his work and reading a comic. Manga to be exact.

If there were going to be words that would describe our 18-19 year-old Ankh, they would be words like arrogant, persistent, irritable, and self-important. He's perfectly aware of (and has been for some time) of his father, Osiris's, way of living, and given the simmering resentment he cultured for his father over the years, nothing his father says goes with him without a chance of being completely ignored. More so than your average child. While Ankh's not a bad person, he does have some terrible traits. Laziness tends to be one, although sometimes, he's more has a more of an avoidance attitude; he ignores his work while doing something just as, similarly, or even more time-consuming that he wants to do. Bottom line: if he doesn't want to do it, he might just not do it. What makes it worse for his father is that little thing with Ankh now being a legal adult...

Like I said, Ankh has some terrible traits, and another one happens to be my favorite. Going behind authorities' back and doing exactly what they told him not to. He's done that with his father many times, despite attempts to discipline him (oh, stop worrying, his father's humane; it's not like he beats him or anything...) There've been time when Osiris tells him not to do something. If it pleases him, Ankh waits for the perfect opportunity to do it and then does it and then lies about it. Which now that I think about it isn't very smart of him 'cause Osiris is normally too smart to believe his lies. On an interesting note, this is very similar to what my character Sheldon Lamar does, except Sheldon's version is based more on curiosity and has a far more innocent streak than Ankh's. Also, Sheldon and Ankh don't get along. Ankh sees Sheldon as a raving, hideous lunatic. Sheldon sees Ankh as stuck-up and self-important. Another thing they share in common is their tendency for morbidity.

Now the topic of his adoption is something he was always very sensitive to. But as he got older, the topic went from being just a hard one to bring up to being nearly impossible to elude to without irritating him. He was present when his parents died and has had problems with that ever since. When he was young, he began having nightmares on an almost consistent basis. In time, naturally, Osiris told him he was adopted, and eventually, from there, Ankh had such a fear of loss when he was still young that he would panic when he was left alone for extended periods of time. He learned to cope with this as he aged, but he still deals with the fear of losing friends and what little family he has. Which carries us over to our next point.

Ankh has some nastiness to him, okay, yes, but he's a far cry from being thoroughly evil. Whle he does project himself as being aloof, he is very capable of making friends and keeping friendships. Bravery and loyalty (mostly to whatever friends he has) define a number of aspects of his character. Not to mention those two virtues tie into another of his good traits: cooperation. Yes, despite his antagonistic, sometimes downright insulting persona, Ankh is quite good at working with others when the situation calls for it. There have been instances in which Ankh is clearly excited to tell his co-workers about ways his abilities can play off of theirs.

For someone whose forte is not creativity, he can be very imaginative. He always had an active imagination, and Osiris fed it gladly, making the Ankh of today an intelligent and wise innovator. Speaking of intelligence and wisdom, those two attributes of Ankh are strong. Having been taught by a super genius and having a good head on his shoulders anyway, Ankh never really showed any trouble with problem-solving. This is where he has Sheldon beat. He also scores high on his actual niche: planning and positioning. Ankh has shown how easily setting up situations is for him and how to use what he get for what he needs.

If we just step back towards the subject creativity, Ankh can be a pretty surprising person when it comes to style. You'd think an arrogant person's clothing would reflect their demeanor, but Ankh prefers relatively plain clothes. His favorite color, orange, is also in high contrast to his personality. Sometimes, when Ankh wears different shades of orange, he always calls them orange while ever-specific Osiris always calls them by their actual shade. Sunset, pumpkin, red-orange, burnt orange, etc., and Ankh points out how fashion designer-ish and sometimes effeminate it makes them look. Another more noticeable trait of Ankh's is his application of eyeliner. It's never really specified whether or not he's doing that to resemble his father, to be rebellious somehow, or just 'cause he wants to. However, it's probably not to look like his father. Osiris has black lines trailing down alongside his nose. Ankh didn't mimic that look at all.

But his best trait of all, as corny as this sounds, is his honest love for his father. Yes, he's a total jerk to him usually, yes, he openly acts rudely in ways that disrespect and humiliate him, but when his father is in trouble or missing without a reason, all that falls away, and a person can see that Ankh does honestly care about his father. Sometimes, very rarely but sometimes, his affection for his father can be seen in little snippets, especially when Ankh needs comfort.

