Preliminary arts! (may be NSFW)

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Here's some of my preparations for the Crossover Wars. One of the first things I did was draw up some model sheets for the ROCR characters that would appear. Here's what I wrote on October 24, 2006 - almost a year ago:

I saw this in the board for the Halloween Crossover Caper and thought it might be useful for the Great Project as well, so here it is: A size and body type sheet for the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan characters Hogan has picked for the Great Project.
Well, sort of. He made some noises about including Tamlin, but I haven't put him in because it didn't seem like he'd do anything but sit in a bar; besides, Tamlin's present whereabouts are unknown. I've included Ottar because Norla and Ottar are currently a couple, and he might be easier to drag along than, say, Abui.


There was some space above the Faeries for some notes, which I used to show off the fangs. At this scale, I can't properly indicate Abui's tattoos. Note also that both Abui and Norla sometimes wear clothes, but the former only does so if it's intended as a disguise.

"Signs of old age are illusory." Long story, but the effects can be seen in the current ROCR story. Atra's real body is that of of a woman of twenty. Faeries can see through the illusion spell, as can drunks and presumably madmen.

I'm currently reading other fantasy comics involved in the project, basically guessing which ones from the main recruits list will take part. Feel free to post your own character sheets here, and let's hammer out how tall the characters of the various comics are compared to one another.

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This first post was followed by some discussion of Caitlin's designs for Scale, but it's up to her whether she'll post those or not. We discussed letting Scale wear a tie over a T-shirt, which I'd seen in the streets a couple of times, but (correctly) predicted wouldn't become a full-blown fad. Generally the idea was to give Scale some Doctor-ish eccentric touches. I may still use that for a character some time.

On October 27, I continued:

I like the tie myself. Works a lot better than I expected, to be honest.

Actually, I'm enjoying this part of the process a lot, and thinking about this has been educational for me as well. It's actually quite a common occurrence for important characters to dress a little outside the norm, but there's a balance that you have to get just right.

If I'm not too tired today, I hope to find some time to draw up some model sheets for individual characters - not so that people have to follow them rigidly, but so that they'll know which aspects of a character are important and can refer to the sheet if they're wondering how a braid or belt or whatever works. They won't be as polished as professional animation studio model sheets, but they'll be useful, I hope.
Meanwhile, here's some recent character art I put on my DeviantArt site in the past few months:

Outfits for Kel and Atra. Ignore the big-lips-and-eyes style for Kel. It was an experiment that in the end I felt didn't work out.
Kel in the dress she wears in the current story. Closer to how I actually draw her in the comic.
Another, similar one of Kel in that dress. Er, after a few scenes, I already regretted giving her that bead necklace. It's a lot of extra work to colour consistently. I'll probably leave it out or replace it with something simpler like a pin or pendant.
I toyed with a more cartoony look for the characters, but ... it's too far removed from how I normally draw to work in daily drawing. But others may like it.
Atra in her younger body in case we need it. She doesn't automatically switch outfits while the old age illusion is switched off, though. She'll still be in her old-lady clothes.
Size and body shape comparison for Younger and Older Atra. Nudity, so DeviantArt puts it behind the subscription wall.
Jake in full costume. I'll need to come up with a simplified version for the crossover, I think.

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Aaaand... here's the first full-blown model sheet, from October 28:

It's taken a little longer than I thought, partly because I had a bit of a life for a moment and partly because Monday's update still isn't done, but here's the first model sheet, for Kel:



As model sheets go, it's not all that rigorous, but it should answer most questions an artist might have about her. I've also taken the opportunity to redesign her outfit slightly: instead of the bead necklace, which crowded her chest area and took forever to colour with any level of consistency, she now has a different neckhole seam on her dress, closed with a pin. If you're going to draw her, you'll thank me for this change, eventually.

Kel's colour scheme has only five colours in it, not counting black and white. I may decide to make her belt buckle and neck pin silver instead of gold (in this unshaded version, the gold isn't very gold-ish, but with a bit of shading it looks just right).

The shapes embroidered into the hem of her dress are stylised leaves. The dress is of Slavic origin, though one commenter mentioned that it looked native american to him. I think this was especially true in combination with the necklace.

