Friday, September 30, 2011

Size Chart

Size charts for several of the species. :) Each sheet had three characters that took all of 2min or each sheet. They were done on very small pieces of paper; no bigger than post its.


There are of course weird things going on here; mostly head size, if the head is too big there's an "s" pointing to it to ensure that those are made smaller on actual models. 

Here's Geoffrey's finished size and clothing chart. Antoine is next then Tails and Sonic. :D

Shapes And Sizes : Geoffrey

Almost every character has their own unique anatomical structure in terms of build (of course) and for the sake of consistency and practice, I wanted to do some studies of characters I thought I've established pretty well. (ie those with head turn sheets) Also want to apologize in advance for these being so mechanical; they're just to figure out proportions, clothing, ect.



Skunks have very downy fur so I wanted that to show on his shoulders and tail. It's not in the chest area though because skunks generally lack the same length of fur in that area. As a side note his dorsal marking fades from off white to a brown color as it gets towards the middle of his spine and tail base. It's mainly to keep his markings from looking too overwhelming.

I did some research on archers and realized the benefits of some of the tools the use. Although he has a crossbow I've always pictured him carrying a collapsible bow that he could use for larger targets. Because his fur could misdirect the strike or retard the speed; I thought it would be more logical for him to wear a bracer to prevent this. And instead of arrows for his crossbow he would use quarrels.

And yes, his left hand is purposefully white. :D It's based on a presumed color mistake I saw in an older issue once. But it works out really because his father was mostly an all white striped skunk (in my universe) while his mother was mostly black with muted white markings.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Geoffrey Evolution

This character evolved a lot faster than Antoine or the others. Maybe it's because he's a caniform and not as design oriented originally that he's allowed me to explore more in terms of design without feeling hindered.

When I first designed him I still wasn't thinking too much in terms of making any short stories or comics based on the franchise; I was still in the realm of doodling for kicks. So  he was originally drawn to be tall and light, almost feathery.

But when I really started to design the characters and get more serious about the forms of each species; he became heavier and stockier.

Skunks tend to have small heads and thick muscular bodies similar to their cousin; the badger. His jaw became more muscular, his muzzle thicker, and his chin longer. I deliberately gave his chest marking a shape similar to a shield symbolize his duty as a royal guard. And it also has the neat look of a pointed arrow head when he's fully erect. In terms of posture that is. :) 

This is the end result of what I'll most likely be sticking with. I went through three different muzzle shapes before settling on this one. But I think it suites his species and personality quite well.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Antoine Evolution

To be honest I don't know what inspired me to get so in depth with redesigning most of the characters from the Archie / Sat:AM universe; but if I had to pick one I have to say it would be Antoine. He has always been a favorite character of mine and so I think he is what sparked it. So below is a compilation of pieces from as early as late July to now that shows his evolution, mostly in chronological order of completion.


The first drawing of him. :) When I doodled this I was not really intending there to be a deeper darker story behind the character which is why he looks so much more goofy. To be honest, there was no story to begin with! This was drawn just for the heck of it.



By the time this was drawn I had been mulling around a back story for him that had more depth. From what I recalled in the original 100 issues of the comic not a whole lot was explored and little of it really explained his character. So this is where things stared to change in terms of design and background.

A lot of these facial expression still hold up to the model sheet that I've done recently. But you will see how his design changed from this image to the one below. And you can see why it's always important to do a model sheet before doing expression sheets. Hahaha.... LESSON LEARNED.




This piece actually has a story behind it; which will be left out for now but you can find the story here if you want to read it. :)


I was irked by the lack of believable aging you see in Archie comics, so I had my shot with that here. And now you can see how different his above child version is to this one. Lol...



Ignore the dead eyes I do a lot of model sheets like this to make sure everything aligns correctly. Welp! This is mostly his finale design. He looks more dorkish and if need be, paranoid which better suits his character.

The below pieces were two experimental things to A. see how his jaw would move and where his teeth would be placed ect. and the other was to see how fluidly they could move. They were both done before the above model sheet.







MXYL Kids

This is a project that I'm still wanting to finish despite the story in my arch not going this far or even exploring this concept. I hated how all the kids were clones of their parents with not genetic flow and to some extent; personalities. So here was my attempt to improve some things. These were all drawn in early August.

He's a lot like his father, maybe too much so... He's cocky like he is but lacks the humility when needed. He's very impatient, a bit of a whiner, and has a tendency to take on any challenge much to his determent. Despite this he's very loyal to his friends and tries his best not to annoy them.

I wanted him to be a different color than his dad so I took Sally's color and faded over an aqua greenish color. That way he had some fur mix between both his parents. When he gets older, he stays a bit more stocky and short compared to most other hedgehogs. (traits from his mom) He also has an unusually long tail and the brown around his eyes? That's the color of his broken dorsal stripe around the end of his tail. (also thanks to him mom's side) and as a joke people call him "Manik the shrew" much to his chagrin.
Sonia is the younger sibling and twin of Manik. She's way more girly than her mother but still has her no BS streak especially from her brother who loves to pester her.

Although she's just as impatient, she's a bit more cautious and wary than her brother and a bit smarter to. She knows when she's incapable of doing something and is more willing to hesitate in a serious situation. Sonia doesn't like to get dirty at all and she would much rather jam out on her guitar. She seems to have inherited Maxamillion's gift for gab because she never seems to shut up.

She inherited big eyes, bigger nose, ears, and extremely short tail from Sonic. Her brown eyes, small hands, and long hair are from her grandmother (Sally's mom).

He normally wears a translucent fencing mask but I took it off so you could better see his face.

Jacque is an easy going mellow kind of guy, confident but not a jerk-face about his abilities. He's also proved to be very paternal and often doesn't hesitate to look after his four younger siblings unlike his older sister Belle. He's also trilingual; English, Russian, and French.

Jacque was hard to do for some reason. I wanted him to be an even mix between Bunnie and Antoine but it was somewhat difficult due the high contrast in anatomy I gave the two species (you'll see Bunnie later). I decided to give him his mother's orange fur and his father's light peach mask. Other traits he got from his mom are his incredibly short tail, facial mask that reaches to the upper lids of his eyes, ear color (mixed) , dark eyelids, and short muzzle. He inhereted his eye color from his grandmother (Antoine's side).