Friday, February 10, 2017

News » A new... me...?

<img src="http://ift.tt/2kb7nYf; align="left">








For several years now, Ine Coatl has been the character that I've used to represent myself. I invented him my sophomore year of college I think, not long after I learned about the furry fandom. I knew for a while, even before I created Ine, that I wanted to write a few comic strips, just for fun. After Ine was born, it felt natural that I would use him instead of trying (badly) to depict myself in cartoon form. I never got around to making these comic strips, but I collected ideas for a while. Then, some time after getting married, I began developing the idea of writing comics about personal experiences from my life. I very quickly had several chapters written, and Aww, Feathers! came to be.

Ine has sort of been the "main character," and I've tried very hard not to make him a Mary Sue! (Or would it be Gary Stu…?) Over time though, I've noticed two things: (1) Ine has started to take on a life of his own to some degree. The stories I write him in have never been 100% true to life (even ignoring the fact that all the characters are anthro), but even so, more and more I find myself writing new experiences for him instead of drawing from real life. And (2) it's been odd trying to decide how to represent myself outside of the comic. For example, when I use Ine as my avatar online, do people think I'm speaking as myself? Or do they think I'm speaking as Ine, the character? Hence, I decided it was time to give Ine a bit more freedom to be "himself."

Still, having an animal-based character to represent myself has been a lot of fun! In the furry fandom, this is known as a "fursona." I guess it would be a "scalesona" in Ine's case? Though the play on words doesn't work quite as well... So anyway, I've designed a character to represent myself, and only myself, without the potential ambiguity. With no further blah blah, allow me to introduce Jay Lark! (Or just "Lark" for short.)

Lark here is part secretary bird, part blue jay, part monitor lizard. What can I say? I'm a big fan of unique hybrids. ;-) He doesn't really have a backstory, or a bio, or anything like that because, once again, he just represents me. He won't be appearing in Aww, Feathers! as a character, though he may host a future Author's Q&A page. So the next time you see Lark somewhere on the site, just remember that's me!

So what does this mean for Ine? It doesn't mean I'm never going to draw from real life experiences again. After all, it is one of my favorite sources of material! But it does mean I'll be giving him more room to make his own story as well, which could be quite different from my own.


from Aww, Feathers! Updates http://ift.tt/2lwxCow
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment