New Character Art: Montgomery Houghton

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Hey, remember when this guy was the villain?

As time went on and my own mental disorders were properly diagnosed (I have Asperger's syndrome and OCD), I realized that Monty was too sympathetic to be a proper villain. I love sympathetic villains, believe me, but Monty was just too close to home for me to make him evil. Monty is simply a good boy who's misunderstood and likes playing the violin horribly.


Monty's another one whose hair has gotten nicer-looking as my art has gotten nicer-looking. I actually think he's kind of hot now, too, which is what I've been going for with him. I mean, people seem to really be into brooding guys, right? Twilight wouldn't have worked if an emo vampire hadn't been one of the main characters. Teenagers love brooding emo guys. I don't get it - as I've told people in the past, I'd marry Dustin in a heartbeat. I'm much more into sweet, dorky guys, I guess.

Anyway, that's that. Mental disorders in the Victorian period are a lot of fun to research, but it's a pain sometimes because the names are different/generalized. Blah.

I don't even know.

Get off Twitter and go write funny things, you two.

New Character Art: Charlie Jenkins

Friday, December 30, 2011

Charlie, who's a more important character than I often give him credit for, looks pretty much exactly the same as he did when I first created him in 2004. He's actually the first Londinium character to exist - I doodled him in my notes in an anthropology class during my sophomore year of high school.

The thing is, really, that Charlie helps bring people - namely Basil and Dustin - together, and he plays a bigger role than is discussed whenever I'm talking about the book with anyone. Aside from helping Basil and Dustin become friends, he's also involved in a lot of their plots and escape plans and all those sorts of things.

Oh, and he's a lot of fun to research because I get to read up on Victorian prostitutes. Charlie's mother, who was a prostitute, died in childbirth, so he ended up being raised in the brothel by the other prostitutes until he was about ten years old or so, when he set out on his own. He doesn't know his own birthday (although whoever runs that house of ill repute he was born in does, because they'd celebrate it every year). It's fun to look into that little aspect of Victorian life.

On that note, Victorian sexuality is something else entirely, and I'll definitely write a post on that at some point, as well. That's one of my absolute favorite things to research...

New Character Art: Robert and Kitty Sheldon

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Here's a two-fer, I suppose. Robert Sheldon, for the unacquainted, is Basil's co-worker who's really only good at doing math and getting drunk at parties. His extremely intelligent (and long-suffering) wife, Kitty Sheldon, is definitely the more useful of the two of them. Either way, they both aid Basil at varying points.

That little baby labeled 'Charlotte' is born in between books one and two.

Rewrite!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

So I'm into my second draft of this novel, because when it's ready to go I'd like it to be as high-quality as possible. I'm changing a lot of stuff at the beginning because it frankly sounded really cheesy to me, but overall progress is being made and I do like that.

I think the biggest problem with rewrites comes when you've really developed your characters and they're severely different from the way you first imagined them. Basil especially has changed since I started writing him, so it's going to be tough to look through that first draft and fix him up. It's also tough when you like a character since they've grown and you have to go back to writing them pre-growth to get them up to that moment where they change. That's especially hard for me because I adore post-growth Basil because he's even more openly...well, that would give away too much, so I don't really want to get into that at the moment, but you get the idea!

In the meantime, I've gotten Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin for Christmas and I can't wait to really dig into it. It looks like an excellent biography. I like those. A lot. It's hard to sit and read (or write, for that matter) when there are growling Old English sheepdogs playing in your house because they're adorable and distracting, but that's the life of a babysitter, I suppose. It happens.

And hey - because of Barnaby and Louise, Basil's going to now own a sheepdog, as well. I cannot wait for fanart of this.

New Character Art: Mary Hutchins

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

She doesn't show up now until Book 3, but nevertheless, here she is.

I was hit by some inspiration earlier today. You won't see her for a bit now, but instead of a parlor maid she's now an actress whose ability to use disguises and costumes comes in handy due to a certain plot point in Book 3. I just really like her full design on the left. (On the right, she's in two disguises - one as a middle class woman, and one as a man.)

New Character Art: The Huddleston Players

Monday, December 19, 2011

These folks, the Huddleston Players, are Basil's friends from boarding school and university. Of particular note is William Conrad, the blonde in the upper-right corner - he was Basil's Eton roommate. They repeated this arrangement at Oxford.

Clockwise from Will, we have Algernon Huddleston, Quinby Perch, Norval Larkin, Reginald Prescott, and Edward Griswold. In terms of redesigns, I made Griswold's hair a lot lighter because otherwise he bore a resemblance to Adolf Hitler and nobody wants their good guys to look like the most evil man in history. I also updated everyone's hair because I can draw it better than I could in high school.

Oh, and Algy somehow got hot. I'm not going to complain or anything, but how the hell did that happen?

New Character Art

Saturday, December 17, 2011

I'm redoing all of the character designs for Londinium since I can draw a lot better now than I could back when I was a sophomore in high school. Here are my redesigns for the two main characters:

I'll add more redesigns as I draw them, so keep your eyes on this site!

I have now been enabled to write here.

Monday, May 23, 2011

For whatever reason, this site does not wish for Thatcher to also contribute. I suppose there is some sort of karmic reasoning behind this.

At the very least, I suppose I am only writing this so you know that I am able to update the site now. My name is Basil Theodore Remington, and I am the heir to an earldom who enjoys writing things. I am also in this book, which makes me somewhat relevant to its success as a story.

I really have nothing else useful to contribute at present, but I just supposed it was a good thing to inform those who read this that I can actually update this website now. (Website is the correct word, yes?) That being said, greetings to all of you, and I eagerly await the opportunity to connect with you all.

Victorian Jersey Shore

Thursday, April 28, 2011

These are all-around brilliant. I love when people do these sorts of things.












This is pure genius. These are the sorts of things I want to use Basil and Dustin to do. I just love these kinds of things to death. So you should go and watch these videos. Just because they're really funny.

Messing with a good thing is stupid

Friday, April 8, 2011

The Daily News gave the Arthur remake 1 star.

The New York Post gave it 1.5 stars.

MSNBC didn't like it, either.

All is right in the world. I'm sorry, Brand, but Dudley Moore forever reigns supreme over all.

I will now go back to editing my senior thesis, which is about soldiers who pretended to have arthritis to shirk duty during the American Civil War. If you want to read it, feel free to inform me of this.

Random updates, and that sort of thing

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Added Basil's tweets to the sidebar, as well, because it's no fun to just hear from one of those two and not the other.

I think I'd just like to lodge a complaint over the fact that there's, well, a new Arthur movie. How can you remake a Dudley Moore film? You don't. Seriously, just watch this and tell me the remake is going to be anywhere near this. It won't be. I can tell you that right now. It just won't.



This movie is very near and dear to my heart. I even borrowed the line 'sometimes I just think funny things' from here as a nod to it. That's been my mantra ever since I heard it. I just don't understand why you would take this brilliantly funny, absolutely adorable film and remake it with Russell Brand.

I also spent this morning watching cricket. I swear I'm an American. Really. But it's always a good point of reference to know how some of your characters' favorite sport actually works.