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.
Today I thought I’d briefly talk about where all of this really began. I thought I would share a bit more of my character, Firestone.
For this, we’ll need to rewind the clock several years ago towards me being a highschool student. My earliest memories of drawing my character Firestone comes back to around this period. At this time, I would always usually have a sketchbook of some kind to keep myself entertained. I would often make characters, and fill out many parts of their background, personality, and other details.
On the picture below to the left, is my first drawing of my character, Firestone. (Character drawn on the right is a separate character)
As you can see, he has a bit more of a drastically different appearance back then versus today.
From a distance, I based some of the basic characteristics of Firestone on myself, mainly his hair. During this time is where I began to grow locs. Also, I named him “Haku” as that was a nickname I was given by a group of friends in the past. (That nickname has stuck around even after all these years).
Its funny, when I was a kid, I always wanted to learn how to play games like Dungeons and Dragons, and other similar games like it. I also remember playing and revisiting games like the Jax and Daxter series around this time on the Playstation 2 console. These games were old by this time, and we were on the PS3 console, with the PS4 console being on the horizon.
I remember thinking the protagonist, “Jak” from the PS2 games, being so cool to me at the time. I particularly liked his appearance from the sequel game, “Jak 2”. The character in that game had long hair, dreadlocks perhaps, and long and pointy elf ears.
Between these two elements, I think this perhaps is why I gave Firestone the long and pointy elf-like ears.
The beads/ necklace around his neck most likely came from my intense love of playing Street Fighter 4 around this time. There is a very popular character in the Street Fighter series, “Akuma”, who wears similar beads. That is likely where the beads in his design came from. I can look back and cringe on it now, but back then I thought that was a cool element to have on my character.
Lastly, I gave him Fire powers. I can’t quite remember why, but something just drove me to giving him fire abilities, rather that water abilities in his early design. Perhaps I believed it was more challenging to make a hero protagonist with fire abilities, as most characters I’ve been exposed to who have traditional fire abilities are usually antagonists/villain characters.
These brief core elements is what led me towards the early creation of my character Firestone.
Several years later, I revisited my characters, and updated Firestone’s look a bit. Below is a old “redesigned” Firestone. Many of my older sketchbooks contain drawings of Firestone in this manner.
The redesign below took place when I was back and forth moving between the Bay Area, and Sacramento. At this time, I was living back and forth between my grandma Sherry, and my immediate family. I had a hard time adjusting to leaving my friends and the life I knew. (I did not really like the city of Sacramento too much).
At this time, I was in the process of making T-Shirts with my characters on them, as one of my earliest jobs was screen printing T-Shirts. I was really excited to have made something with a character of mine on it.
I’ve learned how to wear many different creative hats at this time. (I eventually got burned out from doing everything myself, and spreading myself thin…). One good thing about having an abundance of knowledge, is that once you have it, no one can take it away from you. There will be a day when I come back to making t shirts and clothing with my characters on them.
Several years later, I could not escape the idea of bringing these characters to life.
I would often stay up in the night, fantisicng and dreaming about creating my own comics with my characters. I had always know how to draw decently well, loved anime and manga, and even made doodles of my own characters and comics, but I just felt like somewhere I wanted to give it a bit more.
Right before the Covid outbreak, I was able to visit one of my good friends who was living in Japan at the time. It was a pretty big deal at the time. No one in my immediate family has even been out of the USA at the time, so I was the first to make such a big trip, and on short notice.
Say Cheese!
(We went to a large SEGA arcade, I think it was named JOY-OPOLIS? I remember laughing and feeling myself after I beat all of the other players in a Sonic the Hedgehog “in-real-life” racing game. Also a great photo op of my favorite childhood videogame character!)
Anyways…
During my time in Japan, whenever there would be an opportunity for conversation with myself and a Japanese person who spoke English, there was a natural curiosity of wanting to know more about me, and I would ask me many questions. I remember many people thinking I was some sort of “celebrity” or American Football player. Many people also had a natural curiosity to want to touch and rub thier hands through my hair, especially the women. There aren’t many opportunities for the average Japanese man or woman to talk to Black Americans.
