#245: Soupeye

     Greetings, my friends. I hope you all had a dandy Easter and properly soluted the Easter Bunny for his good work around the globe. Anyway, I was at Wondercon on Saturday! Soon I will have an official video account of the day on my ol' Youtube channel, but for now, time for another character. Guys, I swear this is the last one about dimensional travel for a while. If I break this promise, then I give you the Jacob's Characterz!-brand Free Flack-Giving Stamp. So, without futher ado, Soupeye: proud owner of the Estrello Void Base for 45 years, and with a 0%-ish customer fatality rate. Depending on your echelon of conspiracy theory knowledge, the term "Jump Room" might ring a bell to you. As in the Jump Room that's supposedly being utilized by the government to send folks to the big, red vacation destination know as Mars. Well, the Estrello Void Base just so happens to be the Jump Room you're thinking of--well, the JC-Verse location that inspired it, anyway. The EVB is a covert galactic transportation venue that was rented out regularly by UNDEROO in the late '70s as part of their second Mars-landing program, Barren II, and Antonio "Soupeye" Estrello has been running the show there since even before. While it's unknown how exactly the establishment came to be (even by its most loyal customers), it's indisputable that he is devoted to its purpose, offering the most efficient dimensional travel experience on the market. Despite being a tad rickety and outdated by modern standards (ex. that 0%-ish in the beginning), Soupeye's service is still a definite go-to source for efficient planet-hopping. If you ever need to get yourself far out of the stratosphere in record time for whatever unsavory reason, give the guy a ring-ring. Just note there's a chance you might make it there with a decided lack of arms/toes/life. Again, 0%-ish.

(The man himself, equipped with a heavy-duty hazmat suit due to the toxic material powering the machinery itself, and a band-aid over his unflatteringly melted eye socket. I assume you can put together how he got his nickname.)

GOODBYE GRAVITY FALLS

                                          (MINOR SPOILER WARNING)

     A promise is a promise, ladies and gents. Even if said promise was delayed by an extra week beyond where it had been delayed by about a month. Yeah. So now, it is time for me to arise from behind my procrastination shrub, hike up my responsibility pantaloons and address the big supernaturally-fused, animated elephant in the room. That's right. We're talking about the end of Gravity Falls. Disclaimer: I did not push this farewell off so long because I didn't like the finale. It had Bill Cipher sinisterly tickling the ivories and singing, and an ending for Stan that made the fire forshadowing make sense without going down the obvious, possibly-kid-scarring route. I gave it two thumbs up. Not the two 6-fingered hands up I gave Not What He Seems, but come on, how could you really beat that episode. In all reality, the reason I haven't posted about it yet, while having a lot to due with my insane schedule as of late, was somewhat because of how important the show has been for me ever since the beginning. It's naturally easy for me to take on topics of interdimensional travel and the occasional talking animals/food/unattached ears, but when it comes time to seriously talk about me, at least on this here blog, it can be hard for me to say everything the way I want to say it. But, what the hey. Let's give it a go anyway.
      Before Gravity Falls, I was about 10, and TV for me was mostly cheesy, trope-soaked kid-coms and weird foreign cartoons with English dubs that my sister convinced me to watch with her. Heed my warning, if anyone suggests Winx Club to you, run. Run and never look back. Sure, I had good ol' P&F and Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated (kind of a prelude to what was to come with GF), but never had I really found a show that understood the bizzare nature of me and my imagination. But the minute that guy took off his decidedly emo hoodie and turned out to be a bunch of gnomes in "Tourist Trapped," it was certain: I had found it. And I had company, too. Tons of other kids and teens -- and adults whether they wanted to admit it or not at first -- were tuning in each Monday and scrambling to whatever decoding methods they possessed to unravel the secrets after it was over. Tons of infatuated fanboys and fabgirls taking to Tumblr and Reddit and such to excitedly discuss and spout out quotes from the show at random times. It wasn't until my first WonderCon when I dressed as Bill and met them all that it really dawned on me, but these were my people. Not just the GF fans, but geeks. Nerds. Absolute dorks who aren't ashamed to go against what is accepted and express that they are such. Gravity Falls helped me learn where I belong and the stuff I wanted to make. And considering I started Jacob's Characterz! a little under a year after the series started, that seems to have turned out pretty well for me so far.
     Thanks for the stay, Gravity Falls. And I will always look to you as inspiration - and with a whole lot of  nostalgia feels. A tip of the fez to you. :)

