Edge

For the first pic of the month, I’m working on Edge (a new OC of mine)!!

For anyone who’s already seen my essay on Discord, you can skip this next bit… ?

TLDR: This new OC is, hopefully, going to be a part of a bigger personal project I’m aiming to slowly start working on. ?

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The recent successes of certain TV shows (like Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, Centaur World etc.) had me thinking about my own projects that I’ve always wanted to get off the ground which have, in their own way, failed. It wasn’t too long ago that I was working on a sprawling Greco, Viking sexual epic inspired by real mythology with a sci-fi twist. Unfortunately, I am just one person and such a mission while also trying to deal with my mental and physical health issues was just too Herculean a task for me. In fact, the colossal failure of that project is what led me to discovering my neurodivergence. It has taken me from March 2022 until March 2024 to get over the overwhelming burnout that was caused by trying to work on a project and Patreon at the same time, and led to my trip to the doctor. Now, years later, I see Indie content creators, pony girls, and LGBTQ+ creators, making the content of their dreams… and honestly, I feel left out. I don’t know if I have what it takes to do a full project by myself. I don’t know if I have it in me to be the penciler, the artist, the writer, the editor, the distributor, the manufacturer, and who knows how many other roles in this that I still don’t know that I’ll need. But I feel like if I don’t try to create something that I’m truly proud of, that I can point to and say, “I did that that!”, I’ll never be truly happy. I don’t know if it’s possible, but what I want out of life is all tied up in me telling a story that touches someone like me and makes their life happier or more thoughtful or inspired.

I suppose that’s really the goal isn’t it - to feel like you’ve inspired other people? Inspiring people to be horny is great, of course, but I think people were already good at that!! ? I’d like to inspire someone to do something to make their world a better place. I don’t know if I have what it takes to be that guy, but I don’t know if there’s anyone else I want to be. I’ve been looking back across my various unborn projects (some of which you might have heard of) which include Cellfire, Phenomverse, Ankhrux, The OutHouse, Blare, Rated X, Bubblecum, The Zeroes, Medium Small at Large, Edgeways etc., and the only one of them that I actually did manage to work on and in fact finish was Rated X, which I actually then redrew, and none of those characters belong to me and it’s not really telling very much of a story. However, after speaking to my fiancé about my feelings on this, I decided to combine all of my ideas into a combined universe, rediscover my character “Doc Wottsit” and redesign and update him and his story as a new framing device. My goal is for the new version of Doc to have the potential to visit any of my other projects worlds, so that I can always revisit them later, while also picking one of them to devote my energy to. Deliberately leaning into slightly immature and over-designed character ideas from most people’s childhood doodles, and with just a hint of both eastern anime and western comics, my new vision of Doc Wottsit is currently called, “Wayland Edge” (though that is still subject to change). Edge is from a world that has discovered how to travel between the different Universes in their Multiverse. Only his race of people have a biology equipped to survive the experience and not every member of the race is suitable for travelling this way…

Edge and others like him started out with more militaristic careers, being sent out into the Multiverse to look for new medicines, sciences & resources and as a result, their home world developed rapidly. Now an advanced civilisation, with access to the Multiverse, his kind have strict rules about interference and invasion. But they are still sent out to explore new worlds as they have become similar to social media influencers; they experience new sights, they record their experiences, they have loud sex, huge parties, they see some of the most beautiful sites in the universe and they send all of these images & videos back to their home world for people to marvel & to be entertained. Edge and the other influencers have become like brands in their own right, different creators aimed at a different audience for travel, for sports… I mean, imagine you’re watching your favourite sports team and they lose, but what if, just for fun, you can watch a sports creator who travels to a nearby universe where they won and you can watch that match!! And what are the long-term repercussions of picking and choosing your reality? What might that entail or turn / evolve into? Edge himself was a very popular creator known for his hard partying, rough fucking and untameable spirit until he had an accident that affected his natural biology during his recovery process. His channel is on the decline, he’s lost a lot of sponsors, and that’s where we join Edge as he gets ready to start his adventures all over again. The idea for these adventures are simple. Some of the stories I might want to tell could involve black mirror style sci-fi stories, but with a more sexual nature… sex bots come alive is one example that I wouldn’t do because of being too obvious, but that kind of gets you into the ballpark of what I’m thinking.

The other end of the spectrum of stories would be some goofy ones (mostly lighthearted comedy, if I’m funny enough ?), but I won’t start with a story unless I have something to say with that story or question where I’m asking, “What if?”. So, how do I plan to work on this graphic novel if I have failed so many times before? What’s different now? Well, Nothing. I might fail. I’ll probably fail. I’ll have to give up the second it starts threatening my mental health - I won’t have a choice. But if I don’t keep trying, I’m not really being me either. I’ve decided to create a lot of custom tools and a custom style to help me have the best possible chance of succeeding . In terms of style, I’m going to take my notes from Japanese art and remember that there is a reason why their manga is black-and-white. My new vision is a black and white graphic novel with one additional colour and in the first story that will be blue. I will instead use half tones and such to shade images. The aesthetic also might borrow from pop art at times. Each subsequent story on a different planet will have a different third colour such as red, green, orange etc. All files will be saved so, should the story go well and people are enjoying it, then I always have the option to have them coloured by myself or someone else. Until then, everything else is up in the air. Where is he gonna go? Who is he gonna see? Is there an overarching plot?

These things are yet to be decided. Since I’m still working on Edge, I can’t really tell you too much about it one way or the other, but I can describe the current version of him in my head: Edge is a bit of a firecracker, but he’s not a hothead. He’s got an unusually energetic and cocky personality, which is derived from the fact that his species has an incredibly high tolerance for pain, and as a result, he’s a little bit more fearless and reckless than he might be otherwise, but sometimes he’s also easily distracted.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I will be approaching this project extremely slowly. Extremely, EXTREMELY slowly, and of course it may go nowhere at all, but there you go.

This is Waylon Edge and I want to draw him naked in different universes. ??

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So, if you made it through that… Congratulations!! ???

But wait… there’s more!! ?

You Beasts will see, as well as the above, a decent amount of variants in here. Some of these are tweaks with the background, others are colour theory tests and ideas as well as all the usual stuff of course.

On top of that, you Beasts will also see a PDF in there titled, “Scribbles Feat Edge” - this is basically a little sketchbook I put together showing some notes, ideas and variants I considered leading up to this design. ?

Also, for you Bosses & Beasts, there is still some time left to add suggestions for this month if you haven’t yet:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/99608379

Thank you all so much and hope you like this first look at Edge!! ?

Blitz xoxo