[DiCicatriz]

Amazing lighting on that one! You can definitely see the texture of the leather/vinyl/shiny stuff.

[DiCicatriz]

More Spectrum stuff coming up real soon, I swear!

For now here’s a personal piece. I made it for my husband’s birthday today. Forgive my incredible sappyness, I just felt like sharing

[DiCicatriz]

Hey thanks, WMD! Glad you enjoy the images. About my name… this is actually the only site I post under that nick. Cicatriz is a just the Spanish word for ‘scar’ (the ‘Di’ is just the first two letters of my actual name), not to mention the name of a Mars Volta song (Cicatriz ESP) so could be you encountered it somewhere else.

[DiCicatriz]

I use the Preview app that came with my Mac. Photoshop works well (better even) too if you have it. I have it on my work computer so if I’m staying late I’ll sometimes sneak in five or ten minutes of groupshot building. My love of grouping is why I make all of my illustrations with transparent backgrounds

It’s a pain when the image extends beyond the frame of the 400×600 transparent png option when you export the image. I have to kind of move the whole image around in part groupings, export each section as a separate piece, and build it again in Preview, against a blank transparent background with large enough dimensions.

For instance in this last image.

First. I have to create a wide enough canvas to paste all of the images onto. Preview has this annoying aspect where you can’t create just open a new image without copying something onto the clipboard. I usually just select a blank piece of my illustration, a tiny square of nothing, copy it, and open the selection in a new window.

Then I change the image size of that blank transparent square to something ridiculous I would have room to work with like 5000×5000 pixels or something.

From there you just open whatever images you want to paste onto that background, copy them, paste them, move them around and set them. Preview is also lacking in that once set, you can’t move layers around (neither laterally nor in terms of layer order), so I kind of have to plan out where I want to fit everybody before I get pasting.

In this instance I created four different base characters out of my existing Golden Choir convert image, and just pasted them and arranged them in that shape. Finally I made some changes to Ziva in HM3, saved the new file, copied, pasted, and arranged her over everything. You can do the same thing against a previously created background image like I did with Spectrum and 1960’s Spectru. I think I’ve made it sound more complicated than it really is, but it’s fairly simple.

[DiCicatriz]

Before the team heads out to confront Ezra, Apex brings up the mysterious phenomena that Enigma’s abilities seem to be linked somehow to Yrys’s. They reacted when they came in contact. He wants to know why.

Yrys reveals that his spiritual energies have a sort of rudimentary sentience, and when the six young members of Spectrum were exposed to them, the powersets and abilities they gained were a reflection of their emotional state at the time.

-Meta: Reveling in her liberated identity, Karen was given the ability to walk between worlds and exist in various states, unfettered by physical and ideological boundaries.

-Apex: Cody’s altered body, peak strength, peak physical ability, reflects his desire for a physical body that more closely matched the masculine gender he felt inside.

-Stonewall: Lex’s impenetrable skin and invulnerability, reflects their extreme introverted nature and their desire to be protected and untouched by the ill judgment of others.

-Puto: Xuan Gabriel revels in his ‘otherness’. He wants to be a beacon for his identity, refusing to hide away and blend in with everyone else. His photonic energy projections allow him to make his presence known, to be seen.

-Safezone: More than anything Heather wanted to keep others safe. Her forcefields are a living extension of that protective nature.

TJ was different. He was entirely unsure of who he was when the energy hit him, and remains as yet not entirely committed to any particular aspect of his identity. The energy cannot coalesce and fuse with him as it did with the others. Thus, as Enigma, TJ wields the energy in its raw form and alters his own body randomly, never sticking with any one powerset. Yrys can still channel the energy in its raw form, causing it to react to his presence.

With this knowledge Cody proposes that TJ remain behind. His abilities are unpredictable at best and if they aren’t functioning properly in Yrys’s presence… he could get hurt or worse. TJ insists that he can defend himself. Before the pair can argue further Elementa cuts them off. They don’t have time for this. Yrys teleports them to the Choir room. They had planned to infiltrate the compound in secret and find a way to free Dovev discreetly. Instead they are greeted to dozens of the converted, little more than mindless drones at this point. Ziva at their head, projecting a field of mental static. Ezra has made his move, they’re in for a fight.

http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l607/DiCicatriz/Other/Spectrum-LGBTIQQAA/GC_Army.png

[DiCicatriz]

A little late… but NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Why do bad things happen to good bears?

[DiCicatriz]

This is all incredibly interesting! Can I throw my humble hat into the ring?

