Blake, according to atamask

I got a new commissioned piece from deviantArtist Atamask, of none other than Blake, the male witch antagonist. Self-explanatory.

Yea, it was actually a very cheap price. Only for $20 I got this in return. It's badass. The background perfectly reflects Blake's color scheme and personality (I need to get off my lazy ass and write a detailed biography of him).

Go show Atamask your support. Simple as that.

Our favorite Witches of Evil on vacation (slight NSFW)

For $31 USD, I was able to commission deviantARTist Skyraptor to draw up some group artwork of Kurayami, Adelvina, and Alisha (the later whom was designed by SimirrorofShadows). out on the beach after a long day at their dark brisk mansion. He calls the piece "Sunset Girls".

Yea you can tell a lot of people really fancy the queen of darkness (at least for this indie series). It's also the first time we see Alisha in full color following SimirrorofShadow's original sketch, but I'm thing the hair and eyes should be a little more yellowish. And I also want to note the body paint patterns on Kurayami are entirely absent. No problem with that, guess you can say they just washed off.

But aside from that, Skyraptor did an amazing job portraying the three witches. Speaking of, Skyraptor also provided me with some additional bonus artwork. See for yourself.

New early concept drafts.

As I had promised, during my trip to upstate New York, I drew up some rough drafts of potential characters for the series. Note that these are rough drafts, so they don't look as professionally done as my art on deviantART, but I was away from my computer, so I didn't really have access to Photoshop and Poser. But anyways, here they are, and feel free to critique their design and modify it to your liking. And for crying out loud, don't criticize them for the bad anatomy. They're just rough drafts!

First: The well-anticipated "darkness" side-story protagonist. Here with the pencil sketch, his main colors appear to be lighter than they really are. Plus, I forgot to mention he also wears a torn-up tuxedo at times rather than the lather jacket. As you can see, he's a male gothic punk similar to Blake, but this character is not a villain, despite being from the same dimension.

Then we have the other two characters. These come from the regular universe; no alternative dimensions, but they are slightly inspired by two characters that perhaps no one knows. The arabian-styled girl on the left is based on (but not a direct rip-off/homage of) the slutty dark-skinned (sorry for the bad interpretation) egyptian boss from Crayon Shin-Chan: Arashi o Yobu: Nendororo n Daihenshin (image here). And sure enough, this girl too, has the same personality as the woman whom she is based on (though the way I drew my character, she looks like she's 17, when in reality, she's supposed to be in the early 20's).

The second character is based on my friend CaisBarlin69's original character, Cais Barlin. However, there are several noticeable differences, like this guy being a wild punk rock-star whom uses a guitar that shoots sonic booms (hmm... where have I heard this before?).

Please note my friends, that I'm not trying to be unoriginal here. I'm attempting to create my own characters so I don't have to steal those from others. And apparently there are the (non-final) designs I came up with during my weekend vacation. Like 'em or not, they're here to say. If you feel as if they're not detailed or designed well enough and originally, go ahead and leave your opinions.

From hell these girls came...

Yea. More commissioned pieces. I swear they're meant to please people. It's like you getting fanart, though not for free. Anyways we have two commissioned pieces from Sprite37 and FBende. We got series antagonist Kurayami and recently-designed protagonist Mara from these two spectacular artists. Hopefully over the summer I'll have more money to blow on commissions and hopefully increase the series' popularity. And the Aozora's Advneture Re-Vamp Project is in the works, but has not started yet. In the meantime, here are the two images I got. Be sure to head over to each of their dA accounts to give them proper praise and feedback!

(Sprite37's Kurayami)

(FBende's Mara)

Money makes the world go 'round, and they buy commishes.

As ironic as it sounds, I recently got this supa-tacular Aozora chibi from popular deviantART user BluC.

And I also wanted to mention that I think Aozora should somewhat resemble both Ryan and IceCreamMouth's interoperation's, but based on the climate (in his world) his jacket and shirt will change to either Ryan's in the summer, and IceCreamMouth's in the winter. The boots will also undergo this as well, but they will be longer in the winter. Sorry if this change is somewhat upsetting, but remember, this is my series.

Neo-er Aozora?

That's mighty darn right. If you've been paying attention to my deviantART account, you might have noticed that my new Aozora art is complete, which was generally Ryan's proposed re-design. Less than three days later, I'm given this by a good pal of mine (whom also happens to give me quite an amount of critiques, all constructive) known as Icecreammouth, showing his interpretation of Ryan's design.

