CAPTAIN BILLY CRIBKILLER, LEADER OF THE FETAL PIRATES!

This is the final color key for CAPTAIN BILLY CRIBKILLER. Part of the animated series concept (which I think I'm going to be calling COLLIDE-O-SCOPE) I'm working on. Billy is the leader of a group of nasty little pirates called the FETAL PIRATES -- they fly around in a flying pirate ship, descending on helpless victims with the aid of their floating jellyfish placentas which they are connected to via their umbilical cords. The placentas are filled with helium gas, enabling them to float, and have additional tentacles which hold their spare weapons, reload their pistolas, and help them with tasks too difficult for their tiny fingers. Pretty bizarre, I know.

I wanted to have some sort of Pirate group represented in the series, but Pirates, as a group, seem to be getting a bit played out and old (though they'll always be cool to me). So, I began brainstorming twists I could give this group of Pirates to make them stand out quite distinctly from the norm -- zombie pirates had been done, robot pirates just seemed silly, and I'm sure someone has already done monkey-pirates. Then I thought about the tendency in animated/ commercial properties to drastically de-age a character/characters for a cheap and rather uncreative "fresh coat of paint" (i.e. Muppet Babies, A Pup Named Scooby, Tom & Jerry Kids, Flintstone Kids, Tiny Toons Adventures, etc.), and it hit me: "That's it! Take the concept of Baby Pirates and go "too far" with it -- not just babies, but fetuses! Thus, the Fetal Pirates were born. The jellyfish placentas were a solution to the problem of how a bunch of fetuses were going to get around AND handle all the cool essential Pirate weaponry. I had a sudden vision (my blessed artistic "eureka moment") of a ship full of fetuses dressed as pirates and connected to buoyant placentas floating down from the sky, and I quickly commenced sketching.

There's more Fetal Pirates to come -- after all, Billy has to have a crew to command!