Author Archive: JeffWilcox

Hi Gang!! Here I am for my third go around with this art challenge. I have high hopes to finish with at least 30 new characters this year. Last year"s schedule was hectic for me, so I only did 16 drawings. And while that number doesn't count it here; it does mean I already have a dozen characters waiting in the wings, simply because I didn't have the time to draw them out. Onward and upward!!!
There seems to be a few new things happening this year: there are a lot of people who started early, and a lot of them are damn good. This latter should encourage all of us to churn out better characters and art as the challenge wears on. Good luck to us all.

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#29 Doctor Lemuria

| November 30, 2011 | 0 Comments

#29 Doctor Lemuria (Sci Fi) Dr. Lemuria is a mystic who found a gateway to a magical world of light. In that world, Lemuria appears as a white silhouette affecting the lines of force around him. These lines of force can take any shape and even appear as people for the associate with. The Doctor can also use those lines of force to defend that world from the forces of darkness.

In one of the Good Doctor’s adventures, the world of light is invaded by another dimension. This dimension was a pocket universe that was expanding its boundaries. It was also a realm of darkness and shadows. In defending the world of light, Doctor Lemuria used all his energy powers against the shadowy defender of that shadow realm. The battle was feirce; but in the end the Doctor discovered that the shadowy defender was a scientist called Griffen (post #8) who thought he was defending his realm ( the Shadowlands) against an invader. After a brief reconciling, both heroes worked together to restore balance to both realms. Neither of the heroes saw each other again, but pledged to help the other if they should ever need it.

Doctor Lemuria is my antithesis to “Griffin in the Shadowlands”. Both characters have their strenghts and weaknesses, their “yin to their yang” as it were. And since I created both these characters many years ago, I honestly can’t say which came first. Not that is matter — right?

#28 Star Phantom

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

#28 Star Phantom (Sci Fi/Superhero) In the far future, a superhero arises to help solve the problems found in outer space. Traveling from star system to star system in a star craft built into an asteroid, the one only known as Star Phantom and sidekick Nikki try to make the stars safer for everyone.

This is a new drawing of an old character. Why call him “Star Phantom”? Because the name “Space Ghost” has already been taken. The difference is that this hero travels with an adult woman (Nikki — it’s too bad I don’t have the time to draw her picture; she looks very nice in her tight black and white outfit) rather than two teenagers and a “space monkey”. Also, besides a few technological gadgets to make his job easier, Star Phantom’s big trick is to turn his body into a living cloud of hot plasma.

#27 Miss Cheivus

| November 29, 2011 | 0 Comments

#27 Miss Cheivus (Fantasy/Anthropomorphic Animal Cartoon)  Miss Cheivus lives in a cartoon world with Thoughtful Kitty (post #3), Alice Paca (post #7), and Saint Felix (post #25). Miss Cheivus has an adventurous soul, one that usually lands her in trouble about as often as not. She has the time to adventure around the countryside, plus a few other countries beside, because her family is wealthy. In other words, the adventurous life is aprt of her expensive tastes. But don’t think she is just “a little poor rich girl”; she is more than capable of taking on problems that confront her. For example, she not only has her own jet plane to travel around in (she gave it the name “Thunderbird”), she also flies it.

#26 Fireman Ethan

| November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

#26 Fireman Ethan (Humor)

#25 Saint Felix, Patron Saint of Happiness & Pleasure

| November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

#25 Saint Felix, Patron Saint of Happiness & Pleasure (Fantasy Humor) The name says it all. Felix is one of my anthropomorphic animal characters that shares a cartoon world with Monaka the Monkey, Harry the Horse, and others.

This idea came from my wife. We were driving around yesterday when we passed Felix Street. I reminded my wife that the name Felix comes from the latin word for “happiness”. As I said that, we passed a Cathlotic church, and my wife adds “Saint Felix, the patron saint of happiness and pleasure.” And so, an idea was born. Also, the idea was aided by the fact that our orange tabby’s name is Felix (so the drawing came easily enough too).

#24 Captain of the Time Agents

| November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

#24 Captain of the Time Agents (Scifi/Steampunk) Back in 1880, in an England we never knew, technology advanced in other directions than our world did. And amoung their “modern marvels” is a secret organization called the Time Agents. Answerable only to the Queen, the agents have scientific devices that awhile them to travel forward and backwards in time. They are well aware to the danger of that travel — accidents do happen — but they do their duty to help purserve the timeline and the British Empire as they know it.