At least he decided to put my art of Aozora up along with his. Saves me some trouble. But otherwise, this third re-imagining replaces the metal ear plates with larger black ones, increased the depth of the goggles, gave Aozora a different jacket that matches his pilot cap (not helmet), changed the belt, and integrates the single belt over the boots, so it looks like it's actually part of the boot itself. Do I like this design? Well, take a wild guess.

Yes! Of course I do! :D

Now let me bargain on this for a sec. Sure I do accept most, if not every critique I receive, but once again, it's how critiques here work. I'm not going to draw Aozora again anytime soon since I just finished up art of him, and I wanna work on something else. For you Kurayami lovers out there, I got good news for you. There is new art of her in progress. It's NSFW, so if you can't tolerate that sort of art, then I'd recommend just not looking at it entirely. Otherwise, the Aozora's Adventure Re-Vamp project is looking strong.

Aozora's Adventure may be going through re-vamp session in summer.

Yep, because FINALLY someone bothered to look at my series and write up some constructive criticism!

Yep, that's right. One of my buds from school, Ryan McConnachie (please don't look him up, for his own safety! When he creates a new DA account, I'll link to it!), wrote up some comments and suggestions for the Aozora's Adventure series and gave them to me today. To say the least, I'm happy that someone actually thought well enough into the series that he suggested some things I could improve on to make the series hopefully stand out much more than it already is, whatever that means.

So, let me explain, unlike what a lot of people on deviantART would assume, I don't mind criticism or take it as something negative. I know that criticism serves the purpose of helping someone improve by suggesting changes they could implement into whatever they created. But apparently, when someone is first introduced to it, usually it means the person didn't like the final outcome and is requesting changes. But in most case scenarios you'd already be too deep in progress of something or already finished it to the point where you're not willing to go back and make changes. Then there are the people that just show no interest into lending out a hand by simply stating "it sucks" without giving a proper reason why. Even if you don't like someone's artwork enough to at least give it a favorite, it would be nice to explain why exactly you do not like the art. But if it's for a pointless reason, such as "I don't like this character," then that would be the time to ignore rather than be a wuss.

But in this scenario, I can roll out the suggested changes slowly. Not right this minute since I'd have to go and edit pretty much this blog, my main blog, and the Wiki in response to the series name change. But for now, let me discuss the changes that Ryan had requested.

This is his interpretation of the series' protagonist, Aozora. It takes my initial design and adds a couple new features. First, Aozora's pilot cap is given a slight change, his blonde hair is much longer and now shoots out the front and back ends of his head, he now wears a leather jacket imprinted with his personal logo, a different belt, saggier jeans, and more exotic-looking boots, rather than the cyan shoes he wore previously. I like this.

This is the other character he drew. As you can see, this is supposed to be Joker, one of the series' main antagonists initially designed by SimirrorofShadows, but unlike with Aozora's enhancement, this one appears to take away every trait that Joker has. This one is more roudy and less calm, he looks a lot younger, and it just doesn't suit his calm personality. As a remake of Skye, this could work, but as the leader of a professional clan of assassins named after card suits, not really.

Then we came to the criticism itself. Below is a exact word-for-word transistion. Note I'm not trying to make him sound like a criminal, just wanted everyone to understand what he's saying. Again, he's not a bad dude, trust me! ;_;

Notes:

- You should update the wiki with a detailed plot summery

- I can revise and assist you with your plot and characters.

- When crafting a story, give it a moral to teach. An overall central theme.

-Do NOT make this theme: "Teamwork" "Friendship" "Never Give Up" etc.

- Give your characters defining traits. For example:

Laharl

- hates sexy women

- Loves his Overlordship

- Has an iconic evil laugh

Adell

- hates women

- uses things only in his "own style"

- extremely earnest

(NIS always does this)

- Consider renaming the series. Perhaps just to "Aozora"

- Lots of sexy women! I don't know how many you have planned, but you might want to give a few of them... smaller "features"

[picture of Keisha with large breasts, struggling and saying ("Rrrr...")]

Not many actual women could have breasts like that and stand up straight.

So yeah. There it is. In reply, I state the following. Again, no harm intended in any way. Remember this is my series, so I can do whatever the kcuf I want with it. If any extremely popular webcomic artist or a fan of those types of people want to complain, SU.

