Amesville

Fuzzy Birds

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A few of you out there may know that I have an idea for a comic book, one that's been brewing in my head for years, and may eventually come to life. The characters have undergone numerous changes and evolutions, as well as the stories themselves. I don't want to give away too much information on it, but I will say this: it's a drama, comedy, mystery and thriller, with super powered individuals although very little superheroics. It's a self contained story, with a planned ending.

'Ladies, Gentlemen, boys, girls, and all forms of intelligent animal life… welcome to Amesville'.

The research institute known as Amesville is a government project run by Professor Howard Sergeant and is dedicated to unlocking the secrets of the late Edward Ames' experimentations in the genetic field. Ames was a man who was born to work in the sciences. After the untimely death of his father, Ames inherited a private orphanage at the tender age of 25. Over the years, Ames built this orphanage, strengthening relationships with the young children. He was considered an upstanding individual of his community. Unbeknownst to them though, Ames was conducting subtle genetic experiments on the orphans, and a number of animals too. After many years of this, Ames' experimentations were abruptly interrupted by a raging fire, which claimed the life of a handful of the children and animals, and apparently Ames himself. After the fire was extinguished and the remaining children rescued, the truth was uncovered. For their own safety, the children were orphaned to various places around the world, under the care of government sleeper agents and constantly monitored. After many years of study and research, a highly skilled government branch of geneticists led by Sergeant have unlocked some of Ames' methods, but the research is called to a halt when Ames himself is apparently sighted in Europe, under the forced escort of three super powered humans, all of whom thought to have died in the fire, and one in fact, being the cause of the blaze. Fearing for their safety, the call is put out by Sergeant to bring the remaining children to the facility for their own protection.


Following are a few character designs and some information for the key players.

Alice Lomax
Personality: Alice is an extreme extrovert, her open sense of humour, loud opinions and cocky impulsiveness often irritating others. However, like most extroverts, Alice's garish exterior is simply a mask used to cover the insecurities and loneliness that reside deep within her. She acts with the utmost enthusiasm and a near child like hyperactivity to all challenges. Her hobbies include most forms of dangerous lifestyles and extreme sports.

Known powers: The outer layer of Alice's skin is impervious to any damage, unable to be penetrated by solids, liquids or gases. As such, she is immune not just to physical attacks, but to all known diseases and poisons. Her body can function without air or food, but instead draws, and stores, all the nutrients, vitamins and energy it needs from plain water.

Anthea Marr
Personality: One of the brightest of the subjects, Ant chose to follow in her adoptive fathers footsteps, and having spent her whole life at the orphanage and then the facility, she has had plenty of time to practice. While she is still inexperienced, she shows much promise. She doesn't appear to be hindered by her bodies size, but instead enjoys the adventure of the giant world around her, a playful and energetic girl.

Known powers: Although it may not be classed as a power, Ant is of a tremendously small stature, apparently shrinking instead of growing over the years since the experiments, although the process halted around her 19th birthday. Her real power however, lies in her enhanced strength and durability, which, while not on the level of Leo, is still formidable for her size.

Isobel Pryce
Personality: Belle was born a deaf-mute, and her teenage years were spent in willing isolation, away from the ridicule of others. Now an adult, Belle is still alarmingly shy and timid, almost scared of the people around her. She has few friends, and instead finds pleasure in the arts, from paints to sculpture. She harbours no grudges toward her condition, instead accepting it as her lot in life.

Known powers: When Belle comes into direct contact with any metallic substance, it reacts in a violent manner, twisting and bending harshly, while any metal in the nearby vicinity is warped. With great concentration, Belle can control and shape the metal, albeit it only for a few minutes.

Ben Elliot
Personality: Spending the majority of his life in forced isolation, Ben has naturally grown up bitter and spiteful of those around him, often biting the hand that feeds him, although not without reason. Often dry and sarcastic, even when treated with the utmost delicacy, Ben would appear to be unreachable. Spending the majority of his life locked up, Ben uses his time to watch old movies and read books, escapism being his only source of enjoyment.

Known powers: Since an early age, Ben's body has been constantly below zero, with varying degrees apparently depending on his mood. However, even his happiest mood is not enough to raise his body temperature above zero. It is unknown how his own body can withstand these temperatures, but it is certainly harmful to any who enter his immediate vicinity, and has resulted in isolation, all manner of personal heaters proving unsuccessful. With concentration, Ben can expand the bubble of cold around him, immediately affecting his environment, and can also decrease the temperature to fatal levels.

Felix Summers
Personality: Felix is a practical joker, and thanks to his unique anatomy, a (self confessed) expert in physical humour. Sporting a common sense and intellect quite surprising considering his sense of humour, Felix can often be found in solitude, reading and absorbing all kinds of information. However, when back in the vicinity of people, he let's his inhibitions go.

Known powers: Felix' body appears to be an amoeba, with all his vital organs effectively combined into one, acting as the nucleus. He has no facial features, and it is unknown how exactly he can see, speak and hear. Routine tests have proven him to have a photographic memory. Felix can effectively shape shift into anything his mind imagines, even increasing and decreasing his mass in an unknown manner. However, shape shifting takes it's toll, and Felix must eat over 10 times the normal amount of food in a day. Luckily, it can be simply absorbed into himself.

Henry Fox
Personality: Hank is a cocky, often over confident young man, but not without a certain charm, particularly where the opposite sex is concerned. While he may be remarkably open with his thoughts, often to the point of vulgarity and distaste, he is highly reserved with his true feelings and emotions. Hank lives for music, and is the lead singer and guitarist of a mildly successful rock band.