I've been inconsistent about the way her belt is fastened ever since I started drawing belts that way. I think this should be the definitive method and will use it in the comic from now on, at least for Kel.

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And a whole batch of them from November 1:

Finally getting there with the model sheets. I ended up finishing the most complicated one before all the others that now lie on my desk in penciled form.
Art contains a naked faerie and is therefore not safe for work. I'll witter on a bit above the image so you have to scroll to get there.


Abui's distinctive features are her long hair, funny hat and tattoos. Those tattoos are the bane of my life. If you have to draw her, don't worry about getting every single curve right. I never do myself, anyway. The patterns on her face are the only ones that are merely painted on, so a splash of water over her won't simplify her, much.

Abui has translucent wings, pointy ears and pointy canines just like the other faeries. Her natural size is about knee high to a man - when assuming human size, she's a little shorter than Kel.

Nine different colours were used in this model sheet, but to be honest her exact eye and nipple colours don't matter much.

In earlier versions, I made her flat-chested to better serve as a canvas for the tattoos, but since other people draw her with well-defined breasts anyway, she now has breasts.

I think that's it.



And here, in order, are Atra, Jake, Ottar and Norla....

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Two months go by, and suddenly I remember another character that others might have to draw - though Alcydia isn't technically my character, but her creator Daniel Ostvold wasn't present in the conversation.

I never did post Alcydia, did I? Well, I didn't design her originally, and I'm no great expert on drawing her, but this sketch gives a good enough indication of what she looks like whenever I need to draw her:



Noticeable features: hair forms itself into two tufts at the top of her head resembling devil horns. Short, chubby body and cherubic face. Often wears elaborate, Snow White style dresses, but I picked a simpler one for this series, at least to start with. Doesn't go for displays of cleavage (I'm going to have so much fun drawing Demona). Wears a diadem with the letter "A" as its centerpiece. Almond-shaped, somewhat slanted eyes.

I don't have a colour scheme for her yet, but her hair is brown, her skin is peach, and her dress... well, I'll leave that to DFG to sort out, I think. This particular dress is a very simple one from the Daniel-drawn story Alcydia but with a sash added to give her more definition in the waist. As you can see, the collar is attached to a very short, almost rudimentary cape. The item around her waist is a sash, not a belt.

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From there on, I posted nothing but black and white previews of forthcoming pages in that particular thread for a while. Some of those are pretty interesting though: Here's one page without backgrounds, from March 11, 2007:

A preliminary of FW 1.4.1a, showing my interpretation of Grimti. No backgrounds yet - Calvin will add those later. If you're wondering about Abúi's tattoos, they'll be there once it's coloured.

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SMOG2MAC interface in progress.

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And let's not forget some of Calvin Bexfield lovely background work, from April 1:

Calvin had some ideas of his own as to what Hell should look like, and here's the first preview. This background was drawn before the character art (we're still tweaking the process to improve both efficiency and quality), so the characters don't appear in it.

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My final post in the Fantasy Wars preliminary art thread was from April 17:

Are there any people who have done preliminary sketches for Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan characters that they would like to submit as fan art? Caitlin has already done so, and her drawings are up on the Webcomicsnation mirror. I'll do a blog writeup and start linking people to the page when I've got some more.

So go look at those! Next, I'll show some preliminary art I did of other people's characters.

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Me in November, 2006, having my first stab at drawing Demona:

I've started trying to draw the characters by others that I may need to draw in the crossovers. I'm guessing Demona will make a brief appearance at the start of the Fantasy Wars:

It's a bit unusual for me to draw breasts like those - in fact, I don't recall that I ever have. She's fun to draw though. Evil always is.

I've done a few sketches of the Demonicity creatures but they're neither accurate nor interesting. This one of Scale is still crude...


...but it has at least another bit of size comparison going for it, plus the Libra sign on the back of her trousers And I think I'm getting the face close enough to right.

[AggieJanicot]

I like my anthros to be more... anthro than furry (and yes, this may start up that old debate again).... this was my first sketch for Gothia after the Foxfire Chronicle's upgrade