I was always interested in Japanese anime, manga, and videogames. There were a few opportunities where I was able to share and show a few drawings in my sketchbook, some people were really impressed with my drawings. I would think to myself, “Really? you like this? Hmmm…”
Japan is home to all things anime, manga, and gaming, so it really made an impression on me that people from the other side of the planet, with us both having language barriers, saw value in my work. That made a huge impression on me.
Some time later, as I came back to America, that feeling never left me. I remembered the new experiences and people that I saw in Japan.
Some time after this, I began to revisit and redraw my friend Firestone again.
The drawing below is where I narrowed down Firestone’s appearance.
The old comic series was called, “The Life and Times of Haku Firestone”.
Sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it? I’m glad I changed it.
Around this time, I made several short comics with this redesigned Firestone. Many of those comics are unfinished. The sword I drew Firestone with in the image above, I repurposed and gave to a separate character, “Kino”. I liked the idea of giving Firestone a sword, or somekind of weapon, as you can even see him with a weapon in his prototype design. However, I wanted to avoid giving my character the “Superman syndrome”, in which happens where the character is too powerful, too perfect, or nearly invincible. Maybe someday I’ll revisit the idea of giving Firestone a weapon of somekind, but for now, I think we’re good.
Anyways, thats all for now. There is still a lot left for me to discuss with this character, so until then, take care!
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.
Lately, I have been filling out my sketchbook and getting all of the characters and concepts that I come up with more refined. Today, I wanted to share a character that I created.
This is a quick sketch that I have made for a female ninja character. My thoughts were to make a “sexy” ninja character. Sometimes when I was a kid, I was intrigued to the mysterious female character archetype. They were often soft, gentle, competent, intelligent, and trusted enough to get the mission completed.
In the drawing, I was thinking of making her wear a dark color like black, as that is what traditional ninja are depicted as, but currently I am thinking something a bit more colorful and fun.
I decided to do a few more sketches of the character, and decided to name her “Anita”.
It is the first name that came to mind, and I just sort of like the name Anita. Typically, I like to name my character in some kind of relation to their ability. With the name “Anita”, to some degree, I feel like it almost sounds like “a ninja”. I feel like its kind of a fun name, so I think it can stay for now.
As for background, I will share a pinch…
I envision her as a competent ninja agent. I don’t really know how old she is, but I imagine she is somewhere between ages 20-22 years old. I wanted to give her some kind of sex appeal or attraction, so she has shapely legs and a nice overall figure. I imagine that she is black, asian, or an “ethnically ambiguous woman”, (black and asian).
One of her main weapons of choice is her trusty kodachi sword.
Anyways, like many other characters that I have created here, I plan on turning her into a statue figure, and action figure. There are several other characters I have in the pipeline, so she may come later on down the road.
Anyways, I will post more on this character in the future. Until then, there will be other characters that I will share here over time. Thanks.
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.
Hello beautiful world! We are nearing into the joyus and warmful summer of 2026! I think that this would be an excellent opportunity to share some of my ups, downs, and many lessons I’ve had on my journey so far.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have created and completed the design for my character, “Firestone”. I am very grateful and proud of myself for all of the hard work, dedication, and focus that I have poured into that part of my journey. I have learned a lot about the production of creating an action figure. However, I have run into some temporary setbacks that halt my production from going forward in that particular space.
At this time, I can not exactly move forward with the production of my articulated version of my action figure. I have looked and spend time effort and money on ways to overcome my setback, but I cannot move forward with it at this time with the current toolset that I have. The good news is, when I have more available tools and options, I can carry on and pick up exactly where I left off, and begin to produce a specific batch number and ship them out!
I actually say this as an opportunity for me to reflect on what I have learned up to this point, and apply it to other areas of my future of production.
