I don't have freckles anymore

I did in the old day, which is where Bud gets his dashing good looks.

I wanted to play more with the t-shirt idea in the previous post, but I'm staying with my grandfather right now and we've go to clean up the house. (Mostly this means spraying off the pollen that's caked on he porch and calling hospice until they pick up everything.)

Instead, you get the rare cartoon attempt at me in a stupid t-shirt. With the faint hint of freckles for Precocious continuity.

Time After Time (Annelise)

Yes, she got her name from the R.E.M. song.

Annelise Ellen Rose, the painting may not honor you fully, but it's oddness is fully appropriate. You are a woman who is described as being slightly out of proportion at every attribute, leading to a face that is reasonably attractive, yet with something wrong about it. The painting lives up to a woman who is confident in herself, but hiding a physical awkwardness. (She also wears corrective,clunky shoes and has those thick glasses.)

Adding strips to the shirt was a risk, but I think it paid off. To me it looks like a strange knit sweater worn by a librarian or something. Hey! Annelise *is* a glorified librarian! Sweet! We're done here.

On to Sebastian, who may or may not get a separate post. (It depends on how much gets done before I fall asleep.)

I swear I'll get back to Precocious stuff soon enough, but these paintings have been waiting for MONTHS! Also, I got spoiled with my big HDTV monitor. Working on the strip just isn't as entertaining on the laptop alone. If you still need a Precocious fix, click on my DeviantArt link on the right and go buy a print or something. Some fine art is available there too!

Edit: Here he is!



Late night artistry took hold here, and I kinda like it. Sebastian is wearing a cloak that reflects his surroundings, which is a fair interpretation of his character. He's a performer, so his pay depends on reading his crowd and adapting to their tastes. As an information hound and gossip, he also makes a point of absorbing all "local flavor" he can. When you're the stranger in a new town every night, it's best to know as much as you can. Without social savvy, the predators out there will get you.

The diamond theme on his clothing (it'll be made clearer with red oxide soon) is part of the Maquette story. Sebastian is somewhat of a martinet. He will accept any restriction on freedom the law gives him, because without protection from the law a constant traveler is akin to ripe fruit on the vine. Law is society, and some sacrifices are needed for a greater freedom. He'll go nuts right up until things get iffy, then he shuts it all down. Even being suspected of breaking the law is bad news for him, because who trusts the guy who strolled into town, did some tricks and then passed around a collection hat?

Also, THE GODDAMN INTERNET HAS DIED EACH TIME I'VE GONE TO HIT "POST" TONIGHT! *waits 10 minutes* *posts*

That teenage feeling

You know those sketches withheld two days ago? The ones I thought had the potential to destroy ones faith in a just and loving universe? Well, I redrew them... and I'm still rather uncomfortable with the concept. BUT, this is one of those cliches. If you have a comic with kids, you have to draw them all grown up. So, I present to you... PROM-AGED GENIUSES!

This is all TOTALLY non-canon, of course...



So here we have our heroes... fairly unravaged by age. It's not like I could augment Autumn much, since the joke is that she'll grow up to look EXACTLY like her mother. Autumn's distinguishing characteristic in her family is her strong "bends like copper wire" hair. At 18, she likely wants to restrain that a bit - resulting in a bulky Tiffany-esque braid.

Bud's sketch here isn't as good as the first one I did. But that one wasn't as large, so I had to go with this. The premise here is that, although he's identified as the independent character formed by an absence of parental supervision, he cannot escape genetics. He's hit a growth spurt, making him the tallest of the six pictured here, and he might just end up closer to his daddy's size than anyone could expect. (At this point, my 5'11" self would like to give those doctors, who said I'd never top 5'7" because I was too tiny as a kid, a hearty IN YOUR FACE!) The earlier aged Bud sketch gave him a more teen-friendly hairstyle and it had more of the "maturing male cat" feel to it. (In a non-creepy fashion.) It was already obvious Bud's hair and ears come from his mommy, but the secret specter that haunts him now is her love of video games! Bud fought against it all his life, but that's her old DS he's playing! Mwa ha ha!