I hope you guys found that interesting enough. Stay tuned for more stuff.

This picture is also on deviantART.
Ankh Lounging
GenreChowderStudios' deviantART homepage

Later.

Exclusive Picture - At the Window

Here is a 9 year-old Sheldon in his painfully messy room, hanging out the window, looking miserable again. If you're wondering where his bed is, he's kneeling on it. And the inside light source is coming from that a bedside light he has.

At this time in Sheldon's life, he was supposed to be on medication for his psychosis, but he thinks it's poison, so he'll have nothing to do with meds of any kind.

You'll notice that in the background, there are what appear to be pictures of flowers on the wall and on his closet doors. There are flowers, so yay for you being right. Sheldon has a thing for daisies in particular because of this obsession he has with his little sister, Daisy, and he draws them obsessively. On a related note, when he's not drawing with a pencil, he's drawing with his favorite green marker, which is on his bed next to him, out of sight from this angle; when he talks about his marker, he heavily exaggerates its worth by using positive adjectives. E.g. "My wonderful, beautiful, amazing, extraordinary green marker." His mother is always telling him to stop drawing on the walls, but clearly, he hasn't listened yet.

This pic was a murder to color; the details were tedious to finish and there are a number of effects I had to spend time on in a single layer. But I'd be lying if I said Adobe Photoshop Elements was a waste of my time. And on a triumphant note, I finally figured out how to use a one-way perspective vanishing point! I personally think the picture is so much better for it. Plus, I used to not be able to pose characters that convincingly in positions like that. Now I am, and I'm happy I can improve.

By the way, you probably can't see it without getting that close, but he also wrote Daisy's name on the wall a number of times.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about Sheldon Lamar.

This picture is not on deviantART, 'cause it's an exclusive picture on my blog for my blog only. However, here's my homepage anyway. If you look hard enough (calm down, it's not that hard), you can actually find more stuff on Sheldon and other Sanitize Trilogy characters there.

GenreChowderStudios' deviantART homepage

Later.

A Young Eli

As a child, Eli was always tiny. Even when he grew up in Prince Edward Island, Canada, it wasn't really that much for a very long while. You can tell his smallness by comparing his size to the pillows. But he's watching at all times with his large, dark and knowing eyes.

From birth, he'd been learning at an accelerated rate. There were a lot of milestones he reached before his first birthday that most children reach at one and a half years of age. Most of his early achievements were thanks to the equally early maturation of his muscles, bones, and nervous system. But his mental abilities benefited the most from this premature growth. By the time he was in kindergarten, he was intelligent enough to perform well at a 6th grade level.

In fact, he was developing so fast, a great number of people thought he had a vast array developmental or genetic issues. Eli has a tendency to smile and has a naturally smiling mouth. He was incredibly fidgety as a child, and, combined with his early smiling, doctors thought he had Angelman's Syndrome. But as it turned out, his muscles were maturing quickly, and he was merely trying to sit up and move around.

Eli, becoming fully aware of all these gifts at a very young age, became extremely arrogant. One of, if not his greatest, flaw was that he figured that he was so smart, the time to stop doing something would naturally coincide with his desire to stop. Seeing as that rarely happened exactly that way, he would overdo things fairly often and cause himself and others trouble. Eli also learned to be manipulative. Never for small or worthless things. As a child, a number of important questions involving his life and origins were left unanswered or lied about. He could tell he wasn't getting the whole truth, and from there and other worse places, he developed the desire to have what he wanted the way he wanted it. With that came strategies to get it. If he can help it, he avoids people, however. An introvert, Eli sees himself as performing best when he's alone or with as few people as possible. Sometimes he would go out of his way to drive people away. As well as his bad sides listed above, Eli also has an affinity for nosiness.

