Grandpa Firestone is a retired archeologist who now runs a antique shop, called, “One Mans Gold”. He sells all kind of unique items and treasures from his archeologist days in the antique store.
Firestone currently lives with him and reluctantly helps him run the shop. (He would much rather be hanging out at the beach or doing just about anything else than stay stuck at the shop all day…)
Grandpa is one of the only people who knows of Firestone’s secret ability to use his powers, and he urges him to keep them a secret. At least until he has a proper hold onto how to control and use them. He seems to know a lot about the ancient world, and carries a vast knowledge about various mysterious artifacts from all over the world.
He seems a bit coy these days whenever Firestone asks about his origins or mysterious abilities… Maybe he knows more than what he is letting on… Time will tell.
He is seen as being tough on his grandson, but deep down, he truly only wants whats best for him. When he is not rambling on about his past adventuring days, he can usually be found polishing and cleaning some of his more valuable treasures kept hidden away.
I’ve been fleshing out my new character Anita a bit more. Here are a few drawings I have made of her.
This is the first drawing that I’ve made of her, predating the post I shared a few days ago.
Initially, I knew that I wanted her to have somewhat long hair, and some kind of jumpsuit, as they’re both relatively easy tot draw for me.
As you can see in the drawings below, I spent some time refining her, and fleshing her out a tad bit more.
This is a quick front view of the character Anita. Her base outfit consists of a standard ninja jumpsuit. On her lower back is where she keeps her trusty kodachi sword. There is a small aura effect around her hands, as she has the ability to use and harness mystic arts. I thought the earrings were a nice accessory, and a good fit for her.
Her thighs are rather shapely. I felt that would be a good look for the her. I may be a bit biased, but I like women with shapely legs, so maybe some of my bias is showing up while putting this character together. Personal preferences aside, these days, I like to keep the character designs simplistic, and easy to read for now. I’m sure as time goes on, there may be a place for a more evolved and redesigned look towards her ninja outfit.
As you can see in the image above, I decided to go for more of an action oriented pose for her. I think this pose shows that she can be seen as more of an action oriented character. With this sketch, I think the proportions on her body stand out well, and captures the attention of the viewer. I think the flowing effect of her hair and earrings mesh well here also.
Added a small bit of inks, and added a bit more detail.
After cleaning up some of the pencils, and minor imperfections, this is the final image. I like how she came out in this drawing. There are some things I will perhaps clean up, and fix a bit, the added details on her shins, and lack of detail on her breasts (they look a bit flat without the same shine effect I gave to her legs) kind leave me at odds a bit, but I can attend to that later.
I also want to add that this will likely be the pose that I will go with with turning her into a statue figure. I think the figure will look great! It will take me some time, but I think this, as well as some of my other goals may be able to come to life before the end of the year.
Lastly, this is a sketch drawing of Anita that I will likely finish very soon. I wanted to give a similar effect to emphasize her body on this drawing, as well as show she can be a threatening combatant as well. As you can see, there is some clean up work needing to be done, but I think the point still stands.
He is a villian that shows up later in the series.
Moving forward, I may be sharing small snippits, characters, and designs for my characters, without giving too much away, of course.
I imagine that he will appear in Wave 2 for the toy line that I am developing. So there may be a small but of time before he shows up as a action figure/statue.
I decided to go with the name Firestone Comics, as I named my imprint after my character “Firestone”. Idk, I just figured since my character has Fire abilities, perhaps it should reflect somewhere in his name… Then, I just decided to go with Firestone Comics. Some of my short gag comics, or quick 1 shots were based off my character Firestone and a few other characters. That is the origin of Firestone Comics.
Its funny right, I wasn’t the type of kid who read comics for entertainment when I was a kid. Look, don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid I liked Spider-man, X-Men, Batman and many other characters when I was a kid, just like everyone else. But there was really no real way for me to get my hands on comics when I was a child. Most of my exposure to American Comic IP come from cartoon shows and video-games.
Y’see, my generation was the video-game generation for our primary source of entertainment. In years prior, it was all about the big two American Comic book giants, “Marvel” and “DC” comics. Those two were the main factors when it came towards creating comics. But moving onwards to the 90’s and 2000’s comic books had to compete with the new kids on the block for the attention of its target demographic. Video-game giants, Nintendo, SEGA, Microsoft, and SONY had entered the fray as the rising dominant force for the male entertainment attention demographic. This is the generation and demographic that I was a part of.
Also, growing up in an impoverished city, below the poverty line, with a household of nearly 10 people, and a family who has limiting beliefs about money and spending, comic book stores were a far off thing. Keep in mind, at this age of my adolescent years, I knew nothing about comic book stores. I didn’t even know they existed. I probably would have went to one or two had they been around my community or if I knew of their existence.
Nearing this time is also when the Asian explosion of Japanese Manga and Anime made a huge boom in the United States. Heroes and stories of past icons like Batman and Spider-man were being left in the past for new exciting stories from our Japanese counterparts. Comics and anime from series like DragonBall Z, Naruto, Pokémon, and many others had grabbed the attention from traditional American “superhero” comics. Once I got my hands onto this new form of entertainment, I never looked back.
In much of this, I was always somewhat of a creative child. I loved to draw some of my favorite characters when I was young, as most kids do. I had many complete, and incomplete sketchbooks of my favorite characters, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sora, and many of my own characters.
I decided that along my journey, I would make my own stories and characters.
These days, I am more into producing toys and action figures. I have shared some of my process on this on this very blog, but there is more to come. Ultimately, my dream is to make characters, toys, and express whatever creative outlet that I have, make lots of money doing what I love, and getting all of my goals and dreams out, leaving nothing behind.
Part of this blog is to share a bit of my journey.