Now things get slightly odd. Roddy's no surprise, since he appears to have just grown in size and not matured in personal style at all. How, uh, creative of me. No, his distinguishing look here is his football uniform and clipboard in hand. Anyone who knows the game knows what that means: Backup quarterback! On a likely-weak high school team! Oh, destiny!

Jacob. Oh my. The poor child has finally snapped and gone... emo? There was a time when "I live in a spiritual vacuum" was a punchline and not a tedious and oft-repeated conversation filler/killer. His outfit is meant to look like a hybrid between militant religious garb... and a fast food restaurant uniform. Is there no better symbol for high school "philosophers"?



And here I am both amused and disturbed. I enjoy the neckline reversal on display here. Dionne now wears the bell collar and Suzette sports the heart on her... uh... suddenly ample chest. (You are allowed to shudder here.) Yes, the joke here is that Suzette grew up to be tall, shapely and sexy... SO FUCK FEMINISM! Everyone pays attention to her now! The joke is funny enough to me that I went ahead and drew cleavage on a character normally drawn as a 9-year-old. Oh yeah, she's only 17 here; so if you like the sketch for any reason other than humor, that's one more personal problem you can add to the list.

On the other side, Dionne hasn't taken up the militant mantle. I think she wears the bell just to point out the Suzettian Hypocrisy. Otherwise, I gotta admit the 18-year-old Dionne turned out to be extremely adorable. This is the sketch that made me toss aside a loss of youthful magic and go ahead with the sharing.

So where are Tiffany and Max? For Max, I ran out of sketchbook space. (Unfortunately, drawing older Suzette took multiple tries.) Also, Max isn't a character likely to change over time. He'd still be bigger than the rest, just with more adult proportions. Ooh! For Tiffany, I know her future fate in this decidedly non-canon world... and I'm not telling! It's something so funny that I won't let myself treat this post as a purge... instead there's a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE this could just be a staging area. (If my strip has a long run, I've debated having "non-canon weeks" when I could toss out all my normal discretion and brutally drop the fourth wall on top of my unsuspecting cast.)

The third dimension is the worst

When working in a flat medium, showing depth can at times be damned difficult.

If I point my finger directly at you, all you see is a hand floating in front of me, as the rest of the arm is blocked. You know the arm is there, since you just saw it go up into the pointing motion. (Imagine the Donald Sutherland Body Snatches point here.) In a flat picture, you don't see the past of the figure - all you get is what you are given. Sure, chances are there's an arm behind that hand, but you can't be sure!

Worse is foreshortening, when the laws of perspective kick an artist's ass. If arm swings side to side, that's easy since it's the same length no matter the pose. If said arm begins swinging back and forth, things get dicey. Shading helps in most media; but what if one is working with something not conducive to shading... like pen and ink? Without lots of detailed crosshatching, an arm extending into the foreground looks like a strange, malformed appendage. The artist has to be an expert inker (I'm not) or pray the reader figures out what things look odd. For someone at my skill level, this means a lot of somewhat robotic, flat poses. Straight arms go out or down, as any change in depth looks like a mutation. Bent arms are drawn so the viewer can see the proper arm length - even if foreshortening is called for.

Traditional laws of perspective don't always work in cartooning. In motion, body parts get hidden by other body parts all the time, but we know they'll be back. In a static cartoon image, the natural look becomes unnatural. The cartoonist has to tweak perspective to let the viewer know the missing parts are there.

For faces, it's like folding the hidden side of the face out. If a character has bangs, you show the bangs for both sides of the face in the drawing, even though the far side should be hidden from view. Same with ears; the far ear would be hidden or appear as a small point over the hair, but a cartoonist has to draw the second ear fairly prominently. When these things are analyzed, it is horribly incorrect - but to the eye it looks more acceptable than the technically correct drawing.

Once again, tonight started with an impromptu colored pencil drawing. This time, the subject was the supposedly-elusive Sydney Oven. Considering how many times she's shown up on this blog, I think she's losing her mystique.

The pose I picked is one that involves a mass of perspective faith. I was challenging myself to let go and see if it worked.

Should the right ear be drawn or left off? With the Scottish fold thing, it means the ears are often borderline in that they might or might not be seen. It's far too easy to draw in the hint of the back ear, even when it shouldn't be there, to give artistic confirmation that it is indeed there. There's also the issue of the visible ear, which is presented in a flat manner so I could easier draw the earrings. This is incorrect, but does it work visually?

