Work in Progress

2009 Art in Review Meme

2009-12-20T19:13:24Z

I neglect this journal so badly it isn't funny. That's what I have DeviantArt for! :P

It was not a very prolific year in art for me. Most months I only had one or two images to choose from if I had any at all. March was the most productive because that was the inception of the Blue Martini project.

A departure to fanart

2009-08-09T02:13:41Z

Ferrets make the best accessories XD

Robert belongs to the talented drazzi and her amazing world of a href="http://phosphoreumbra.wikispaces.com/">Phosporeumbra</a>. Apparently he loves his ferrets but only in private. I love getting to hear little tidbits like that about characters... they inspire such crack in my head ♥

Bailey Bio Page

2009-08-01T04:56:17Z

Spamming your friends' page much? You bet I am! :D

Bailey is not a redesign. In fact he didn't even become a character until I thought I wanted the bartender in Blue Martini's fav bar to actually have a face. So you get Bailey, our sort of friendly neighborhood bartender.

I still have to make a bio page for Harvey Wallbanger since he's quickly playing a more active role in this proposed story than I had originally anticipated. Will work on that after my spat of art trade work is done.

VS Bio Page

2009-08-01T04:49:16Z

And the last of our superheroes is lostscore's

That concludes the last of the redesigns these characters went through. The Green Milkshake may change slightly depending on hard I find his outfit to draw from different angles. We shall see.

RTP Bio Page

2009-08-01T04:43:30Z

Now I'm a little fuzzy as to who was created next... but it seems to me it was richardiii's

GM Bio Page

2009-08-01T04:40:48Z

I said I would eventually finish posting these for reference and I never did ^^;;

The third character ever created for this series is creatore_magico's character

Blue Martini Charrie Ramble

2009-08-01T04:37:10Z

WARNING: following post is possibly most spoiler-riffic and contains a great deal of semi-sensical ramblings. However any suggestions or questions are appreciated.

Blue Martini
* hard knock booze hound nosy parker surly gumshoe
* ironic because she's slowly becoming something/someone she hates - she's becoming like Harvey Wallbanger. She wants to believe she's something better than he is/was. Cue "reunion" and uncomfortable revelation in volume 4. However she does what stereotypical detective down on his luck thinks they shoulda done with the reoccuring creature from their shady past and actually kicks him out of her life once again. Cue set up for events in volume 5.

Blue Latte
* holding herself to "Code" and "Ethics of a Superhero" a sham. She's obsessed with living up to her predecessors as the City's main hero.
* tries to live up to legendary achievements of those before her even so they are completely unreasonable expectations. She cannot be her own kind of hero... she lacks self confidence and self worth to see how worthy a hero she herself is. "Should be more like this, should have more to show for herself, her problems are insignificant compared to others and she shouldn't have them"
* pointing out failures of others to live up to 'her' standards part of her coping with how much of a failure she feels she is herself.

Green Milkshake
* frustrated with inability to be center of attention but is paranoid about his safety and anonymity/ashamed of his impulsive bad behavior. Cross dressing was means of trying to stand out in a crowd without truly exposing himself to others.
* he chooses the victims... no one ever chooses him. Victims can't/won't remember him both to cover his ass or because they don't want to remember being used and tossed aside.
* Blue Martini first to actually remember him after being used... both scared and thrilled with this prospect. Finally someone chooses to return to him but she threatens to expose him. Is manipulative enough to want to keep her around because someone knows his dirty little secret and gives him attention he craves but also wants to keep her close so that he can do something about her if she gets too close to shutting him down.
* gets jealous of RTP in volume 3 because fears he's replacing GM as nemesis in BM's life and that she'll toss him aside for new adversary.

Vermilion Stout
* level headed clear thinker - terrified of being "just another wannabe" superhero. Afraid people will see her as just a beer swilling bruiser on account of her powers.
* desperate to get an education so people will take her mind more seriously... beginning to rethink being a superhero. Unsure if she can be more than a boozing brawler and once people see she can't be a "competent" superhero they'll chase her out of town. Wants to learn more about being a "smart" hero, supposedly like the unsuper-powered BM, so she's sticking to her as a sidekick. Becoming disillusioned with the dysfunction she sees in BM and other super beings... starting to wish her powers would go away and let her drink her beer in peace. Cue alienating argument with BM in volume 5?

