About

Dragon Angel Tai is an idea originally came into being in the summer of 2000, and it has since germinated in my mind. Originally, Tai developed from being the middle character in another comic idea I had which has since been dropped. Tai proved to be the most interesting of the three heroes in that, and so it was decided that I would pursue a manga series with her as the lead character. I use the term manga loosely. I know there are a lot of fanatics on the Internet who insist that there is a true time-honored means of producing manga and that it insists on strict structure and design - but honestly I could care less.

Naturally, Tai needed other characters to support her and they were gradually filled in. Ryu Yamada was probably the first, although he was much younger. Over time, Ryu Yamada developed into an elderly father figure, wizened with age and time. Diode likely came next. Even though Diode is a robot, he assumes a masculine persona. In the original version, Diode was a female robot named Val. The design was a bit more humanoid, with arms and legs. Time passed. I struggled with Diode's personality. Was he going to be elegant like a robotic butler, or candid and searing like a shock jock on the radio? Eventually, Diode became the yang to Tai's yin, an outspoken and loud character compared to Tai's quiet, spiritual nature. I also settled on not giving him arms or legs, going for the "bomb shape" you see him as now.

Tai herself changed a lot. I think this feature on my artwork site is the most demonstrative.

In the summer of 2003, three years after inception of the idea, I started to serious pursue the notion of starting a web comic. I was most recently inspired by Altermeta, and its maintainer Casey Young gave me a lot of ideas for how to accelerate the process of coloring and generally doing the comic. And so work on the idea began and it continues to this day.

A lot of people tell me that the look of the comic and artistic design here in general is very unique. While I've never been able to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing, the truth is I've been drawing scalies like Tai for a very long time, sheltered from the artwork of others. Oddly, I think the whole design can be traced back to the Koopa Troopas in the Super Mario Brothers games, as those are the first creatures I can remember drawing. Other influences were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Dinosaucers, a long defunct dinosaur-based clone of Transformers. It wasn't until I got the Internet and starting poking around when I actually discovered the "furries" (more appropriately, scaly artists) who were a lot like me. Still, I like to keep my designs unique and my own. The only real influence I can only say I picked up from another scaly artist was Gekko's long ears, which now seem to be a recurring attribute. Another strong influence was Rockman, that's Mega Man in the States. I always liked that distinctive style of exaggeration they used. It's the reason the Dragons have such huge feet. ^-^

The story, as it unfolds, is a mishmash of science-fiction and anime themes. You'll just have to wait and see. Essentially, Dragon Angel Tai is divided into 10 episodes, each comprised of several pages. These episodes are:

Episode 1: Fire Rune
Episode 2: Remember that Day?
Episode 3: Aqua Rune
Episode 4: The Long Way Home
Episode 5: Irreverence
Episode 6: Assault
Episode 7: Those We Love
Episode 8: The Edge of Extinction, Part I
Episode 9: The Edge of Extinction, Part II
Episode 10: The Edge of Extinction, Part III

I hope you enjoy them! Thanks for visiting the site! ^-^

- Kyouryuu Solrazor