World of Identity Crisis

[Seven]

So, I've been sort of mentioning to a few of you that I've gotten sort of fed up with only drawing anime, and I'd like to do more...cartoonish stuff. This made me end up thinking about how awesome it would be to do a cartoon show...and then this happened; this horrible, horrible premise for a cartoon.

It's basically what happens when you cross a girl from gender-bender comedy with the awkward high school teenage superhero. And to make things worse, it takes place at a school which was basically my high school, "Premier Prep High School," a private boarding school. And if you can't guess the extremely obvious plot point, it's that the two awkward, identity-hiding teens are placed as roommates and the story would follow their "hilarious" misadventures.

I'll just be posting some characters as I finish them. Or not finish them.

[Seven]

Before I say anything else, I'm going to say this: I HATE THIS PICTURE! Asila said it couldn't be all bad, so I think I'm posting it just to prove her wrong. *nods to self* Part of the problem is that I had a very clear vision in my mind as to how I wanted this to look like and...this isn't it at all. But it's a crappy first try, so I might as well put it up.



Protagonist: Alexandra "Alex" [Last Name Undecided.]
Age: 14 or 15 *shrug*
Alex is a highly excitable but somewhat naive girl with the trademark "mad scientist" streak. She has been home-schooled all her life, and admittedly done well from it. I guess it doesn't hurt that her father is a brilliant, but highly under-recognized scientist who instilled in her the same passion for all fields that most people run away screaming from. Ironically though, despite being brilliant herself, she is also highly unrecognized by her own parents--a father who is self-absorbed in his own genius and the cruel irony/misfortune of not being recognized,, and a mother who is always encouraging "girl" activities--both who seem to be completely oblivious to her accomplishments. Partly for this reason (and partly from the encouragement of family friend, Assistant Dean [name?] of the Science Department), she applies and is accepted into Premier Prep (in the next town over) with scholarship. Unfortunately, after the latest bout of being ignored when she goes to show her acceptance letter, she hears her father bemoaning the fact that he doesn't have a son, like his rival the famous Dr. Mendel (whom he claims stole his work ~20 years earlier), to help him carry on his work. This becomes the last straw, to which Alex--in all of her oddness--decides the only way she'll be recognized as the brilliant scientist by the world and her family is if she goes undercover as a boy and earns her fame that way.

After a bit of smooth talking, Assistant Dean ___ agrees and helps to pull a few strings to make it a reality and a single room....but not everything goes according to plan. The area around Premier Prep has been having frequently occurring "incidents." Though they are meant to be kept low-profile, the whole town knows about them. Of course, a scientist like Alex doesn't believe in magic and fairy tales, until she nearly gets blasted to pieces by the work of some shadow creature. At this point, Alex realizes her claim to fame is to capture the shadow creature, along with as many of these dangerous magical creatures as possible, and take them a part, part by part, all in the name of science. Now she must navigate the halls of the high school social hierarchy, deal with peers for the first time, attend class, fight magical creatures, and keep up the guise of being a boy.

Oh, and it turns out that she has a roommate after all.

[Seven]

Meet Eve. She claims it's short for "evil," but then again, she's only 14. It's probably just a phase *rolls eyes* trying to act cool, she'll grow out of it, right? Eve attends Premier Prep High School, the best private high school in....fictional, fiction land. She's the niece of the newly promoted assistant dean of the science department there. She doesn't really like science. Or anything, for that matter.

No, that's a lie. She has a favorite band, "Dead Cat," whose band shirt you can see she is wearing. You know, behind her grinding fist.

Bio: Eve is the niece of Assistant Dean _____, who is introduced to Alex right after discovers her acceptance. Eve has some "social problems" and Alex has no girl friends her age, so Asisstant Dean ____ thinks it's a perfect solution to a simple problem. Sporadic Alex, in all of her excitement, decides that they are immediately best friends forever now. Eve is not at all pleased, but is coerced into the "friendship" arrangement (either that, or counseling). Orignally, the pair are supposed to be roommates--up until Alex decides on her wildly ridiculous scheme to pursue her love of science more fully. Thus, Eve becomes 1 out of 2 people who know Alex's secret, and is now stuck with the burden of having to keep the fairly naive teen genius out of trouble and danger from monster, her own inventions, and the obvious ridicule of her peers.