Sydney has short hair that is usually pulled back in a small ponytail. Again, I feel a great need to draw the ponytail because otherwise people might assume her breezy Bud-like part is all there is. I had been towing with lengthening her hair to get around the issue, but sometimes there is still no way the ponytail would be seen. Like the ear, the ponytail is hidden.

I had passed two tests at that point, but I just could not let that hidden arm stay hidden. Putting the fist playfully touching the shoulder is one thing, as a reader should realize the arm is hidden by the body and jacket, but I was not content to leave it alone. Instead I drew a hint to the rest of the arm, which was meant to show the fist got to the shoulder via elbow and not mutation. Problem is... the unnatural arm length is now put in play. I should have hidden the sleeve or allowed the arm to be hidden completely.

Sydney's left appendages show the good and choke job of foreshortening. Her left arm looks perfectly natural as it implies a bit of depth to the limb. The leg, however, is where I got scared. In a pose that is twist, I drew the leg as if it was on a two-dimensional plane. It should have tapered a bit to indicate the foot was extending into the background. Instead, I was forced to draw a "wall" into the background to hint that the awkward position might be due to her foot resting against an object. The other left also became a straight up and down affair due to my perspective fuck up. It could have also shown dynamic movement, but instead it had to be static to show she was twirling in place rather than moving through space.

It was good practice to take on a sketch like this. This was also supposed to be a test of coloring, but that became rather secondary. For that, I'll say she wasn't originally meant to have red hair - I used the wrong pencil - but it's not too bad and I may go with it.

I hope I explained well enough why this drawing was far more complex that it appears. Almost every element was challenge due to the conflict between what was technically correct and what was visually correct. Some treatments were successes and some ventured into hieroglyphics territory. People know the ancient Egyptian portraiture style involved rendering everything flat and front-facing even if the figure was in profile, right? It's somewhat comforting to know the same cartooning tricks used now have been around for thousands of years. It's not failure - it's historical homage!

Lessons learned via aftermath

I decided to try another colored pencil sketch and the character of the day was the dreaded teacher, Bette Monster! Mwa ha ha!

This a rare casual shot. As we all know, seeing one's teacher out in the wild is a frightening experience. The whole authoritarian mystique is destroyed. Bette sometimes shows up at the Et house to hang out. The conflict has clearly left her psyche shattered.

In a class of genius psychopaths, Bette has learned the best she can do is let the kids go and try to nudge them in the right direction. Direct opposition results in war wounds. Using their personalities against them: Sadistically satisfying!

This was the first attempt at coloring, and only when I finished the drawing did I look up what collies actually look like. I have the coloring wrong! My god, if we can't trust walking, talking, clothed cartoon animals to have natural coloring... what can we believe in?

Just as I simplified my calico (Tiffany) and tabby (Sky), I'm going to have to let my inappropriate collie coloring to stand. That, or I can just not do my typical hatching in drawings to indicate shading in Bette. I guess we'll find out when I get to the comics.

My god, what have I done!?

The thing about designing unique characters with their own set of physical quirks is that, when one is not paying attention, doodles end up being some unfortunate hybrid that don't match anyone!

It's all about the fluffiness! My cartoon characters all have some sort of fluffiness represented in their cheeks. Some fluff points are rounded, some are sharp. If I'm not sketching with any purpose, I let the pencil decide what I'll do. I'll draw the basics of a face and then decide which character is being drawn. Buuuut, the problem with lazy drawing is muscle memory seems to even things out and make me draw a face that is between the pointy and rounded. It doesn't match up well with anyone, so I either have to force it to be someone, use the eraser to correct the sketch to death or draw a random character.

This sketch went wrong early. It clearly wasn't a Bud, and the face was too masculine to be turned into Tiffany... so I decided to draw the "missing link" character between the two families. Shortly after I started I realized the missing link is not supposed to look like the kids, but like their FATHERS. D'oh. So, hey, fuck it, LET'S MAKE A CREEPY HYBRID OF MY MAIN CHARACTERS! It's highly disturbing.

