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Poisonous Nosos

nososMost people know Poison Ivy. She’s a respectably major Batman villain. Nosos is based on her to some degree, but balances out with her mythical namesake, too.

Where Ivy has to grow everything chemically, Nosos just does it. In mythology, Nosos is one of the Keres and a guardian of the Underworld. Nosos means disease, so naturally, she controls anything poisonous no matter how slight. This puts Dream Angel’s friend and mentor Breezer at risk as he is slightly toxic much like the real-world toads he’s based on.

If Ivy and Nosos ever got together, heroes of both worlds would be in an awful lot of trouble. The only one able to resist Nosos’s poisons is Teikou no Senshi and this regularly annoys Nosos. Of course, if you can’t kill them one way, might as well keep them out of the way, right? That’s Nosos’s attitude toward Teikou no Senshi. She’ll target her and hold her down with vines or something similar so she can’t go help her friends. Then she’ll continue fighting the other heroes.

Of course, all I’ve revealed so far is commonplace. Here’s something not so common: she’s the one who forced Jake’s retirement. A crushing blow with some poison attached that came dangerously close to killing him caused doctors to encourage his retirement for fear his body couldn’t withstand regular matches. Despite this, he still does exhibition matches from time to time.

She was also involved in the murder of Akasha’s family. If you were to ask her, she wouldn’t call it murder, she’d call it population control. She has a very cold, calculating nature and if she had her way, animals would be in zoos, not in the wild.

What do you think? Is Nosos an interesting character? She makes her comic book debut in Dream Angel #1, which is available in the shop. Also available in the shop is her plush action figure.

Legendary xinoeph: Nevyn WinterBane

nevynYou’ve probably heard of the legend of the Phonenix. The bird who burst into flames at the time of its death and rises from the ashes. Nevyn WinterBane is a similar bird. His kind does burst into flames, but not at the time of death. Instead, it’s a natural flame the bird can control as a means of defense.

Nevyn and his fellow Xinoeph were on “the list” of creatures Nyxus wanted to eliminate because she thought they were unnecessary. He was fortunate to escape the massacre, but not completely unharmed. He’d been shot in the wing and managed to hide in the brush until Nyxus’s hunting party stopped looking for him. What he didn’t know at the time was that Dream Angel and her friends chased them away.

When he cautiously came out of hiding, Teikou no Senshi coaxed him into letting her heal his wing. Fortunately, the bullet had gone completely through so she was able to heal him without any trouble. He’s been an ally of Dream Angel since the incident.

Nevyn and Akasha are a spectacular pair and when the two met, they became immediate friends. They quickly realized they had met Dream Angel under similar circumstances and had similar goals. While Akasha settled in a tree outside the Arum home so she could sound the alert if there was an attack, Nevyn chose the Amphitrite home. Aside from Elizabeth herself, he’s the only other living being who knows Teikou no Senshi’s secret. Or is he?

The two birds are excellent at conveying messages, flying reconnaissance and a number of other very helpful functions. Only harpies are even close to fast enough to follow them and they’ve become skilled at losing them in flight unless they want them to follow.

So, what do you think? Is Nevyn an interesting character? He makes his comic book debut in Dream Angel #7, which is available in the shop. It’s a good idea to get the books that came before it so the story makes sense. Also available in the shop is his plush action figure.

Stubborn grandmother: Mrs. Arum

mrs. arumMrs. Arum is a stubborn sort. When I wrote her part in the comics, I decided she’d be Jake’s mother. I took my time designing her. I shopped around some for her look. Plainly seen from her hair, Arora gets her appearance from her grandmother. The difference is Mrs. Arum keeps her hair in a French braid instead of a ponytail.

The idea behind her character is to be a balance of feminine and masculine and *minor spoiler here* since she’s a retired construction worker, wear appropriate attire. Clearly, from her blouse, she chooses to show her profession, but the lace collar shows also that she’s still female. She picked her wardrobe carefully so she wouldn’t be a distraction in the workplace, but would still retain her femininity.

Retaining her femininity with such a commonly masculine profession presented a problem for me when it came to designing her outfit. I finally settled on a fitted blouse with lace on the collar to be the primary feature. From there, it was a matter of the color and print of the blouse. I thought of using a flowered print, but Dad found the flannel with construction equipment that might as well have screamed her name.

