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Description

We've come so far and we've reached so high

And we've looked each day and night in the eye

And we're still so young and we hope for more

This is it, people. 2019 is over. I wanted to have the entire family on my last piece but, alas, time ran out. I also didn't finish the story that I'm currently writing which I wanted to do before New Year but tomorrow is another day.

So here is a little something. On the left is not the first but one of the very, very first concepts of the London Night's universe. It started out as a vampire story and Jonathan was supposed to end up with a vampire called Nicolae (on the right) but this is the very first picture that features Velkan as Jon's love interest, believe it or not. The man with the super questionable taste in the middle is our wolf. He was supposed to be an arsehole, the stereotypical almost toxic guy who was still oh so hot (what was I thinking with that design?)... he really has come a long way. Richard wasn't even on the horizon at that point, he came in after I met Slade ( SlingBlade87 ) who is the creator of the original concept for Dick, whose look was also based loosely on Slade.

Some of you have been a long for much of the ride. For all those different concepts. Velkan, Jon and Dick as a throuple, Dick and Lily, Jon as the host of an ancient superweapon, Jon as a vampire, Jon as a supernatural cat burglar with a mysterious past, Dick and the Old God Killian. The evil corporation "Obsidian", conceived as an enemy for Jon and his friends, came and went but it left behind Alexander, a German who was a supposed to be part of a love triangle for Jon but love triangles suck so he turned into Dick's lover and then changed into a new character, the Ifrit Tariq... and then Trevor ( StarEyedOcelet ) came in and added his characters Sydney (who started out as a merman) and Castor and everything started to change. Sydney became a demi-god and inherited Killian's horns. Trevor and I spent every moment we got planning, changing, thinking things through. And the final change came in late 2018 when I switched from using Poser 9 to Daz Studio 4, from using the old Mike 4 base model to Genesis 8.

We realized that this had become an ensemble cast and that the focus wasn't on Jon alone anymore. So out went the ancient superweapon, out went the kind of Chosen One narrative for Jon. This was the end of Jonathan Harker, who started out as a German student over 10 years ago, travelling to Romania and falling in love with a vampire.

2019 saw the first appearance of Jonathan Bouchard, witch, criminal and far removed from the sweet and well-natured character of Jonathan Harker, who had always been just swept along by the supernatural events around him (save for that short stint as a supernatural cat burglar, which now seems like the groundwork for Jonathan Bouchard).

Jonathan joined a new dynamic, inspired by my love for Dark Shadows and fuelled by Trevor's idea of turning the cast from a bunch of colleagues/friends into a family of choice.

The beginning of the Whitechurch Family, living together in the grand old house on North Hill in Highgate, London. Adding to this dynamic were Trevor's additions Myra and Matthias, who further helped shape those character relations and later on his idea to create a transgender Banshee, Kearon.

Trevor and I refined this dynamic all through 2019, built connections, decided who met who and when and created a web of friendship, love and affection which now seems so incredibly natural to us, that we are basically part of that family. We know these people, their quirks and feelings, their fears and hopes. The characters have finally arrived where they were always meant to be.

I know a lot of that is only in our heads but I hope at least some of it comes across in the snippets under my pictures. And I hope that more and more of it will take form in written shape eventually.

Thanks for being with us on this way, for taking an interest in our characters.

And special thanks to JezMiller - I met Jez shortly before Slade and he, too, changed my life in so many ways. He brought me to Doctor Who, he's always there when I need help and he's the plotter of plots, the connector of dots, the one I can always go to when a story just won't work or - more often than not - when it actually works and I'm just seeing things and being overly critical again.

Here's to 2020 with the Whitechurch Family!

PS: I plan on adding the rest of the cast to this. Let's see how it goes.

PPS: I went back to Richard's long hair from before I started to experiment with his look lol
PPPS: Velkan's hair is also a test, I loved how he looked on the Kingdom of Fire "poster" and stuck with just to try it out.

