Upgrade Soul Theme

Alexis just finished the title theme for Upgrade Soul! This is the song that will play over the opening credits. There will be an extended album-only version of this song featuring a guitar solo, vocals and a rap breakdown. We’re saving that for a special occasion.

Upgrade Soul Theme Sample

Chapter 2, Scene 1 (uncolored).

This is the uncolored first scene of the second chapter of Upgrade Soul. This also happens to be the first scene I’ve drawn since I did the first chapter on spec 3 years ago. I’m relieved my natural drawing style hasn’t changed perceptibly, though that may not speak well of my growth as an illustrator.

Leviathan.

It’s always exciting to me when I revisit something from my childhood and find fairly obvious seedlings for my future interests and aesthetics. I recently rewatched Leviathan for the first time since I was a kid, and was kind of surprised to find a few elements I may or may not have subconsciously cribbed, both in Upgrade Soul (the distanced controlling presence accessible only via videoconference), and another horror script I wrote a few years ago. The weird thing is that I don’t at all consider Leviathan to be a noteworthy part of my childhood cultural experience. Not like Robocop, Predator, Aliens, Terminator, Ice Pirates, Mad Max, or even Galaxy of Terror, to name a few. In recent years, however, I have fallen in love with Leviathan’s screenwriter, David Webb Peoples (12 Monkeys, Blade Runner, Unforgiven, Blood of Heroes), so maybe the film’s influence was more insidious than I give it credit for.

Gestation 2.

Around the same time Tom Herpich did his Upgrade Soul character designs, I illustrated a sample scene as a tone test. This scene was later cut from the script, and the art style I’m now employing is vastly different, but if I’d committed to finishing Upgrade Soul then, there’s a good chance this is what it might have looked like.

Gestation.

Upgrade Soul has gone through several metamorphoses to get to where it is now. In 2007, with a mind toward taking the story down a slightly skewed path, I hired the utterly amazing Tom Herpich to create designs for the story’s main characters. While we never pursued our collaboration beyond these illustrations, I cherish them no less. Tom went on to become a character designer and storyboard artist for Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time series.