For the new book I thought I will bring a lot of my fashion ideas into the design of the characters, in fact I have slowed down a bit in my progression to think about how these people look. In my mind I am looking at the people and imagining us how we would dress with more assertion about our own local flavour and tastes as opposed to it being heavily influenced by specific dominant cultures.

With the douens, these were drawn some months back as I observed how a lot of  the younger people dress now. It started off with me kinda poking fun but then I thought how can I make it a cool fashion statement. I called them chicken heads with the mohawks and calf cut style jeans.

Every time I imagine douens I think of lost children, and I think in this time that is the look of a lot of these types. My designs are an attempt to put some edge to that look.

Keisha will be one of the main characters you will come across in Maljo. She is the spirited adventurer in the group and the brave one. I like working with female characters. It is a sort of homage to my family.

In designing her, I wanted to create a non waif like girl, she is curvier and will appear a bit bigger in the hips.  Because I am from the Caribbean I felt I will try to work with characters that feel like someone you could pass on the streets here. So Keisha had to be representative of some of the women I know in my actual life.

I have here a sketch of her but I think I want to have another go at it. Perhaps some of you women reading might want to weigh in?

Adrian was a character that first appeared in Daaknite episode 7. His character went through some of the hardest changes throughout the series and is one of my personal favorites.  When I was writing that article I think I had a couple songs from the Soul Food soundtrack playing.

There was “Baby I” from Tenderoni and Total’s ” What about us“. I also played Tamia “Imagination” a lot something about the music I guess gave me the right kind of inspiration.

These days I find myself listening to Royksopp. Something about that slow build that hits you before you even realise it. That in a way is how Maljo works. Maljo is the power that Adrian will be weilding throughout these stories and whilst he is not the main character, there are some epic parts that he will be there for. No spoilers .

I started designing Adrian and trying to visualise how the powers his powers will look.

So I have started work on my new set of stories based on the same world as Tales from the Daaknite. I am calling it Maljo and will be developing it originally in sequential form. The plan is to do it as a Graphic Novel but I am still figuring out the best way to present the final story. As usual however I plan to do some collaborative work with Detnator mainly to add the dimension of music and I hope to have some other friends along.

There is no set date for it, I just want to work on it until I am done. Meanwhile I will be blogging about the process as it goes along. This is something I have been meaning to do a while. I have shied away from it a bit because it is a big project, but I feel confident that I can see it to the end this time. This should be fun.