Red Tuscan Passion
* most clearly outlined character... powers give "agonizing" choice of turning truly evil or gay or remaining a frustrated celibate. Not the deepest of dilemmas but then he's a simple guy with a simple plan in life. Never wanted to be a super villain... he's just painted that way.

Bailey
* author's selfish indulgence at first... slowly developing
* based on bartender met at Monte Carlo Casino micro brewery in Vegas (which is no longer there)
* Bruce Willis look alike behind bar would randomly sing show tunes very well.
* bit of sonuvabitch because IMHO because he'd sing just enough to get song stuck in your head and smile as you tried to remember the rest of the song.
* overheard him say to co worker he attended Julliard but couldn't stay in New York for "personal" reasons... am extrapolating that story to round out Bailey's character and how he fits into BM story.

Drink Listing

2009-07-15T02:03:40Z

No nothing new on the art front so far... but I was thinking it would be fun to have a drink list of what the Characters' names are based off of. So have some really weird and wonderful drink recipies:

Blue Martini
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
1.5 oz vodka
splash of lime juice
(my favourite recipe is actually for a Blue Over You Martini)

or

1.5 oz gin
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
(a proper Blue Martini according to the Mulligan Bar Guide)

for both, shake in shaker over ice and serve strained

Blue Latte
1/2 oz Blue Curacao
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 cup of milk (steamed or cold depending on preference)
2 shots of espresso
ice (if making iced latte)
(had to go to a Korean coffee shop site for this recipe! I'm sure you can use blue food colouring instead of curacao if you want no alcohol... only use a few drops though!)

Green Milkshake
(most recipes are for a mint milkshake with green food colouring but Green Tea milkshakes are green without the help! So less chemicals that way!)
2 oz (1 packet) matcha green tea powder
1/4 cup milk
2 scoops vanilla ice cream
scoop of crushed ice
sugar to taste
blend above together in a blender

or

(alcoholic version ;D)
3 scoops vanilla ice cream
2 tsp milk
2 oz green creme de menthe
1 oz cointreau
blend above together in blender

Red Tuscan Passion
(a Tuscan Passion is NOT a virgin drink that I can find... I'm fudging a virgin version given our character's unique bent but if someone knows the proper virgin recipe I'd love to know!)
1 tsp vanilla (normally this is 1 oz of tuaca, a citrus and vanilla flavoured liquer)
2 oz passionfruit puree
splash of grenadine
2 oz cranberry juice
splash of lime juice

Bailey on the rocks!
2 oz Bailey's Irish Cream liquer
pour over 2 ice cubes in a highball glass

Harvey Wallbanger
(yes our heroine's past life detective is now 'officially' called Harvey)
1 oz vodka
4-5 oz orange juice
1/2 oz Galliano or Sambuca
mix o.j. and vodka, float galliano or sambuca on top

Vermilion Stout
I can't find any Stouts that are naturally a red colour... so raise a pint of Porter or of Red Irish Ale like Kilkenny and we'll call it close enough XD

Blue Martini Prologue Rough Draft

2009-07-12T23:03:16Z

So I sat on my ass for too long in the sun today and here is all I have to show for it. This is rough, as in I've done all of two minutes of editing on it. So feel free to tear it apart and suggest different wording, more clarification needed, etc. Thank you.

Belly Up to the Bar

A woman drove me to drink, and I never even had the courtesy to thank her.
- W.C. Fields

So you're new to The City? Seen some of our resident super freaks yet? Yeah we got a few of them. Not like they do down in South Cape though... Yeah, The City's not much but it's been home for the last few years; ever since I broke away from my old life and started doing business for myself. I don't like to talk too much about the old days... Say wha- Oh. Well, if you're going to buy me a drink I suppose I got time to talk.

About the old days huh? I guess I was a shiftless, lazy, no account floozie who thought all she could amount to was being some dame. But thanks, or no thanks, haven't figured out which yet, to one thoroughly hard boiled son of a bitch detective I've pulled up my stockings and am taking on the bad guys on my own. Feels good to actually see the job get done. I like living up to the cliche of I always get my man! Funny how arresting the mugs is so much more satisfying than seducing the bastards ever was. More profitable too thankfully. I like to believe I'm earning my drinking habit now instead of using is as an escape like I used to.