For all his shortcomings, Eli was still a child in some good places in his heart. He was willing to believe that people were good in the end, and he let himself trust people, especially adults he approved of. Despite how he felt, he really did always try to be polite. Eli inherited a colossal fortune from his surrogate mother, who left almost everything to him, and he isn't miserly in the least, often saying plainly that he doesn't know what to do with all his wealth or giving huge amounts away to total strangers. The latter of which is not the best thing to do. His caretaker, Professor Roy, is his constant source of comfort and information. Eli loves spending time with him and learning from what he has to tell him. He usually keeps a cool head in stressful situations and is rarely too shy to ask anyone to teach him something.

I hope you enjoyed that breakdown of Eli's persona as a child.

This picture is also on deviantART.
Baby Eli
GenreChowderStudios' deviantART homepage

Later.

NaNoWriMo Winner - Exclusive Excerpts for the Next Few Days

After 30 long days and nights, I finally did it. I finally beat my 75,000 word challenge and went over by 2,007 words. It's been very long, very hard, but extremely worth it, I've gotta say. Now, I'm a writing nut, and of course I didn't just stop after I verified my win. I'm still working on Who's Taken Me? from my trilogy, but I did the whole second part and a bit of the third part. With this under my belt, I hope I can finish this book soon, so I can start to tie and cut the knots of the entire trilogy. Then it can be ready for publishing.

One odd thing I realized is I really really REALLY need to revise the first book. It's not a bad read at all, but I have so many other things to add, remove most definitely, and switch up. It's going to be serious business that gonna take up a great deal of my time, not to mention other projects I have, my art, and that doggone manga, Axolotl... But I hope to be able to keep it all up, keep it together, and keep sharing this stuff with you guys.

It's not really that obvious by the title or anything, but I'll be posting excerpts from my third novel's first draft over the next few days. Bear with me if some parts don't make sense. After all, this does happen to be a first draft and taken completely out of context to boot. Without further ado, here's the excerpt that's on my NaNoWriMo profile.

***

Secrets. Over the past few days, I’d acquired such amazing secrets, both accidental and purposeful. I’d shared one of my own. With someone I thought I’d never trust: a doctor. I grinned wider like Osiris. I liked secrets. I liked hearing them as much as I liked finding someone to share them with. But these were special secrets that I heard in the dispensary. Very special secrets. Precious secrets. War secrets, I thought to myself. I got a shiver down my spine, it sounded so exciting. I, Specialist Private Sheldon Quincy Lamar, had war secrets that the General of the Army himself believed I could handle and veil as needed. All of a sudden, all the doubts and qualms I had about my military service dropped about a thousand miles or 17,600 double time military paces. No matter what, I would follow Osiris’s orders to the letter, to my limits, and to the grave. I would prove myself to him, my would-be father, that I was worth it. That I was worth the risk he took to include me in this war secret. I told myself that snowy night that one day or one night, whatever, I would join his side and protect what he swore to protect. Even his Celestialite secret.

***

Hope you enjoyed it. I don't know for sure how many other excerpts I'll be uploading, but I think if you enjoyed this, you'll enjoy the others *nods vigorously*. Some of them are funny, some of them sad, dramatic, you name it, Sheldon's going to fling it at you.

Just be aware, to all you younger viewers out there, there is some mature content in Sanitize. It's mostly language and violence, but keep in mind, immature Sheldon and his main group of acquaintances in this book are mostly teens and young adults in the army, so very crude humor and reference ensues. And this instance of reference he made at some point. Plus, there's that PG-13 type of thing with battle sequences and frightening images, that kind of thing. But you know, if you're under 16, I wouldn't read it without that thar parental consent. Who's Taken Me? is considerably darker, more violent, and more adult than the last two books, although the second book as it is now contends well with the this one. You'll thank me later. Or not, as the case may be.

Later.

GCS Exclusive Picture: Sleeping in California

This picture didn't have to take me as long as it did. My original intention for it was to ink and color it, but I decided against that and went for working on my traditional, or non-digital, style. But with NaNoWriMo, I haven't been drawing that much, so the production of this picture was slowed.

This is one of the first, if not the first, time I've ever drawn someone from Sanitize asleep. It's considerably harder than it looks. The muscles have to relax and look limp. Plus, you have to be aware of how gravity will be pulling everything down in relation to the surrounding objects. And how restful and peaceful the person's sleep is... There is a number of things you have to be aware of when drawing sleeping persons.

