#002

Greetings

This is the second post. I was mildly surprised that I finished before the deadline, but also I knew that I would all along. I guess that goes to show something—I don’t know what. I write these in one sitting, with next to no planning ahead of time. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, or if it sits happily in the gray. Whichever the case, I have a new piece of art to present. For the past few weeks, I have been cultivating the idea of a team of monster hunters based in a parallel world in 1980s California, where monsters exist and need to be exterminated. The leader of this team is a mysterious and serious figure, a strategic thinker, and a powerful fighter.

Kit Smashmouth is an anomaly. One day he was a washed up monster hunter, barely able to take out the smallest monsters, the next knocking out building-sized creatures with a few well-placed punches. Rather than join the Colossus Slayers, one of the largest and strongest teams of hunters, he picked two other nobodies and formed the California Monster Hunters (or C.A.M.H.). They quickly proved to be able to compete with the top, despite their small size. For some reason, Kit, the leader of the band, only decides to go after strange and isolated monsters, not the big flashy ones the others took down. While no pattern has yet been identified by what few fans there are, it seems as though Kit and the CA Monster Hunters and after something, or someone.

Inkbeard lore

Comic Books

I love comic books. There are some who don’t, and that’s okay; they have their own problems to iron out. Ever since I discovered Tintin and Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes, I have loved every kind of graphic novel or comic book to grace the world. However, I grew up in both a time and place that did not encourage reading books with pictures of men and women in skin-tight suits, and therefor I had access to different kinds of books—Asterix and Obelix, Tintin, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, graphic novels that could be found in the library of an elementary school or library: Adventure Time, CardBoard, Amulet, and others. These played a huge part in my life not only inspiring stories but also the love of drawing.

Is there something that you have been inspire by? A painting, a song, a poem? Art is one of God’s greatest gifts, the beauty and inspiration it brings. (Comment below, if you please. It helps me get noticed). My life has many goals—most of which I won’t go into for issues of time—but one of the greatest is to become an author of a line of comic books that inspire others. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Mystery, etc. I already have many in the brewing tanks. The goal is that while I continue to bring you fantastic art, I also world build, design characters, write histories, describe dialogue. Which is a lot, but I can probably do it. Every now and then, I want to also release a small story, maybe twenty pages, each self contained. Kit Smashmouth features in one. Hopefully I will be able to start working on the first after Inktober.

Inspiration

the inspiration for CA Monster Hunters comes mainly from One Punch Man. I saw this anime, one of three I dabbled in, and I was immediately hooked. The wit, the fight scenes, the characters, they all captivated me. However, I can’t just rewrite the show in comic book form with my own OC’s (original characters. It took a while before I figured out what that meant. I always found it a little off putting—just like lol. Put some effort into it!). So I had to shave away all the fluff and get down to the core idea so I could steal it like every other artist does: powerful heroes who fight monsters. Dispose of the Hero Association and with retro anime monsters, snag the one idea and run with it.
With this in the back of my mind, I heard the anomaly of 80s synth wave. The moment the drums hit my ears, I thought of the CA Monster Hunters cruising down a neon highway in their DeLorean. So I took the inspiration of the closet and started putting the pieces together. And thus the CA Monster Hunters were born. There are two other characters on the team, and they will make their own appearances in time.

Farewell.

Thank you for reading this far. The first couple paragraphs took some effort, but I think I pulled it together by the last one. Inktober begins next week, and I will be posting the week’s drawings on the following blogs. I have yet to come up with a solidified set of characters to features in each, however, so that will be the goal next week. Please like this post, subscribe to receive emails notifying of the newest posts, and tell everyone! (Honestly the email thing might not work yet. Creating a website has a lot of things that are hard for someone of my caliber to understand). I can’t do this without you. You’re my only hope, Obi-Wan followers.