This concept for a comic is interesting. I’m a fan of not only H.G.Wells and Jules Verne, but the X Files and Warehouse 13 TV series. So a Steampunk sci fi angle for this series was/is a natural. In fact, on the Warehouse 13 series, the show has their version of H.G.Wells as an agent in England at Warehouse 12. Hmm, could I somehow squeeze in a crossover story, where the Captain (I haven’t given him an actual just yet) and Warehouse 12 agents join in a single adventure?

Also, sorry about the color this time. The layout of the drawing I made was the way I wanted it, but the color turned out crappy. If I had known how the picture turned out, I would have left it as a black and white illustration.

 

#23 Monaka the Monkey

| November 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

#23 Monaka the Monkey (Fantasy Humor) Monaka lives in a world of cartoon characters with Harry the Horse, Oliver the Owl, and Saint Felix, patron saint of pleasure.

Once upon a time I had the idea of being a comic book artist. And recently I realized that the old time comic artists were in a situation where one week they would be doing a superhero story, the next a war comic, and a third a funny animal cartoon. In effect, they had to do a variety of different comics to bring their money in (and thus, be able to continue creating comics). So recently I started making my own anthropomorphic cartoon characters to help fill out my ability to draw comics — even if I never become a pro artist like I orginally planned.

#22 Super Eric

| November 25, 2011 | 0 Comments

#22 Super Eric (fantasy humor/superhero) Pajama Dragon (post #21) was inspired by my grand daughter Kim; #22 post is inspired by grandson Eric.  Eric’s magic phrase right now is “Mac and Cheese!” So when I heard this I imagined thunder and lightening and Eric turning into a super hero (ala Captain Marvel/Shazam).

“Is there an “R” on your shirt?” Another big thing with Eric is the letter “R”. First off, Eric and his twin sister Kim turned three years old last week. Also, big brother Ethan (who will turn five years old in a couple months) isgoing to pre-school. And with pre-school, Ethan is learning his ABCs. For some reason Eric ( who likes to imitate big brother in most things) looks at the alphbet and thinks the letter “R” is important. If you ask Eric how old he is, he’ll say…”R”.

#21 Pajama Dragon

| November 21, 2011 | 0 Comments

#21 Pajama Dragon (Humor/Fantasy) How did I get this character? Well, er…I stole it. My daughter and the grandkids came to visist yesterday, and my grand dauhter Kim was playing with a toy dragon. She also had a red pajama top for one of her baby dolls. And she was determined to get this pajama on this toy dragon. Mind you, the dragon wasn’t anatomically suited for wearing that top; but Kim managed to get the dragon’s head and arms through the holes.  It worked! 🙂 And as I thought about what character I was going to do for today’s challenge, that “pajama dragon” came back to me.

Side note: I think I have my first Christmas present for the season. Put this picture in a nice frame and I think my grand daughter would really like it.

#20 Tex of the Skyfoxes

| November 20, 2011 | 0 Comments

#20 Tex of the Skyfoxes (Sci Fi/Anthropomorphic Cartoon Character) In the far future, Tex is a member of Team #17 of the Skyfoxes, the space ranger division of the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). Tex is the rebel personality of her group. She is always wearing nonregulation clothes along with her ranger uniform — cowgirl hat, boots, gloves, and a pair of six-shooter holsters for her blaster sidearmes. Also, nonregulation behavior gets her into as much trouble as her missions for the Skyfoxes. But her value as a ranger comes from those same traits; and so her boss Kit Zenko does her best to stear Tex in the directions she can do the most good.

Tex is part of my “Kitty and the Skyfoxes” series of characters. She is also the last character I’ll be doing here. I also considered doing these characters in an anime style, but the furry fandom style worked out great. Plus the use of color was fun.

20 characters on November 20th — all right!!!!!!

#19 Shaman

| November 20, 2011 | 0 Comments

#19 Shaman (Fantasy) Mystic, magican, the creator of worlds. This is a rough sketch designed for a larger picture. The idea of this picture will show a number of different aspect of my personality, the “shaman” amoung them.

#18 Zeek

| November 20, 2011 | 0 Comments

#18 Zeek (Humor/Sci Fi) Originally, this was supposed the top title of a science fiction club newsletter. But that issue never came out – Soooooo, their loss is our gain. Enjoy.