[Asila]

Hey, I can totally see how this was the picture that helped you cement your style, as first seen (by me, anyway) in your Eve picture! This is really cool for me. I love seeing how you got there!

Yeah, this picture is rough, but I really see potential in it. And that in itself makes it worthwhile. I have worse sketches than this that I still keep around because I really like the idea, even if the sketch didn't represent it the way I would have liked.

Alex and Eve are such an adorable pair, and I really am in love with Eve. I can't say that enough. You've really refined one hell of a style by the time you drew her picture! I just love her hair, and the stylized look of her pig tails. And her outfit. I just LOVE that outfit! I bet Alex is wearing something awesome, too, so you really need to finish a drawing of her so that I can see! I can't wait!

And thanks for posting their bios. Your characters are really fun to read about. You should at least draw the occasional comic strip for them! I would love to read about their antics

[Seven]

Yeah. You know, I didn't really think about it, but my crappy drawing of Alex really made drawing Eve super easy. And today, I continued doing a bunch of little doodles of Alex--trying to refine the details of her face and her body, and it made refiguring her design really much easier than before. I guess I should be more patient. Everytime I've drawn a new character, I've always just sort of expected to get them perfect on the first shot, or I consider myself a failure. Which, I know, is silly. I really should take time to experiment with the design first before committing myself to make an actual drawing when making a new character. Maybe I just need..like...a "notes" kind of sketchbook--so then I can use more larger sketchbooks for just nice pictures. *ponders*

I'm glad you like Eve so much! Hopefully, I can make the rest of the characters in this story half as interesting. *laughs* And actually, yes, once I finish designing all of the characters (or at least the main characters), I sort of had the intention of trying to write out some scripts and possibly story boards. I've already had a bunch of sort of "episode" ideas. I think their antics would be amusing, in any case.

Anyways, I managed to refigure Alex's design. I wanted to draw her in both her girl and boy forms--but I didn't get to doing her girl as I ended up doing two boy forms. *rolls eyes* I'll explain that one in a sec.



So, here's another piece of the story. When Alex first convinces Assistant Dean to let her go to school undercover, he agrees to help her and gives her some of his old clothes. Of course, Assistant Dean was a huge, cliche nerd in his childhood, and Alex is too naive to think anything odd about the clothes as she is overwhelmed in her gratefulness. (In a very cartoon fashion, Alex's "boy haircut" is just her flipping her hair over her head and combing it forward.) Even initially attempts to remark, but ends up just saying that it's her funeral. For the first couple of episodes, Alex would be going to school in her form to the left, and is immediately marked as major loser at school.

Alex is unable to understand the reason behind her ridicule, until, eventually, in one of the "episodes," she becomes tired of being picked on and humiliated, and tries again to make friends. She ends up being put on the spot, whereupon she makes the very bad decision of trying to pass Eve off as her girlfriend to seem "cooler," which of course ends terribly as Eve is less than willing to play along, ends up punching Alex, and leaves Alex even lower on the social rung than before. She's about to let it pass, figuring she doesn't need friends who judge on her appearance alone, till someone makes a cruel joke that Alex could never get a date in a million years. Alex takes this as an immediate challenge to her intellect, and decides to employ all of her mathematical modeling to determine how to become the most popular and most desirable kid at school.

*shifty eyes* I guess I won't spoil the ending of that episode, but basically that's the premise of why Alex's boy appearance would suddenly change partway through the story.

[Asila]

Dude, I am loving the morph. Alex version 2.0 totally looks sexy. I like how Alex adjusts her hair, as well. I can see that her hair is the same length and has the same texture in both versions, but just by combing it up over her head instead of leaving it down it looks drastically different. It's pretty interesting. I caught myself looking back and forth between the two half a dozen times to see if the change was really that slight in theory when it looked so different!

And the story behind the change is just adorable. I don't know if the thought of Eve punching Alex makes me laugh or groan. What triggered that response from Eve? Did Alex try to kiss her to keep up the front? Because that would be epic.

