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squonkhunter — The Writer at work
Published: 2011-12-09 23:04:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 1409; Favourites: 47; Downloads: 11
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My OC Simon Ecrus Dwale from HMS Crock Doctor: [link]Took an image from my sketchdump [link] and played with it.
Simon Ecrus is ambassador to the Paul Richter School for the Higher Arts, which is a research college devoted to making the metaphysical physical. (PRSHA - pronounced by its students as either "Prussia" or "Persia.")
I often see the yellow lily as one of Simon's many symbols, representing Enlightenment in the Chinese Taoist tradition.
Other symbols that surround Simon Ecrus are the scarab beetle, the sun, and the stag. I once saw him with a white wolf, the Native American phantom of two realms: the physical and the metaphysical. My seeing him with such a spirit is non-canon and was more of his way of communicating with me to keep in mind his position between worlds. He spoke to it, saying "I know you," and I still am not quite sure what he meant by that.
Simon is interesting because for years he's been prophesying things that later come into being, though usually he prophesies in the form of abstract riddles or poetry, dream sequences, and I don't know he's prophesying, really, more of...he'll write some poetry, I'll read it, say "Well, that's interesting, Ecrus," and eat a sandwich. Then, years later, I'll read the poetry I wrote while channeling him, spit out my sandwich and exclaim, "That sh*t's goin' on in my story RIGHT NOW!!!" When I talk about him, I often just resort to saying "This character knows, man." He is writing HMS about as much as I am.
9 Dec. 2011
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Comments: 49
Wow, first of all, this is such happiness for my eyes lolz
And at first, I figured I was too lazy to read all of the artist's comments, but I gave it a second thought and read it anyway, and I'm glad I did. I absolutely LOVE how in touch you are with your characters!
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Oh, thank you very much! Hehe I'm most in touch with Simon and Sridar at the moment. Rem is very hard to keep in contact, as he's a bit too sporadic for me to hang onto sometimes.
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Haha, yeah. He probably gets distracted a lot when you guys talk, huh?
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Yes, that's part of his character, though. He continually distracts me and is basically like, "Look what I can do!" and does a little dance. I mean. That's pretty much how our conversations go. Like that Stewart skit from MadTV.
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lolz *looks up said skit*
...
Is this entire show about Stewart...? Which one?? xD
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There are many Stuart skits. He's played by Michael McDonald. Here's a skit: [link]
(Notice the huge cheering at the beginning, as these are recurring characters, and probably the most popular skits on MadTV.) I referenced it because something he always does is "Look what I can do!" and then he flails around. That's pretty much what conversations with Remfield are like.
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Hehehehe I watched the "Stuart gets kidnapped" one and was just like "O_o I love you... but you freak me out ffff"
lolol "I am NOT hyper! Look what I can do!"
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XD Yep. He's really funny. I love his mom too.
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lolz I love it when he just starts whining and kicking people. I dunno how his mom deals with him, though xD
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Because she's not all there either. XD
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Thank you. It is with the assistance of something called a Flesher, that's the machine that makes it possible, but the art that comes from it is Simon's alone.
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Not to sound demanding, but I want to see more like this. hehe
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This one had a lot of passion.
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Lovely!!!
It's like... finished and sketchy at the same time, so perfectly!!
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Oh, very nice drawing. I like the shading and the clothing <3
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ROFL. Your explanation of your character is hilarious.
Also, your art is pretty... Glowy.... [link]
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AHAHAHA I love that picture. Catnip kitteh...
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^ Found this while looking for Catnip kitteh.
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I always knew there was something about those soulful eyes of his. I also enjoy playing with symbols and characters. Even if the concepts don't end up in a specific work, they help inform your understanding in a deep way--far better than random lists of traits.
BTW, love your explanation of how to pronounce PRSHA.
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I've found that the more you know about a character, the more "real" they become. They become a lot more three-dimensional, and even if your audience never finds out about their past, you've given them enough in knowing it yourself. One of the best pieces of advice I've heard is "Know more than you write."
For the longest time, Simon was my most "real"-looking character, or at least he seemed the least cartoony. There are two of him in my head: the character who is playing the role for the story, and the entity who has direct contact with me and guides me through storytelling. HMS was solely meant as a parody, but it wasn't until I put Ecrus into the piece that the other characters gained significance and a true plot emerged. He's writing this as much as I am at this point.
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True that. It's Hemingway's iceberg--much, much more beneath than above the surface.
Isn't it strange how you really do get to "know" a character? And some just seem to pop up fully formed. Others I have to work at for months and months before they seem real to me.
I can't believe how similar our creative process is. My writing doesn't take off until I have a really fascinating character at the center of things, preferably two such characters interacting. Until then, I could have a fantastic plot, a distinctive voice, a pack of symbols . . . whatever you like, but it's not going anywhere if I don't believe in the people. Because if they're not real, you're just manipulating cardboard cut-outs. Desperately dull.
