The faces of evil

Finished up the back to school strips today, which gives me a week backlog! This puts me father ahead than 90% of web cartoonists!

Next up is a few strips that revisit the supervillain idea. If all goes as planned, it'll be a nice bite-sized bit of enjoyment for new readers... which, at this point, is every reader I will have in the world save, like, two.

Before I sit down and draw the strips, which require a strong amount of competency to pull off, I've got to sketch a bit to see what costumes work. What you see here may or may not be the final outfits.

Here's who we have:

Bud - Dr. Oven
Suzette - Mylytant Femynyst
Autumn - The Scarlet A
Tiffany - Chaotic Butterfly
Jacob - Some Guy
Roddy - Le Chat Noir (even though he's no longer all black...)

It's like those Star Wars DVDs...

It's the same old material but NEWLY RESTORED for HIGHER QUALITY! I took my webcam-shot sketches and gave them the proper scanner treatment. Just be glad I'm not Photoshopping Hayden freakin' Christensen as a ghost in the background.



Recycled material can be very enriching if done right. A good director's commentary or extra production notes can make a rehash a great thing! What I'm saying here is... I got nothin' new to say about this particular sketch.



I did the best I could to shorten Tiffany's legs with Photoshop. It's still not enough, but a moral victory.



I really should salvage this sketch and turn it into a t-shirt design in the future. The caption will be the "Unrestrained Creativity" title I used for the post. Photoshop was handy for making the paint look better. That's something that will be much easier to do with India ink. And a brush. Fuck, I need to learn how to ink with a brush!



This is also a potential t-shirt design. Heck, if I actually succeed with this damn comic strip, it would make a great first book title!



This sketch is still crap. Ahh well, I tried.

Oh, and I'm not scanning the bear sketch. Fuck that bear!

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?