Experiment 628 Ref Sheet And Notes

Experiment 628 is an original character from my Lilo & Stitch fanfics.

About Experiment 628

Experiment 628 is an angry, confused experiment with not much of an idea of where to go or what to do. Due to his past, he finds himself surrounded by conflicting urges and ideals and often wishes life would be much simpler. Little is known about his interests, as he rarely lets anyone close to him, but he does have a fondness for quoting Shakespeare.

Judging from his eating habits, his favourite foods are hot dogs, egg-foo-young, and sweet-and-sour-pork.

Powers

As the continuation of Jumba's 600 series, 628 possesses all the powers of 626. However, after the failure of 627, Jumba decided he'd gone far overboard with that experiment and went back to the drawing board. Experiment 628 therefore possesses only three major additional powers over 626:

• Shapeshifting (stealth): can shapeshift into any creature he has an initial DNA sample for. After the initial analysis of this DNA, he stores the data in his brain so he can transform into the form in future without the DNA sample.
  
  
• Stun ray (stealth): utilising precise control over electrical pulses through an ionised stream of air, 628 can knock out a target at a distance of five metres without harming them.
  
  
• Pressure wave (offence): can generate a powerful pressure wave through the air, capable of throwing anyone on the receiving end metres in distance. Higher-power waves can seriously injure a person, although the lower-power waves are capable of doing that as well given the right terrain (for the target to hit against).

628 also possesses a strange eyepiece and device attached to his brain, labelled a "cortical node". It is speculated the eyepiece adds more 'modes' to his vision than Jumba built in to him, and that the cortical node increases his ability to acquire and learn new languages and facts, although it is not known for certain as Jumba did not design the devices.

Quick History of Experiment 628

Experiment 628 was activated by an over-curious Stitch, after he and Lilo became convinced he was up to something evil-geniusy. Upon activation, he immediately made his way to the location of the hidden police cruiser 626 had himself arrived on Earth with and blasted off into space. Fearing he'd cause considerable havock to the Federation, Jumba enlisted the help of Lilo, Stitch and (very reluctantly) Pleakley, as well as his lower deck 'crew', Experiment 419 and Experiment 426, to help him capture him before he causes too much trouble.

However, 628 lured them through a temporal rift to the future, through which they were placed in grave danger, both physically and psychologically. During a confrontation between the group and 628 on the ship of the cyborg aliens the experiment had allied himself with, 628 was captured in a matter-energy converter container, although only after he had inflicted major injuries upon most of them.

Upon their return to the present, the special Temporal Investigations branch of the United States government took the unusual measure of wiping the memories of Lilo, 626 and Nani to prevent, according to them, further harm to the timeline. Jumba stored 628 away in his ship, believing him to be too dangerous to be rehabilitated.

Unfortunately, due to an accidental mishap, Experiment 628 was accidentally released and, unbeknownst to anyone but 628 himself, escaped Jumba's ship to live a life hiding from the aliens and from the Pelekai family. Unable to leave the island for various reasons, he tries to keep out of the way and unseen.

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Art Notes

I had a lot of fun working on this (even through the procrastination!) I especially liked doing the special effects for the stun ray. and the general simplified art style of the power diagrams. (I hadn't initially planned on doing it that way, but I liked the look of it sans lineart, so I decided to commit to the style for those diagrams.)

Experiment 628's original design left much to be desired, especially since it was basically "Stitch but purple and look he has an eye implant thingy." I mean, it was "good" for me back then in 2005 (especially considering I painted it with Microsoft Paint), but I've never really drawn him that way since. I was already drawing him differently in other works, such as version 3 of my deviantART ID, and the (unreleased) comic sketch detailing his escape from Jumba's ship, both sketched in 2007, and by 2010, 628's ref sheet had by far outstayed its welcome. (Along with the old versions of my other experiments, but especially 628's.) And so, I commited to drawing him a new one. (And then proceeded to procrastinate on actually getting turning the sketch into a finished piece until now. )

I decided to make him taller and thinner, and his head a lot smaller compared to his body than before. I've long imagined to be somewhat dapper in character, so he now looks a lot more civilised and less brutish.

I also exaggerated the curliness of his antennae (especially the left one) to give him a bit more character (a change somewhat inspired by kaykaykit's drawing of him.)

The biggest changes from the sketch of the reference sheet to the final version was to the eye implant, to make it look more like the one in the original design, and to the organisation of the various information panels - the original sketch was a lot more disorganised. I also made his left ear curve upwards, rather than slightly to the side as in the original sketch, and heavily modified the positions 628 takes in the stun ray diagram.

Writing/Characterisation Notes

When I first wrote the character notes for 628 back in 2005, I kind of made him a kitchen-sink experiment of all the things I considered cool at the time - for example, apart from the stun ray and shapeshifting, he used to have super multi-linguism, super-computer skills, super-cooking skills, super-duper lifting skills (three thousand times his own weight), super memory (recording every second of his life ala Data), super singing skills (specifically, the ability to turn experiments to good, like Angel), super emotion-controlling skills (like in the episode of Kim Possible titled "Emotion Sickness"), and super... chilli cheese dog-eating skills? (Hey, The Weekenders were cool!) It made no narrative sense, but I threw it in because, why not?

It only took a few years for me to realise that "why not" is easily answered with "Because it's bad writing, you dolt!" Only two years later in 2007 I'd started to cringe whenever I re-read the profile I'd written up on 628, and every year since the cringing got worse. Partially through this and partially through the process of writing a story about him (Starry Nights), I'd already started to move away from the kitchen-sink 628 by then (as you can see in this journal entry I wrote about my experiments at the time). In effect, the comment about Jumba "going overboard" above is just as much a take-that at myself as it is at other poorly-thought out fan experiments, and "going back to the drawing board" was exactly what I did with him.

By the turn of the decade the version of the experiment I detailed in the About section above had, for the most part, formed. This basically means that out of all my experiments, my conception of 628 has changed the most from his original version.

Sketch: 25 Jan 2011

Lineart (main): 13 Jun, 21 Jul 2012 (with detail to the eye implant added 13 Jan 2014)
             (side/back/top views): 9 Jan 2014
             (biological diagrams): 21 Jul 2012
             (power diagrams): 13, 15, 23, 24 Jan; 15 Feb 2014

Paint    (main): 21 Jul 2012
             (side/back/top views):  15 Jan 2014
             (biological diagrams): 15 Jan; 15, 16 Feb 2014
             (power diagrams main):  15, 23 Jan; 15 Feb 2014
             (power diagrams SFX):  15 Jan; 15 Feb 2014
Text: 24 Jan; 1, 16 Feb 2014
Colour chart: 24, 31 Jan; 16 Feb 2014
Size chart: 24 Jan 2014
Layout: 24, 31 Jan; 1, 12, 16 Feb 2014
Boxes: 31 Jan; 1, 12, 16 Feb 2014