So how does a dame become a vigilante detective? Good question. The answer's easy though. She gets fed up of running to the boys in the over coats and fedoras only to have them drop the ball. Felt I had to take matters into my own hands you see. I guess you don't see... then let me tell you sort of how it happened. I used to sing, sort of. Can't carry a tune so well but I look good on stage and in a skirt. Or so they told me at any rate when I used to sing cabaret at a couple of seedy little gambling joints. I sailed along between being on stage or being on some lug's arm until I fell in with this group of people out West. They were a bunch of performers like myself who were tired of not making ends meet by working for someone else. They got this idea to pool their resources, aim at making reviews at venues that catered to the wealthier of society. Not real high rollers but folks who could afford a little more than your average schmoe. Ticket sales were better usually to that kind of crowd and for the second part of the plan they didn't have enough influence to really bring the cops down on us hard. The idea was that these people come in wearing their fancy expensive stuff for a night out and we'd drop the curtain on them, so to speak. Whoever wasn't performing would situate themselves waiting on table, be behind the bar, be stage hands and so on. I mean what singer/actor hasn't done service industry work? We could mark targets that way. A select group would change backstage and become thugs who'd burst in just before the performance break, rob our marks blind at gun point and disappear again into stage/service staff. The loot would be hidden in the Act's personal effects labeled as stage props and, viola, would just disappear. It was all a nice tidy little grift with an inside twist. We were actors and hams... we could be convincing victims when we wanted to be. Confused the hell out of the cops, or so I'd thought. I guess some of the cops were on our take but I didn't know that at the time. Once The Act was cleared to leave they'd take the loot and we'd divvy up later while the heat died done before doing it all over again somewhere else. To keep the good cops guessing we'd mix up the acts. We had a large and varied talent pool to draw on it kept looking like random shows were being hit by roving groups of thugs. I thought this was some awesomely clever idea... until someone got killed.

Now I still enjoy scaring the crap out of people who think they're better than me. Got to have some fun in life, but I draw the line at killing, especially innocent people. The mook who did the deed did it for an incredibly stupid and petty reason too. He was an awful actor who thought he was the cat's pajamas. The next Big Thing that just needed to be discovered. I'm sure you know the type. Needless to say the jerk never landed an actual role for anything decent in his entire 'career'. One night he's one of our thugs and lo, he finds himself standing over the first casting director to throw his sorry ass out of an audition. What are the odds huh? The mook's been carrying a chip on his shoulder about this guy ever since that audition, claiming this guy poisoned his name unjustly among other directors and that's why he never could get a job. BLAM! The director guy was dead before anyone really knew what was going on. Panicked everyone, including our own crew. We ended up botching the job and not getting anything that night. Somehow we managed to keep our cover, but just barely.

Watching an innocent person die for such a stupid reason left me all sick inside. Woke me up to just how wrong my life had gotten. But it took what came next to finally get me to change. One of the ringleaders of our group was one of those super freaks... you know, the ones with powers of some sort. He took a real exception to losing out on this haul because this heist had been his baby master plan that was going to make him a bigger shot in the whole deal. Damn was he mad. At any rate guy was some kind of psychic that could hypnotize people into doing things they normally wouldn't do. Real powerful git, but all powers have a draw back, and with this guy it was splitting migraines from using his gift. So when he chose to use it he made it worth his while. He plants the idea in the mook's head to walk into the police station, confess to killing the director and fingering some small town gang as his accomplices in a copycat burglary of the Performance Heists, or so the media dubbed our little escapades. Once he's done that... the mook takes a knife and slits his own throat in front of the cops while laughing until he can't laugh no more. *shudders* To this day coercion of any kind still scares the crap out of me. I can find great ways to kill myself without any interference from anyone else thank you very much.

Bastards... I was too sick and scared to stick around any more. Now at this point I probably should have just run for the hills. But I couldn't stop thinking about what might happen to me if the freak with powers ever caught up with me. The best thing I could do for myself was make sure this whole thing was shut down and Mind Bender there was sent up for hanging on a murder charge. So being who and what I was I tried pulling my dame routine on West's most notorious detective. Here the story gets more personal than I want to be with you. Let's just say it didn't work out so well because he was an ass more interested in my skirt than solving the crime. For the first time I was butting heads instead of booties with a gumshoe. Crowning moment of our time together? Me handcuffing the son of a bitch to a motel sink with his pants around his ankles and storming out on him. Second best thing I've ever done for myself. Best thing was bringing down The Performer's racket. Found out I had more balls than anyone had ever thought and I LIKED that about me. But like all amateur sleuths I made some mistakes in my take down. Some of the biggest bigwigs behind the thing never got caught. It went deeper than I'd ever thought.

What? How did I do it? Well that, sweetheart, is going to require you buying me another couple of rounds at least...

