A Spark of Humble Beginnings

As a child, around 4-5th grade I had a strange dream. I find myself, along with two childhood bullies, in a barren desert. While trying to figure out a way out of there, we came across a run down playground ran by a gang. The gang, ran by a young but mighty child challenged us and it sparked a huge fight. I could not remember the resolution of this dream. Yet, I knew I wanted to create something out of it, to remember it. So I decided to create ‘’Desert Legends’’, a somewhat autobiographical art series where a self insert wolf character would go through strange adventures inspired by my dreams and experiences. It would range from saving a bunch of children from evil witches to finding aliens mysteriously making their marks on our home. Desert Legends kickstarted the idea of me creating original characters, albeit in a phase where I drew everyone I knew in my life as a wolf. With the obsession and incorporation of adding Yugioh characters the series we eventually was renamed *‘’Millennium Knightz’’.*I would expand upon the world of this story, separating everyone into clans and making a series of drawings detailing fights between me and people who I did not like. Periodically it would show up in my school assignments as I started to dabble in writing. While I did not think of it at the time, I really wanted to make something big with my art. I wanted to create stories with it. I just made them for myself and pictured them in my head.

Millennium Knightz had a series of separate tales and changes throughout my art journey, often inspired by my environment. People wanted me to draw something different besides wolves? I made ‘’Wretches and Kings’’ where I changed my self insert character into a guitar player and would play in a nu-metal band alongside Yami Yugi (who were separated into his pharaoh and modern versions) and a cyborg drummist inspired by the cyborg girl in Scott Pilgrim. My childhood best friend wanted a character based off of them? I made ‘’Split Personality’’ debuting them and a demon version of my self insert character. I liked the concepts from the anime Ginga Densetsu Weed? I made ‘’Stray’’ where my character had and alter-ego that could turn into a wolf and she goes through a journey similar to Weed where after the death of her mother, goes into the woods in search for her father and live alongside his pack of stray dogs and wolves.

I even had separate series besides Millennium Knightz. However, just like it, they were stories taken from others. Two notable ones I can think of were the ones based off of a movie known as A Bug’s Life and a children’s novel known as Flawed Dogs. I did not have names for either of these stories so let’s just call them ‘’rip offs’’. The ‘’Flawed Dogs’’ ripoff, just like the original book featured a dog abandoned by its owner, set up by a narcissistic poodle named Cassius. Then with a group of ‘’flawed dogs’’ he journeys back to his owner and faces off Cassius once and for all. The only difference between the two books is that its a bit more graphic and the design of the main dog character is different; instead of a dachshund with a spoon for a leg, mine was just some tiger-stripped dog thing with wings. Original amiright? The ‘’Bug’s Life’’ one was a bit more original but not by much. Instead of it being a tale of an ant, who ostracized by his colony until he and a gang of misfits stop a group of greedy grasshoppers, this story features a wolf named Flameheart. While he was ostracized by his pack he works together with a group of other dogs and wolves to face a rival pack of demonic wolves. Will I ever revise these stories into something original? Maybe. But they might be kept short.

Fast-forward to the year 2012, starting my second half of 7th grade. I was moving out from my comfortable, albeit lonesome hometown of Scottsdale, AZ. There i moved to the vibrant, coastal city of San Diego. That was the year, after years of dabbling with copy-cat stories and self-insert nonsense, I finally decided to start anew and began creating one final copy-cat story turned original: ‘’Wolfpack Rebellion’’.

As a child, around 4-5th grade I had a strange dream. It featured myself and two childhood bullies finding ourselves abandoned in a strange desert. While trying to figure out a way out of there, we come across a run down playground ran by a gang. The gang, ran by a young but mighty child challenged us and it sparked a huge fight. While I could not remember the resolution of this dream, I knew a part of me wanted to create something out of it. In fact, as a child I wanted to create something out of my dreams. I decided in my mind, to create ‘’Desert Legends’’, a somewhat autobiographical series where a self insert wolf character would go through strange adventures inspired by the dreams I had. Desert Legends eventually was renamed ‘’Millennium Knightz’’ (why? Probably due to my obsession with Yugioh even though the stories had nothing to do with the actual lore of the series) and gave birth to the phase where I decided to draw just about everyone I knew in my life as a wolf. I would end up escaping into this world, separating everyone into clans and making a series of drawings detailing fights between me and people who I did not like. Heck, I might have even mentioned about them in school assignments whenever we would write sentences using vocabulary. While I did not think of it at the time, I really wanted to make something big with my art. I wanted to create stories with it. I just pictured them in my head.

Millennium Knightz had a series of separate tales and changes throughout my art journey, often inspired by my environment. People wanted me to draw something different besides wolves? I made ‘’Wretches and Kings’’ where I changed my self insert character into a guitar player and would play in a nu-metal band alongside Yami Yugi (who were separated into his pharaoh and modern versions) and a cyborg drummist inspired by the cyborg girl in Scott Pilgrim. My childhood best friend wanted a character based off of them? I made ‘’Split Personality’’ debuting them and a demon version of my self insert character. I liked the concepts from the anime Ginga Densetsu Weed? I made ‘’Stray’’ where my character had and alter-ego that could turn into a wolf and she goes through a journey similar to Weed where after the death of her mother, goes into the woods in search for her father and live alongside his pack of stray dogs and wolves.