Oh, and I love how Alex was going to use mathematical modeling to figure out how to become popular. I can just see her drawing up all of the equations on old-school chalk boards as she tries to find her solution. ;D

[Seven]

The hair trick would only work in the cartoon world. ;D But I was actually fairly happy with that idea once I thought of it because I wanted to have an excuse to keep Alex's hair long for her girl form, since part of the story would involve her running around as an actual girl out of school hours. If I had made her cut her hair...then there would have been no difference in hair style between forms unless I made one of them wear a wig. And what fun would that have been?

Speaking of which, I really should draw Alex as a girl...but after drawing her thrice along with a bunch of experimental doodles, I feel like drawing another character sketch just to have her in a pony tail and some different clothes would be obnoxious and tiring. Even though I should.

As for Eve: Well, Eve's persona always hints at being borderline violent. Though I cannot imagine her punch being the sort that comes from "spur of the moment, uncontrollable anger!" It seems more like a controlled, "You're an idiot--Like Hell I'm playing along with this." Eve needs no more reason beyond the first part of that quotation to punch someone. Plus, Alex sort of was freaking on the spot, and just grabbed her as she was passing by in the hallway, and proceeded to be sort of like how Erik is in Blood Ties: overcompensating. "Yup--Eve is TOTALLY MY GIRLFRIEND! She is so in love with me--you wouldn't believe it. We totally make out. Because that's what two people who are dating do! They make out! But then, Eve can't help but find me irresista--*PUNCH*" is basically the short and long of how it would go. But hey, it's Alex's fault for invoking Eve's wrath.

Yup. Math solves everything. The chalkboard thing with a million obscure equations was the way I was heading too.

[Asila]

I have drawn the drummer of Dead Cat! Well, her head and her pose, anyway. Her make-up is cat-based. Her hair has a cat theme, too.

i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff505/PowellAJ13/010.jpg

[Seven]

Here is the other protagonist. He's not quite named yet. I was toying with the idea of naming him "Xander", since Alex's false last name is supposed to be Zander. I'm thinking that I should let you guys help me name him! (One, two, three--start naming!) Anyways, a bit about his bio. He's the son of a rather famous scientist (Dr. Mendel's rival, actually), and thus, he's been pushed towards becoming a scientist as well. The only problem is, he's terrible at basically every scientific field out there. And in all other fields...well, he's basically a C student.

Our poor protagonist has been a little bit lost lately, feeling rather like a let down in general, and generally insecure. He can't please his father, he feels pressured to figure out what he's going to do with his life (and of course doesn't know this, being 14/15), and having bin pinned at school for being the dorky "loser" type. Along with his slightly sour relationship with his overbearing father, he doesn't know anything about his mother, his father refuses to talk of her, and there's an ongoing gag that he probably is his father's clone--something he's rather creeped out by, because it seems all too plausible. He has his father's same incredibly skinny, lanky build, and he's afraid that his nose (which is already a bit large), is going to grow into the same as his father's as well. But enough of these teenage insecurities.

___ is a pretty nice, normal guy. Well, normal not so much. He doesn't know exactly what happened, but there was some sort of accident in his father's lab, then the whole thing with the magical community abruptly appearing in town, and somehow, in the midst of it all, he ended up as some weird, shadow creature. Now, he has to worry about being a monster on top of everything else, especially since it seems that everyone--both humans and "light" magic creatures--wants to gun him down. Including his roommate! The only person on his side is his best friend (also nameless at this point), and is the only person who so far knows his secret. He doesn't initially have the form to the right--initially he lacks facial features, more like silhouette-- until he starts to gain mastery over shape-shifting powers. Of course, he ends up sucked into the whole wannabe superhero business, but that's not really important stuff to get into, is it? He has bigger problems to face--like trying not to get stuck to walls.

[Seven]

Here is one of the lesser antagonists of the story. I'm not set on a name yet, but I'm thinking Chloe for her. I didn't really dress her up much because I was trying to time myself (maybe not the best idea), since I accidentally invented her while trying to reconfigure Alex. You can see the originally, tiny sketch to the right, on which the larger picture is based. Sadly, I think the tiny one is better, but oh well. In any case, she should be dressed...gothically, for short. Jet black hair, dark accessories, etc.


