#story concepts
My poor apple boy looks more like a buck-toothed Link now. Annie would have pointy ears under her bonnet too. I see them more tied with old timey fae lore.
Johnny’s summoned with that glowy appleseed, and controlled with one or two marionette controllers, though he has an issue with passiveness, and tends to respond to the slightest threat from miss as-yet-unnamed witch here.
At some point witch-lady will make Johnny go all berserker-mode on the folk trying to rescue him, and he won’t like that one bit. Well, internally.
I need to draw Edison’s bull mode. Any excuse to draw bovine!
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A couple of protagonists from the appleseed story, which I’ll now tag as pocket full of rye. I’ve decided these summoned spirits are not the historical figures themselves, but embodied ideals. So the gal here is a vague nod to Annie Oakley and other sharpshooters of the west. The actual Annie definitely wasn’t as frilly as this, but dangit I like decorative clothing. It’s also a smallish nod to the pink Annie from the SNES game Wild Guns.
The fella is a young warlock (Edison) that crossed the antagonist (previously mentioned witch), and as a result, was trapped in his animal shape (texas longhorn), mind-wiped and kept among the witch’s herd of cattle for several years, up until Annie freed him and restored his memories. He keeps his ear tag to remain focused on ending the witch, though Annie is only interested in breaking the bonds on her fellow spirit and close friend, Johnny.
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Initial antagonist of the welder story, though I intend for him to become a protagonist at some point. This currently nameless character belongs to the ghost-like enemy race I mentioned before, and they have some level of phasing ability, or at least the more powerful members do. They also have a type that can manage to possess non-sentient animals and ramp up/exaggerate their natural abilities/features to use on the field, which is what this guy does, though he’s classified as an assassin.
He’s sent to take out the captain of the protagonist’s outpost via guiding a venomous insect into some rations, but something doesn’t quite work right, and he ends up possessing mister eel welder guy (I need names :c), something that naturally freaks both of them out. Body-hopping anyone that isn’t feral has never been heard of, so scorpion guy aims to drag welder guy back to HQ by force, and see what makes him the exception. Not before destroying the outpost first!
I wanted scorp guy to be friendly and charming, and totally agreeable until his intentions are laid out. To him there’s nothing sinister about his job. Kinda’ like Karl from Castle of Nations. Now to make sure I write him as well as Karl. @_@ His voice along with his race would sound similar to ethereals from warcraft. Scorp mode is more of a true form, bipedal mode is for convenience, when I need him standing around amongst the cast.
As usual everything is subject to change!
Another story I had involved legend characters from the tall tales setting, or something close. It’d be one of the few times I’d include a modern setting, as nothing bores me more than every day locations with every day humans. But! It would begin and center around the daughter of a dairy farmer who’d practice witchcraft in private. At some point she’d learn how to summon certain spirits, or she’d stumbled upon a relic relating to western folklore, and call up Johnny Appleseed himself. Well, I haven’t decided if it would be actually him, or some embodiment of his ideals. In any case, usually only druids would summon him to help regrow a recently charred forest, but the witch has other plans.
Johnny would be a kinda’ aw-shucks/Fixit Felix character, and politely try to unsummon himself, but this witch’s relic keeps him around, and allows her to switch on a chaotic state in which he cannot deny her commands. The two of them wreak havoc in some manner, likely in the name of justice, and then we’d introduce the protagonist(s), which I’m not sure of yet. I wanted to bring in some representation of Annie Oakley and/or Pecos Bill, and respective witches and warlocks that summon them willingly.
I have a vague image of Johnny’s witch in my head, and I’ll scribble her up at some point.
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I have a little story in my head that started with quadruped dragon tribes and somehow ended up not that at all. It could kinda’ sorta exist in the Filamentry world but maybe not, dunno yet. These are two of the three main characters, and they use a sort of magic, but it’s not as abstract or as flashy as Spectria (Filamentry’s magic system).
They’re basically arc welders/metalworkers that conduct their own electricity. Initially they were types of weaponsmiths that made spectral weapons that could slay their phantasmical enemies, but I nixed that in favor of something more simple, as I have a terrible habit of making things way too complex and confusing. Using innate skill and specializing in a corner of magic that deals in electricity, the green-haired guy can generate alternating current, and the bug guy generates direct current. The conduits are their hands, and they generally use big ol’ welding rods or plasma cutters. Naturally they can run out of juice if sustaining a high current for too long, and they release heat via just puffing it out, as shown. Their aprons are mostly uniform and utility - they can endure the superheated vapors and UV light, though green-hair had been permanently blinded by an arc flash early in his career. They can accept an electric shock, but only if they’re ready for it. Creating an actual arc between hands and the work piece is difficult, so it all involves contact. I want to emphasize that it’s not like… Zatch Bell or Static Shock powers with lightning bolts arcing all over the place. It’s quick, loud and blinding, and too uncontrollable for combat (so far!). Green-hair is the more powerful of the two, but bug guy can store the energy he creates, unlike his cohort.
They’re allied with a faction united under one purpose - driving off the ghost-like race that means to take hold of their villages. Green-haired guy and bug guy (don’t have names for ‘em yet) work at small military outpost building and repairing their faction’s warmachines. Occasionally they’re sent to salvage abandoned enemy vessels.
Get off your ass and help me!
Both characters are typically good-natured and prone to laziness. There’s never been much thought put into the politics of war, between them, and I see them mostly as blue-collar goofballs that are best buds. But the story isn’t just about them! Trouble begins when one of the enemy’s phantom soldiers unintentionally possesses green-hair. More about him next post. :P
Not entirely sure it warrants pointing out since it’s a bit cheesy and not relevant to the story, but green-hair is very slightly inspired by an electric eel (which is apparently not an eel!), and bug guy an oriental hornet that can naturally create a charge. Bug guy is basically Dan Avidan from game grumps. I wanted to do curly hair on a male character for a while. X)
Another baddie for the welder story, Rilde. Same species as scorp guy, with the ghost/digital aspect… Trying to keep with the theme of them having vague insect-y bits, limited facial features and hooded/cowled in some manner.
Rilde is one fella in a team of two other assassins that were sent to check up on scorp guy when he failed to touch base with them in time. He’s focused on his job and little else, unable to take or tell much in the way of jokes. His glitching nature likely comes from a failed mission prior, a run-in with some very prepared bodyguards.
I planned Rilde and his undrawn partner to have a scuffle with scorp guy, who will quickly find out he can’t really control his possessed host (eel fella) in the same way he can control ferals/animals.
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