#17 Care-free Hal

| November 20, 2011 | 0 Comments

#17 Care-free Hal

#16 Johnny Speed and the Midnight Dragons

| November 18, 2011 | 0 Comments

#16 Johnny Speed and the Midnight Dragons (manga and fantasy horror) The year 2012 isn’t the year that the world ends. However, the Earth populated by dragons does make the world scene interesting. From space they came, dragons of every size and description, and they descended on Earth in the thousands. Most of the dragons create chaos and destruction; but a few have befriended the humans.  Johnny Speed, a high schooler, is one of these. With him and the dragons he has known the human race has a chance to survive into the future.

Johnny and his dragon friends are another example of my exploration with Internet name generators. As I’ve said in earlier posts, I find the best results from those generators is to take the hackneyed answers, cut them up, and rearrange them into better titles/ideas. This post looked like it would be better in a manga/anime style.

 

#14 & #15 Roxie and Red (“Big Red”)

| November 17, 2011 | 0 Comments

#14 & #15 Roxie and Red (“Big Red”)(science fiction/anthropomorphic cartoon characters) Two characters this time.

In the far future, Roxie is a member in Team #17  of the Skyfoxes, the space ranger division of the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). Team #17 is stationed at the Rubah Space Station (orbiting the planet Rubah 4). Her other teams mates are Tex, Casey, and new recruit Kitty. Basically speaking, Roxie is an adventurous, amazon fox woman who has a sexy outlook on life. In the picture above, Roxie is experiencing an adventurous moment with one of the space station’s tech support personnel, the cat guy called Red (“Big Red” Roxie whispers in his ear; after she dispatched the station’s alien invaders, of course).

Red is a Science Tech at the Rubah Space Station (this is indicated by his green and brown uniform, as opposed to the silver and red of the space rangers). Red has spent most of his time just being your average hard-working guy, till a very nice cat lady joined the ranger teams named Kitty. Red and Kitty eventually got together, dispite the ribbing of Roxie and others, and now are a couple.

Roxie and Red are part of my “Kitty and the Skyfoxes” series of characters. Of that series, there is only the character called “Tex” to add. I’ll probably add her tomorrow. And, yes, Tex is a female.

#13 Tiger X

| November 15, 2011 | 0 Comments

#13 Tiger X (superhero) Here’s another hackneyed use of an Internet name generator. Not bad, not bad at all. I have to admit that if a person takes the result of these generators, chops up the names/titles/ideas generated, and resort them into new combinations, then what you get out of it isn’t too bad. They are supposed to help spark the imagination; you just have to play with the results to get what you want.

I also played around with a generator that produced titles for adventure stories. So for my superhero, I have the following stories (to eventually write and draw):

* “Night of the Comet King”

*“Tiger X and the Puzzle of Lemuria”

* “Operation Minotaur”

* “Tiger X and the Vampires of Mars”

#12 Casey of the Skyfoxes

| November 13, 2011 | 0 Comments

#12 Casey of the Skyfoxes (science fiction/anthropomorphic cartoon character) In the far future, Casey is a member of team #17 of the Skyfoxes, a space ranger squad of the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). Casey’s personality leans towards the use of gadgets, computers, and scientific formulas. In other words, Casey is the team’s “tech girl”. Though, if she has any shortcomings, it is that she overthinks some problems and works longer than any of the over members of her team (read: socially challenged).

Casey belongs to my “Kitty and the Skyfoxes” series of characters. I tried to give each of the characters distinct personalities, complete with shortcomings. The shortcoming might be easier than you think; as a person’s strenghts and weaknesses usually come from the same personality traits. The above example with Casey is a good one. Also, the lead of the series, Kitty, brings youthful enthusiasm and energy to her team; while at the same time, falls on her face and bouches missions because she trying so hard. Then there’s Roxy (who I haven’t posted yet), the adventurous amazon with the sexy outlook on things. Her shortcoming is that her powerful, hard driving personality also makes her a bossy woman (which isn’t alway appreciated by her team mates). And so on. Enjoy.

#11 Kit Zenko

| November 12, 2011 | 0 Comments

#11 Kit Zenko (science fiction/anthropomorphic cartoon characters) Kit is the “big Boss” of the Skyfoxes, the space ranger branch of the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). Her base of operations is in the Rubah space station (orbiting the planet Rubah4), right size where she commands and sends out mission plans for 17 squads of rangers (while rangers can work solo, the usual habit is to work in teams of four or five; these teams are just the right size to pilot the standard patrol starship).