Known powers: Hank finds himself permanently invisible to everyone and everything. His eyesight is apparently hindered by this, forcing him to constantly wear glasses. On a few occasions, Hank has become intangible, passing through all objects, although not without enormous physical pain.

Kumiko Tanaka
Personality: Despite having spent her later years hidden away from prying eyes, Kumiko is a surprisingly extroverted young lady, who easily voices her opinions and concerns for others to see. Beneath her mild mannered exterior lays a fierce intellect, and though her age and relative immaturity betray her, she is still greatly respected for this.

Known powers: Sprouting from Kumiko's back are a set of huge, white feathered wings, with a wing span of over 16 feet. The feathers are amazingly versatile and durable, proving useful not only for flight, but for attack and defence. Kumiko's body is lighter for optimum flight speed, with hollow bones and zero body fat. Her lungs and eyes are adapted for thin air and high speeds respectively. Her body also benefits from augmented strength and agility, as well as lightning fast reflexes.

Leonard Charles
Personality: Like many of the others, Leonard has spent much of his life hidden from others, but being a relatively lone individual, had never suffered much from it. However, after all these years alone, Leonard is starting to warm to others, becoming a friendly and caring young man, always with the utmost respect for those who treat him as a friend. Despite his physical condition, or possibly because of it, Leonard becomes more and more confident in himself as the days pass.

Known powers: Leonard's outer body, and perhaps, even his insides, are made of a extremely tough, yet flexible metal plating, proving hugely resilient against most physical attacks and gifting him with unparalleled strength, although the metal is prone to extreme temperatures. As well as this, his body is almost twice that of average height and his weight makes him almost unmovable. The armoured plating is far from consistent, and is in fact unpredictable, with smooth segments interrupted by sharp jagged edges and even horns, making him even more formidable in battle.

Oscar Samson
Personality: A quiet, bookish young man, with a passion for poetry, art and literature, Oscar is certainly one of the most intelligent members of the group. Despite his quiet lifestyle though, he is not adverse to a more fast paced life, and can easily be encouraged by others to put down his books and pick up the bottle. Oscar easily tolerates all the others around him, and never succumbs to anger or annoyance at the younger members of the group, instead finding amusement and promise in their words and actions, and possibly lending a few words or encouragement.

Known powers: Oscar's five senses are enhanced formidably, surpassing those of even the greatest hunters of the animal kingdom. Individually, his sight, smell and hearing are enough to track any given person almost indefinitely, his touch and taste used to great effect to scan and assess areas or objects. Most amazingly though, his five senses, when working in tandem, are so powerful they appear to act as one hyper sense, gifting Oscar with an acute awareness and synchronicity with his area. This hyper sense can be used to great effect, being able to locate a single item in a room in mere seconds; to detect any abnormalities or faults in nearby constructs; to gain a rough understanding of most machinery and electronics; and finally a masterful skill to read the body language of others to surprising, and usually true effect. As well as this, Oscar is gifted with uncanny agility and dexterity, aim, speed and even enhanced strength, making him the almost perfect physical soldier.


Teresa McGovern
Personality: Although not as bitter as certain of the Amesville residents, Tess nevertheless harbours ill will towards the others, mostly for rejection at an early age. However, she is not without her compassionate side, as she is hesitant to harm them, her bark usually worse than her bite. As a child and still as an adult, she is highly secretive, and the limits of her powers have still not been revealed.

Powers: Seemingly the opposite of Ben, Tess has control over high temperatures and fire, although unlike Ben, she can return her body to normal temperature. Increasing the temperature around her body can cause spontaneous combustion of objects. She is bald because her hair literally burns away. Unbeknowst to the others, but suspected by Sergeant, Tess was responsible for the blaze that originally destroyed the orphanage.

A few more sketches:
Alice and Ant

Belle

Alternative Leonard design

This is only about half of the characters, I'll add more every now and then. Let me know how it sounds!
 
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When I'm fully awake, I'll sit down and read all of this.
 
Updated. Some of you may recognise the pic of Teresa, mostly because it's based on one of the covers to the Ultimate Vision series, the Brandon Peterson one. It's very rare that I base my pictures on an already existing piece of work, but I just love the Peterson picture so much, I felt it had the exact atmosphere and attitude of the lovely Tess (named after my girlfriend don'tcha know, although only in name, not in personality, luckily for me....). Anyways, that and the fact that I always screw up proportions when drawing bald people.....
 
You're off to a promising start, with a very interesting premise. The characters do feel a bit like they've been patched together or assmebled from archtypes (but not cliches -- so don't worry). Besides, part of the fun and drama comes from discovering how these various personalities will interact.

Having been a fan of Gen-13 during my teenage years, I couldn't help but notice some similarities with the Project: Genesis concept, and the opening arcs of both the original series, and Gail Simone's contemporary update.

Still, the uniquess could also be in the details, which leads me to some questions:

(1) Where are the orphanage and Amesville located? Are they near each other?

(2) How far across the country are the different orphans spread out?

(3) If their "parents" are sleeper agents (an idea that Gail Simone used in her Gen-13 relaunch; several months after you first posted this, I might add), will that make it easier or harder for them to regroup the remaining orphans?

Just some points to consider. You've got a strong foundation for an interesting series. Let's see how far you can take it. 8)


EDIT: Oh, and the character designs befit the characters' youthful, dynamic personalities. Good job!
 
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