Some of which I will be sharing here in this post!
For starters, I decided since I cannot move forward with my articulated action figure, I can apply what I learned to a separate project that I can continue. I decided to make a small production run of Firestone, as well as a few other characters that I have created. I decided to create a small batch of interchangeable figures, the start of a toyline starring Firestone, and other characters that I have made. Here is what I have completed.
Two Firestone color variants, red and blue!I have made the upper and lower bodies interchangeable and swappable!
Viola! Firestone comes to life!
I have to reiterate that I am extremely proud of myself for the hard work I have applied to make this happen… I believe that with continued effort, sacrifice, and focus, I will be able to create comics, and action figures full time. I believe that we were put on this Earth to be all that we can be. I feel like becoming my best self is my way of giving back. To make something that will impact others in a positive way, and to leave something behind that will far outlive me.
I believe that there is a lesson in all things, and setbacks, we jut need to understand the lesson that is being shown before us, and apply it to get the outcome we want.
In my last post, I showed a character that I created and will be turning into an action figure. That I am still working on. Behind the scenes, I am tweaking the character design, and his backstory a bit. Look, trust me, I have my hands full with a lot on my plate! I am really excited for all that I have been working on.
Lastly, I think it may be a good idea to revive my old YT channel, or social media. Many people I know have encouraged me to get back on my social media grind, and promote my characters, comic story, and toys there. I can’t disagree. I feel as though I would waste a lot of time on social media, so I decided to erase it several months ago. I think it may be a good idea to document on social media moving forward. More on that later…
I am proud to present that I have completed the first part of my journey in creating my action figure for my comic and toyline. It was a lot of interesting steps to be made in order to complete this figure.
I worked really hard with my professional sculptor, in order to get the figure to look as close to my character, “Firestone” as possible.
With that being said, I have run into a TON of issues now that the design process has been completed. I don’t even know where to begin, but for starters, when assembling the figure, I am finding that the parts do not match completely and in a smooth and concise manner. This can be from a number of issues, but I suspect it is from the specific output from the manufacturing side of my 3D printer. There is a lot of technical knowledge needed for projects like this, and I am by no means an expert in this field. However, like most things in life, this will be a challenge I overcome in order to continue forward with goals, dreams, and vision. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not one to give up and quit so easily. Nothing like learning some new skills, right?
In all honesty, I was a bit stumped, and did not know if I should even bother posting my progress up until this point. I figure that the hard obstacles and roadblocks are all apart of the journey, and I should document them as well. I have a few other projects I am working on in regards to this as well.
I guess I will end this on a note of gratitude on this journey and endeavor.
A big part of how I got to where I am in this current moment, is because I have decided to shift my perspective and focus onto continuous and rapid growth. That starts with accountability, and in this case, gratitude.
I have the resources to even get this far because I have bettered myself, and cherished every dollar that I have earned, whether that be a major amount of money, or a minor amount of money, and invested it in myself and my future. I’ve been staying out of the mix, and just been focused on me.
I think that sometimes, when you are a giver, you have a natural inclination to want to help others. I myself fall into this category. I decided that I would give to myself, and life, the Universe, and God has been working itself out for me. And to that I say thank you. Gratitude comes full circle.
In any case, this serves as an update on my journey.
So whats next? Glad you asked! Here is a short roadmap…
I will be working on opening up my online shop. That is my next major milestone…
I also have a TON of unfinished comics for several different characters that I will be uploading and archiving here. Completed or not, it makes no sense for me to just have tons of finished and unfinished work just lying around. I’m putting them out for the world to see!
Lastly, one major takeaway I have learned from this part of my journey, is – creating action figures takes a lot of time, money, effort, and energy. This is true for most worthwhile goals in life. In this particular case, it also helps to partner/work with people who understand your vision…
With all that being said, I will be moving on from action figures for now, and developing statues and character busts for my brand… More on that in the future.