Kit Zenko is part of my  “Kitty and the Skyfoxes” series of characters. Her character is patterned after the Japanese myths of the Fox Woman. Long and thin, a fox woman is really a fox who has lived long enough to gain mystic and magical powers. At one hundred years old, a kitsune (Japanese word for “fox”) has the power to see and hear every in the world and gain as many as nine tails (in the series, Kit has a desk that has a throne-like chair behind it, the chair looking all the world like  nine fox tails spread out on the chair’s back). Other powers include shapeshifting, demon possession, mental influence, and creation of fire. All these help Kit Zenko in her job of commanding the Skyfoxes.

#10 Kitty of “Kitty and the Skyfoxes”

| November 10, 2011 | 0 Comments

Kitty and the Skyfoxes

#10 Kitty (science fiction/anthropomorphic cartoon characters) In the far future there are the Skyfoxes, space rangers for the IDF (Interplanetary Defense Force). The Skyfoxes’ newest recruit is Kitty, a cat person. She is placed in squad number 42, an all female fox squad. The foxes distrust Kitty’s ability to be a ranger; but may change their mind after Kitty joins them is a number of missions. Kitty herself is a go-getter type of person, energitic and full of enthusiasm. Her rushing around trying to prove herself will likely land her in trouble, but that might change with some experience. Also, Kitty has a boy friend, Red (“Big Red”, who will be seen in a later post).

Kitty and the Skyfoxes is another series of characters I’ve created but as yet haven’t done anything with them. If I start up a webcomic then this series might be a good choice to try.

10 characters on November 10th — all right!!!!

 

#9 Joeys

| November 9, 2011 | 0 Comments

Joeys

#9 Joeys ( fantasy cartoons) A joey is the name for a baby kangeroo. When I created these cute kangeroo characters, calling all of them Joeys” seemed natural. The Joeys seen here are only about half of the different versions I created. Enjoy.

#8 Griffen In The Shadowlands

| November 9, 2011 | 0 Comments

Griffen In The Shadowlands

#8 Griffen In The Shadowlands (science fiction) James Griffen is a scientist who discovers  a new dimensional space — a “pocket” universe he calls the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands is a dark world populated by strange creatures and plants ( when someone dies in the Shadowlands the grasses pull the dead body into the earth). Fearing the world isn’t ready for his discovery, Griffen keeps the Shadowlands secret. Griffen does have a purpose for this world though; with his control of dimensional space Griffen can spy on criminals here on Earth.  And when Griffen learned all about the criminal’s activity, they got sucked into Griffen’s shadowy world. 10 criminals a day disappeared from the Earth never to be seen again. No trials, no jails needed; and no further criminal activity from the evil people who committed those crimes.

That is, until Griffen witnesses a mugging of a woman. The mugger is caught in the dimensional vortex that leads to the Shadowlands, but so is the woman. Both are tumbled into the dark grasses of that midnight world. While Griffen admits the event was an accident, he feels guilty sending an innocent person into the place suited for thosethat are evil. Griffen then enters the Shadowlands to resuce the woman, and discovers he is stuck there too.

Now Griffen spends his time trying to survive the dark world he sent others. Not only does he have to watch for the creatures and hostile plant life, there are also survivors of the criminals he sent. Wish him luck; he’ll need all of that he can use.

#7 Alice Paca

| November 8, 2011 | 0 Comments

#7 Alice Paca (fantasy) Alice is an anthropomorphic cartoon alpaca. She is stylish and modern, even though she still has to deal with the animal aspect of her species — just like the rest of us. 🙂

My wife, brother-in-law, and I visited an alpaca farm just a few weeks ago. They are fasinating animals, each with their own distinctive looks. As our 30 Characters Challenge was just a couple weeks away, I started thinking about how these alpacas would look as cartoon characters. They would all be long necked, barrel chested & skinny rumped, and have those long legs on the bottom. I could see where Momma( the breeding female of the group) could end being a fashion model of the alpaca world, floppy hair on top of her head and all — thus, Alice.

#6 Doctor Gene Hu

| November 7, 2011 | 0 Comments

Doctor Gene Hu

#6 Doctor Gene Hu (science fiction): Doctor Hu is apart of my Foxfire One series (see posts #4 & 5). The Good Doctor is the civilian medical and science officer aboard the starship Foxfire One. He is the third member of a crew of  three, with Captain Jason Templar (post #4) and Ship’s Engineer Lis’a Roan (post #5). Doctor Hu is a causal, congenial man who makes life aboard Foxfire One fun. A favorite activity is the quiet time between missions when the crew can kick back, have some ice cream, and swap stories. The Doctor keeps himself occupied with a variety of hobbies:  from space exploration to mythology, martial arts to video games. In fact, he is a big fan of the old British television series “Doctor Who” and loves making references to the simularity between his name and the series’ lead character –“Would you like a jellybaby?” Also, his cabin aboard ship has a handprinted sign stating the cabin is the entrance to a TARDIS.