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Exactly. A reason Disney has been so successful is that his (Walt's) method was tell a simple story with complex characters. I think...I think that's one of the best things you can do, because if the story's too complicated, people won't follow it, and if you're ever afraid it's too simple, your complex characters are going to raise some questions of their own and lead you down some subplots you never could have imagined before.
The creative process is a lot to take on, I mean...writing an entire world. It sort of HAS to be a multi-person process, and whether those people are real or not doesn't matter. In the end, characters are all just aspects of ourselves and our interests. For example, I'll speak of Simon Ecrus because he's the character closest to me, my oldest character, and, well, his face is a bit of a male exaggeration of my own. Of all my characters, I consider him my "son," because he really does advise me on certain things. The problem is that he's so close to me that he won't really allow (or I won't really allow) for my second son, Remfield M. Tarkus, to have any room. I keep trying to explore Remfield (his current personality is a facade even to himself, I'm just going to throw that out there), but Ecrus always remains closer and stronger, which isn't good, because he's the antagonist, and I need the protagonist to be stronger, or good doesn't win in the end.
Anyway, I suppose the reason Ecrus can "prophesy" or the reason I write things happening to him first and then they happen to me later, is because he is the aspect of me that recognizes the truth and chooses not to ignore it. On the surface, we tend to ignore what we don't want to see, and he is the voice and the part of me that will not ignore the truth. While I can see all of my characters in my head, he's the only one I can see and be able to tell that his actions are either his own or my idea of him projected onto his image. It's rare, but sometimes I have genuine conversations with him, knowing fully nothing about what he's going to say next, like having a conversation with a person. That's how I found out about his past, because he'd previously had none, and I couldn't even picture him as a child. He just opened his mouth and started talking. That was the night he appeared to me for the first time as who he truly was.
When I'd been writing Ecrus's nine novel series (which failed), he looked more like this: [link]
but that's really not him. That was what I wanted him to look like. He was a bit of a manly man, but my dear Ecrus is actually a lot more effeminate than I was willing to recognize, and I was about to get rid of him, but he clung to me and I would actually hear him down the hall of my dorm, as I was trying to get in my room, and other such things. I dropped my key once because he startled me, screaming at me from the other end of the hall, asking, "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?!?" And other things. It wasn't until best friend, now my girlfriend told me one day, "You know your character Ecrus? Last night I dreamed he was trying to rape me," when I said, "Damn! He's STAYING!" I knew I had a powerful character if I'd only sort of mentioned him to my friend and he'd crept into her mind. Clearly he was trying everything to survive.
So he became my villain, because I didn't have a villain at the time. My comic "Like Sand" is an illustration of the creative process of turning my failing novel protagonist into a scary comic book villain. [link]
But there was still a very good part of him that survived, and he eventually showed me his beauty, the night I drew this: [link] in my sketchbook. I also had a conversation with him as I was trying to get to sleep and he told me his past flawlessly, just flowing from his lips, no hesitations to stop and think, does this work? It was as if this had all already happened to him, like a true past should. He was...so beautiful, for the first time I was able to view him as he truly was, and not as how I wished to see him. "The Writer at work" is me obeying his wishes to portray himself as both beautiful and effeminate, passionate, a creator.
Seriously though, he is the beginning for HMS. My comics didn't start getting good until I experimented with a picture of Ecrus: [link] He has truly been the beginning of everything for this comic. That's why one of his symbols is the scarab beetle, because Rem and Simon Ecrus represent two aspects of Ra from Egyptian mythology: the sunrise (Khepri) and the sunset (Atum). This shall all end with Remfield, but Ecrus was certainly the beginning.
Sorry for the long post...Ecrus has been with me for about nine years. There's a lot to say about him.
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I seriously adore the sketch, the shapes of his arms and just generaly speaking his pose but I don't think the glow works so well, like we understand it's coming from the flower and it works fine with his left hand and then, the back of his right hand is lighted just as much and kind of breaks the illusion :/
[ I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I really like your work ;A;" ]
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No problem! I'm wishing more people would give me constructive criticism like that, so it's appreciated. It was just a quickie photoshop whip-up of a sketch I'd done the day before, and I'm supposed to be writing a 12-page essay (due today) so I needed to distract myself with some art. Were I to put more time into it, I'd definitely apply some shadows to contrast the glow and fix that right hand, probably give the flower some wet, white highlights. I'll fix it later, but for now I gotta write. Thank you for the criticism, though.
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It must be done by now but I hope your essay went fine 
I'll be looking forward if you do a more finished version, this piece is awesome
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Yeah, finished my essay. Also, I spent today adding shadows to the piece. I think it looks much better now.
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Thank you for the advice!
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This is a very nice drawing.I like the light that shines around the flower
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Thank you very much.
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you are most welcomed
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