Wednesday, May 28, 2008

TCD Series, Character #2


"Absinthe, that famous green alcoholic beverage. Green will be a definite element."

With tulip and assembly, there was this imagery of a florally themed girl and a small group of sla.. I mean, helpers.

I looked into manufactured liquids, and figured it would best be a fantasy pharmacist. Looking further, I came across the word apothecary: a historical name for a medical practitioner who formulates and dispenses medical products. While absinthe is not exactly not made by medical people, I figured it would be a different thing if I were to give this to her.

With lots of bottles, there's bound to be carriers, small ones at that. And no doubt they would go butterfingers on precious liquids, resulting in an easily annoyed master. Anisa would openly expressed her discontent and frustration on the little green dudes.

The rest explains for themselves. Curves were something I wanted to play around with... as they work well with girls. Playing around with cartoony looks...

And here she is, Anisa Flamehart. :)

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Starting a Webcomic: Sandy and Cloudy

The Surrealist Theatre of Sandy and Cloudy is a webcomic idea I've had since last year, but I have no confidence before to start it. I've made its debut on MangaBullet, to try out its comics system. I have to say that it's really working great so far!

I love comedy stuff, and I've always wondered if I can pull off. Of course, if I've never tried, I would never know.

Anyway, the sketch is here,

...while the actual thing is inside this gallery.

Alright, I'm off~

Friday, May 16, 2008

TCD Series, Character #1


This is the first in my Themed Character Design series, a collection of character designs constructed using keywords that represent a theme. For starters: time, smoke, journey.

At conception, I needed a traveller imagery since 'journey' was part of the keywords. Quickly, the vision shows something like a lanky young assistant professor, a clumsy but likable idiot. It's one of those abstract character who are as smart as they are capable of very huge blunders (and that comes in the form of mismatched socks). As I started to give him steampunk-style aviator elements, I also added a little Union Pacific 618 train motif on him. The 618 has one of the defining looks of TRAIN. :D

With that element, the 'smoke' part is already defined, together with his smouldering scarf. As for the 'time' part, well, it's more infused into his briefly invented descriptions. A timeswalker. An early 20th century time traveller. To top it off, a hourglass-meets-kerosene-lamp becomes a part of his travelling equipment. The lantern is a traditional journey guiding tool, after all.

I've read once that strong constrasting shapes, with curves and straights helps a lot with creating a specific look. I experimented on that on the elements on Ment. The smoke contrasts with train-helmet; the flowing scarf and chest hubcap against the stiff jacket. Despite not having fantastical protrusions and layers upon layers of armour, I think Ment managed to maintain a nice silhouette. He looks so carefree in his pose as he throttles through his environs, and what worries do a time traveller have? They can be irresponsible for actions, if they wanted to.

I gotta try more of these TCDs later on!