Doctor Hu was a fun character to create. If Jason Templar is the workaday “let’s get things done” part of my mind, then Doctor Hu is the part of my mind that is is into hobbies, kung fu, fudge brownies, and other things fannish (whether we’re talking science fiction, fantasy, comics, anime, or whatever). And I couldn’t resist sticking a Doctor Who reference into the series, it would be just too much fun tripping through space with the Good Doctor. 🙂 As for his appearance, since I practiced Kung Fu in my younger days, I also realized that the other best person I would like to be stuck on a starship with (besides my wife, who was the model for Lis’a Roan) was Jackie Chan – or, at least, the film persona Chan like to project throughout his movies. Thus, Doctor Hu has a familar looking face.

Enjoy.

#5 Lis’a Roan

| November 6, 2011 | 0 Comments

 

#5 Lis’a Roan (science fiction)– Lis’a is the engineer aboard the starship Foxfire One. She is a strong, opinionated woman that has some deffent ideas on how things should run (“Everything has its place”). Naturally she is mechanically inclined, with a talent for growing plants (one of her ways of “getting away from it all” aboard ship), and reading up on nutrution and health books. Her husband is Jason Templar (see post #4), the captain of the starship.

Lis’a is part of my Foxfire One series of characters. She is loosely based on my wife ( though my wife would point out that Lis’a doesn’t look like her much). For the Foxfire One series I’ve stuck in a number of injokes. One of these is the use of fox images and references. Lis’a Roan’s name is one of those examples. Lis’a ( that’s Lis_a, not Leesa) is the Polish word for fox. And roan is a color usually associated with the color of some horses — a red-brown. So in a sense, Lis’a Roan, means “red fox”.

#4 Jason Templar

| November 5, 2011 | 0 Comments

#4 Jason Templar — Jason is a starship captain aboard the Star Ranger patrol ship, Foxfire One.  Jason is a workaday captain more interested in exploring space, aiding the injured, and stopping a problem than the paramiltary rankings amoung the Rangers. As it is, he is the ideal of the American western: causal, good humored, hard working, fair treatment with others, etc. Foxfire One’s other crew members are Lis’a Roan (Jason’s wife — the ship’s engineer) and Doctor Gene Hu (the ship’s civilian medical and science officer)( the Ridgerunner class patrol ships have an average crew of three to five).

The Foxfire One series was my idea for the great American science fiction novel. I thought it would be great if I could get all my diverse science fiction characters together for one big, splashy adventure that pitted the heroes against an alien invasion. The lead characters would be this little patrol ship that would end up carrying all the heroes to the climatic fight scene. Unfornately, I’ve been playing with this idea for ten years.

More of these characters will be seen for the first time in my falling posts.

#3 Thoughtful Kitty

| November 3, 2011 | 0 Comments

#3 Thoughtful Kitty — Finally, I figured out how to upload these posts properly. I almost gave up on trying to do this challenge. As for Kitty, she was a character I was going to use if I ran short of time on one of these posts ( I drew up this picture last summer). I didn’t know I was going to use her this soon though.

Kitty was created from the descriptions in a name generator. There are a few out there that can come up with some interesting characters. An.d from the brief and generalized description, my imagination created an interesting art design. Enjoy

#2 Wisp (The Good Little Ghost Girl)

| November 3, 2011 | 0 Comments

#2 Wisp ( The Good Little Ghost Girl) “And when I’m bad, I’m even better”

This character was inspired by the 1992 movie “Cool World”. This was a film that combined live-action actors and cartoon characters on the same screen, much in the way “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” did. In the climax of the film, the hero has to save Los Vegas  by fighting off an invasion of cartoon ghosts. Wisp is a takeoff on the several girl ghosts that were part of the invasion.

Incidently, the male monsters and fantasy characters on the left of the picture includes the Mask (far left of picture) — “Smokin’!”

 

 

#1 Frankenstein Jackson

| November 1, 2011 | 0 Comments

#1 Frankenstein Jackson — This is a very old character; believe it or not, back in 1969 or 1970. I thought it would be fun to have the Frankenstein Monster as a non-scary character. This version likes playing with children and reading them story books, and his old weird house is more funhouse than a haunted one.