Writing: White Foxes, etc

Last night, when Daily Planet was over and I was waiting for Friday night anime to begin, I sat down and wrote 1,157 words of chapter 17 of White Foxes, Full Moon. That makes 47, 979 so far (or 50, 751 if you count the already-written final chapter which may or may not stay once I get to the end). I'm well over halfway now, but not yet at 2/3. My original outline was for 27 chapters, but I suspect there may be 30 or so by the time I get there.

I also thumbnailed and laid out the panels for pages 50-52 of Fey. I have to get going on the pencils on those today (and see if I can finish chapter 18 of Foxes).

What else? I know there was something else I was going to say . . . Oh, yeah. I find it most interesting how you can earn about characters things you never dreamed of until there they are, in words on the page in front of you (or in pictures). I found out something about Watcher (one of the two main characters in Foxes) yesterday. He was telling Maring (the other main character) a story--a kind of origin story about the island they live on. Turns out he may be older and more powerful than even I suspected (he certainly didn't know; he doesn't remember much about his past).

And a week or so ago, I started to sketch out an drawing to enter in a scholarship (deadline is the end of August, I think). I was trying to draw something elegant and sort of intricate--a portrait of some fantasy character, perhaps. Something that would turn out well, but that I wouldn't mind sending to a contest and not getting back. I started with a face, and made him into a king. The idea of "ancient king" popped into my head, so I tried to make the costume simple, elegant, and rich. I wasn't too displeased--in fact, I kind of liked how it was turning out, even though my attempt to add a dragon didn't work (too fantasy-cliché to begin with). Anyway, I had most of the figure down when I realized who I was drawing. Adding small pointed ears clinched it. I'd just drawn a portrait of the mysterious Gannon, villain (maybe) of Fey. And I think he may have been a king, too, though now he's just high up in Faery nobility, due to various events in fey politics and the like. Weird, though. I created his character as little more than a name to oppose Robin et al's efforts to . . . well, you'll just have to read the comic. Later on, as I was pondering the bizarre pathways of literary and comic creation, it occurred to me that Gannon (Gannon ap Rhys, I think) is very probably the father of Pier (aka Rapier) and Sabre (and also Katana, their half-kitsune sister). Phew. Of course, for all I know, once I get around to telling those bits of the story (if they ever make it in to the main tale) everything might have changed, and I may have learned different things (sometimes, you see, characters can lie to their creators) (really; it's weird).