Hello Dolly Series

2009-07-07T19:53:43Z

How this came to be called Hello Dolly? I don't quite remember. Has something to do with the 50s noir theme and old time sayings for pretty ladies even if the Green Milkshake only pretends to be a lady to mess with you XD

All the outfits on the girls were inspired by wear from Trashy.com. The guys' wear was inspired from stuff I found at After Dark Sensations and SexyCreations.com. Poses were referenced from Getty Images and ManPaper. BTW this is still all drazzi's fault.

BL Bio Page

2009-06-16T20:17:58Z

Next up is the second character ever created in this little universe; she's drazzi's

The scarf changed and the outfit was tweaked and again the hair highlights are no longer really part of her make up.

BM Bio Page

2009-06-16T20:13:08Z

After some tweaking the [hopefully] finalized images for the BM crew were created and assembled into Bio Pages with a little info about each. I'll slowly start adding them here.

The hair highlights are no longer a part of her look... they were just too much.

BM Pinup Images

2009-06-16T18:56:25Z

Nothing makes me happier than silly pin up like images of characters. I'm sure that's why I draw so freakin' many of them. What really draws me to the Blue Martini characters is their potential for so many film noir-esque pin up images.

Here are the last ones I've dabbled with, all of which are already on DA for those of you over there:

Join Me: The Green Milkshake
I spent more time on the straws than any other part of this image... you can so tell XD Play on words both for the invitation of the second straw and on the GM's powers. More on that when I start posting the bio sheets later today.

Comes in a Glass: The Blue Martini
This is based on a cartoon image of some bimbo in a martini glass I found while trolling Getty Images.com. It just suits our heroine so damn well :D

Unfortunate low res version of this picture. I think I have a higher res version kicking around but I'm not too sure. Pity that... I still reasonably like this one.

The Succession of BM Images

2009-06-03T22:14:24Z

Today you get SPAMMED! So Ha.
So after I drew the picture in the last post it escalated into me wanting to add others into the Superhero based on my Drink saga.

The Green Milkshake. Totally creatore_magico's fault. This character went through the most extreme make over after I got to fixing up the characters to try and make a comic with them. The Ku wanted to be my nemesis of all things XD

The Red Tuscan Passion. richardiii's fault. The reluctant villian who probably had the most backstory of any of the characters to start out with!

The Vermilion Stout is lostscore's fault. Every good superhero needs a sidekick and I"m not sure why Ash wants to be mine, but there ya go. She could drink me under the table any day I bet :P

The Image that Started the Madness

2009-06-03T22:07:15Z

So we start with the image that started this Blue Martini Madness. Progress on the comic is slower than molasses because trying to translate my rough notes into pictures just isn't working as well as I'd hoped. The comic may be failing... but my one shot pictures are bountiful. This is why I'm a better fan artist than an actual creator. I lose interest in the main thing so quickly.

The Blue Latte is entirely drazzi's fault.

Herryk at Practice

2009-06-01T00:07:36Z

I promised a picture of Herryk... so here you are. Why is it I draw this poor guy either swaddled within an inch of his life in clothes or nearly no clothes at all? Right... because I designed him screwy armor and put interesting scars on him that I want to show off. My bad XD

Backgrounds will never be my friend :P

Kicking the Art Block

2009-05-30T18:51:33Z

I do have a lot of BM stuff to back date here... but since we started this journal with Mahla we'll continue on with her. I'm kicking at an art block in an attempt to get my creativity going. I'm stalled on half naked men if you can believe it! So I hobbled together something from a sketch that's been sitting on my hard drive for nearly a year and submitted it for critiquing on DeviantArt. Warning for large-ish images.

This is the original submission:

I got some pretty decent, if a little high handed, feedback that I thought I'd put to use. No point in getting feedback if I'm not going to use it.

So here it is again with the feedback applications:

Am working on one of her partner, Herryk, so stay tuned for that.

dustbudde @ 2009-05-30T12:33:00

2009-05-30T18:36:33Z

And I now finally have creative endeavors to use this journal for.

This journal will now be the unofficial home of The Blue Martini Project and a little bit of chronicling my admittedly short lived drive to continue improving my so called skills.

I'm not entirely sure why some people have chosen to friend this journal in particular, considering I haven't updated it, but welcome to you. I hope to be posting more regularly from here on out.

More to come

2007-06-04T02:58:07Z

Still trying to figure out what creative use I'm going to use this space for. Please stay tuned.