According to the story, she doesn’t trust Dream Angel or her friends in the slightest and doesn’t want her “Jakie” to have anything to do with them either. Naturally, she doesn’t know who Dream Angel is: her granddaughter. This tends to cause unwanted friction when the heroes are struggling to keep her safe.
Even Jake has to take a more stern approach to getting his mother out of harm’s way, much to her displeasure. Luckily, when she realizes what’s going on, she does finally get out of harm’s way.

What do you think? Is she an interesting character? She makes her comic book debut in Dream Angel #7, which is available in the shop. Getting the books that came before it is highly recommended so the story makes sense! Also available in the shop is her plush action figure.

Countdown to Techwarrior #5!

The countdown to Techwarrior #5 has begun! With 9 days to go, this book looks amazing and in the Facebook release party event, voting is showing that an accompanying 5 book collection should be released as well.

This means it’ll be a double party for Techwarrior #5 to celebrate both.
For being the first book released in some time, this one looks to have a lot of anticipation, just from the few renders that have been shared on Facebook in the group.

If I may make a personal reference here: I’m glad those few renders that have been shared have been so eagerly received. I’m also impressed at being able to keep the page-a-day render routine I’ve had all along, despite each panel scene taking 2 hours to render. Seeing people excited about this new book for the improved quality of the rendering it wonderful.

Are you as excited about it as I am?

One thing that’s ended up real fascinating is a test render of the background for Techwarrior #5. Well, one of the backgrounds, anyway. The scene is simple enough. To share the secret of the scene, it’s Stonemason’s Level 19 with the Iray Uber base applied to it. After that, the Iray Emissive shader applied to the lights and turned up so it lights the scene nicely.

All stuff that came with DAZ Studio itself. No, I’m not dissing it or anything. Just saying sometimes, the simplest scenes can make a huge impression! This background sets off the mood of Techwarrior #5 very well, too. Gives an air of mystery to some of the scenes, making it more dramatic.

Okay, enough spoilers! You’ll have to wait for the book for more. All that’s left to say is that it’s most definitely worth the wait!

Mercenary sense of humor: Lauren

laurenLauren is a mercenary, but what you don’t know about her is that she doesn’t always join the conflict for personal gain or money. Sometimes she’ll join the conflict just to laugh. As the conflicting parties wind up in a state of complete confusion as a result of something she said or did.

She doesn’t often admit it, but she doesn’t approve of what Nyxus and the Keres do. To keep her neutrality, she’ll betray both sides and laugh at them.

Ah, but all that’s common knowledge, you say. Well, here’s the uncommon knowledge: her outfit idea came from an ice skating outfit. Why do you need to know that? Well, it’s a nice bit of background trivia. It’s like asking why you’d need to know that a fly on a drawing table inspired Spider-man.

Lauren’s the mercenary with a heart and a conscience, as well. If she feels responsible for the destruction between hero and villain, she’ll find ways to help the victims. She and Teikou no Senshi are the ones found sifting through rubble, searching for victims in spite of a rocky relationship.

She’s also known to be a sort of referee between the heroes and villains. Though she has no power of her own, besides intelligence, she does sometimes get between battling pairs and break the fight up.

I could go on and on, so I’ll speed things up and summarize with a list:
Lauren:
1. is a mercenary
2. is intelligent
3. goes searching for victims
4. sometimes feels responsible for the victims
5. has no power of her own
6. loves a good joke
7. plays pranks on both hero and villain
8. doesn’t approve what the villains do
9. gets the job done
10. her outfit idea came from a skating outfit

Still pretty common knowledge, but then I didn’t promise anything you might not already know. Just stuff you need to know about her.

So, what do you think of Lauren? Is she an interesting character? Lauren makes her comic book debut in Dream Angel #7, which is available in the shop. It’s a good idea to consider getting the books that came before it so the story makes sense! Also available in the shop is her plush action figure.

