jackalopes!
Apr. 15th, 2025 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ketraiaI've been trying to hunker down and do some work on my hopefully someday GN/webcomic, jackalopes. (these guys.)
unfortunately, even if you have a broad plot, inciting incident, climax, key moments, and characters with clear motivations and arcs, it's still really hard to come up with stuff to fill in the rest of the actual story. does anyone know about this??
jack rabbit's character was originally conceived as a blades in the dark npc, so the setting as I've been imagining it has always been kind of doskvol-esque, but I'm trying to flesh it out more. I'd still like it to be vaguely 19th century. I've been piddling around reading about mediterranean port cities. I'm only interested in historical accuracy insofar as it adds detail and helps the setting feel grounded, but that takes me pretty far. I'm still not satisfied with the amount of research I've done, lol. I don't want to make a slapdash vaguely european setting, and would like the architecture and clothing to be unique, but as visuals are the essential part here I want there to be signifiers that are somewhat familiar to the reader, y'know? I want there to be a clear (enough) distinction between "male" and "female" clothing, for example, and the way jack dresses in her current design works really well for communicating what kind of character she is. sparrow's clothing design I'm slightly less happy with. I like the overall shape but I'm not sure about the clothes themselves.
sparrow is not from this place, but I haven't decided if the city is a part of the same empire as the place she came from or not. my idea for this city is that it's changed hands several times. it currently operates mostly as a sovereign entity via a charter issued by a nearby ruler, and as a trading hub is home to merchants from all over. because of the money it brings in, its reputation as a cesspool has been overlooked, but it's currently a pivotal location re: a conflict going on between [power that issued the charter and technically controls the city] and [opposing power]. [ruler] thinks that [opposing power] is using/will use the city's lawlessness to its advantage, so he essentially wants to put it in a stranglehold. there is a schism in the city council regarding this; some of the old guard want to stand by the current charter and leave things as they are, while others think that refusing to submit would be suicide and are trying to get ahead of the curve by showing [ruler] that they will follow his lead. (the foremost among them is jack's ex wife's cousin, the current head of his very influential family, and part of the reason jack's in such hot water at the start of this story.)
anyway... right now I'm trying to figure out designs for the titular jackalopes. when I initially conceived of them (for a bitd one-shot), I was just like 'uhh, they're, well, criminals'. I still (lol) would like to do more research, but as it currently stands they are, broadly speaking, jack rabbit's lackeys. most of them were originally hired when she was running her merchant operation, as (for the most part) legitimate workers doing legitimate work, but as jack's entire modus operandi for profit-making as a merchant relied on smuggling (to avoid taxation; the actual stuff she was selling was immaterial), they had to do a lot of stuff that wasn't above board. due to the whole divorce-and-disenfranchisement, she's currently operating on a skeleton crew to sell the remainder of her wares before she gets the hell out of dodge. I haven't decided exactly how big I want that 'skeleton crew' to be, though. I think having it be too small would be detrimental to the story, because I want there to be a divide between sparrow and the 'rest of the jackalopes', and I want jack's relationship with them to appear distinctive to her relationship with sparrow. obviously she's closer to them and ostensibly cares about them more, but because of her particular history with them she holds them at arm's length in a way she doesn't have to with sparrow, because she considers sparrow disposable. but I also don't want the size of her crew to be unrealistic considering her dwindling funds and the fact that she has to operate under the radar of the (increasingly encroaching) law, and the nose of the merchants' guild (which she has been kicked out of).
here's some costuming and jackalopes design doodling.
(oh yeah crucially they all have animal nicknames. as jack insists upon. because of the way she is. and also due to the dubious existence of being mostly unmarried women estranged from their families working in a male occupation. and doing crime stuff. plus it's fun.)
and here's some concept art of sparrow and her younger brother ilya. I like all of these except the last one. I haven't settled on exactly what I want ilya's injury to be yet. it has to be something severe enough that he can't (or at least believes he can't) ever make art again. the both hands chopped off feels a little cartoonish to me tho.
+ bonus old art of sparrow's love interests, two gals about town (names/final designs pending). the butch is a professor (possibly teaching under the guise of a man?) and the femme is a brothel girl. they moonlight as thespians. the femme befriends sparrow when she finds her standing outside the captain's brother, a molly house-type joint, and is immediately taken with her adorable tsuntsun egg charm. I haven't decided how entangled I want them to be in the main plot of the story. I find the idea of sparrow being able to have this romance/gender exploration separate from all of the complex horrors of her life really appealing; this one respite she doesn't think she deserves but keeps coming back to. but I don't know if that would work for readers, or whether it would be doing a disservice to these characters to only have them function 'onscreen' for that one purpose.