I drew this a very long time ago, so I don't remember exactly the order I drew everything, but I probably drew the bed first without the sheets. Then I may have drawn a rough image of his head then his neck, body, and his limbs. The pillows probably came next and then the background. And then the outside world. Then I shaded, fixing things as need be.

It's very hard to draw a muscular torso from the side, in my opinion. One has to portray the wideness and depth of the back as well the breadth of the shoulders properly to make the buff guy/girl look right. It's even harder when there's clothing involved. Line value is really important with clothing folds in traditional works, especially when the person you're drawing is sleeping. I decided to draw him above the sheets because he's in California but from a colder place, he gets hot very easily. And it was a simpler task to draw him without the sheets over him. It also helps exaggerate his size.

The hand could have been drawn maybe, but I put it there for a good reason. Sheldon is very tense, and he is tense even when he sleeps, so the hand makes him look slightly less relaxed than most when they sleep. Secondly, it makes it look vaguely like he's been tossing and turning in his sleep.

Sheldon's hair is normally shoulder-length, but at the beginning of the third Sanitize novel, he has very long hair.

His muscles were harder than normal to draw in this position. I don't know why it was harder, but this pose was horizontal and I've avoided drawing horizontal bodies in the past because I regularly prefer standing characters. I don't normally draw bare or even semi-bare legs either, so that was an added challenge. I drew his lower half rather large to create the illusion of depth and size. Because Sheldon does indeed have very wide hips and very big *cough**cough* fat *cough* thighs.

Sheldon's cover is of lightweight material but of a sturdy substance. That's why it can hold folds the way it does while holding many of them as lightweight fabrics do.

I haven't yet adapted Sheldon's own drawing style to his pictures, but I probably will as soon as I do another picture where he has drawn something. But anyhow, the pictures of Daisy are a staple in his room, and when he moves to different rooms, he tends to plaster his walls with pictures of his little sister and scraps of things devoted to her.

The outside is one of my favorite parts of this picture. I actually drew it freehand, but you guys and gals can probably tell. I stroked the eraser through the penciling a few times to give a reflective, shiny feel to the buildings like the morning sun is shining down on the sides of the city. For a tropical feel, I put in some palm trees, and California has palm trees anyway, if I'm not mistaken. As for the clouds, I drew those today. It's one of those sunny, pleasant days were clouds look like mashed spuds.

Well, that's it for this picture. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more! With NaNoWriMo ending at midnight tomorrow night, I can be doing more drawings.


This picture, Sleeping in California, is an exclusive picture only available on this here blog. Additional exclusive, you-can't-get-them-anywhere-else pictures, story excerpts and more will be available only on here, The Cooking Shed. Hooray for sounding like a stuffy corporation. Other pictures, story excerpts, etc., by Genre Chowder Studios (this happens to be me) can be found at GCS's deviantART page.

Later.

Pierre Hutchinson in the World of Robinson

I don't think I've mentioned him before, but I have these characters named Pierre Hutchinson and Louis Henri Francois.

This is his bio: http://fav.me/d2k7hwf
And here's his best friend, Louis's Henri Francois's bio: http://fav.me/d2ki49x
And in case I didn't put it up here before, here's the link to the first part of his first story. http://fav.me/d2jekzp

Yeah, deviantART's really helpful for this kinda thing.

But anyway, Pierre and Louis's story is about two French boys and their adventures in a world based on the Robinson projection. So my original idea was to have just that story that's in that link over there, but I got this awesome idea for another one. Mostly 'cause that one place they went to can't be the only place there; it stands to reason that there would be more areas to go to. Though not all these new stories will be about them going places. They'll be mostly going places, but a nice slice of them will be about their (or rather Pierre's) shenanigans on their port.

Basically, their stories are a collection of short stories and maybe one long one, but nothing like "Pierre and Louis's Big Movie" or "Pierre and Louis Make It Big" or anything corny like that... God, I honestly had a hard time typing those titles 'cause they are so bad...

Oh yeah, and I recently got into watching "Adventure Time with Finn and Jake."

Later.

