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Description
This piece is a tribute to possibly the first big creative project I ever worked on: Fran of Funny Fun, and the world of Art Island, which was explored through art, stories, and comics. I even had hopes of developing it into a whole video game franchise. I abandoned this world many years ago, but it and the charactes within are still dear to me. All of this was before I had any online presence.

If you are one of my immediate family members, you may recognize some of these silly characters. If not, prepare yourself for story time.

I don't remember what year I began working on this worldbuilding project. I was maybe around 10, but many characters and aspects had already been made prior. Conveniently, the only piece of media that came with me across the ocean was a single comic book, illustrated using ballpoint pen on printing paper. But that is how most of art was: lineart using pencil, ballpoint pen, or cheap crayola markers. I didn't want to run out of marker ink, or have ink spill to the other side of the page (so I could draw on the other side too), so most of these characters only existed as lineart. Pretty much all of this was developed while the parent tried to shelter me from the world, and before I had internet access. For this piece, I decided to draw everyone in flat, but fully filled out color, a form they rarely got to see, and I admit looks alien to me.

I explored this world through art and comics, but most of it occurred through oral storytelling. It became a tradition that I would tell my sister stories of Art Island's inhabitants most nights, after we were supposed to be asleep. Through these stories we explored many things, like friendship, being as gross as humanly possible, and plagiarism. We called these "Fran stories", after the main protagonist. Most of these tales were made up on the fly, and consisted of whatever throughts crossed my mind until one of us was conked out. My mom told me I should write the stories down, which I didn't really do: my only experience with writing was with essays for homeschool, and I hated that. I have since given effort to writing my stories, with limited success; I rarely make it past two chapters. But I suppose I have translated some of these old skills into modern day, as a game master for various tabletop games. It allows me to flex some of my writing muscles, while also making stuff up on the fly, because you never know what your players will do next.

The story and world of Fran of Funny Fun and Art Island grew and grew, becoming more wild and bonkers along the way. It featured crossovers with the earliest iterations of my Tristones world, as well as various Nintendo franchises (which many Art Island characters and themes were plagiarized from). Eventually, my sister and I, and the whole family, began to drift apart, and this world became mine alone. The world of Art Island slowly died away, being overtaken by other creations. But although Fran of Funny Fun's world may be abandoned, it truly defined me as an artist. Literally, my screen name on other sites is Franoffunnyfun.

To explore character pictured, see my upload here: www.deviantart.com/ma5terofthe…

In the coming days, I will be looking at my other major storytelling projects. Just through the protagonists. I don't want to draw a bunch of 30-something character scenes.

Description
This piece is a tribute to possibly the first big creative project I ever worked on: Fran of Funny Fun, and the world of Art Island, which was explored through art, stories, and comics. I even had hopes of developing it into a whole video game franchise. I abandoned this world many years ago, but it and the charactes within are still dear to me. All of this was before I had any online presence.

If you are one of my immediate family members, you may recognize some of these silly characters. If not, prepare yourself for story time.

I don't remember what year I began working on this worldbuilding project. I was maybe around 10, but many characters and aspects had already been made prior. Conveniently, the only piece of media that came with me across the ocean was a single comic book, illustrated using ballpoint pen on printing paper. But that is how most of art was: lineart using pencil, ballpoint pen, or cheap crayola markers. I didn't want to run out of marker ink, or have ink spill to the other side of the page (so I could draw on the other side too), so most of these characters only existed as lineart. Pretty much all of this was developed while the parent tried to shelter me from the world, and before I had internet access. For this piece, I decided to draw everyone in flat, but fully filled out color, a form they rarely got to see, and I admit looks alien to me.

I explored this world through art and comics, but most of it occurred through oral storytelling. It became a tradition that I would tell my sister stories of Art Island's inhabitants most nights, after we were supposed to be asleep. Through these stories we explored many things, like friendship, being as gross as humanly possible, and plagiarism. We called these "Fran stories", after the main protagonist. Most of these tales were made up on the fly, and consisted of whatever throughts crossed my mind until one of us was conked out. My mom told me I should write the stories down, which I didn't really do: my only experience with writing was with essays for homeschool, and I hated that. I have since given effort to writing my stories, with limited success; I rarely make it past two chapters. But I suppose I have translated some of these old skills into modern day, as a game master for various tabletop games. It allows me to flex some of my writing muscles, while also making stuff up on the fly, because you never know what your players will do next.

The story and world of Fran of Funny Fun and Art Island grew and grew, becoming more wild and bonkers along the way. It featured crossovers with the earliest iterations of my Tristones world, as well as various Nintendo franchises (which many Art Island characters and themes were plagiarized from). Eventually, my sister and I, and the whole family, began to drift apart, and this world became mine alone. The world of Art Island slowly died away, being overtaken by other creations. But although Fran of Funny Fun's world may be abandoned, it truly defined me as an artist. Literally, my screen name on other sites is Franoffunnyfun.

To explore character pictured, see my upload here: www.deviantart.com/ma5terofthe…

In the coming days, I will be looking at my other major storytelling projects. Just through the protagonists. I don't want to draw a bunch of 30-something character scenes.