Reetpeeps.

Retort takes place in Slate City, a fictional northeastern-US metropolis and one of its outlying suburban rail-towns (Iroquois word i haven't picked yet) in 1949 because that's never been done before and i'm a highly inspired individual.

Sheldon Saiyetovitz - 34
- Mag's older half brother
- Leon's employer/partner
- career bachelor/ladies' man
Shel was always the big kid: older, cooler, off in his own world which seemed extremely adult in a relative way to Mag and Leon, as far back as they could remember. while he doted on lil sis and spared Leon (most) alleyway beatings, he lead the neighborhood gang of child miscreants as 'head bully' into his late teens, when he decided white collar crime paid off more and moved away from Dad's hardware store to study bizzinessz. he encounters Leon looking for work years later, and reintroduces him to Magdalen. with his firm booming, their childhood camaraderie rekindled, and Mag and Leon's old puppy love coming full circle with their engagement, it seems like nothing could go wrong. a weak character isn't always uplifted by strong character, though, but broken by them -- and a strong character is sometimes a destructive thing anyway.

Leon Koettner - 23
- works for Shel
- Mag's ex-fiance
- aspiring ladies' man (he's working out the kinks on that)
Mag and Sheldon's mother babysat/taught a lot of the same-aged children in their little suburb for years, so Leon has kind of been up Mag and Sheldon's asses since they were kids. he basically idolizes Shel, and he's always had a flame for tough, but mothering Magdalen-- back to their days playing house (hanging out with the girls was more fun, no bruises and all the free kisses!) but her flame was a little too big for him in the end, when he realized he'd grown up and she still felt "bigger" than him (all the whiskey and fighting-- oh no she'd turned into her brother! why is that sexy-- I MEAN IT'S NOT IT'S IMMATURE AND UNLADYLIKE.) the only way he can love her AND himself becomes a remote, obsessive resentment that requires LOTS of other women; for better or worse, though, the persisting passion he holds onto may turn out to have a silver lining afterall, if he can stomach his own forgotten humanness.


Magdalen Saiyetovitz - 25
- Sheldon's little half sister
- formerly engaged to Leon
- kind of a wildcard (to Pops' dismay, for the time period)
Leon wanted to marry Mag since they were six-- whether she took it seriously or not, she didn't find out until their twenties. while she snuck cigarettes and played ball with the boys, she was always the self-appointed HBIC of all the games of fantasy and domestic make-believe. from that time until she grew up, between hard labor at the family store and billiards with Shel and Co. at the town hellhole, she secretly still dreamed of being the amazonian queen of some sweet, sensitive poet of a man's world; but even when her girlhood sweetheart moves back to Slate City after his schooling and starts working for her brother, and everything has seemingly fallen into place, it doesn't quite work out for her when she and Leon's opposing complexes eventually collide and he calls their engagement off. later on her poor battle-picking skills fueled by her hardheaded principles in love and family will lead her down a fated path to tragedy.

i need more figure-drawing practice before i can bang out full-body concepts. it took me long enough to get the faces just right ("") for the style i see this project in.
i don't mind the idea of reposting writeups, so i don't feel like this one was 'wasted' on weak concept material-- like i said with the tease, just establishing some reality in the project so i don't abandon it.

still not going into the main conflict, i want good illustrations for that. title graphic's basically all there is to that end, so far.

FUCK YOU DA and your examples of concept art. i mean TF, those are full-on paintings from the DD gallery. =/= helpful.