To blather on, let me explain the subtleties of cheek fluff:

The general rule is kitty cheeks are rounded and doggy cheeks are pointy. It's the degree of the point that subtly differentiates between the characters.

Bud: His cheeks are the most obvious, as they are very round. The fluff *should* point down.

Autumn: Her cheeks are pointy and wider. They can droop a bit depending on her mood, but the normally pointy personality means normally pointy cheeks. Over time, I've scaled her cheeks back for cuteness, but we'll see how that plays.

Jacob: In theory his cheeks are the same as Autumn's, but his varies far more often. This is partly because it's somewhat easy to force my accidental hybrids into Jacobs, and partly because Jacob's impressionable nature softens his facial features.

Tiffany: This is probably impossible for anyone but be to notice, but Tiffany's cheeks and jaws are drawn with a different motion than the rest. In theory, she is supposed to have an angular jaw with smaller-than-average round points. In practice, they look like every other kitty's cheeks. Both lack of technique and affinity for cuteness bring her more into the norm. This does explain why I keep screwing up Tiff's jawline, at least.

Suzette: Of all the doggies, her cheeks are the most rounded. The motions for the basics of Suzette's face closely resemble Bud's. Suzette is also a good default for when I screw up a face, since the bangs and ears override everything.

Dionne: Her face should be halfway between Bud and Suzette. Since I need more cheek space for spots, the roundness helps.

Max: His cheeks should have Autumn's width and Jacob's slight rounding. I should note here that all my best Max drawings are accidental and that it's very hard for me to draw him on cue.

Roddy: Initially, the hybrid cheeks were meant for Roddy, but I'm starting to sour on it. If I'm not careful, Roddy's face looks fat because when a black outline is filled with black it stops being an outline and just becomes thickness. I'm trying to get around this by drawing him with the Tiffany technique. I really won't know what works best until I've put him down in ink a few more times.

If you're still reading at this point, I'm impressed. I find it fascinating that so much thought was put into what are nearly imperceptible variations in features - but this might only because I find *myself* so fascinating.

The Ice Queen

Aside from a few minor tweaks here and there, my Dania painting is done. I dunno if you like it, but those background windows are exactly what I wanted to paint. The end result is fairly successful when it comes to painting an intriguing freak of nature. w00t!

My other painting goal today was to salvage Millie, but I'm at the point where I think it's time to break out the gesso and cover up most of what's there. Like many of my recent paintings, the initial placement of the figure ended up conflicting with the pose I wanted. I should be able to salvage Moreh in an Ang Lee making Hulk point of way - that is, hide all the poorly-rendered details in shadow - but Millie's going to need a new pose.

I pulled out my old almost-classing Risk Key 70's temptress and began trying to tighten up the composition. The final, should I get this project going again, will likely never match the coolness of the first sketch, but I see potential.

On the plate for tonight: Trying to turn a photo of Andrew's furry paws holding scissors into Annelise's rosy fingers holding a pretty dagger. Wish me luck.

Awkwardly painting is not the same as painting awkward

I am still slugging away at my genetic freak characters.



Annelise is coming along well enough. Every single thing in this painting need to be retouched, but that's in line with my earlier description of her character so I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm just happy to present a step with more accurate colors.

She is decidedly less blue for this step, which is a positive. Whenever I use blue for initial sketch, I am inviting disaster. Blue made sense for Dania and the other painting. Blue made NO sense for Annelise. Still, when doing the basic layers I use whatever paint I have at the time, so blue it was! With this painting, I am glad to see the blue almost entirely eradicated. Annelise's compliment color is GREEN. I felt the need to hammer that home by tossing in that bit of background. Green good. Blue bad.

When I abandoned the painting on the easel last night, her eye color was still blue and the one on the right was missing completely. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a one-eyed chick looking directly at me. Creepy. The eyes have come a long way since, but they're going to look a bit disjointed until I go back to add more color to the face. More flesh tone will anchor them in place - particularly on the recently-added right eye - and the thick black line under her eye will be muted dramatically. When doing these touch-ups, I expect to make her lips a bit fuller as well.

Even with this progress, I may be tabling this painting for a bit. It's all because of that damn necklace. In the story, the necklace holds a great deal of significance. Once Annelise receives it, her character really takes off. And I mean that more literally than figuratively. There's another key item that comes into Annie's possession when she gets the necklace: An ornate jeweled knife.