-Aozora's Adventure was always intended to be a collaborative effort, where people I know, plus a couple of others, designed characters to help with expanding the roster. Some of them were actually pretty well-done, while others were like "meh". The main cast of characters, Aozora, Zik, Sakaki, and Satoru, were all designed when the series just launched following the cancelation of my previous failed experiment, Super Justin. So my character-designing skills were a little shallow back then. I wouldn't mind re-designing some of these characters, or relying on others. Again, just to make sure I'm not lazy, I'm not requiring anyone here to design any characters, but it would be nice if I could get some real good artists, webcomic authors, and/or character designers. Even if I have to pay a good fine, unless it's over $50 or they don't allow me commissioning that kind of stuff.

-Same for the plot, but I'm pretty much in control of that. :P

-I never intended the series to have a theme of any kind. I just wanted the series to be created just so I could have some characters that I could call my own. Plus, now that you mention it, I would probably never have intended to have one of the three themes Ryan described. Sure I am planning to have some casual moments where the main characters attend school and stuff, but not have an entire episode/chapter focused on a "Slice of Life" story. I want the Aozora's Adventure series to be action-packed, violent, comedic, and simply interesting. Unlike Super Justin, I am not aiming to make Aozora kid-friendly, but more for teenagers and adults, which is what shonen manga and most anime not bastardized by 4kids is.

-Plus, Aozora's Adventure is somewhat supposed to be a parody/spoof/tribute to/of some of the major anime series I know of. Kind of like all those Mega Man-styled doujin games that surfaced in the late 2000's.

-Most, if not all of the characters all have their own traits, but I have never bothered to implement or write them on the Wiki. They're there, but just,.. not there. ^^; Maybe in the future.

-I am considering to rename the series just Jitsuwa. Aozora's Adventure initially started as Aozora Jitsuwa, then Zora's Adventure, then what it's known as now. Because Wikia doesn't let you change the name of your wiki in the blink of an eye and create an appropriate re-direct to the newer version, this may take a little longer than expected. Of course, I'm open to any more exotic titles, but we'll see where things go.

-The "lots of sexy women" tag-line is a staple of a good number of T/M-rated anime and video game series, which are entirely fiction and are thus, often not supposed to be realistic. And Keisha's breasts are average-sized, not oversized. Kurayami has her figure the way it is because she's supposed to be quick, swift, and powerful, sort of like a hybrid of Masane Amaha of Witchblade and Bayonetta from the game of the same name. Same goes for Britly. I can probably drop the breast size of Kurayami and, Britly by short amounts, but remember, it's fiction, so don't expect things to be realistic unless you're making a biography anime. In these cases, none of the characters can't or shouldn't really struggle or topple over with that breast size. Besides, breasts can get that big in anime and I don't see the females struggling. :|

So yea, that's a wrap. I'll discuss more about these changes and a few other tid-bits about the series in the future. If he creates an account on dA, I'll go discuss these changes in more depth. For now, get!

Oh sorry, was that rude of me? Well, What about "good bye?"

About the side stories of the series.

Since I just recently added some concepts to the series, I decided to better explain what plots will unfold throughout my OC series.

First, the one we all know, the main plot story with Aozora, Satoru, and the rest of the gang, which takes place in the near future, during a time when (of course) a league of assassins known as the A. C. E. S. attempts to terrorize Japan, and a few months later, the eight witches that I haven't even done the concept for the fifth. Self explanatory.

The second of these plots is more or less a prequel to the entire series, starring Aozora's ancestor from the 1700's, Amano. When (of course again) Asia is the target of an unknown evil, Amano steps into a Japanese town, is told of the threats, and then embarks on a journey to settle the score.

Amano I already have an article of on my personal Wiki, so no need to describe him again.

But about the other characters in this prequel story?

Well... first off, one idea that I think could work as an ally to Amano is an eleven-year-old wearing an yellow kimono with black outlingings, large, beady eyes, and brown mushroom-shaped hair. It's supposed to be a take-on of the semi-main protagonist of the Japanese children's novel "The Classroom with an Alien in it" which I had showcased last year on my main blog.

This pic should explain better.

Yes, I really got this lazy, and just pulled out Photobooth. Don't really feel like wasting time, especially at 10 in the evening. And note my character will not be an exact interpretation of this guy, just somewhat similar in shape and size, plus with an added interest in Hanafuda.

Another character whom I was thinking of putting in was a large (no offense) guy wearing a purple kimono, who has the shape of a sumo fighter, with the traditional Asian black ponytail. Besides him, there are two other allies to Amano that I'm considering to add, one a badass male warrior character, in a dark-blue kimono, with a red and yellow outfit, and a glamorous female who wields a parasol.