JACOB'S CHARACTERZ! FAN ART REDISIGN: MISTER FANTASTIC

     Hola, ladies and gents. Instead of posting another new character on this fine day of Thurs, I've decided to do something a bit different. Ladies and gents, my own version of Mister Fantastic, AKA Reed Richards! I've mentioned my elaborate Fantastic Four movie franchise idea before, but to spare you all some valuable time that you could otherwise use to make a difference in the world or watch a video of a cat and a monkey being best friends, I decided not to explain it to you. But having caught the superhero costume bug that's been going 'round following the Spidey reveal, I decided to whip up the design for ol' Mister Fantastic that my FF version entails. (Note: I had to touch up some of the drawing due to the poor quality of the scan, but what the heck. Details, details, diddly-doo.)

• The Costume: You may note that this costume is basically the same as the one from the original comics. That's because it's supposed to be. Classic is almost always a go-to route for a good superhero suit, and after the bona fide unrecognizable iterations from last year's film *shivers*, I felt I should stay as faithful as I could with mine. I added some traditional MCU-esque detailing, such as laces on the boots and gloves, to the black sections of the costume, which I imagine being a gleamy, rubberish material. The material for the blue is hard to describe, but I think the closest I can compare it to is Cap's costume in the first Avengers movie.
• That spiffy 4: One of the most important aspects of the FF's costume is the 4 logo. It's basically the thing that tells you at first glance which Marvel team they are, if a big rocky orange guy and a young lad on fire isn't enough of a helpful hint. One of my main gripes with the 2005 films' suits are the placing of these logos, so with my version, I needed to make sure they are front-and-center where they belong. I took some inspiration from Iron Man's arc reactor in the MCU when it came to the specifics, like the less polished outer rim of metal. Speaking of that outer rim, the only noticeable change I think I made here with this team logo was changing the color of it to bronze. My FF movies take place in the '60s (which is a completely separate post in itself), so I thought the bronze color would assist the patina look a bit.
• The guy wearing it all: And last but not least, the grey-templed guy behind the greatness, Mister Fantastic himself, Reed Richards. I could go on a whole rant about my version of his actual character (also a completely separate post in itself), but I'll keep it simple for now and just address how I drew him. Well, my primary casting choice for my Reed Richards is definitely David Tennant - Michael Fassbender is just behind, though - so some of the facial features I based on him a bit. This goes especially for the nose and the grin. I added some stray beard hairs growing in to give him a more realistic vibe (the guy spends most of his time cooped up in his lab, do you really think he has time to spiffy himself up too much?) and the battle scar to show that he isn't just the brains behind the bunch. That and I thought it looked cool. I tried to make the fade into grey around the temples less blatantly obvious, once again contributing to the more realistic feel.

     Alrighty guys, I think that's all the deets on that for now. TTFN, in the words of the mighty Tigger. PS, next post or the post after is going to be my heavily-postponed "Farewell Gravity Falls" post. I'm telling you this so you guys can hold me up to it and make sure I don't procrastinate any further. If I do, make sure to give me flack.

#244: The Hexaplexahedron

(And here we have something that I promise will make complete(ish) sense by the end of this post.)