But before I go, I will share a sneak peak of a character that I have in mind moving forward in the statue/ character bust route…
This is a character that I created and owned. I think he will make a great statue. I have a short pilot comic that I will perhaps share in the future, as well as a bit of his backstory.
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When I was young, I was always enamored by things that would stimulate my imagination. I was always fascinated with the story and journey of how things came to be the way they are. I think this led me down a road of me wanting to create my own narratives, worlds, and forms of storytelling.
I grew up in a decently large family, me being the middle child. My parents did their best bringing us up, with the information they had with them at the time. My parents struggled much through having several children, and didn’t really have a plan for us growing up. They did their best. The area we grew up in was very impoverished, and very dangerous. Oakland California was listed as one of the most dangerous cities in America from the late 1980’s to the mid to late 2000’s.
Needless to say, growing up in these environments were not the best. There was a lot of dysfunction, self hatred, and limiting beliefs that were usually found in my city, and would later pervade itself into our household. These are things I did not know at the time, but I can analyze and see now as a full grown adult.
Sometimes when living in these sort of circumstances, people need something to believe in and escape into, in order to escape the mundane, chaotic, and sometimes hopeless reality that they face everyday. For some people it is finding religion, community, sports, or sometimes escapism through recreational drugs, drinking or some other form of vice.
Sometimes people’s environments can have a huge impact and effect on who they are and shapes them into the man or woman they are today. As I’ve grown older throughout my journey, I’ve found it important to remember where you come from, but not to be a victim of your surroundings and circumstances.
For me as a young child, my “escapism” was drawing, video games and anime.
I felt as though this was a way for my to escape or decompress from a reality that I felt that I had no control over as a young child. I would often draw and make short stories about the characters that I would come up with, or draw some of my favorite videogame and anime characters. It was a form of owning something that no one could take away from me.
I think sometimes when there is the “creative” child in the family, especially in the black American households, no one really knows what to do with them, or there aren’t many resources known to get them ahead. I particularly struggled with this as a young child, not really knowing what or how I could use my “gifts” that were given to me and developed through practice to make a living for myself and make an impact to the world.
I went through most of my teenage life with no real clear written goals, or direction. Despite this, I never really stopped drawing. I was often times the “best artist” in the class, and when some of my classmates would get a new jacket, or pair of Nike Air Force 1’s, I would often be the person that everyone would be ecstatic to see in order to write or draw something on their clothing. Or whenever there was a class project that involved storytelling or some kind of artwork, people would metaphorically speaking, roll out the red carpet for me when it came to display the artistic side of the project.
Moving forward several years, one interaction on my journey in life that led toward a great impact on me, was when I went to visit a friend overseas in Japan shortly before the 2020 worldwide pandemic. I remember accompanying this friend to an art exhibit he was a part of. Sometime after, when many of us were mingling, I revealed that I too was an artist, and showing some of the people at the event my drawings that I had saved to my phone. This left a very positive impact on me, and placed a bit of a core memory into my mind. Japan is home to all things anime, and at the time, my drawing style was heavily “anime” oriented. (It really still can be seen that way now, but that is besides the point…) Could it be true that the small audience of Japanese people were “just being nice to me” and blowing smoke at me? Sure. But it left me with a positive impact, nonetheless.
Fast forward towards today, and I have decided to turn all of my knowledge, gifts, and talents into something that I can earn and make a living from.
I think when it is all said and done, I want to be remembered as someone who put my all into my work. It is a great way for me to express myself. When I am no longer here, I want to have something that will far outlive me. I want those who know me to be able to smile for me, remember all the laughs, good memories we shared, and my drawings will let the world know that I tried, and everything I did came from the heart. Sometimes I look back at old pictures and drawings at I can see the good times I shared with people that I love and care for. Its funny how things like art and music can bring us back to old people places and things. To reminisce on all the good times that were made and had, and help us strive and give us strength throughout life.
I think sometimes to better understand a person, you need to understand their story. Today, I thought I would share a little of my story…
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