Since I like where the painting is going, I am going to aim high and include that knife. To do so, it requires me painting a fairly complex pose with her hands - and my record with hands is not stellar. Anyone want to be a hand model for me?



Painting Dania, on the other hand, has been a struggle. It was only in the most recent pass when I finally started to think I could pull it off. Once her lips and the eye on right are pushed back, I think the real Dania will finally shine through.

The implant/crown-thing and dress are still on step one of treatment. Like the lace trimming on the dress? Dania's introduction has her wearing an ill-fitting babydoll/nightgown dress that only emphasizes her physical abnormalities. (Instead of lace the dress was ruffled, but I felt that wouldn't work with the composition.) I'm not going so far as to make it *really* awkward, as that would make the painting suck. I just want to *hint* at the real Dania (and Annelise, for that matter) while making a painting that can stand alone with its quality.

Edit: Because I'm too scared to continue with painting for now, I want to talk about backgrounds.

I've been looking over the paintings and contemplating my decision to depict the women based on events inside the story. If I wanted to be really accurate, I'd match up the backgrounds as well.

For Annelise, there is only one possible moment when she would turn to someone, wearing the necklace, and show off the knife. It would be during her final goodbye after her resignation. She is given the necklace the morning of her departure, along with some important advice on how to use the necklace. Armed with that knowledge, Annelise would return to her boss' office and "borrow" the knife. As she exited the office, she would pass by the original owner of the necklace, stop and briefly flash the knife. This scene will not appear in the story, as it is redundant. We already know the motivations from the necklace scene. We know she went back from the knife because she pulls it out later. Still, the scene does happen, so I can paint it!

OK, so Annelise is in an office space at the time of the pose. The background already started is a textured green. That's a problem, right?

ACTUALLY, I managed to luck the fuck out! You know that office space? It's designed to resemble a forest glade. THE WALLS ARE PAINTED GREEN! Woohoo! Yay for prescient artistic choices! The idea for the forest-themed office was to have the walkways in the office space made of blue carpet to resemble a stream - implying those elite enough to enter the office actually walk on water. Incidentally, this means Annelise is facing southwest for this pose. The northern wall of the office is painted green. The southern side is a progression of windows with potted plants. I love that I know details like this!

For Dania, putting in an accurate background would require a change. The circle thing was meant to hint at the mandala-like discs she creates as part of her "summoning" - I won't bore you with details. Anyway, the scene I am depicting in the Dania painting is one of the few I've actually written out. Here it is:

On first impression, most who meet her find her to be striking—which is not always a compliment. Physically, she was extremely thin, which was only highlighted by her height. In truth, she was no taller than your average woman, but the width was simply not to scale. This disparity was quite apparent today, thanks to her high heels, periwinkle skirt and an ill-fitting sleeveless ruffled tan top. Her outfit provided a stark contrast to the administrator, who was wearing his long official rob, deep blue as a base and embroidered with maroon and gold. Reaching Gar, she stopped abruptly, causing her loose curls to bounce, and stood formally waiting for the administrator to turn from his window, looking like a very polite ghost.

With the angle shown in the painting, Dania's background would be the windows of the hallway. You know, those windows are very doable. Sweet!

This means Dania is facing northwest in the painting. It also means the scene takes place around 5:30-6pm. Heh. If the painting extended farther down, you'd see a loaded clipboard in her right hand resting against her skirt. Another note: When I first conceived of painting my characters, I was going to use this exact scene - but with Gar Strickland as my focus instead. Then I realized painting dudes was not as much fun.

Back to the easel

For some reason, I'm on a painting kick. When this happens, one must not fight it!

These paintings, while still consisting of chicks, makes a new direction that, frankly, scares the bejeebus out of me. I am painting fictional characters. MY fictional characters.

One of my long-term goals in life is to get my act together as a writer. I have stories of all sorts in my head - even in several formats! I have movies, novels, short story collections, graphic novels, plays and TV shows all bouncing about inside my brain. (Oh, and a comic strip, but you might have known that already.) Scariest part: If given the chance, I could tell you everything about them. My problem is that I never learned how to write. In hindsight, it makes sense due to my broken brain - but even with medication the best I can do is write a few pages before I wander off to pace around the room/yard/whatever. My writing folder is filled with documents that are a page and a half (10-point font, single spaced) and often end mid-sentence. How pathetic is that?

