New Character Art: The Mertons

Sunday, January 1, 2012

There are three of them, and I adore all of them. We've got a different backstory here now, though...

Basically, the Mertons' parents were like many costermongers: constantly arguing. As soon as he could, Gib set up shop on his own and took his sisters with him, thereby raising them himself. As a result, he's fiercely protective of the two of them (Kate's the older one, Sally's the younger one).

Kate's more fashion-forward, whilst Sally, who's about Charlie's age, idolizes her big brother and tries to dress like him (she even wears corduroy pants under her dress). Part of me almost thinks that when she and Charlie grow up, they'd be cute together...hmmm...

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.)