     Well, I think you all can guess what I spent my weekend figuratively salivating over. SPIDER MAN IT WAS SPIDER-MAN. *ahem* Anywho, since I already did enough obsessive blabbing surrounding the webhead's big entrance on my twitter, I think I should spare you from more of that around these parts and just get to the character. So, ladies and gentlespidermen - uh, I meant spidergentleme - GOSH DANGIT! Okay, ladies and GENTLEMEN, the Hexaplexahedron!
     You ever heard of the Zherts? They were a species on the outskirts of the Aparra System. Trancontinental bridge travel, Mallogen-oxide-laced weaponry, pretty darn spiffy for a society with all 3-fingered hands. But on account of the fact they lived about a couple thousand lightyears away from Earth, you might be able to guess that they didn't get the memo on constitutional democracy. So they had to get creative and think up their own system of choosing a leader: the Hexaplexahedron. The game was simple. 5 rounds with 6 of their best warriors. Each round the Hexaplexahedron, a massive synthetic predator with a randomly-generated set of powers and weaknesses, would pluck off candidates one-by-one, and the one guy at the end that hadn't moved into the quaint abode of ol' Hex's stomach would move into the castle and become "Charratar," or king. Wait, maybe that's not so simple. Ah, what the hey, compared to some other JC-Verse stuff, it's simple. This system may have worked hunky dory for a couple hundred years, but eventually they started running out of good warriors with a bunch of their best biting the dust in an arena every few years. So long story short, enemies arrive, zappy zappy, slashy slash, bye bye Zherts. But what, prey tell, became of our character, the Hexaplexahedron? Well, here's where things get a bit more familiar.
     Upon settling in, the conquering people found it, and started using it for defeating other poor suckers, and for amusing games. Before you knew it, Hex was being passed from planet to planet, and people to people like a Rubix cube - only 94% more likely to kill you. It started travelling farther, and farther, and farther across the odd expanse of the JC-Verse, and then one species broke the chain. Decided to shake the square. Abandon him. On the polar cap of some place called Earth. So, short story long, for the last twenty years UNDEROO has been keeping the rusty gladiator cornered, fighting him off with thermo-suit-clad agents in the tundra. Phew! That was a mouthful. Scratch that, about two mouthfuls. Hey, if you're looking for something leaning on the dumb side to help you digest, you can always visit my Twitter. That geek-out Spidey rant awaits.

#243: Simon Steorra (Simontheanomaly)

CLICK TO ENLARGE

    I've returned!!! Hello, blog! Hello, Showcard Gothic logo! Hello, obscure couple of data symbols in the top left corner of the screen I can't get rid of! It's dandy to be back, I've gotta say. As all you peeps have had absolutely no way of knowing, I've been working non-stop for the last week or two on a video project of mine for my school's Open House. If any of you feel like increasing your smarticles this fine Sunday morning, then click this here link. But as for all of you who are just here for some more art and ramblings on the extradimensional happenings of the JC-Verse, as per ushe, then here it is. Ladies and gentlemen, my latest character: Simontheanomoly! Let's be honest for a sec. In this day and age, if some alien/superhuman/other-dimensional lass or lad came to our world, they probably wouldn't go about thwarting threats to mankind. They would probably just go viral. Well, while the JC-Verse does have a plentiful supply of your traditional justice-based fantastical lifeforms, it does have one notable fellow that has become a big presence on the interwebs: Simontheanomaly. After being hurled through the intertwining threads of space-time and ending up here, you'd think Simon Steorra of Dimension 776-A's entrance would've been a bit more newsworthy. But with multicolored ETs and anthropomorphic creatures making the news, it was kinda easy to miss some blonde dude in a blue sweater. So after about a week of adjusting to our society and shaking off a heck of a case of travel nausea, he began posting some videos on the 'Tube under the name Simontheanomaly to try to get the world's attention--and it didn't take long for the web-dwellers to eat it up. So, with a hefty subscriber count and fanbase to match, Simontheanomaly is now a bona fide sensation, reacting to the everyday aspects of our everyday world with fresh eyes, and giving his own unique otherworldy perspective on each one. (Truth be told, Jacksepticeye and Tyler Oakley both look more like they're from other dimensions then he does:)

(Seriously, tell me I'm wrong.)