I'm a verbal creator. I talk to myself as I pace. I work things out this way. When I sit in front of a computer, the best I can do is throw out whatever I have on the surface-level of my brain and write until something distracts me. (Sometimes, like in this post, I write my distraction and hope the point eventually gets in there.) The problem isn't the same with art, as I am free to get up and bounce around the room as I work. I can flip the canvas/paper, move myself around to work from a different angle or even sprint around the studio to get out excess energy - while keeping my work in the corner of my eye. Writing is...sitting down and just writing. Weird.

Let me tell you that these posts often go through several revisions. (You'll when I *don't* go back to revise because the post is full of typos and makes little sense.) The joy of blogger is that editing doesn't show in the timestamp. Woohoo! Also, blogs tend to favor unfocused rambling. You'll note everything I've written outside of the first four sentences was not something I intended to write. I do this all the time. Only sometimes do I have the proper sense of shame to make me delete the blather.

Anyway! With me and writing, I know my stories inside and out. My tendency is to juggle several fully-formed characters, allowing their personalities to move the plot. This means that, if allowed, I can talk for HOURS on end about some hundred or so characters. Yeah.

My grand piece of writing is my most ambitious: Maquette, a story I call my opera! The characters in the paint sketches below all hail from Maquette. While they will hardly be definitive portraits - as with my painting the style is the main thing - I will do my best to capture what I can of these gals. It's weird to not that the first two characters I decided to take on are both noted for having physical abnormalities. Guess I just like to make things hard for myself.

You can also see more of how my paintings develop, as each painting is at a different stage. The first has had three passes to start figuring out the details. The second is on its second pass, starting to tweak the weakness from the initial sketch. It's still raw as hell and makes me cringe to share it. The last is the very first pass, showing how awkward and awful these things can look when I start 'em. You know what, I'm not going to show that last painting! It's not looking good, it may be scrapped, the character isn't a physical freak like the other two and - most importantly - showing that this character exists would be a *major* spoiler for my story. Those close to me already know the gal, but I have to think of future readers here.



This is Annelise Ellen Rose. Yes, she *does* introduce herself to people using her full name. In her defense, the Rose surname in insanely common in her area. She lives in the city of Rostelmain, in the territory of the same name. Rostelmain's name came from the merging of three towns: Tellersburg, Main Crossing and Roseton. A third of the territory is called Roseland. If you're a Rose - heh, A. Rose - you've got to do *something* to be memorable!

As noted several months ago on this blog (I'm sure you remember) I always want to put librarians into my stories. Annelise is my librarian on steroids - she runs the Maquette Archives, home of just about every bit of information the land has to offer.

Increasing the pressure: She's one of my all-time favorite characters. The woman is a force of nature. She is aggressive, ambitious and unrelenting in her pursuits - with a sharp sense of humor and no patience for weakness. When describing her personality, most characters would liken her to a wild animal. One would think a fox would appropriate, given that she's a striking redhead - but the general consensus is that a more vicious class of wild dog is needed. You know, she's a bitch. I love her. Underneath her tough exterior, she's... well, she's still a bitch - But a complex and deep character nonetheless!

Annelise is loosely modeled on Julianne Moore with a heavy dose of Kate Walsh. (I imagine Annelise speaking with the same cadence as Walsh's Addison on Grey's Anatomy.) As for the aforementioned physical abnormalities, the common description of Annelise is that every physical attribute of hers is out of proportion - but since it's all out of whack it somehow evens out! She has a slightly larger frame than normal women - just enough to be noticeable - with a strong bone structure supporting her. Her shoulders and hips are too broad. Her arms are more muscular than they should be. Her face is slightly out of sync, but not in a way one can explain. She wears giant, clunky corrective shoes that throws off her gait. Still, what could be a Frankenstein's monster thing still leaves her fairly attractive, if somewhat awkward. She has big honkin' glasses, yet they seem to be the key to make everything come together and look normal. This type of description gets imaginations going when put in novels. When I put MYSELF on the line to depict it? Fuck me, I'll do the best I can.



