interlock

This image was also known as the InterLock "Movie" Poster. It lists all the character names as well as all nicknames of people involved with the project at it's height.

First anime sketch of Jenn. In the game, her primary weapon was a knife. This was dropped from the story-only version.

One of my first attempts at hybrid art involving raster and 3D artwork. This one features Tera Rogue. Her forehead seems monsterous to me now, but then it was pretty damn good.

Ocean Reflector at DuskThursday night I was chatting with a friend about artwork. She had expressed the desire to teach herself how to draw, eventually in hopes of starting a webcomic. I always love it when people show a desire to learn something new. People, in general, seem far too passive about creativity. We are, after all, a consumer culture. Creating new media can be a difficult role reversal.

During the course of the conversation, we stumbled upon CG and animation. I had done a bit of animation years ago during the InterLock project using Bryce 3 and 4. By today's standards, what I produced was terribly crude. Even today some of the old renders and sketches make me embarrassed. This is not to say that there aren't some images I rather like.

The problem was, I no longer had any of the project files on my machine. When I changed computers in 2004, I decided not to include most of the InterLock files. They instead, resided on a CD backup. I usually make a CD or DVD backup of my files every year. I keep the discs for about three years, and then I throw them away. I had assumed that I had all the files in the last backup, and it wasn't an issue. There was one image in particular I wanted to show her, one that I could see so clearly in my imagination but couldn't externalize it.

I keep most of my immediate CDs in several cases above my computer monitor. In those cases I found three discs, but none of them had the files I was looking for. Determined, I set about digging through every box in my small apartment to see if I had a copy somewhere. a half hour later, I came up empty. Did I really lose the files? Was what little that remained of the InterLock project gone forever? I didn't want to believe it. I had maintained the same file tree for my documents for years now, I even had the path memorized -- or so I thought.

When I went back to the oldest of the discs I had found, I discovered that the files I was looking for weren't in the directory I expected. Instead, they were in a subdirectory of the directory I expected, and curiously overlooked. Inside was a carbon copy of the InterLock website during the height of the project. And there were the images I was looking for.

After so much effort to find them, I thought it would be a shame to hide the images I found. True, they may be old, but some of them were quite nice given the level of technology I was working with. So, I decided to post them in a gallery here.

Imagine this thing towering over you.

Gothy Rei modelJust when you think that Evangelion fandom is dying away, something like this comes along. Proof the Japanese have no shame? Probably.

Honestly, Ayanami Rei is my favorite character from the series. Back when I was working on City of Light: InterLock, I decided to borrow her character design for my character of Tera Rogue. Bluish-grey hair and red eyes have evolved into an anime archetype. InterLock never got anywhere, of course. The story is still somewhere in my notes, but I haven't a clue what to do with it, if anything.

For a while I was entertaining the idea of a large story involving Avatar://Create, a friend's idea for a story, Avatar://Alternity, and then finally Avatar://InterLock. It's an intriguing idea, perhaps I'll write it someday.

If I get around to writing anything that is! It's been a week since I posted my thought about the "Writing Lifecycle", and I've done nothing. I've tried a few times to sit down and produce something for the story, but nothing came of it. I began to suspect that I need to journal a bit first before I start hacking out a mind map.

One of the biggest ideas I would like to explore would be Novella coming out to her parents. Most parents do not react well to their child's gender dysphoria. What complicates matters is that most of the time, the condition is self-diagnosed. It's not an unheard of story for parents of a transperson to take their child from therapist to threapist until they hear something acceptable. Apparently, suicidal depression or general insanity is preferable to a change of sex. Sadly, it's also not an uncommon story for transpeople to be kicked out or outright disowned by their family. I expect Novella's parents to react in a similar negative fashion.

I feel Novella's situation would not be as extreme as either of these cases. Novella's family may initially ignore Novella's issues, but eventually condemn them when they realize that she's serious and clear minded. Family is an important subject to Novella, as she feels her intent to transition would result in her being disowned -- formally or not. I was thinking that this would become apparent during either Christmas vacation, or spring vacation during the school year. In the last revision I decided that the story covers one college year of time. With the vacations between chapters 2 and 3, and 3 and 4. I would like this to culminate over the Christmas holiday, but that may not be possible. If Novella reveals her intentions over Christmas vacation, there may not be enough time for it to effect the holiday. Instead, Novella may bring this up during the brief Thanksgiving break.

This makes for another problem. If Novella is obviously snubbed at Christmas, why would she return home for spring break? My thought is she may be guilty or feel obligated into visiting. This may explain why she returns half-way through break to find Akisa shortly after her first suicide attempt.

It's not likely I'll be working on this idea further this evening. In less then an hour, I'm going to a concert for one of my favorite bands, Tool. Tomorrow I should have some time.