Anyways, that is a small snippet on what Firestone Comics is, and the origin of how things came about.
I’ve been diligently continuing on my path towards creating a toy line for my comic, “Firestone”. Today, I thought I would share a bit more of my progress on my journey.
I think one particular area that I have struggled with is the likeness of the character. I have decided to make some alterations and sacrifices in order to make this figure a reality. For this figure, I decided to have Firestone’s hair sort of blown off to the side, as it seemed to have his long hair flowing down as very difficult.
This is the initial design I had for the toy. I used som AI tooling for the side profile image.
I also feel like I struggled with the 3D artist I hired for this project is having a hard time understanding my vision on getting the characters likeness to be as close to the 2D drawing as possible. I blame myself for this, as I believe that as a leader, all of the responsibility falls on me to get the desired outcome needed for this endeavor. But I can’t sit around in sorrow for the unfortunate mistakes and misunderstandings made in this project. It is best to take accountability, learn from this, and apply the lessons learned and move forward. A good result from making these mistakes early is that I now have the knowledge and understanding to fix these misunderstandings if they ever come up again.
This is one of the early concepts that were made for Firestone.
I was very impressed with the manner of sculpting that was produced, but ultimately I felt as though the end result did not look like the 2D drawing of Firestone.
Firestone 2.0 Anatomy looks great, but the face looks a bit off.
In any case, I went forward, understanding that these are perhaps necessary sacrifices for now, and I can move forward with this project, and learn from it going forward.
Another mistake I made was not being as clear as I possibly could when designing the articulation and joints for this figure, a mistake that literally cost me a lot of money! Although this can be rectified in the future, I learned that it is best to be very specific and leave no room for misunderstandings with high cost projects like this. It can literally cost you!
Despite this error on my end, I am pleased with the quality of work that has been accomplished so far.
Early steps in the articulation process
I am much more thoughtful with my financial responsibilities with this project. I take pride in the fact that I can use my money as a tool. It helps me get the desired outcomes that I want for myself. It also empowers my future. I often hold my head high and laugh to myself, asking myself if I am a visual artist, or a toy developer at this stage. I suppose this is a good problem to contemplate myself with. It can be great for further marketing myself.
I have learned a great deal in my time dedicating myself towards this massive endeavor. I am really proud of myself for coming this far in my journey. I have always been a ambitious and driven person. Despite many of the major setbacks, and learning experiences that I have had in my life, I can finally see my vision coming into reality. I have struggled so much in my artist journey, and in some cases, getting completely off my path, and wanting to give up on my goals and dreams. As I continue moving forward, much of the work I have been toiling away at and working in silence on is starting to pay off.
Ultimately, I see myself continuing to learn more about the toy industry. I believe that I will have continued success in this field. Long term, I can see myself producing toys and artwork fulltime. My end goal is to become a full time creator for my brand. I feel as though I am on the right path.
If you would like to follow my journey, please enter your email into the field below! You will get updates as soon as they’re posted.
One thing I am particularly excited about is my figure design process. I have been a huge fan of action figures for the last few years, and I collect a variety of figures and statues from different toy and statue manufacturers.
I decided while I am working on my own comic, characters, and worlds, I would make my own action figures. Today I thought I’d share a little bit of my journey and process on this endeavor so far.
We’ll start off with none other with our hero, Firestone!
Firestone is pretty much one of the many characters that I have come up with, and the main character of my current comic, titled “FIRESTONE”
He is a 17 year old adventurer, who lives with his grandfather, helping him run antique shop, “One Mans Treasures”. He has the ability to use and control fire. He and his grandfather recently moved and opened the shop to get a new and fresh start on life. Many new adventures and troubles await Firestone in this new world.
He is one of the characters that I have had in my mind, and heart for a long time.
From a distance, I based the character “Firestone” on myself, mainly in his appearance with having long thick dreadlocks/wicks.
I gave him a jumpsuit because I liked the simplicity of the design.
I have two versions of Firestone, one that releases in blue, and one color variant that releases in red.
Personally, I think the red color option makes sense right now, because it reinforces and easily conveys the idea and basis that Firestone has fire abilities.
Blue can work for this idea also, but for now, I think it makes sense to go with red. Personally, blue is my favorite color, so I really wanted to go with it, but for now, I think it may just take a back seat. For the blue color, I also took inspiration from one of my childhood favorite fictional characters, Sonic the Hedgehog. Some of Firestone’s personality was clearly inspired from the late 90’s and early 2000’s Sonic the Hedgehog video games, which I loved very much as a child. I also took some inspiration from Cyclops from the Marvel and Capcom fighting video games. (He looked so cool in his red and blue jumpsuit colors!)
Much later, I will likely change Firestone’s outfit and fire color in the story… But for now, I am enjoying where I am in the process.
Lastly, I am still producing figures behind the scenes, learning all that I can about toy production, finding ways to make these figures amazing. I am very proud of myself in coming this far in my journey. I am currently doing the design process myself, and investing all of my time, money, effort and energy into this current chapter and work in this stage of my life.
I am extremely proud of myself, as I feel as though sometimes I am not where I want to be right now, and sometimes, I get hard on myself for not getting enough done, or restarting my comic after spending so much time and effort laboring over it already. However, I tell myself to keep pushing forward, refocus into a state of gratefulness, thankfulness, and gratitude, keep moving forward, never stay complacent, and keep improving myself everyday, even if it is only one percent.
Posts like this are for the believers, as I know I will continue to thrive, and attract the right people who want to join me and walk alongside me on my journey, even if no one is watching at first. It is also a way for me to document my process, and when the time comes, I would like to make a short film or series on my character creation process, and my journey so far.
Anyways, what are your thoughts on my toy designs and process? Let me know your thoughts! Thank you.
