Note: I continually update this entry each time I post a new page of the story. So, it frequently has new information, but may not be worth your time unless you are hopelessly lost in this story or you are looking for dirt you can use against me...

"Demon's Due" is a dark fantasy story set in an imaginary world somewhat like Medieval Europe. Unlike Medieval Europe, however, most of the prominent roles are taken by women. Why? Because it's my story, and I like to draw women far more than I like to draw men. I am a man, after all, so, "alternative lifestyles" notwithstanding, that should come as no surprise to anyone.

"Demon's Due" is about a group of women struggling for and/or against each other and "the law," sometimes with the aid of male characters and sometimes in spite of it. Sexuality is a subject that comes up fairly regularly (in the form of nudity, intimacy, allusions, and as a plot device), and therefore "Demon's Due" has lots of adult themes and images, some of which could be offensive. So be cautioned before you go diving into it. Also, all of the characters represented in the nude are at least 18 years of age (in reality, and in the context of the story). Let me clarify here and now that, other than a few nicks and scratches and rope burns, no female character will be physically harmed in this storyline--the idea of a woman in real physical pain and peril sickens me, so the story is limited to bondage and nudity, and psychological peril (and there is plenty of that). Obviously, since this is DA, there will be no graphic sex, even if some sexual activity is implied beneath the covers.

"Demon's Due" is broken up into chapters, of which there will be 10 - 12. All told, the entire story will be pushing 350 pages when complete. Currently, I have about 270 of them done. At this time, the chapters are titled and ordered as follows:


Chapter One: Rats in the Cellar (31 pages)



Chapter Two: Twisted Plot (34 pages)



Chapter Three: Fair Harvest (58 pages)



Chapter Four: Vision Impaired (49 pages)



Chapter Five: Bare Necessities (98 pages)



Chapter Six: Catcall (26+ pages)


Chapter Seven: Coils of Fate
(Coming Soon)
Chapter Eight: Web of Betrayal*
(Coming Fairly Soon)
Chapter Nine: Chain of Events*
(Coming Later)
Chapters Ten - Eleven: Titles and Order are still uncertain, although a few names, characters, and events are decided, including "The Iron Wagon," and "Pillars of Pain."

*I suspect this is the right order for these chapters, but I'm not sure. They will each focus on one heroine and her specific stock model's work, but they will involve images from several different models.

I have used other non-DA photos and images for references for faces and body parts and such in several of the pictures in the first two chapters, while in Chapter Three the use of DA Stock Models begins to take over. I am quite pleased to be working with a group of cool stock models who have shared great visions and ideas with me about the future of "Demon's Due." DA Stock models whose images have shown up in the storyline at this point include Natalie Paquette (a.k.a. "fetishfaerie-stock"), Emily Eshelman (a.k.a. "feathered-pics"), Rachel Jacobi, Adeline Debaire (a.k.a. "perditax31"), and Lindsey (a.k.a "Lizzy-Barry").

and

Numerous people have offered suggestions about the costumes and look of the characters involved. Michelle (a.k.a. elle-chan ) has helped me out quite a bit with costumes and design, particularly that of Madame Zirena and Maladyne. Thanks, Michelle!



Lest someone think that this or any future representation/publication is without errors and editing troubles, check this out...

The Case of the Disappearing Belt Knife

Starring:

Elina [link]

Annalae [link]

With Special Guest Star: Luther [link]

Also starring: Lots of different daggers [link] [link] [link] [link]

Looks like I've got some revision work ahead of me...