Prologue

I uploaded the first part of my Sanitize: Vol. 1: Am I Real? prologue to deviantART. Here's the link. http://fav.me/d2ozh89

I know I'm gonna upload the whole prologue to deviantART, but after that I don't know what I should do. What do you think? Should I upload the first few chapters, the first part, the whole darn thing??? Or should I just upload a couple thousand words every whatever? I'm gonna make a poll about this so you can tell me, or you can leave a comment if it pleases thee.

Later.

Enough is Enough

Well, I just plain don't like writing scripts, as I realized earlier today. So I'm not continuing with Brooke Road for ScriptFrenzy. Don't get me wrong, I'll still work on it. I am gonna try to get it onto the silver screen. I just don't enjoy writing a script, so I won't be banging out those types of pages that much.

On the sunny side of the fence, I'll be on deviantART more! In no way'll it be a lot, but more often.

Later.

Brooke Road

I've gotten some progress done on my script. Awesomeness. Five pages in less than 24 hours. Booyah.

I've figured out, so far, that Iris is 10 going on 11 at this time and has discovered a case of a dead woman named Lula Frauhau. Actually, there're a few Sanitize characters in here, seeing as Iris is a minor then major Sanitize character, even though there's no fantasy in this movie. It's all real stuff, and it makes sense, 'cause it's a little bit before the trilogy starts. A few years.

I couldn't do the script on Microsoft Word. I don't know why, but Microsoft Word just has the wrong feel for a script. So I had to download Celtx. (For free, of course. I'm not paying for a download. Heck no... T_T ) And almost immediately I got into the groove and cranked out five pages. I learned the basics, too, so it's a pretty smooth ride. Word. XD

So about the script. I'm serious about this movie, people, and when it hits the big screen, I'd guess it would be rated PG-13. The title is Brooke Road, it's a murder mystery, like I said in my last post, and I have several scenes written. Not all the way out, of course, it's just a first draft. I have three scenes that are finished for now, and I'm happy with them for now. I've had to take time off deviantART to have a better focus on my script and my novel. So I won't be uploading stuff there for a while.

Later.

The Only Way to Go Now!

Well, the ABNA contest kicked me out, but my resolve remains strong! Now I'm convinced self-publishing is the only way to go with "Sanitize," so I'm gonna do a little more text work. Total control, man. Plus, I've decided on how I'm gonna do the illustrations for the chapters. You know, something like "Chapter Whatever Number" and there'll be a pic somewhere suggesting what the chapter's about. I haven't figured out if I'm doing the illustrations in B&W or color, but they'll probably be in B&W. I can't wait to work on the cover!

I've been so busy, I haven't had a chance to work on my website! Noes...

Later.

Sheldon and Taylor Dusty

This was the surprise I was working on. I'll have exclusive pictures on my blog you won't find anywhere else.

I'm very proud of this pic. It took me forever, but it was worth it. The strange looking background is kind of reflecting Sheldon's faulty reality perception. The building in the backdrop is Milkwood, Sheldon's school. Hmm... Blogspot made the quality of this all funky and weird.

This is actually a scene from Vol. 2 Should I Fit? : it's the first day Sheldon meets Taylor Dusty the Weeper, and it told him to dig a huge hole at some point, and Shel was just finishing up some other little things. A while back, he dropped some school supplies here, and now he's found them, and he's just picking them up... I love that stupid, blank look on Dusty's face.

The relationship between Sheldon and Taylor Dusty the Weeper is a strange one. I'd better start at the very beginning.

In Vol. 1 Am I Real?, Sheldon first hears the high, robotic voice in the illusion village. For over two years, he doesn't hear it again. But after the traumatic experience of the hate crime inflicted by a group of high school girls in "Should I Fit?", he dreams of Dusty (nameless at the time) carrying him to a trash bin where he meets Dusty's "pet." Several times after this, he sees one or both of these beings at random, often at crucial moments. Eventually, Dusty begins to chase Sheldon, causing him great distress.

One day, Sheldon has had enough, and he stops running from the doll and demands why it's chasing him. And Dusty responds, saying it just wanted to... say hi? Right from there, their whole relationship changes. From fear of being killed to a kind of awkward friendship.

