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.
I feel like sometimes its easy for me to get distracted, or sometimes get off course with things in my life. Sometimes in major areas of my life, and sometimes in minor areas of my life. I feel like one thing that I really learned, and what has helped me quite a bit is staying focused, and doing the little things., I’ve learned that it is often the little things in life that make all the difference.
I’ve learned in the past year, that, it’s the little things, choices, and desicions that we make over time that make all the difference. All decisions, good or bad, compound over time.
Put a little money to the side every paycheck, and our savings will grow. Decide to work on your craft everyday for an hour to two, you’ll see improvements over time.
Having a drink or smoke every now and again wont kill you… But on a consistent basis, you can be sure that your health (physical, spiritual, mental) will rapidly decline for sure. Neglecting to cut the grass for a day wont seem to cause any real harm… But too much neglect over time, and now your front yard looks a jungle.
Look, I didn’t come here and make this post to come here and preach and be “Mr. Perfect…” Lord knows that I am far from perfect… But I thought I’d share a thing or two that’s helped me along my journey recently so far.
Doing the small little things along the way, as well as celebrating my small goals and victories has been something that I have been implementing in my life for the past year. Sure, sometimes I get off track, but when we get off track, we have to make a decision and choice to get back on track.
I’ve learned that this also allows for more blessings, and things to be thankful for. It brings me towards gratitude.
I figured this can be a good place to share and update some characters that I’ve jotted down and created in my sketchbook.
I think I may call these segements, Character Conecptions
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.
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