As I've introduced a new stock-model-based character into the official storyline, I've offered to journal-feature the art of the first person to guess the specific stock model's DA identity. When the Harbinger made her first appearance in Catcall Page20 [link] , ~Mistersneaky made several guesses and finally, in a note, correctly identified Laura, a.k.a. ~aubli of Deviantart. Laura started grad school right after she and her awesome photographer, *WhisperedThunder produced and sent a slew of kick-ass images for the Harbinger, including lots of poses Laura struck on the dancing pole. ~Mistersneaky also correctly identified *WhisperedThunder as the photographer, so he scored two runs. Glancing through ~Mistersneaky 's gallery, two pieces jumped right out at me for their brilliant colors and expressive, surrealist style. He works with oil (I think), and his paintings pack a solid punch. He's definitely worth a look.


When Maladyne the Evil Sorceress appeared on Vision Impaired Page02
[link] , ~PitchBLACK-Art guessed her stock model within a couple of hours and so I've chosen two pieces from his gallery to thumbnail here. I have always enjoyed Poser renders since I started seeing them online almost a decade ago, but this DA artist adds a powerful artistic awareness to the process--the compositions, placement, scale, angle, and colors used are all masterfully done. Plus, he seems to like the same themes that I tend to draw...


When Madame Zirena made her first appearance on Vision Impaired Page14 [link] , *cordefr searched and guessed and at long last came up with Zirena's stock model three days later, and so I've chosen two pieces from his gallery to thumbnail here. The first one is right up my alley: A Leprechaun Slave Market?! The second is a humorous and satirical look at how he views his reference models while drawing them... I quite identify with this one, too.


Annalae showed up "officially" on Vision Impaired Page33 [link] , ~elle-chan 's ninja-speed fingers typed out the name of the stock model in question. So, I'm choosing two of her deviations to feature here. The first is "What Are You Looking At?" which shows off some of Michelle's talent for designing colorful and exotic outfits on stunning female anatomy, and the second is "MH Logo," which is a 3-D model of a her personal ID, clearly showing off the skills she has in that realm (she has given me some very good suggestions in doing digital drawings, too). Michelle moved her account to a new location: ~MichelleMH .


Character Statistics
On a whim, I went through and counted up the pages in which each character of the story made an appearance (not including bloopers and scraps). Then I counted how many of those pages did not involve action shots (I'll call these "character development") versus those that do. Then I counted the number of pages in which the character was a captive (either defeated and dead, or an official captive, or a mock captive). And finally I counted the number of pages in which the character was partially nude. I don't know what interesting insights someone can make of this information, but here it is:

(Listed by Total Number of Appearances)



Callista

Total Appearances: 83. Thirty-five of those (42%) are "character development," while she's in 44 action shots (53%), and is an official captive in nine of them (11%). She is at least partially nude in 32 of them (39%), although that skin-tight catsuit works just as well...

Avora

Total Appearances: 53. Seven of those (13%) are "character development," while she's in action in 30 (57%) of them, and she is an official captive in 16 of them (30%). She is at least partially nude in 33 pages (62%).

Deirdre

Total Appearances: 48. Seventeen of those (35%) are "character development," while she has 21 action shots (44%), and she is an official captive in 10 (21%). She is at least partially nude in 43 pages (90%).

Annalae

Total Appearances: 45. Twenty-six of those (58%) are "character development," while she struggles in 13 of them (29%), and she is an official (or mock) captive in 6 of them (13%). She is at least partially nude in 18 of them (40%).

Valerin

Total Appearances: 42. Three of these (7%) are "character development", while she fights/struggles in 23 (41%) of them, and she is an official captive in 16 of them (38%). She is at least partially nude in 28 pages (67%).

Luther Vandermoor

Total Appearances: 41. Thirty of those (73%) are "character development," while he's fighting (losing, mostly) in nine of them (22%). While he is never an official captive, he's defeated (and dying) in two of them (5%). He's partially nude (shirtless, at least) in two of them (5%).

Jervil the Rat-Sorceror

Total Appearances: 38. Twenty-nine of those are "character development" (76%), while he is in 9 action shots (24%), and is never an official captive (0%). He is at least partially nude in none of them (0%). Frankly, I shudder to think of what will be happening in the story to change those last two figures...