While Dusty sees itself as Sheldon's servant, it's never actually seen doing anything for Sheldon. The doll, on first appearance, tells Sheldon that it is a Dutch miner, despite its very American accent, working for a French princess named Opal. In Sheldon's mind, Princess Opal switches bodies with his older sister, Ophelia, often. Dusty follows him around a lot and talks to him and remarks on what it does in a childish and innocent way. Speaking of which, Taylor Dusty's actually one of the only non-threatening hallucinations and voices Sheldon has, and Sheldon comes to enjoy Dusty's company and misses it when it's gone. However, whenever Taylor Dusty shows up again, it has a very different "past" and when Sheldon tries to call upon something it's mentioned before, Dusty either tells it differently or completely denies that it ever said that at all, apparently because it's on the run from the Brown Police. This is personally my favorite aspect of their relationship.

As for Dusty's personality, it's a little dimwitted like most of Sheldon's hallucinated beings, and Dusty's voice, when only in Sheldon's head, repeats the same words over and over: CD, my, cute, friends, flat, in any order whether it makes sense or not, occasionally adding an extra verb or two and often using the nouns in the plural. The doll with the physical form has a strange speech pattern; it inappropriately uses synonyms. E.g. "That's good great," "Yeah yes," and "What a surprise and unexpected moment." Annoying, isn't it? Shelby and Thelma find it relatively irritating as well. At some point, Dusty drops a hint that it would like friends, but everyone thinks it's ugly and repulsive. While friendly, easygoing, and sometimes downright jolly, it's the only hallucination that consistently tries to cheer Sheldon up. Also, it often stands near its "master" with a blank expression similar to the one seen above. A few times, Sheldon has asked Dusty for its gender in vain. There are instances in which it tries to hold its "master's" hand with just as much luck. Even though Sheldon's situations are dire, Dusty usually acts relatively carefree.

Taylor Dusty has a more serious side, though. When Sheldon is threatened, it tries to "defend" him, despite the fact that it can't do anything against anyone. Which brings me to another interesting point. While Shelby and Thelma often state plainly that they know they are voices in Sheldon's head, Dusty doesn't seem to know it's not a real thing. Sometimes, it even tries to interact with other people, unaware that they can't respond to it. Dusty at times shows an inability to listen to its "master," Sheldon. Though not shown here, Taylor usually carries a Death scythe or a trident but rarely both at the same time.

To sum it all up, the relationship between Sheldon and Taylor Dusty the Weeper is one of hallucinated subservience, friendship unfortunately directed to the wrong being, and a great deal of confusion.

Submitted!

At last, I've submitted my first novel to CreateSpace! Yes! Also, about that surprise, I'm about to working on it. | D

The website is going okay, but it could be going faster. Darn. I really don't have very much to say.

Later.

Losing Steam

I've gotta say I'm having trouble focusing on this revision stuff. I recently added over 750 words to the second novel in the trilogy, and I keep thinking about writing this scene I've been wanting to write for months. Not only that, but I find it easier to get distracted. Grr...

Besides, I have to comb through this story I've read about five times and drop in symptoms I forgot to give Sheldon. Curses... Well, I haven't got much I longer, so I'd better get back to it.

Progress in my Novel So Far

Well, I oughta stop mucking around with stuff I don't like and recipes and get down to business.

Here's a summary of my fantasy psychodrama novel, Vol. 1: Am I Real?, from my trilogy, Sanitize:

The story begins. A powerful substance sends the Oregon town, Sage, into frozen time. Holed away in the home of a learned (and no less paranormal) Irish family, eight year-old Sheldon Lamar receives a distress call from his baby sister, but after saving her, she's almost immediately kidnapped.

Determined to save her, Sheldon joins with his pint-sized, less than lion-hearted friend and the children of the Irish Greenwich family to save her from Shoadow, master of black void. However, Sheldon's lost sister isn't the only problem; it's not the easiest thing, going on a dangerous trip through a mystic Woodland and fighting monster hybrids, when your own mind is turning against you.

Be a part of the trilogy in which a young boy battles two forces: dark inter-dimensional forces and early-onset schizophrenia. But which is more formidable?

It's three parts and 24 chapters. So far, I've done five revisions in preparation for that big Amazon contest. Plus, I have a website devoted to Sanitize, and I can't wait to put it up! But it'll be some time before the website is ready, so stay tuned!

Later.