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!

"ONCE UPON A TIME... THERE WAS AN ADORABLE LITTLE GIRL NAMED PARKER..."

Here's a few pre-inked drawings from the interior of the children's book I'm writing and illustrating, based on my muse, my daughter Parker. She'll be six later this month, and she's quite an amazing little girl. The working title of the book as of now is "What Parker Thought She'd Rather Be", and it concerns Parker wishing she were other things besides a little girl. The things she wishes she were instead were plucked from her own active imagination and include things like a godzilla-like dinosaur, a robot, a pirate, a rock'n'roll star, etc. The book follows the pattern of Parker wishing she were something else, noting the cool things she'd be able to do in that form with her parents countering with the downside to each. In the end, Parker decides that perhaps being a little girl is best after all. Awww. More on this as it develops. Now, over to Kent in the weather center...

A FEW MORE WACKY CHARACTER SKETCHES...

Three more character sketches from my animated series concept. Very briefly:
First is Ergophobos, an ancient Egyptian wizard reincarnated mistakenly in the body of a lazy, morbidly obese white guy.
Next up is Captain Billy Cribkiller, the de facto leader of the Fetal Pirates (they float around courtesy of their buoyant airborne jellyfish placentas -- don't ask)
Finally, Mobster Lobster, one of the Pugilisticrustaceans, a gang of boxing crustaceans created by a mad scientist (coming soon, Buster Crabbe and Shrimp Shocktail)!!

Over and out!