På resa genom sällsamheten

I was walking my youngest daughter home from school the other day and we got to talk about character design. No, really, we did. I told her it was something I really wanted to get into. As an example I mentioned combining a human and a goat to create a Faun and then asked her what she thought would be an interesting combo.

A human and an elephant she replied and the challenge was on.

I surfed the net and gathered a handful of references of elephants and started studying and drawing in an effort to distill the basic forms and qualities of what an elephant was and go from there. A few attempts at combining those shapes with the human head ended me up to something resembling a Toydarian (Star Wars). I moved in another direction and the scribbles took me to what started to look like an Elcor (Mass Effect). Setting frustration and the words of Ecclesiastes aside I started anew, this time looking at it from a mental perspective rather than a physical and tried to think of how a human with elephant qualities would look like. No I wasn't aiming for The Elephant Man and thankfully I didn't end up there either.

An idea of a rough slugger-like brawler appeared and I went with it. From that point I decided to leave the hampering 2D world and instead dig my fingers into clay. The strategy was simple; Make a human head from the scribbles and add elephant-like features and texture to it until I felt happy about it. The idea of that slugger fermented in the back of my head and all of a sudden:

Mad Bull McCormick

So that was his name. Weird. Where did that come from? I googled it and was amazed to find the brand of the red tractor my father kept at his farm during my early youth. At least it looked similar. Other than that source have no clue where that came from. A tractor embodies a lot of the elephant/slugger-qualities I was aiming at.

But what about "Mad Bull"?

He is a bounty-hunter, a gun for hire, a trouble-shooter. Not necessarily if the money is right but rather if the target is he tells me. Mad Bull is a name that he earned by collecting said clients. Not that he minds. Edgy clients make mistakes and as long as others are doing them he might just get away the ones he makes. And his mistakes have been numerous, but he has lived and learned from each and every single one of them.

On and on he talks to me as his features become more and more apparent.

His skin is like old leather and the features of a water buffalo start to mix with the elephant. He is Mad Bull after all. He may be called that but his name isn't really McCormick he tells me. That's just something he picked upon first entering Federation Space. Whatever that is. And his native name is none of my business. I let it slide. After all, if you mess with the bull you get the horns.

He got exiled from his horde. It was partly his decision. Tradition demanded it. He had been injured while protecting the horde from marauding off-world slavers coming to steal the younglings.

The injury he sustained to the head, resulting in the loss of his left eye, forced him into fits of rage that grew more uncontrollable for each episode he suffered. Eventually the decision was made that he had to leave not to endanger the other members of the horde.

He left his home-planet and as he had the rudimentary skills and the natural talent for it he started out as a mercenary. The years went by as he honed his skills and kept a look out for information about the where-abouts of the slavers that had plagued his home planet in the past. Eventually he got a confirmed set of coordinates and went to town. None but him is still alive to tell the tale of what really took place at that base but the word stampede does apply.

From then on he's been scouring the systems, ridding planets from marauders and slavers. He does not meddle with planetary affairs, but any off-world activity that resembles what his people had to endure pretty much fits the bill. Sometimes he goes after a client outside such perimeters. As long as its a thug of any shape or form that can hone his skills even further. He does not fancy himself a contract killer even though some employers have on occasion tricked him into such a role. A kindness he repaid by terminating them in turn free of charge.

McCormick is driven first and foremost by his guardian insticts. On second place comes the blazing rage that has turned into controllable embers over the years. Or so he tells me. He is quite cynical having been dealt such a rough hand by the fates but he feels no grief or bitterness against the horde or for the exile. He agrees with the dictates of his native tradition and feels that it was just. Still, leading such a solitary life has left a void in his heart.

He is now getting too old to return to the horde even if the exile was to be lifted. By tradition old bulls leave the horde for a final solitary walk to join the ancestors. As far as he is concerned he started that walk at an early age and is still on it. Yet he feels the urge to leave some kind of legacy behind and even though it is not the lineage he had dreamed of during his youngling years as a promising guardian he has resorted to second best;

McCormick is the natural leader of a group of intergalactic bounty-hunters. He is the biggest, meanest, most experienced of the lot and what he lacks intellectually he makes up for it with cunning relentlessness. The other members of his new horde are yet to be disclosed to me, but they're all sort of voluntary adoptees.

None of that was constructed by me. It was told to me by McCormick himself as he emerged through the lump of clay. This is precisely how I envisioned character design would be like and the reason why I picked up sculpting to begin with. To create characters and let them tell their stories for me to write down. Yet I was still surprised.

I can't wait to hear what the next lump of clay has to say.

It was during the time when Megaphentes sat upon the throne of Argos that the two remaining sisters tracked him down by the scent of his mourning. They came in the night, one at a time, then together the third and final night.

Wetting his loins with bursts of hatred and dripping bile into his ears with venomous tongues they filled his mind to the brim with promise of vengeance.

”He is the off-spring of Zeus”, Megaphentes complained.

”He is also the slayer of your kin”, Euryale retorted.

”And has turned you into an exile by claiming the throne of Tiryns as his own”, Stheno added,

”The Kindly Ones give you right of passage”.

Megaphentes shuddered. The light touch of brazen fingers along his thighs caught his attention.

”An eye for an eye”, Stheno whispered.

”A brother for a sister”, Euryale finished.

They sealed the pact by fusing flesh and hatred without eyes meeting even once.

”There is a price”, they warned him.

”There always is”, he retorted.

”Your mortal name will remain but a flicker in the annals of man. His brazen immortality an inspiration for eons to come.”

”I care not”. And he did not. ”But how will he die?” For this he cared in great detail.

”He cannot”, they had answered, ”Yet nor will he live.”

And so he was told to wait until the kinslayer would not wear the helm given by Hades, nor the winged sandals of the Hesperides. He was to wait until his exiler would not be wielding the adamantine sword, nor wearing the shield given by Athena as protection. Megaphenthes was a patient man and when the deed was done the sisters were lying in wait knowing their kinslayer would have to pay homage to his uncle before ascending to this father.

They took him there by the black river spilling his innards on its shore.

Yet he lived and scorned them.

They feasted on his beating heart.

Yet he lived and scorned them.

They tore his head off his shoulders.

Yet he lived and scorned them.

They turned their gaze on him and he scorned them no longer.