any comments/questions/suggestions welcome... I'm going to try to post WIP updates about this (and maybe other stuff) more regularly as a motivator for myself.
unfortunately, even if you have a broad plot, inciting incident, climax, key moments, and characters with clear motivations and arcs, it's still really hard to come up with stuff to fill in the rest of the actual story. does anyone know about this??
jack rabbit's character was originally conceived as a blades in the dark npc, so the setting as I've been imagining it has always been kind of doskvol-esque, but I'm trying to flesh it out more. I'd still like it to be vaguely 19th century. I've been piddling around reading about mediterranean port cities. I'm only interested in historical accuracy insofar as it adds detail and helps the setting feel grounded, but that takes me pretty far. I'm still not satisfied with the amount of research I've done, lol. I don't want to make a slapdash vaguely european setting, and would like the architecture and clothing to be unique, but as visuals are the essential part here I want there to be signifiers that are somewhat familiar to the reader, y'know? I want there to be a clear (enough) distinction between "male" and "female" clothing, for example, and the way jack dresses in her current design works really well for communicating what kind of character she is. sparrow's clothing design I'm slightly less happy with. I like the overall shape but I'm not sure about the clothes themselves.
sparrow is not from this place, but I haven't decided if the city is a part of the same empire as the place she came from or not. my idea for this city is that it's changed hands several times. it currently operates mostly as a sovereign entity via a charter issued by a nearby ruler, and as a trading hub is home to merchants from all over. because of the money it brings in, its reputation as a cesspool has been overlooked, but it's currently a pivotal location re: a conflict going on between [power that issued the charter and technically controls the city] and [opposing power]. [ruler] thinks that [opposing power] is using/will use the city's lawlessness to its advantage, so he essentially wants to put it in a stranglehold. there is a schism in the city council regarding this; some of the old guard want to stand by the current charter and leave things as they are, while others think that refusing to submit would be suicide and are trying to get ahead of the curve by showing [ruler] that they will follow his lead. (the foremost among them is jack's ex wife's cousin, the current head of his very influential family, and part of the reason jack's in such hot water at the start of this story.)
anyway... right now I'm trying to figure out designs for the titular jackalopes. when I initially conceived of them (for a bitd one-shot), I was just like 'uhh, they're, well, criminals'. I still (lol) would like to do more research, but as it currently stands they are, broadly speaking, jack rabbit's lackeys. most of them were originally hired when she was running her merchant operation, as (for the most part) legitimate workers doing legitimate work, but as jack's entire modus operandi for profit-making as a merchant relied on smuggling (to avoid taxation; the actual stuff she was selling was immaterial), they had to do a lot of stuff that wasn't above board. due to the whole divorce-and-disenfranchisement, she's currently operating on a skeleton crew to sell the remainder of her wares before she gets the hell out of dodge. I haven't decided exactly how big I want that 'skeleton crew' to be, though. I think having it be too small would be detrimental to the story, because I want there to be a divide between sparrow and the 'rest of the jackalopes', and I want jack's relationship with them to appear distinctive to her relationship with sparrow. obviously she's closer to them and ostensibly cares about them more, but because of her particular history with them she holds them at arm's length in a way she doesn't have to with sparrow, because she considers sparrow disposable. but I also don't want the size of her crew to be unrealistic considering her dwindling funds and the fact that she has to operate under the radar of the (increasingly encroaching) law, and the nose of the merchants' guild (which she has been kicked out of).
here's some costuming and jackalopes design doodling.
(oh yeah crucially they all have animal nicknames. as jack insists upon. because of the way she is. and also due to the dubious existence of being mostly unmarried women estranged from their families working in a male occupation. and doing crime stuff. plus it's fun.)
and here's some concept art of sparrow and her younger brother ilya. I like all of these except the last one. I haven't settled on exactly what I want ilya's injury to be yet. it has to be something severe enough that he can't (or at least believes he can't) ever make art again. the both hands chopped off feels a little cartoonish to me tho.
+ bonus old art of sparrow's love interests, two gals about town (names/final designs pending). the butch is a professor (possibly teaching under the guise of a man?) and the femme is a brothel girl. they moonlight as thespians. the femme befriends sparrow when she finds her standing outside the captain's brother, a molly house-type joint, and is immediately taken with her adorable tsuntsun egg charm. I haven't decided how entangled I want them to be in the main plot of the story. I find the idea of sparrow being able to have this romance/gender exploration separate from all of the complex horrors of her life really appealing; this one respite she doesn't think she deserves but keeps coming back to. but I don't know if that would work for readers, or whether it would be doing a disservice to these characters to only have them function 'onscreen' for that one purpose.
any comments/questions/suggestions welcome... I'm going to try to post WIP updates about this (and maybe other stuff) more regularly as a motivator for myself.
