~Jack-of-Box

Yeah, yeah, I know. Been a month or more...

The truth of the matter is, I've been without a 'roject' since about early March. What I mean by that is that I've had no overall goal for myself in terms of art or creativity, no real story to interest myself, nothing really to strive for. And that means no real challenge. I've tried to bring myself out of this slump-of-sorts several times now, but to no avail until now.

I say until now, because in the last few days, I've finally gotten a story 'seed' that I like. By that, I refer to the dozen-or-so random ideas that jumble about in my overactive skull all the time. I take various ones I like, inspired by various things or purely the product of my own head, and toss them together in various configurations. Something like a bunch of pre-made modules made out of legos that you try to put together in various ways to make something cool. So I've finally got something I like.

(Actually, two things, but one of them involves Charlie rather considerably, so I'll hold off on that for now.)

Historical Fantasy is a tricky sort of thing to write, no? It's hard to interject the fantastic with the documented, and much of what I've read has been pretty...bad. But, and I realize this sounds rather conceited*, but I want to see if I can't do better. Even more conceited, I hate how vampires are portrayed in the bulk of modern literature, especially manga (Hellsing being a notable exception.) So it'll be a vampire story set in the Caribbean during the 1600's. Don't worry, it's not going to devolve into a simple "vampire pirates" story. It'll take place on a fictional Spanish atoll a few miles off the coast of Trinidad, and I plan for it to be rather...gray, morally. I want there to be question as to exactly who is the protagonist, which will -- if I can pull it off right -- hopefully draw the audience deeper into all the characters.

I still have a fair amount of research to do, but I'm going to be doing my absolute damndest to at least get a draft of this story written and illustrated (4-5 pictures per chapter, perhaps.) In the mean time, I'll post up concept art, blurbs, whatever. I'm going to try to keep a rate of one submission a day at least from now until this thing is done. I'm taking a painting class this quarter, so that will hopefully help.

Here goes.

*Side question: I keep seeing people using the word "conceit" where "concept" seems to be the meaning. Is that correct?