Description

We've come so far and we've reached so high

And we've looked each day and night in the eye

And we're still so young and we hope for more

This is it, people. 2019 is over. I wanted to have the entire family on my last piece but, alas, time ran out. I also didn't finish the story that I'm currently writing which I wanted to do before New Year but tomorrow is another day.

So here is a little something. On the left is not the first but one of the very, very first concepts of the London Night's universe. It started out as a vampire story and Jonathan was supposed to end up with a vampire called Nicolae (on the right) but this is the very first picture that features Velkan as Jon's love interest, believe it or not. The man with the super questionable taste in the middle is our wolf. He was supposed to be an arsehole, the stereotypical almost toxic guy who was still oh so hot (what was I thinking with that design?)... he really has come a long way. Richard wasn't even on the horizon at that point, he came in after I met Slade ( SlingBlade87 ) who is the creator of the original concept for Dick, whose look was also based loosely on Slade.

Some of you have been a long for much of the ride. For all those different concepts. Velkan, Jon and Dick as a throuple, Dick and Lily, Jon as the host of an ancient superweapon, Jon as a vampire, Jon as a supernatural cat burglar with a mysterious past, Dick and the Old God Killian. The evil corporation "Obsidian", conceived as an enemy for Jon and his friends, came and went but it left behind Alexander, a German who was a supposed to be part of a love triangle for Jon but love triangles suck so he turned into Dick's lover and then changed into a new character, the Ifrit Tariq... and then Trevor ( StarEyedOcelet ) came in and added his characters Sydney (who started out as a merman) and Castor and everything started to change. Sydney became a demi-god and inherited Killian's horns. Trevor and I spent every moment we got planning, changing, thinking things through. And the final change came in late 2018 when I switched from using Poser 9 to Daz Studio 4, from using the old Mike 4 base model to Genesis 8.

We realized that this had become an ensemble cast and that the focus wasn't on Jon alone anymore. So out went the ancient superweapon, out went the kind of Chosen One narrative for Jon. This was the end of Jonathan Harker, who started out as a German student over 10 years ago, travelling to Romania and falling in love with a vampire.

2019 saw the first appearance of Jonathan Bouchard, witch, criminal and far removed from the sweet and well-natured character of Jonathan Harker, who had always been just swept along by the supernatural events around him (save for that short stint as a supernatural cat burglar, which now seems like the groundwork for Jonathan Bouchard).

Jonathan joined a new dynamic, inspired by my love for Dark Shadows and fuelled by Trevor's idea of turning the cast from a bunch of colleagues/friends into a family of choice.

The beginning of the Whitechurch Family, living together in the grand old house on North Hill in Highgate, London. Adding to this dynamic were Trevor's additions Myra and Matthias, who further helped shape those character relations and later on his idea to create a transgender Banshee, Kearon.

Trevor and I refined this dynamic all through 2019, built connections, decided who met who and when and created a web of friendship, love and affection which now seems so incredibly natural to us, that we are basically part of that family. We know these people, their quirks and feelings, their fears and hopes. The characters have finally arrived where they were always meant to be.

I know a lot of that is only in our heads but I hope at least some of it comes across in the snippets under my pictures. And I hope that more and more of it will take form in written shape eventually.

Thanks for being with us on this way, for taking an interest in our characters.

And special thanks to JezMiller - I met Jez shortly before Slade and he, too, changed my life in so many ways. He brought me to Doctor Who, he's always there when I need help and he's the plotter of plots, the connector of dots, the one I can always go to when a story just won't work or - more often than not - when it actually works and I'm just seeing things and being overly critical again.

Here's to 2020 with the Whitechurch Family!

PS: I plan on adding the rest of the cast to this. Let's see how it goes.

PPS: I went back to Richard's long hair from before I started to experiment with his look lol
PPPS: Velkan's hair is also a test, I loved how he looked on the Kingdom of Fire "poster" and stuck with just to try it out.