Madame Zirena

Total Appearances: 37. Twenty-six of those (70%) are "character development," while she struggles in 4 of them (11%), and she is an official captive in 7 of them (19%). She is at least partially nude in 6 of them (16%).

Albert Fiskerne

Total Appearances: 35. Nineteen of those (54%) are "character development," while he's in action in 16 of them (46%). While he's never an official captive, he's defeated (and/or "zombified") in 9 of them (26%). He's never partially nude (0%).

Elina

Total Appearances: 33. Eighteen of those (55%) are "character development," while she struggles in 15 of them (45%), and she is an official captive in none of them (0%). She is at least partially nude in none of them (0%).

High Lady Drea Aliandis

Total Appearances: 23. Eighteen of those (78%) are "character development," while she struggles in five of them (22%), and she is an official captive in none of them (0%). She is at least partially nude in one of them (5%).

Maladyne Mitesceru

Total Appearances: 7. All of those (100%) are "character development," while she struggles in none of them (0%), and she is an official captive in none of them (0%). She is at least partially nude in none of them (0%). Maladyne will be showing up with increasing frequency over this chapter and the next, so I'll get her stats up and running now.

We'll wait until Karea and Sigris show up a bit more before figuring all this out for them.

So, Maladyne wins for "character development" at 100%, which makes sense because we've hardly seen her. The winner for struggling/action is Avora at 57%. Valerin wins for the highest percentage (38%) of pages as an official captive (which also makes sense). Deirdre has the highest percentage of nudity pages (90%). My intention is to keep the number of appearances fairly equal between the female characters, as much as the story will let me, which should make their percentages a bit more interesting. So in the future you can expect to see less of Avora and Deirdre relative to Zirena, Valerin, Annalae, Drea, and Elina. Callista will be involved in several chapters, too, including one devoted mostly to her.

Friends' Contributions
Finally, there have been many people providing ideas, fanart, and supplementary material for this project. They're all listed below, starting with contributions by fans and finishing up with my own ancillary submissions (like the character sketches and such). Those with links added have mature content.
*~vesha has done a digital modification to Catcall Page11, fixing up a slight problem with the foreshortening and shaping of Callista's... er... 'dimensions.' [link]
*~reacherfan has done a narrative exploration of Elina's reaching scene from "Bare Necessities"; you can read it in her journal entry here: [link]
*~TwistedJedi has turned "Rats in the Cellar" into a cool 22-page comic book on his blog. Check it out here: [link]
*~vvvan put together this awesome character sheet and used "Gus" Gremlin as a reference for his own little gremlin menace!

He also added a "Rats in the Natatorium" alternate view of the mural I painted on the local natatorium wall.
[link]
**DocRedfield created a cool .gif image to open up "Rats in the Cellar."

*~7thGunman added some cool lines of verse to his comments ( this one on the Hellbinder Character Sketch and this one on Vision Impaired Page10 ).
*~elle-chan drew a sketch of possible modifications to Maladyne's and Lady Drea's costumes (along with "Baby Turnip"), and she drew Maladyne in her "everyday wear."

Then she colored and finished that drawing!

**dashinvaine drew a wonderful image of "Deirdre in Better Days," complete with fox-friend and basket of statuettes.


*~zymurgea drew another heroine, Tasha, running afoul of the "horny" cousins of the gremlins from "Rats."

**cordefr drew an awesome color version of Madame Zirena at her crystal ball--quite interesting what she's seeing in there...

*Bloopers and Outtakes for "Rats in the Cellar" start here:
[link]
Bloopers and Outtakes for "Twisted Plot" start here:
[link]
Bloopers and Outtakes for "Fair Harvest" are not finished yet, but they start here:
[link]
And here are a few of my sketches for upcoming characters in the series, some of which we've already seen at this point.

Finally, the spoiler-filled backstory for Luther and Zirena is recorded in this journal entry of mine. [link]

Enjoy!