Police Lieutenant Larissa Arum

Larissa Arum is a tough one by nature, but still a loving mother. They say opposites attract and that is the case with Larissa and her husband Jake. She’s always straight and doesn’t crack jokes. If she does, it’s rare. Jake tells jokes all the time to lighten the mood and get people laughing. Most of all, he loves making Larissa laugh.

larissaHer daughter is more precious to her than even her own life at times. When she found out her daughter’s secret, she vowed to keep it and help her any way she could. She’s kept that vow in many ways. She started by getting Arora some small, lightweight communication equipment. So when she’s out flying around she can even help the police force by reporting problems.

Larissa often makes sure she’s first on the scene to help with crowd control. Also preventing fellow officers from shooting at the wrong target. She has a get-it-done attitude and there aren’t many who’d argue with her.

In practice fights, Jake and Larissa are an even match. Both are masters of self-defense and hand-to-hand fighting in various forms. Between the two, Arora is well trained in the defensive arts. Larissa stepped up her daughter’s training when she learned her secret. She explained to Jake that it was time she learned the more advanced techniques. Having mastered the ones Arora had been learning from Larissa all along. Jake accepted that and also stepped up his daughter’s training.

If there’s one thing Larissa hates, it’s repeat offenders. She’s stern with the first timers, but if she catches a repeat offender, they get a much tougher attitude. Nothing that could be “police brutality,” just enough to discourage another repeat offense. A good amount of the time, the repeat offender doesn’t repeat again after meeting her.

What do you think? Is she an interesting character? She makes her debut comic book appearance in Dream Angel #1, which is available in the shop. Also available in the shop is her plush action figure.

Watch out for more Techwarrior!

As you know, Techwarrior has been delayed for a good many months now for an assortment of reasons. Well, the wait will soon be over! Techwarrior #5 has started production and already the cover and first four pages are complete with beautiful results.

tehcwarriorDuring the delay, new things were learned. One that’s proven to be the most impressive lately is the ability to use Iray. Iray is a DAZ3D render engine that does photo realistic renders. Clearly, used properly, this render engine is extremely powerful. A simple test scene is still getting “liked” on Facebook!

There’s a cost to Iray, though. Each panel render takes 2 hours! This means, to get a 4 panel page done takes over 8 hours! Yet, the phenomenal reaction to this new style of rendering does make it quite worth it.

So, what about Techwarrior? When will we see it?

Techwarrior is going at a rate of about 3-4 panels a day, which is quite good. The chosen release date is March 13th, 2017. At the current rate of rendering, it should be done by then, even with time to spare for preparing it to be added to the shop. This means we’ll be having quite a party to celebrate the first book in several months.

What about Dream Angel? When will we see the next book?

Well, progress for Dream Angel is still pretty slow, but it is progress. Dream Angel #24 should soon be ready to begin production. The thought along that line is to get the series rendered to #30 and then possibly begin updating the earlier books. #2-6 used Poser, so those mean completely re-creating the scenes in DAZ for Iray. The hope is that in the meantime, Techwarrior #1-4 can be swiftly updated to Iray so they match #5, since they were all made with DAZ to begin with.

It’ll be a while before Dream Angel starts seeing books updated – unless a publisher expresses interest in seeing them updated – but Techwarrior might see updates first. In any case, the aging laptop that’s used to make these books is in desperate need of a replacement to keep up with Iray, because it requires a lot of power to do the renders.

So, are you looking forward to the new book? Think it’s worth the wait?

Leopard with a mission: Kumo Hanahadashii

Kumo Hanahadashii is a very, very stubborn leopard. To match, he’s very clumsy. So clumsy, in fact, he makes Kaida seem a great deal less clumsy than he is.

kumoTo compound his problems, he’s madly in love with Cristiane Jewel. On top of everything, he’s fiercely jealous. This mixture makes him big time trouble.

He’s a skilled archer and the first time he meets Dream Angel, he very nearly shoots her down. After she convinces him she doesn’t know where Cristiane is, he decides to help her look and promptly runs face first into a tree.

Unfortunately for him, Cristiane loves Virgo, who loves Athalia. Of course, this creates tension among the cats. Cristiane and Kumo are both leopards, Virgo and Athalia are both tigers. All Virgo and Athalia want is for Cristiane and Kumo to go away, but the two create nothing but trouble for them. Kumo’s jealousy of Cristiane’s affections for Virgo causes him to attempt to fight Virgo for her and Athalia’s caught in the middle.