For rebirth as a savior:
Codename: Mindwave
Identity: Tariq Kakazai
Abilties: Telepathy, which he mainly uses to project powerful waves of psionic energy that overload a target’s nervous system. Can also read minds, project realistic illusions, plant subconscious suggestions, and erase a person’s memories. He has telekinesis but it is very unrefined and he can only use it briefly to lift objects or project brute force.
Affiliation: Posthuman superhero

As a hero to combat the Saviorts
Codename: Nexus
Identity: Ulises Monroy
Abilities: Half demon/half-angel heritage gives him vast magical potential. He can warp reality within a limited radius of his person, distorting gravity, space-time, and other natural laws. Overuse of his powers wears out his mortal body. He’s a practiced sorcerer which gives him the ability to levitate and fire off bursts of eldritch energy.
Affiliation: Guardian of the physical plane of existence

[DiCicatriz]

Trying to wrap up the Golden Choir storyline, while tying up some loose ends with Spectrum’s origins in the 60’s. Things are going to get a little out there. Bear with me

Having discovered what happens to the young people once they are sent to the Golden Choir, Spectrum plans to confront Ezra. Before they can lay out their strategy, they are themselves confronted with the sudden appearance of Yrys! He teleports right into the heart of their headquarters, which leads to the inevitable superhero misunderstanding. During the battle Enigma tries to shift into a useful alter, but the energy that normally changes his own body and temporarily gives him a random powerset reacts with Yrys’s energies. The ensuing chain reaction and feedback stuns Yrys long enough for the rest of the team to subdue him. Yrys reveals that he didn’t come to fight… he needs their help.

PLOT DUMP
Yrys starts at the beginning. He is not human. Neither is Ezra. They began eons ago as members of a cosmic trio, the guardians and occupants of a neighboring dimension, a plane of existence coursing with raw astral energy collected from the dreaming consciousnesses of all sentient beings. They were the Triad, channeling the energies of the dimension through the power of their sacred geometry. They represented the triangle, the strongest and most perfectly balanced of the geometric arrangements, the sacred trinity of Mind/Body/Spirit. Yrys repeats the mantra for them.

The Mind is Thought given Will.
The Spirit is the Mind given Flesh.
The Body is the Flesh given Form.

Ezra is the Mind, Yrys is the Spirit, and the third of their number… Dovev, is the Body. So they functioned for centuries until their geometric balance faltered, only for a second. In that terrible moment they were exposed, vulnerable to the emotional realities of humanity. They steadied their ritual, renewed the ceremony, but the damage was done. Yrys began to feel. He felt love, attraction, lust. Dovev the same. Eventually Dovev and Yrys acted on their feelings, forming a union of Body and Spirit that sent ripples across the dimensional plane. They were happy to have found each other, but Ezra too began to feel… He felt the emotions of the mind; greed, hatred, jealousy. He was against the happiness of his fellows, hating them for having what he did not. Ezra decided that love was an impurity, the dimension was infected with the emotions of man. He moved to use their geometric array to tear down the barriers between dimensions and flood the Earth with the raw cascading energies of their home, incinerating all living things. Dovev and Yrys fought him, but Ezra was more skilled in their lore, more focused. In a last ditch effort to prevent the destruction of humanity, Yrys and Dovev combined their skill and condensed the geometric array and the raw energy of their dimension into a triangular prism, trapping the three of them within.

The prism ended up breaking through to physical space, crash landing near New York City in the 1940s. It was discovered 20 years later by a sensitive (an individual who is able to perceive extra-dimensional phenomena), Hernán Machado who would go on to use the prism as the superhero Triad! The intuitive sense he always seemed to have, the guiding force that aided his crime-fighting, was in fact Yrys. Eventually overuse of his energies took its toll on Yrys and Ezra began to influence Triad, driving him insane and causing his psychotic break during the LGBT youth rally decades later. The dimensional energies that contained them, spiritual energies projected and wielded by Yrys, are the the very energies that altered the bodies of the younger members of Spectrum.

Triad was killed in the blast, but Ezra used the raw material of his body to mold a physical form for himself. From the remains of the prism he forged a spectral collar, restraining Dovev’s physical form and preventing the use of his voice (Dovev’s physical voice produces harmonic vibrations that degrade the stability of dimensional barriers, allowing him to move physically across all space). Yrys was at that time, a being of pure spiritual energy, and could not match Ezra. So he fled, leaving the being he loved more than anything in the hands of a sociopath.

While Ezra kept Dovev imprisoned and founded the Golden Choir, Yrys journeyed back to Triad’s abandoned loft in the West Village. He was able to use the lingering spiritual connection he had to to Triad to forge talisman’s of power out of his former possessions, specifically a cloak and an amulet. With these talismans Yrys could physically inhabit the world. That was when he began assaulting Ezra in public, attracting Spectrum’s attention.