I even had separate series besides Millennium Knightz. However, just like it, they were stories taken from others. Two notable ones I can think of was the one based off of a movie known as A Bug’s Life and a children’s novel known as Flawed Dogs. I did not have names for either of these stories so let’s just call them ‘’rip offs’’. The ‘’Flawed Dogs’’ ripoff, just like the original book featured a dog abandoned by its owner, set up by a narcissistic poodle named Cassius. Then with a group of ‘’flawed dogs’’ he journeys back to his owner and faces off Cassius once and for all. The only difference between the two books is that its a bit more graphic and the design of the main dog character is different; instead of a dachshund with a spoon for a leg, mine was just some tiger-stripped dog thing with wings. Original amiright? The ‘’Bug’s Life’’ one was a bit more original but not by much. Instead of it being a tale of an ant, ostracized by everyone else, finding a way to unite them to face off against a group of greedy grasshoppers, my story features a wolf named Flameheart, working together with other dogs and wolves to face a rival pack of demonic wolves. Will I ever revise these stories into something original? Who knows?

Fast-forward to the year 2012, starting my second half of 7th grade, moving out from my hometown of Scottsdale, AZ to San Diego, CA. That was the year, after years of dabbling with copy-cat stories and self-insert nonsense, I finally decided to start anew and began creating one final copy-cat story turned original: ‘’Wolfpack Rebellion’’.

The Birth of Fireseeker

While not my very first character, Fireseeker is definitely my oldest. At least in terms of characters I still use. Inspired by the grungy aesthetics in my Wretches and Kings design, she became the near-final design for the self-insert. Seek often went on adventures with Death-heart (the name of the character based off of my childhood friend), Shadowseeker and other characters while she faced an evil shapeshifting snake man I named ‘’Painseeker’’. They formed this rebel group called ‘’The Wolfpack’’. However, I did not have a purpose for that pack until I read James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series. The story of a group of genetically engineered bird kids, learning to survive an unforgiving world and fight injustice together was a concept that captivated me. Plus, ever since reading Flawed Dogs and watching PETA videos that were against animal testing, the ‘’shady company that does unethical experiments’’ idea just was a villain concept I enjoyed. So, taking these ideas as inspiration, I molded the foundation of Seek’s story; one where she was lab-created and had the ability to transform into multiple animals, ranging from a wolf, to a dragon, to a few other animals. She escaped as a baby, raised by a rouge employee only for her to be taken away by the lab (I called them ‘’Biotex’’ as a cheeky nod to the lab in Maxiumum Ride: Itexicon) and have her loved ones slaughtered. Holding on to what humanity she had left, powered by her God-crafted sword, she gathered other subjects from the laboratory and together they fought off Biotex’s head scientist: ‘’Dr. Painseeker’’. This story, as silly as it was, became the foundation for my current passion project but getting there was not easy.

Years upon years, Wolfpack Rebellion was all that I worked on. I would spend hours trying to write chapters of this story, creating more characters and even drawing out scenes that I would put into the story. Yet, when I presented it to others, its imperfections were pointed out to me. A few times I would share my story to folks online and they pointed out that the chapters were rushed or the logic behind the character’s motivations did not make sense. In hindsight they were right since it was the first time I ever took writing seriously and I was still novice. Other times however, there would be folks that would try to sabotage my story by adding their own stuff in. Whether it would be a military organization I had no knowledge in or gods that would easy end my universe, it felt too much of a hassle trying to add all of these in my story. I got myself into this cycle where Wolfpack Rebellion became a part of my art identity, yet I was too afraid to write it, in fear of how others thought of it. Yet, I kept going, for if I were to scrap it altogether, I would not know who would I be as an artist. Even now, overcoming my insecurities in my writing is a bit of a struggle.

Now we reach to 2020. Despite the pandemic, it was the year where I was able to find my creative friend group. While not professional, I took admiration for each of my friend’s creative minds, especially with one of my friends that I shall name Doc. Doc had her own passion project; she wanted to create a fighting game with each character having their own unique arcs and stories. The way she made those characters come alive had me fall in love with them. Surprisingly, she took interest in my own work. I was at a creative block at the time but her interest inspired me to want to write more. She even gave me ideas to evolve the story more. Thus, with Doc’s help, I evolved Wolfpack Rebellion into the story it is now: Draconic Revolt.

Now, What is Draconic Revolt?

Now that we have the backstory of this project allow me to tell you the premise of Draconic Revolt… at least its premise in the making.

Draconic Revolt is in the most basic pf terms, is a revenge story. Fireseeker, now a dragon that can shapeshift in a human, lost her mother as a teenager. While they explore a human town in hopes to better understand how to live with humans, a horrible, chimeric experiment attacks them. Seek and her brother Nightember ran only for them to get caught, then separated into two laboratories associated with Biotech Industries, a controversial genetic-engineering corporation, known for its human experimentation with animal DNA. Fireseeker spent the rest of her childhood imprisoned, forced to be put through experiments that stress her physical and mental state. When she believed that her fate was sealed, a window of opportunity arises. Fireseeker comes across a woman named Danyelle who unlike the dragon, is rather optimistic and has hopes to escape. Exploiting the lab’s weaknesses the two girls breakthrough and escape on the run..

While it is still a bit of a work in progress at the moment I hope to update more on it as I continue on my writing journey, whether it is establishing more characters, writing short stories or comics to establish their lore or even eventually publish it on this very own website. I think only time will tell.