Sep 032012
Aug 272012
This weekend as I was drawing my strips for the week, I realized how much I enjoy drawing Nektara now. I find that funny considering that a few months ago, I was thinking I would need to redesign her. In fact, my original plans for the trip to the Crimson Coast included Nektara deciding she wanted to change up her look.
Nektara is the only character I designed with hair and that made drawing her head more complicated than the other characters. Since I started sketching the comics first and then ink over the sketches, she’s a lot easier to draw. With the mash-ups, I’ve also played with giving the other girls some hairstyles. In fact, in the Firefly mash-ups that are coming up soon, all the girls have hairdos.
Since she’s a bear, Nektara has a thicker body than the other girls. I gave her the wide flaring collar to hide the junction between her head and body because without it she looked like she had no neck.
I’ve mentioned before that I created Nektara for a friend of mine. I’ve patterned some of her interests, namely her love of books and music, after my friend. I gave her a flute as a visual clue as to those interests. Problem being that I kept forgetting to draw the flute in her paw. It was really important that the flute be there because I was going to have Todrick reference it later in a storyline, so I would always have to go back and draw the flute in. Since that particular storyline I’ve decided that her flute exists in malletspace and she can pull it out as needed. Malletspace is a term I picked up somewhere to reference how anime characters are able to pull huge mallets out of thin air to clobber their rivals with. Really, it’s just a cover-up for my forgetfulness.
Nektara is the straight fur to the wackiness that goes on around her. Her job is to keep Todrick grounded. It seemed to me though that I was giving her all the sarcastic lines. I didn’t like that because I don’t want the character I created for a friend to be the mean character. I’m trying to spread the sarcasm around now.
A major development is coming up for Nektara in the Funnies in October. I just wrote it over the weekend and I’m looking forward to drawing it in the coming weeks. She’s also going to be the narrator for the thing I’ve got planned to start in September…that’s coming up soon. I’ve got to get back to drawing that in the near future.
Aug 222012
Welcome back to the Wednesday Mash-up.
For the last two weeks we’ve been looking at the heroes of Eternia, this week, we start looking at the villains. As I was drawing these, I realized how freaky some of the Masters of the Universe villains look.
First up, is Sassetor…or Skelesass, your pick. Normally, I try to keep the Animus characters’ natural colour, but blue is such a big part of Skeletor’s design, that I gave Sass a blue body suit. I like the shading and the lightning effects. I don’t know that it comes through in the finished drawing, but the idea is that Sass is wearing a Halloween mask.
Next up is Zoë as Webstor. I tried an action pose and while the pose is alright, I feel that you don’t really get a feel for Webstor’s design. Oh well. I gave her a blue body suit too to try to make it clearer who she’s supposed to be.
Next up is Evil-Nek. I’m starting to like playing with shading to make glowing effects. I like how the blue orb in her staff turned out. Not crazy about the dagger. I used pictures of the Masters of the Universe Classics toy line as reference pictures for the other mash-ups, but Evil-Lyn’s body is a straight-up repaint of Teela’s body and I didn’t want to redraw the same body, so I used Evil-Lyn’s 2000 redesign as a reference.
Now we move on to Deema-lash. Of all the Masters of the Universe mash-ups, this was the easiest casting decision to make. Whiplash is a lizard-man with a tail. Deema is a lizard-girl with a tail. I tried something new with the tail smashing the rock action pose. I like the results.
Last for this week is Wrench-Jaw. Cyran’s wrench is glued to his left paw (his left, our right) so I had to switch Trap-Jaw’s mechanical arm from his right to his left to match-up.
So that’s all for now. Come back next week for the remaining Masters of the Universe mash-ups.
094 – Haven’t We Danced This Dance Before?
Aug 152012
Welcome back to the Wednesday Mash-up folks.
This week we continue our look at the heroes of Eternia (and Etheria), the Masters of the Universe. As ever, click to embiggen.
First up, is Prince Todrick’s sister Princess Nektara. When she holds the Sword of Protection aloft and recites the words,”For the Honor of Furskull! I am She-Nek!” she transforms into She-Nek, the Princess of Power.
The mighty Oonchanek is a scout. He can extend his neck to see far ahead. I first drew Oonchanek with his neck extended, then I used photoshop to cut the head and place it on his shoulders. Easy-peasy.
Lizard at Arms’s adoptive daughter is Sassla. She is the king’s captain of the guard, charged with training Prince Todrick in the ways of battle. She doesn’t know that her disappointing charge is actually He-Fox.
Finally, we have Ram-Bear. Even though he’s slow-witted, Ram-Bear is a hero who likes to use his head…to knock things over. Shading-wise, I think he turned out the best of the heroes.
That’s all for the heroes of the Masters of the Universe and the mash-ups for this week. Come back next week when we look at the villains from Snake Mountain!