Category: Art

30 Characters Challenge #5 – Swordcat

Name: Leon Smith / Lenxoli, aka Swordcat
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Yellow
Skin Tone (fur): Gold

Leon Smith was a fairly ordinary man. Divorced with shared custody of his daughter, Melinda. He preferred to spend his time camping, hiking, and fishing, well away from people. It was on a camping trip that he found a strange sword in the debris from a recent landslide. He made the mistake of picking it up and found it had a personality of its own, Lenxoli.

Lenxoli had gone somewhat mad after the destruction of its home planet, floating in space for countless eons, and laying buried on Earth for millions of years. It wants nothing more in the universe than to recreate the civilization it came from. The first two steps, in whatever order necessary, are to destroy the hairless beasts and uplift the felines, the creatures that are most like its makers.

It meant to completely overwrite Leon’s mind, but didn’t quite succeed. An unexpected side effect was for Leon to change from a grumpy misanthropist to someone who wanted nothing more than back scratches, good food, and a nap in a sunny space.

The sword itself grows  from dagger size to full-length sword. (The two swords as drawn are in scale to each other, I believe). Lenxoli’s mind is connected to the sword which is usually kept in the mental institution freezer, which helps quiet Lenxoli. The staff otherwise find Leon quite pleasant to deal with, especially compared to many of the other inmates.

Swordcat is a villain for my comic series, The White Knight.

I was trying to find a way to make him look fuzzy without having to draw lots and lots of hair, because I’m don’t draw that fast and I need ways to get out pages of the comic (when I make it) without each page taking forever. I use Manga Studio. With Swordcat I tried using the Brush Pen which has a little bit of texture for his skin. It showed up better in the giant version (duh, I know). It wasn’t a successful method from the time saving stand point either, because to preserve the texture I had to paint in all the blacks – without completely blacking them in – instead of using the Fill tool. Oh well, I had fun.

The swords on the bottom were drawn several years ago, which is why they’re shaded. I’m trying to get away from that shading style because, again, it takes too long. And, yes, the eye on his back is correct. It shifts to stay upright. And it’s watching you.

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30 Characters – Swordcat (WIP)

He’s done except for deciding on the color of his pants. However, I’ve been staring at it too long to make a decision. Therefore, I’m putting up the color tests I’ve done and getting opinions.

The only things that can change is the pants and the legwraps/belts. Everything else is set. (The swords on the side are an old image, which is why they’re shaded and the main stuff isn’t. I’ll talk about it when I put up the final image).

(More added)

So, pick one. I’m leaning towards the aged bone belts and wraps and the dried blood pants (… he’s not a nice person exactly.)

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30 Characters Challenge #3 – Vermilion / Ronnie Boyd

Vermilion

Real name: Donald Boyd Jr. Goes by Ronnie.

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Brown

Skin tone: African American

Ronnie heals twice as fast as normal with no scarring. Aside from that, his supersuit makes him nearly invulnerable. He was given an old, worthless but pretty blanket by his archeologist uncle. When he wrapped himself in it, it transformed to a rubber-like suit that acts as a second skin. He added boots, a belt with pouch that holds essentials, and goggles with night-vision capabilities.

Ronnie is from a so-far untitled superhero romance I started in October. No idea when it’ll be finished, but one other character from it will be showing up for this. It’s been kind of frustrating, as my friends have heard, because I’m not going to do anything major with the story – I might put it up on the web somewhere, but that’ll be it. And yet it wouldn’t leave me alone when I should have been preparing for NaNoWriMo.

The images were made in Poser 7, using Michael 4, the free Nadino Mask, various other props, and a custom texture for the suit. Which isn’t perfect, but I ran out of patience to fiddle with it.

 

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Finished bookmarks

Those of you who follow me on Facebook have already seen pictures of the finished bookmarks. But those were crappy pictures taken on my messy desk with my phone. So, here’s all the bookmarks in the display boxes I made.

Why are there spoons? I was testing how it would work for the craft show on Saturday. The spoons are in case it’s windy, to weigh down the boxes.

I promise the next post will be vintage stuff, and I’ll be doing another Cocktail of the Night soon.

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Last of the bookmarks

Here’s the last of the bookmarks. Including color variations, this makes 15 designs, which I think is more than enough. I need to do a test print of all of them, make any needed changes, then buy ribbon and possibly beads for the tops. I’ll make five or ten of each for the show. They’re going to be cheap – probably two dollars each or three for five dollars.

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“Reading is My Favorite Adventure” – Craft show update

Sorry about disappearing. Been busy and not feeling well. I have another cocktail of the night entry just about ready to post, but first I thought y’all be interested in seeing some of the stuff I’ve done for the craft show. Those of you who are Facebook friends have seen the first draft of one of them.

I’ve got three designs done, two of which are in two colors. These are all bookmarks and I’ll be adding ribbons. I’m planning on charging one or two dollars a piece for them. I’ve got 29 other quotes to make bookmarks for – I might do art cards for some of them as well.

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