Aaaaaand I'm Back!

Whoa... I know, I've been absent from here for - what, five months? Five months!!! How crazy is that?!

Well, the explanation to that is... life. Life had occurred. Another big project of mine has taken up a lot of my time and energy and promotions at work kind of got in the way of this project temporarily. Although I've been drawing art related to this project and posting elsewhere, this blog is supposed to be the main base of this project; and no, I haven't dropped it. ;) If anything, I've been focusing more on story, background characters, and working on environments. All of which will be posted here in the near future.

Until I organize those posts however, have some pieces that were done mostly for fun. :) Although some of them do have a slight back story.

These contain some spoilers so don't read if you don't want that!

In my universe, Sonic, Antoine, and the Freedom Fighters do not know each other nor do they live in the same lands. Sonic and his adopted brother, Tails, live on a tropical floating island; while Antoine lives in an inclosed oasis in a desert and the FF live in a massive biotech forest. Well, slight correction, Antoine does know the Freedom Fighters, but has not seen them in a long time and specifically chooses not to for reasons I will not spoil. ;)

Despite being one of the shortest and stockiest of the bunch, he's actually the most physically flexible. With Sonic and Antoine being equal matches in slightly different areas.

I've always thought it would be kind of cool to have Max as the energetic one and Armand as the reclusive and more quiet of the trio, that trio being: Max, Armand, Ian. Armand's personality and past are heavily inspired by my mother's young personality and most of her past, which actually builds a large plot element with Armand in the future that is more close to the present.

But this piece takes place in a past before any real troubles affected Max or Armand and they were, for the most part, kids without a care in the world. In this particular piece, this is before they become close friends.

This was drawn after visiting a friend of mine from Dreamworks. His children were such a pleasure that their present and my past have been molded to form Antoine's before things end up going horribly wrong in the future for him and everyone involved. :(

I've only drawn Bunnie twice, and my has she changed... Odd that she ended up looking like my good friend, Dana. Accident, I promise! 

Bunnie has been renamed Jackie and is a hare/rabbit for many serious puns... Jack Rabbit, "Bunnie" Rabbit, and she likes hair. Haaaaaaah - I'm lame.

While I was away I've apparently been evolving. For the better though! So yaaaaaay. Compare the old art to the new. His back story changed a lot and I do mean a LOT. When I eventually get to this point of hte comic, and it has passed, I will probably go into detail how much his personality, purpose, and past have changed from my original concept. He's normally not this emo. But in this particular case he has a good reason for sobbing. Again, it's one of those plot elements I wont entirely spoil. But this conceptual incident takes place a few days before Sonic and he meet.

Armand Evolution

Armand! Who knew that such a vague character would become a favorite of mine. :) Similar to Antoine and Geoffrey; he was doodled just for shits and giggles when I first drew him. There was no story, no plot, and no consideration to his character and development of such.

But of course as time progressed he became more and more fleshed out when it comes to his nature and overall demeanor. Through baby steps of course but he eventually got there. :D A lot of his personality was based on the traumatic events of my mom's childhood; while the way he copes with trauma in his later life was inspired by my two uncles on my my mother's side.

And of course; when the tone or personality changes, the design and style generally reflects that change so for the sake of talking his actions seriously within the scenarios they're presented in; he became more muscular with a face that has a more demanding presence.

Originally Armand had a straighter chin with no scoop; but I wanted him to more closely resemble his son so I mixed that around a bit to where he's still his own character but shows some genetic semblance.

His finale design doesn't reflect what he looks like in terms of his past life and experiences. In my story he doesn't appear until much later and so this look actually is his design for that point in the story. But if you want to know what he looked like beforehand (such as the above) just imagine him without the scars and a more calm/confident expression. :)

On another note the Russians within the D'Coolette family have a golden fur color, shorter ears, and thick muzzles. The French, however, tend to have fur ranging from dark brown to black, longer ears, and slender muzzles. Other Mobian coyotes have fur that's gray/brown with the lighter coat being whiter.* Of course genetically things can bounce around. Which explains why Dagre (who's half Russian) has a French phenotype but his son (who's a quarter Russian) has a Russian phenotype. And why Antoine (who's 5%ish Russian) has a slender French build but Russian fur color.

* If I am not mistaken the common hair color for Russians in rl are variants of blonde while a common hair color for French is dark blond to dark brown.