Next is Dania Koren, director of the Wizards School. (Yes, my characters are magical. Shut up!) In my world, on of the great saints, Charlotte Maquin, is quoted in the scripture as saying the more power a human has, the less human they become. The more ability a person has, the less humanity they exhibit. Dania seems to be a living example of this.

To an outsider, one would not believe Dania is a real person. She looks like a doll; with oversized eyes, porcelain skin and a disturbingly-thin frame. To add to the artificial look, she has a cranial implant that wraps around her hairline, looking somewhat like a permanent (if modest) crown bolted in place. She talks in a soft voice, almost in monotone. She *never* shows emotion, and her huge eyes seem to look right through you. It's like she has so much magic inside her that no room remains for humanity. And yet, she's loved by most around her. What gives?

Just because it's muted, doesn't mean her personality isn't there. Once people get to know her, they are no longer frustrated with her flat nature. Instead, they savor every hint of personality Dania can offer. Eliciting a slight smile is a victory. If she raises her voice at you, it's terrifying. The day she confirmed her place as a beloved figure was the day she embraced the students' nickname of her - "The Ice Queen" - and showed up to work with her white hair dyed ice blue. On her most recent birthday (she's 44) a large group of students dyed their hair to match. (I should note that in my stories there is a genetic quirk with some mages that causes some or all of their hair to grow in without pigment - so students often dye their "silvered" patches various wild colors.)

I really struggled to find a model for Dania. Trial and error has shown that launching into painting without *some* picture reference tends to end in horror. The final painting might not look at all like the picture - in fact it shouldn't, since the work has to be my own - but it's nice to have a reference for proportions. To find my model, I scoured the internet for over an hour. I looked for skinny models. I looked for porcelain dolls. I looked at anime characters, since Dania definitely has an anime look. No good. Nothing had Dania's signature ringlets hair style.

And then I smacked myself in the face. You know whose hair is similar to the style I want for Dania? NUMBER SIX FROM BATTLESTAR GALACTICA! You know, the show that has consumed my life for the past few weeks. Shesh, Chrispy! The model was right in front of me the whole time.

Damn, I can yammer on. I know I've said it before, but blogging is like having a conversation without have the other person there to tell you to shut the fuck up because no one cares.

Webcam Supervillains

Ok, so it's not quite a scanner, but I can still capture the bigger drawings in recognizable fashion. That's all I need, baby.

Following the lead of Doctor Oven, here are the other two initial sketches for Autumn and Tiffany's villain identities.




Autumn is... The Scarlet A! Originally, I wanted to turn her mask into an A-shape, but that did not prove feasible when dealing with big cartoon eyes. I also stuck an A on her forehead at first, but decided the "joke" behind two A's appearing on her outfit even though her name implies "The...A" was far too weak. Overall, the joke with this outfit is Autumn's woeful naming ability. Not only does her identity unintentionally label her as an adulterer, but she also named the "Super Villain Union" - or SVU. There's not another well-known SVU, is there? (Something about victims?) Visually, I'm not sure what sort of pizazz to add to her outfit. I was tempted to put her in a catsuit look that all evil chick villains seem to get, but that is for foxy ladies...not fox girls.



Tiffany, the Chaotic Butterfly, has once again confused "evil" with "adorable" - something I tend to do, myself. Originally she was going to have tiny unambitious wings - but, like bows on Dionne's pageant outfit, they would not be visible from standard comic angles.

Do you see the mistake in this drawing? I'll wait while you guess. Or read ahead to the next sentence. Yes, Tiffany is too tall! This is a mistake I do a lot. See, Autumn's dress ends at her knees; so I grow accustomed to drawing girl legs from the knee down. Tiffany's dress goes *beyond* the knees. If I'm not paying attention, I just do the Autumn treatment for Tiffany and give her a second pair of kneecaps. I mean, the girl's an oddball, but it's more brain wiring than Tick-level villainous genetic absurdity. Tiffany's tendency to have her tail wrapped in front of her legs only makes things worse, as I want to leave enough space to keep the legs and feet well defined. Why do all my little touches in characterization undermine my drawing ability?