Now in this current state Yrys implores our heroes to aid him in defeating Ezra and rescuing Dovev. Ezra’s plans have not changed. He still thinks humanity and their emotional consciousness to be perverse. Being unable to rip open the dimensions without killing himself, Ezra decides to act on a physical level. He plans to use Dovev to usher in the end of humanity. The massive hive mind he is building, when ready, will provide him with the sheer mental power needed to completely overwrite Dovev’s will (Ezra being unable to do so on his own) and use him as a living weapon. The team, naturally, decides that this plan cannot be allowed to come to fruition. Gathering their wits they decide to invade the Choir Room and end Ezra’s plans once and for all…

With Ezra’s origins revealed and with the discovery of Yrys’s direct hand in the creation of the new incarnation of Spectrum, the team moves to confront Ezra and put an end to his plans for the destruction of humanity…

To include an image with all of this plot, here’s Ezra, Yrys, and Dovev as they existed in balance within their own dimension. Before they were touched by human consciousness…
http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l607/DiCicatriz/Other/Spectrum-LGBTIQQAA/GeometricArray_Mind-Body-Spirit.png

[DiCicatriz]

Thanks!

Here’s Yrys with his hood cast back, just for fun.

[DiCicatriz]

Love the face-mask/nude combo. It’s so striking!

[DiCicatriz]

Going behind the scenes of what’s really going on with Ezra Simon… in their clashes with the Golden Choir the team continually encounters this mysterious figure, known only as Yrys. Rosemary and the Bear sense a familiarity with his energy signature and the kinds of manipulation he performs with his magic. They seem to be similar to their missing former comrade, Triad, except on a more sophisticated and far more powerful level.

He teleports in during Ezra’s public appearances, screaming at him in an unknown language. On one occasion he lashed out wildly at him, destroying the venue and endangering civilians. Despite their opposition to Ezra, Spectrum stepped in to protect the people. Yrys’s abilities were too versatile and he was difficult to overpower. At one point Enigma (our young man in the Questioning category, if you’ll recall) was in between alters and Yrys had an opportunity to deliver a devastating blow (possibly fatal, although his intentions towards Spectrum remain unclear), but paused. Something about Enigma intrigued Yrys. He whispered something to him and then disappeared…

[DiCicatriz]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback I thought the gold would look ostentatious enough without going overboard. Something regal and classy. Fitting for a telepathic megalomaniac, no?

Also I have to give a pair of shout-outs to to AMS and Scatman for their amazing use of gradients, for inspiring me in the first place to use them more in my own designs.

[DiCicatriz]

Great storytelling! I love the way the characters were kind of working together despite their separate storylines/settings. Cool stuff!

[DiCicatriz]

This is a character I’ve been planning to introduce for a while, after realizing I neglected a newer segment of the community.

This is Allison Abernathy. She was one of the many runaways sent to the Golden Choir by concerned parents, fearing what they could not understand. Ordinarily she would have been folded into the hive mind along with the rest of the youth that Ezra comes in contact with, but Allison was special. She had vast untapped telepathic potential, that Ezra could sense buzzing just beneath the surface. So instead of the usual treatment, Ezra had his technicians cut into Allison’s brain and used his powers and his technology to bring out her abilities.

Allison becomes Ezra’s second in command, Ziva. She gains the ability to broadcast powerful waves of telepathic static, thoughtcasts that overwhelm higher brain function and immobilize her victims. Instead of joining the hive mind in the usual manner, Ezra tethers his mind directly to hers. Allison is a gentle person by nature, but is wholly enslaved to Ezra’s will.

Not to spoil the storyline, but eventually Allison is freed from Ezra’s control and comes to grips with her identity. Allison confirms her identity as an asexual. Thus Allison joins the team and my acronym has its final letter (I mean technically the full acronym is LGBTIQQAAP with the final P standing for ‘pansexual’ but I really don’t think I need to come up with an exclusively pansexual character. Let’s just say Stonewall is pansexual. There. lol)

A- Asexual. A person with a lack of sexual attraction to anyone or low or absent interest in sexual activity. They may still form romantic relationships with others.

Quandary – Allison Abernathy – Powers: Telepathic thoughtcasts that inhibit the mental functioning of those around her.

And an amended groupshot to include Quandary I made her color gray (continuing my black + one solid color costume theme) because gray is a prominent element of the asexual pride flag. Also all of the other colors of the rainbow were taken.

http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l607/DiCicatriz/Spectrum_LGBTIQQAA.png

[DiCicatriz]

What good is a cult leader without mindless drones to do his bidding?

This is an example of one of the Golden Choir’s members. Unfortunate LGBT youth and other such runaways, either picked up off the streets or sent into the Choir by bigoted and misunderstanding families. Once cut off from their friends and family they are physically and mentally broken, subjected to rigorous discipline and experimentation. Eventually they end up like this unfortunate soul, a thoughtbreaker strapped over there faces, amplifying the signal of Ezra’s telepathic virus and preventing their own minds from reaching coherence again.

Ezra uses them as his personal footsoldiers, amassing an army to fight for him. In their inevitable confrontation Spectrum will be hard-pressed to combat these foes, unwilling to harm these victims who act under duress with no compulsion of their own.

[Author]

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