A lazy, washed up magician discovers the lines, drawn by the creators
as the structure of our world, are disappearing. Only he can stop the
world's collapse.

                                                                               – Vanishing Ink

Or here's Mike Gasaway's take on it : Desperate to regain his fame, he finds
a spell book and tries to create the most magical show on earth. In his
clumsiness, he spills an elixir from one of the book’s recipes that causes the
color to fade from whatever it touches. As the solution spreads, more and
more color disappears. Mike was my former mentor, has been an animation
director, and has many exciting developments you can follow here:
Thanks Mike! I really like his idea of having the magician actively cause the
disappearance. Though I pictured him as lazy, I've been playing around
with this idea of remaining angst from his failure. Maybe he hasn't had to try
in the past to find success, but now.... he'll be a better character because of
Mike's contribution!

So, Having worked on this story for awhile
here are the other ideas I'm currently playing
with:

Our magician fell from the path to fame
because of severe deception and dishonesty
which were publicized - but people stopped
coming to his shows.

Though he begins no real magic abilities, he
somehow discovers how to see through the
world as we know it and realizes the world
is actually made of lines and covered in
"paint". He watches as some of the lines
fade away and Giant boulders plummet
toward the center of the earth - without these
lines our world will collapse

As you can see in the images below, he
attempts to redraw the structure of our
world with an ancient magic pen originally
used by the "creators".

Of course, he can't redraw the world fast enough and has to enlist the help
of others, but this is difficult given his public track record and the fact that
giant pen sculptures are common household decorations since a recent
archeological discovery (of giant pen sculptures/formations).

The emotions and character arc possible with this story excite me and I
would certainly enjoy develop an entire story around this character. You
may recognize he was influenced by the magician on my web page and demo
reel, and the Think Pink Ink piece I made for PaperWingsPodcast.com.
I've thought it could be humorous to make the magician's magic pen continue
to write in PINK and use that as a point of humiliation for the poor chap.

And here are some more (of many) sketches that informed this drawing:

"Save The Cat" genre for today : "Dude With A Problem."
Rules: Put an "average dude" in extraordinary circumstances,
a fascinating obstacle to overcome!

Thanks for reading and please leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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