Developing A Bunch Of Wires + Other Updates

Hello everyone! I've replaced the old blog on my site with a new one that's based on the Zonelots script. I like this format a lot better, since now I'm able to keep all the posts I make organized. This makes it a lot more feasible to post frequently on here, which is great! Hopefully now, I can rely a bit less on social media to keep people updated.

To celebrate the redesign of this blog, I thought that it would be interesting to look back to the creation of the characters in A Bunch of Wires.

In February 2021, I made this drawing of a random character. I loosely based her makeup on what was popular for goth subcultures in the 80s. On a whim, I named her "Josie", because she kinda looked like a Josie.

I was experimenting with the use of photographs and backgrounds, so I drew Josie again in March 2021. Unlike many others in this post, I still like the drawing to this day.

Here's another drawing that I actually still kind of like: The first drawing of ever drawing Gio (although he didn't have a name at the time), also from March 2021. I remember the idea behind his design basically just being a hodgepoge of some traits that I found attractive. This was around the time that I was really obsessed with Simon from Infinity Train, so some traits of that character, like the long hair and stubble, made it on to Gio.

About two weeks later, I would create the first two drawings of Cherry. I think she also had a name pretty early, because the Cherry motif was already showing up in the drawings I made of her.

One week after that, I was experimenting with a more angular style of designing characters, so I created a lineup of these three. I think I wanted Gio's name to be grape themed (probably to match Cherry), so I called him "GV" for Grape Vine. I wasn't entirely happy with this name, though. And of course, at this point I didn't have any storyline in mind for these characters and I wasn't entirely clear on their relationships to each other. This was just meant to be an exercise in character design.

I wouldn't come back to drawing them until way later, in November of 2023. I remembered the three characters that I designed in 2021 and decided that I should go back to them. This time, though, I actually began to have a rough idea of what their personalities should be. The basic idea that I had for the plotline was "two women in love with a rock star, one of whom has a closer relationship to him". However, Gio really wasn't looking like much of a "rock star" yet.

You might recognize this drawing as the one on the front page of the site! In August of 2024, I went back to Gio's design because I wasn't entirely happy with it. Around this time, I was experimenting with giving characters different face shapes, instead of them all being variations on the same basic one. I also gave him much bigger hair, something that I think fit better with the "rock star" angle I was going for him. I believe that it was shortly after making this drawing that I settled on a plot outline for A Bunch of Wires and fully committed to making it a oneshot comic. This was also when I had finally settled on the name "Gio" and a full name of "Giovanni Varga". This means that I actually found a way to bring "GV" back!

Hope you found this interesting! As for what I'm doing now: I took a bit of a break from drawing after I finished "A Bunch of Wires". Pretty soon, I would like to go full-force into my next planned project. As I stated in my previous post, this will be a longer form project that will be released in installments of chapters.

I had an idea that what I might want to do before starting the writing process on my next comic would be to create a couple short gag comics starring the characters. I think it would be a good way to get used to writing and drawing and drawing the character dynamics, as well as introduce people to them! So, look forward to that in the comic weeks.

If you haven't read A Bunch of Wires yet, it's available right here on this website! I also created a mirror of the comic on Webtoons, but this one is lower res than the neocities version. However, I would still appreciate a like, as it would help increase my visibility on the platform. Also, be sure to check out the new character pages if you haven't already. As always, thanks for reading!