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Description
It looks like a happy Christmas scene, but like so many of my pictures, there is a dark backdrop (well, I suppose literally in this case, but setting tenebroso aside...) that will ultimately lead to his downfall and destruction, but in a sideways fashion, so that his destruction is also his salvation. If a career advisor offers you a job as one of my characters, walk the other way. Trust me. This is Phillip X, one of the first Shaped to be created. The "X" comes from the nine failures before him, and because he was one of the first successful creations, the scientists shamelessly doted on him, showering him with gifts like this digital fretless bass – foreshadowing his obsession with music. Few of the other Shaped who came after were so privileged, especially as the technology became cheap and widespread, and the Shaped were reduced to a disposible slave class.

I originally set this in the year 2022, which means I've fallen victim to what every person trying to imagine the future has fallen victim to, and that is that the future arrives a hell of a lot sooner than you'd think. If he's thirteen in this picture, then he'd have to be born three years from now. But hey, who knows what shadowy government projects are going on without our knowledge, that we won't find out about until twenty years from now? In the world of SF, I'm going to say it's possible, but I'm still chagrined that I didn't set it out another forty years or so.

This has always been one of my favorites, even if the scene around the Christmas tree is unrealistically tidy.
Pen, brush and ink on plain-old paper.

Description
It looks like a happy Christmas scene, but like so many of my pictures, there is a dark backdrop (well, I suppose literally in this case, but setting tenebroso aside...) that will ultimately lead to his downfall and destruction, but in a sideways fashion, so that his destruction is also his salvation. If a career advisor offers you a job as one of my characters, walk the other way. Trust me. This is Phillip X, one of the first Shaped to be created. The "X" comes from the nine failures before him, and because he was one of the first successful creations, the scientists shamelessly doted on him, showering him with gifts like this digital fretless bass – foreshadowing his obsession with music. Few of the other Shaped who came after were so privileged, especially as the technology became cheap and widespread, and the Shaped were reduced to a disposible slave class.

I originally set this in the year 2022, which means I've fallen victim to what every person trying to imagine the future has fallen victim to, and that is that the future arrives a hell of a lot sooner than you'd think. If he's thirteen in this picture, then he'd have to be born three years from now. But hey, who knows what shadowy government projects are going on without our knowledge, that we won't find out about until twenty years from now? In the world of SF, I'm going to say it's possible, but I'm still chagrined that I didn't set it out another forty years or so.

This has always been one of my favorites, even if the scene around the Christmas tree is unrealistically tidy.
Pen, brush and ink on plain-old paper.