Chapter 26: Plundered Designing
Sunday came around and the long hours to himself was perfect for Alexander to have a lighter environment to work on.
That comic matter has to wait first though as there are still homework due for next week's classes.
"For someone who has been submitting programs for his higher education, filling in the blanks for a poem is incredibly demeaning." This was what Alexander had to say whenever he does any primary education curriculum.
Filling in the blanks was a breeze but he still had a few more homeworks to able to move on with the important stuff.
After which, he had to make a short essay about the toys he had and this bit would be a show and tell scenario. As such, all that he had to do was child it up after picking a toy guitar from his kiddy collection.
For mathematics, it was also a breeze but it was quite irksome to have to write the given, formula, how to solve, and the sentence form of the answer.
Of all the math problems, word problems are the systematized and unnecessarily lengthy.
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With those out of the way, Alexander had already readied up his mind for brainstormings and decision-making.
He drew from memory like always but also made some modifications that he felt was necessary. Plundered designing isn't as easy as everyone thinks.
One piece of paper should suffice as Alexander drew a figure from many different angles and positions.
This was part of the character design process and is something that he hadn't really explored when doing Back to the Future and Top Gun.
It would serve as a base guideline to follow for an animator or drawer to convey and cement the character as they make use of them in their story.
A superhero's clothing, a character's costume, extra accessories to consider, and how their motions and emotions could be conveyed. The angle in which they do it and how they apply it.
Alexander used this method to draw and complete the main character of his plagiarized comic.
The character is set to be a little stoutish 14-year-old boy with spikey and grandstanding black hair. For now, the boy is set to wear a blue martial arts gi along with Chinese martial shoes.
Other than the hair and his weird get-up, what makes this boy stand out even more is the fact that he has an extra appendage that looks like a tail.
Toriyama took inspiration from Journey to the West's Sun Wukong to make Son Goku and all that Alexander had to do is take inspiration from him to make Goku his own.
On another page, another character design chart is being made and this time, it was a light violet haired girl with a trendy fashion sense.
16-year-old Bulma would embody advance technology with her many equipments and the novelty of capsule technology.
Alexander knew that this girl had much more potential for design such as cars, motorcycles, and innovative weapons but those designs are something he should plan when the true comic creation would start.
After the two main characters, it would make sense to actualize their supporting cast but that has to wait as a much more iconic creature is needed to be drawn.
Seven orbs with each orb colored orange and carrying a corresponding number of stars to differentiate one to the other.
From the One-Star Dragonball to the Seven-Star Dragonball, Alexander had to be smart with his limiting color pencil to shade the Dragonball orange and differentiate its shine, curve, and stars from each other.
Of course, what sort of Dragonballs would they be if they didn't summon the sought after wish-fulfilling dragon- the Almighty Shenron.
The green dragon is way to huge to be able to character design it in a normal size of paper. Alexander just wanted to draw it to get the sense of the main goal to reach for each of the character.
Even though Shenron's role would be put into the backseat with all the much more powerful dragons and supremely overpowered threats in the Dragonball universe and multiverse, the OG dragon still has great appeal to the hearts of Dragonball fans.
After the dragon, Alexander drew the character sheet of all the characters he deemed a necessity for the first arc.
Oolong, the shapeshifting pig that mirrors Zhu Bajie. It is a poor pig that may have been bankrupt from kidnapping vain girls into his harem.
Yamcha, the scarred mercenary and thief. It is also important to draw the floaty cat that always trails behind the man.
Turtle, a brown talking turtle that would be a travelling companion and ride to a perverted and old turtle hermit, Master Roshi.
Flying Nimbus, a cloud that would become young Goku's means of transportation. Only those with pure heart can ride it.
There were still characters more to be explored here and there, along with the characters for the next arcs such as Ten, Krillin, Mr. Popo, Kami, Piccolo, Nameks, Vegeta, Freeza, Cell, Majin Buu, North Kai, Supreme Kai, God of Destruction, Angels, and the multiverse overseers.
It is all so rich with diversity and stories and notable characters. Even the young Goku arc has so much potential to explore and characters to add that Alexander made it his goal to correct that deficiency.
The many inconsistencies like talking dinosaurs on the first volume and then no talking dinosaurs in the later volume is glaring.
Alexander also made sure to try and tone down the lewdness and sexual innuendos a lot as he isn't that confident enough to embrace his implicit urges as much as the Japanese. Bulma's skirt scene and the Roshi's obscenity needs to be turned down a bit.
Dragonball was now turning into a Western comic so irritating 'Karens' need to be considered.
Capsule Corp. exist with advance technology but somehow in the Cell arcs, the cars and technology still mirrors the real world.
Alexander could literally make whole new arcs just centering around the technological arms race and Goku being the abnormal kid that could somehow solve it.
As much as how amazing and groundbreaking the Super Saiyan arcs had become, young Goku had much more exciting adventures that could be explored.
"The fact that I somewhat own the Dragonball franchise now is a crazy thing." Alexander smiled while not being too guilty with stealing the limelight from Akira Toriyama.
This grand manga that accumulated millions of fans in a long span of many decades would now be modified and made much more expansive with his hindsight of the whole series and avoiding the pitfalls that Toriyama didn't know he was making or the opportunities he had missed.
As far as Alexander remembered, the first Dragonball issue was December of this year. If he could manage to publish his comic version first, the Dragonball franchise would then be completely his own.
This idea only served to empower Alexander to do his best and do it to his fullest.
However, after all his character designing, he didn't readily jump into making the comic but consolidating arcs and storylines that he goaled himself to accomplish.