Imagine waking up one morning and seeing a character you created on TV, or opening in movie theaters, or all over the internet. That didn’t quite happen to me today, but it felt like it.

I have a deviant Art account that I use…mostly to find new artists to work with (it’s how I found Sean Izaakse) and to promote art for existing projects. A lot of the guys I follow are friends and collaborators. I check it once or twice a day, and this morning, I saw that Edi (Torres, my STRAY co-creator) posted two new pieces. This was one of them:

Edi wrote, “Here’s a super late piece for a good friend of man, a man of military and paintball skirmish backgrounds, immediately fell in love with a previous sketch of this same character; so he wanted his own, thanks Jaime. It’s always fun drawing that mask flapping in the wind.” So, not only does an artist enjoy drawing him, but a fan of Edi’s saw an older piece of Mr. Mercury and wanted one for himself.

In a weird way, this is as much validation as a movie or cartoon. It’s not nearly as big, but it’s still, in a way, proof of concept.

Makes me want to work on this guy some more…