Month: March 2011

Just for fun.
Emily began as a character in an old, old Megaman fan comic I drew back in, probably the mid to late 1990’s. X found Emily in a wrecked city (she had been transported there from some sort of energy portal) and decided to take care of her. Emily had a different haircut, some sort of pony tail, and a kimono. She was taller and wasn’t supposed to be as young as she acts now. Emily went through major changes when I started drawing “Bass Rebirth of Amp” another Megaman fan comic. The original comic was never uploaded online, too old and too ugly lol. Eventually I would like to scan some of that story (it’s drawn on a newsprint pad in ball point pens). Emily is the oldest of my creations who is still in use, all of the other characters I made up from this time period are kind of dead. Even the characters from Bass Rebirth of Amp haven’t seen the light of day for some years, (perhaps except in sketchbook doodles). I was very happy when some readers recognized Emi when I first introduced her to this series. The other characters, Miranda, Astral, Anthony, machine Prophet, Gallaxious, are relatively new compared to Emily. Astral was created in 2004, and is probably the second oldest character still used in my comics.

Influences: Emily is a mix of many different characters, but the ones that influenced me the most in creating her when I was a teenager were: Emerelda from Xenogears, Lain from Serial Experiments Lain and Cardcaptor Sakura. Eventually she took on her own personality and gradually lost the characteristics of these other characters. (perhaps except Emerelda, Emily still reminds me a lot of her)

Emily’s favorite color is green, it’s decided.

Captain Picard: “The only person you’re truly competing against, Wesley, is yourself.”
Wesley Crusher: “Then you’re not disappointed?”
Captain Picard: “Wesley – you have to measure your successes and your failures within, not by anything that I or anyone else might think. But, erm… if it helps you to know this… *I* failed the first time, and you may not tell anyone!”

Failure affects all of us, however I believe, as the captain has so elegantly put it, what we do with the results of our shortcomings is more important than a failure itself. When I was younger (before art school) I used to think of my life as a long stairway up, with many of the steps being failures and a few success steps in between. I always thought the failures were worth getting through, or perhaps even to be looked forward to, because it meant one step closer to something good happening. When I went to art school this attitude was lost and replaced with a very defeatist attitude. I am currently attempting (with the help of my girlfriend) to build an attitude of progress over this annoying fatalism I seem to enjoy so much. So if you do comics, art, illustration, heck ANYTHING; you could be a car mechanic and have these feelings; do as the captain says, don’t compare yourself to others and see your “failures” more as learning experiences. Good luck.

Tim.