Virgo’s affection for Athalia isn’t out in the open, it’s subtle and quietly understood between the two. For Kumo, that means he’s interested in Cristiane.

For Dream Angel, Torakatai and everyone else, the entanglement among the four is problematic until they’re directed at Nyxus, the Keres and the assorted creatures they bring along. When that happens, it’s better to stand back and let the cats have their fun as they send them flying the hard way.

Luckily in a fight, Kumo lives up to the translation of his name: Blur Extreme, or more appropriately, extreme blur. Fast with a bow, just as fast with a sword and quite rough on opponents with claws and teeth if he’s disarmed.

Kumo makes his comic book debut in Dream Angel #19, which can be found in the shop. It’s a good idea to consider getting the books that came before it, so the story makes sense! Also soon to be found in the shop is his plush action figure.

Are you of great virtue? Meet Kiryoku!

Kiryoku is a Kirin centaur. She’s half Chinese unicorn. Though there are different words and legends, the idea behind the creature remains the same: punish the wicked.

kiryokuKiryoku only appears to those of great virtue. Dream Angel has a strong sense of justice, and her friends also have many virtues. Though the Keres might see her, they cannot easily understand her.

Kiryoku’s another of the species Nyxus deemed “unnecessary” and marked for hunting. Dream Angel found her in one of the Keres’ traps. She was among the earliest allies and friends Dream Angel made.

The legend of the Kirin is from China, Japan and Korea. Kiryoku’s appearance comes from the Chinese and Korean legend, and Kirin is a Japanese word. The creature, has the head of a dragon, the antlers and body of a deer, the scales of a fish and the tail of an ox. I ended up with a mixture without the dragon parts and instead made it a centaur.

Kiryoku means energy. I’ve often depicted and described her as skilled with a sword, which blends neatly with her scaled body. This gives the impression that she’s unarmed. This falls neatly in line with the legendary creatures’ ‘punish the wicked’ nature.

Though she cares about her appearance, she’s not especially vain about it. She’ll get into the thick of the dirtiest battles and walk away with a satisfied look on her face when it’s over, even if she’s caked in mud.

To some, she might look helpless and even gentle, but being on the wrong side of her sword is quite dangerous. True to her name, she’s very energetic and very fast as well.

She’s not much for jokes, though she does enjoy them. In battle, she prefers being serious. When she met Jake, after a couple of his jokes, she couldn’t keep a straight face around him. Every time she sees him, she starts laughing. Not always loudly, but she would be found sniggering.

What do you think? Is Kiryoku an interesting character? Kiryoku makes her comic book debut in Dream Angel #7, which can be found in the shop. It’s a good idea to get the books that came before it so the story makes sense! Also found in the shop is her plush action figure.

A real life saver: Kiano Tadelesh

Kiano Tadelesh is an interesting character. Though his appearances in the comics are pretty brief, he points out some interesting facts to Dream Angel. Like just about everyone else, he doesn’t want to get on Nyxus’s bad side so he’s careful about what he says when he knows others are listening.

kianoHis passion lies in his desire to save lives and when he sees Dream Angel doing exactly that, he decides she’s not trying to hurt people the way Nyxus wants people to believe. Most people know about Dream Angel and everyone knows Nyxus, so Dream Angel’s presence at the scene of a disaster is no surprise to Kiano.

Scenes like this: 

Are fairly commonplace for Kiano. Although earthquakes aren’t common, he’s used to her being around areas that look a lot like this as the damage is usually the result of fighting.

I decided some time ago that with all the destruction Dream Angel’s fighting would cause, would result in injuries and of course, there’d have to be medical personnel on the scene to help them. Not long after that, I decided my books would have a good amount of diversity.

So, I fussed and played with the design of his character. Once I got the uniform right, I made him look good in it. Picking out his name was a bit more challenging, but I finally settled on Kiano, which means “The wizard” and Tadelesh which means “Tools of”. A little ironic since he uses tools in sometimes magical ways to save lives as part of his job.

What do you think? Is he an interesting character? His comic book debut is in Dream Angel #6, which can be found in the shop. It’s a good idea to get the books that come before it so the story makes sense! Also found in the shop is his plush action figure.