The antagonists consist of one leader, and five other members. One of them is a woman with dark pale violet hair done in the traditional Chinese woman fashion who can strike a humorous chuckle when overjoyed.

But overall, how did I get this idea? Well, near the end of August, I attended this Japanese/oriental themed festival where the book described above could be purchased (as well as several Japanese-language manga, none that I'm familiar with though.). I heard oriental-themed music, and because music gets my motivation going, bang. The oriental-themed story was born, though I wouldn't release the concepts about two months after. I'll reveal more about this concept in the future.

Anyways, onto the newest idea I had developed this week:

I was thinking of doing another spinoff series focusing on a new clan of protagonists and antagonists. The protagonists consist of six gothic characters wearing dark hair colors, their planed concepts shown below.

The main entry of this gang is a 20-year old that has somewhat of a zany personality, has long, spiky, dark navy blue hair with the outlines drawn in neon blue, blue evilish eyes, sharp teeth, a very well-detailed outfit made of a open dark blue tuxedo (with a strange shape), some yellow belts wrapped around parts of it, and black, saggy long jeans with blue patterns. I don't really know how to describe him as of yet, so I'll wait for when I try to draw him before I showcase his appearance. Other than that, I also want to mention he's an expert in guns and swords, and adores killing and fighting things with such.

His closest ally, at this time, is a Jamaican-esque dark-skinned guy (whose main color scheme is red and varying shades of orange) that has pyrokinesis. His short but thick dreadlocks are bright orange, drawn with red highlights, which gets brighter of dimmer depending on his state and power. I haven't really decided on what outfit to give him as of yet, but I want it to have some relation to his suggested color scheme, but not to the point where he looks like an exact replica of Blake. :P

The third character will be the love interest of the main character of this side-story, and will share a somewhat similar appearance to Sakaki, but not down to the exact detail. This girl will have much darker and shorter hair (with possibly an added ponytail), many tattoos and markings on her skin, and a more revealing (but still well detailed) outfit, plus a serious, badass personality.

One other character that I think would do well is a 16-year old "loli-devil girl" like Etna from Disgaea and Luste Teuber from Rosenkreuzstilette. She won't have wings, but she would have some form of black and green pointed tail (which can be used to attack). She has bushy, neon green hair, pointy ears, a small bikini top (to cover her flat breasts, a large gauntlet on her right hand that reaches up to her shoulder, and navy blue jeans that are entirely absent on only her right side, with the left (intact) side being very messy, with multiple wrinkles and some patches. Like Etna and Luste, she is joyfull and playful, but can get upset easily.

There are two other protagonists I'd like to consider adding alongside these four, both male.

As for the antagonists, I haven't thought of one for this new side-story, but I do have apossible idea for an assistant of the main antagonist. He has no eyeballs (somewhat like 2-D from the Gorillaz band), so he has a black band and long, black hair with yellow streaks covering the empty sockets, and a wicked smile. As a spooky taunt, sometimes when he sticks his tongue out, a moving eyeball appears on top of the tip, alongside his razor-sharp teeth. He has a very large gun as his main weapon of choice. His colors consist of mainly dark pale yellow, black, and some maroon.

So now that I summed up the current roster of characters, I'll talk about the setting; the place where these characters reside.

The main setting is an alternative universe that is mostly filled with many urban areas that are well-advanced in technological aspects, as well as a great numbers of castles, dungeons, and towers modeled after the traditional classic gothic structure. The lightest it ever gets in this world is mid sunrise/set, and lighting is common. On top of that, the vast desert plains, forests, mountains, and abandoned castles and dungeons are filled with various strange monsters and creatures. And unlike our dimension, the ones that reside in this world are much more strange, darker, and more vicious.

The two dimensions are linked via (what else but) dimensional portals, something created by Toshi after meeting a strange person (whom I have no concepts for). To further connect the two worlds, this is where Kurayami and the other Withches initially originated, using their black magic to warp to our dimension. In that dimension, they remained in their transformed states forever, and getting sick of their times there, they warped in desire to cause ruckus in Aozora's world.

So that's what I got for now. I wish I could co-lab with some of my good friends on this idea, but something tells me I'd better be off on my own. If you want to help, be my guest.

Anatema's Keisha

Well, you waited, and Anatema is back with some Keisha art.

Keisha's eyes look a little distorted here, but I still like it.

Anatema's Sakaki

So last Thrusday I got this picture of Sakaki from Mexican artist AnatemaWorks, and to say the least, it's not half bad.

See for yourself:...

He/She also stated that they are working on a Keisha one as well.