Chloe
Age: 14/15/16?
Chloe is a goth. Or rather, as "trend goth" as Eve bitterly would explain to Alex when the naive gender bender when she tries to ask Eve why does she hold such obvious disdain for someone who seems to have the same style and interests as her. (Eve would also explain that she does not classify herself as anything--punk, goth, etc.--in an irked tone. She's not an object to be "labeled," unlike what some other people think...but that's another tangent.) Last year, Chloe was blond haired and bright eyed as she would take off to cheer leading practice. However, worried that she'd lose popularity as all the other cheer leaders began to look more and more like her, Chloe decided she needed to reinvent herself. Hence, she dropped cheer leading, joined the poetry club (shortly after Chloe and her flocking fanbase took over with their "emo-etry", the rest of the poetry club dropped out), and became the next Queen of Darkness, bemoaning the horrors of her misunderstood suburban life.

Chloe, in a word, is popular. She plays at being a goth because it was a new trend to exploit. And not only is she popular, but she is by far the most desirable girl at school--she is in a situation where ever guy goes absolutely gaga when they see her. But despite being so "deep" now that she's turned to the dark and brooding side, she's really just the same shallow, limelight hogging teen she was before.

[Asila]

Yes!!! I was so hoping that you would do something like that! It's about time someone created a popular, shallow girl who moved away from the cliche of blond-haired, blue-eyed, typical preppy student. I also find it very fitting that she once did look like that cliche, but has now morphed into the trend goth look. Since, let's face it, all of the dark stuff we loved in high school is just disgustingly popular now.

She's absolutely beautiful, by the way. I love her hair, and her heart-shaped face, and the way that she looks way-too-grown-up, as all girls like her tend to. Fantastic character design! You couldn't have chosen a better look and personality for her role!

[Asila]

The drummer of Dead Cats, finished. The lead singer of Dead Cats, also finished. You know, I can safely say that what took me the longest regarding these pictures was just deciding what the two of them were going to wear. Though working the poses out was a close second, at least for the drummer. Man, I struggle when it comes to drawing people.

[Seven]

Yup, I completely agree with everything you said. The idea of "darkness" has become increasingly popular nowadays, which is why I wanted to make Chloe the way she is. There's a few other legit reasons for wanting her to be a goth though. Since Chloe loves all things darkness, and you can't get a kid who's a shadow monster much darker than that, I figured she'd be the ever present temptation. That, and having the almost Mary-Sue-ish (think of the infamous Harry Potter fanfic, "My Immortal" for this sort of Sue) to become the obsessed, fan-girl-shallowly-in-love character. There were a couple of humour things I forgot to put in about her as well. Like, she has designer genes. No, not jeans, but genes. Part of why she looks so god damn perfect. I admit, I originally was thinking of just making the blond cheer leader popular prep at first to place this role, but it didn't completely work (I didn't like it much)--and I was already thinking of having a goth somewhere in the school. For a second, I thought maybe I could make them twins...but after all of these bad ideas, the obviously superior one hit me. Clearly, the best idea was just to splice to the two and have a popular goth. It's the best social commentary as well, as you said.

OMG--You have no idea how much I love you right now for your two band members! They look SO incredibly amazing. They're just both so god damn sexy! And what you did with their outfits, and the dead cat theme--it's just so freaking cool! I just love everything about these two! I love the shredded punk clothing, I love the dude's cat ears, I LOVE THEIR FREAKING MAKEUP! And their hair! *fangirl attack/glomp* And you did an incredible job of sort of using the cartoon style I used, but making your characters have so many of their own original features (go cleft chin!)! Also, you did a fantastic job of making them seem more grown up (like they would be) than the rest of the teenage characters. They look like actual adults that just are wicked cool. You are amazing for making them rock so hard! I love how you took a vague idea of mine and completely turned it into something epic! I'm going to have to work the band into a ton of episodes now!

Man, I'm going to have an inferiority complex going into trying to make my band members. I have no idea what I'm going to do for them (maybe I should just let you make the band! You're so amazing at it!). *grins* I'm so glad we talked about Dead Cat though, and we had the great idea of having it be an all female band except with a male lead--the reversal of what usually happens. This is so much fun!

Even so, I think I still like the ideas of not giving them names. And...*looks down* according to the cbox, I think Aka agrees with me. What do you think?

[Asila]

Man, you really have some good stuff going on with Chloe. I just can't believe how quickly you've pulled the storyline behind this series together! It's fantastic! And don't you dare let it die. This is way too cool! Not that I'd let you lose sight of it, since I'll be drawing as well so that we can keep each other going, but still! You have something here. I can really see this going somewhere. And I'll do everything I can to help you!

I really am glad you love my band members so much! I really enjoyed drawing them. They're actually the first thing I've drawn in my new sketchbook (I technically have one more page left in my old sketchbook still. I had one more than I thought I had. But I thought I'd save that page for the Molly portrait I still have to do) and Dead Cat was a great way to begin the newest sketchbook season! And the lead singer really did turn out sexy. They both did, really. But the lead seems like a cool guy to hang out with to me. Because when I look at him in this picture, I think about how someone, somewhere, once told me that the vocalist in a band likes to walk around and talk into his/her microphone even when they're not on stage anymore, and I think that's basically what he's doing. He's asked the drummer some kind of goof-off question during their downtime and now he's holding out the microphone to amplify her voice when she answers, as though it's an interview. I imagine him doing this to all of the members in Dead Cat.

Ah, this picture makes me smile. Even if we can only have the band in one episode realistically, I suspect that they're going to become my newest sketchbook characters. It's been a long time since the days of Fang and Whiplash. I need new repeat personalities in my sketchbooks pages. I'm so glad I pounced on your offer to let me draw two of the band members in Dead Cat! I'm really very fond of them. And I'll totally draw the other two members of the band if you'd like me too. Or we could always design them together while we're hanging out this weekend.

A quick note for the lead singer. His cat ears are fake, just pinned into his unruly hair in a discreet way. His cat eyes are the result of contacts, and his fangs are removable. You probably got that, but I felt like I should put that info into words since I draw characters with features like those that are actually real.

As for names, I don't think they need them. I'll just go ahead and think that they are so cool, they defy labels of any sort. On that note, I should say that the drummer is rocking some traditional girl outfit cliches. From the heart hanging from her collar to the pink she'll have in her hair. I'm trying very hard to make them look like legit members of a talented punk band while making sure they aren't cliche. I have to make Eve proud. *grins*

[Seven]

Well, I'm not as good as Richard Williams, who freaking pulled a complete story board out of his arse in 2 weeks. But I guess I'm doing all right, all things considered. Thanks in any case! I really appreciate your support and the offer. I might have to hire you to help me do animation, if I ever get that far.

Haha! I'm loving the personalities your putting with these guys. Your little anecdote makes them seem so chill and cool, but rather fun--like the kind of guys you'd love to hang out with. I think it would be a funny gag if--whenever the band is seen--the vocalist has the mike, even if they're in the middle of nowhere. Part of me is sorely tempted to just ask you to do the rest of the band, since you've done such an incredible job with these two. The other part of me argues that I'd probably enjoy having a swig at them, so I'm at a loss for now. Maybe I should just worry about drawing all the other characters. Maybe we'll just talk about that when you get here this weekend, and until then I'll draw other people.

In any case, I'm lovin' that they're the very first page of your new sketchbook! How iconic! Now, whenever you open that sketchbook up, you'll have to remember me having this crazy idea, regardless of whether or not it pans out or not. Heheh. And yeah, I did figure his eyes/ears were fake. (I do love your ideas for their wear and colors.) DUDE! Since this is a magical-explosion world, maybe in one of the episodes, Dead Cat is hit by something and their fake accessories and makeup starts to become real? *lame idea* I do need to think of what their episode would be like. Maybe I could do a musical episode, since all series seem to have one, and they could be the narrators.

Speaking of episodes, yeah, I do have a couple in mind. I haven't really written them down, but I jotted down working titles so I can remember the premise of each story. I'll have to post some episode descriptions once I get a better picture for all of them.

And don't worry. Eve is very proud.