*Why* did your design your character that way?

[JessJackdaw]

@acealmansoori
Oh man, I love the idea that their cloaks are their burial attire. That just gives so much insight as to how brutal the world you made is, and even how death is somehow seen as a daily standard. Very cool!

@jennula
Aww, jeez, I love the process you went through making your characters, and I'm so glad you made something new rather than settling with the typical big angry brute and wispy happy human. Also Gav is flippin' adorable. XD Big buff guy and a little poof tail. My heart can't take it.

@aronthemason
Oh gaaah, thank you! I had to go make a thank you note to go with it. I hope I did it right. XD

[sarrowsmith10]

Especially your characters Lady Arrowsmith.

Oh gosh, my characters.. well... Reign was probably the earliest character to have some form:
2007- Warrior prince, with green soft colors. I always imagined him a bit older than how he currently is in the comic (here he is like late 20s I think) The horse armor stayed the same in the comic haha...

2008- Colors changed to red.. he had a pet panther for awhile..

2011- Hooked up with Terri and we talked about the story and through Reign's into the pot. So, he finally started getting a back story here. I really like puff sleeves from the Italian renaissance. Muted red and black, because I wanted him to look regal, rather than kid hero (lots of kid heroes wear bright red).

The other characters, I just sent design sheets to Terri and she picked the versions that matched her vision the most.. For example, I sent this picture of Lady Clara, Reign's aunt to Terri:

And she ended up being like this:

You can also see in these later pages that Reign looks a bit younger too. Terri has his age as 17, and the design fits teen prince much better than the older versions pictured above. Red also stays in his clothes, as red it really the color of his family. His brother and aunt both wear mostly red.

Like a lot of folks I don't have super deep reasons for his look, and Terri had to approve the designs too. She was more particular about certain designs fitting the characters status than anything else... She's really the brains behind everything.

[avalonmao]

Dakota Wu from Motsuro Project lol is chinese because I'm chinese, has fat legs because I have fat legs, has shiny long hair because my hair is always greasy, and has bug eyes because a ton of chinese people have big ass eyes full wonder and no one knows

[sarrowsmith10]

I think that is perfectly valid. We draw what we know. I like characters that aren't perfect caricatures of the typical hero!

[acealmansoori]

I've never been more satisfied. Thank you for sharing that <3 ^0^

Older Reign looks so freaking hot omg! Poor horse didn't get a makeover xD lol

[acealmansoori]

@JessJackdaw Thank you so much, you just made my day <3 ;w;

[jennula]

Aw, thank you so much for your kind words, that really made my morning here! <3

[avalonmao]

Thank you so much xoxo

[jessiepolfliet]

This looks freakin awesome!

[nattbear]

Well, i created the idea of my story first and then i needed characters that fitted the world and it's peculiarities.

First I've created "the sisters"... Well, they didn't make and appearence in my comic yet, but they were supposed to be the main characters... I've changed that for "stories" reasons and created a male character called Dan to lead the comic.

He was designed to be a handsome man in an "ugly world". He is one that doesn't really fits. I didn't used a looot of time to design him, he only needed to don't look like the way he feels. The clothes he wears (mostly) was not his choice, someone choosed for him and he accepted... (the hair too) And that's the way things usually works for him. Besides that, Dan likes coats. It's a piece of cloth I decided he would like, as almost any other character in Savage Minds have a preference for some specific kind of cloth. He'll often be seen using a coat. I atributed him with the color blue, as he is one of the most gloomy characters of the story.

Dan has a strong body too, but is not a fighter, or a warrior, or anything like this. But he is a really good runner and has very strong legs. He has some other abilities that provided him with this constitution, but it'll be explained later in the comic.

[JessJackdaw]

Oh gosh! Thank you so much!

I guess I'll post a little more about some of the characters. I'm a little hesitant to show all the species yet as some will be revealed later on. So since the Wizard species is shown fairly early on in the story, this should be fine. XD

Oh boy, and the Wizards are one nasty piece of work. The closest natural equivalent I could think of was the amazing electric catfish. If we're talking about animals with super powers you have to bring up this ugly fish, because not only does it have one of the most advanced electric organ of any species, it can also sense prey in complete darkness using its electro-sensitve whiskers. I also wanted to pull in traits from the cousin of the electric catfish, the electric eel to give the species some range similar to the wizard class' ranged attacks.

While a fantasy wizard can shoot lightning from his/her fingertips, actual electricity doesn't work like that. The current just wants to find the closest outlet to discharge energy and would more likely shock the wizard instead of firing across the room magically. So to compensate for this, the Wizard species holds a large reservoir of water in it's stomach that it can use to soak its prey before biting and releasing a deadly electrical discharge. Wizards also have been known to use tools such as metal staffs or wands to channel their current in new shocking ways.

(All of that disgusting terror melts away when you realize they waddle around like incredibly obese penguins...)

[joannekwan]

Aaaah all the thought you put behind each species just blows me away every time!

[jessiepolfliet]

When do you think we can read your incredibly designed story?

[isaacfriedman]

I've come to realize that my character clothing design choices are kind of boring, and I'm planning to revamp a lot of them in the near future. In most of my designs, a scientist wears a labcoat, a soldier wears a uniform, a POW wears the tattered remains of whatever he was wearing when he was captured, etc. However the faces and bodies are what I try to vary most. There are the obvious body types like Brutus, Anderson Gunn, and FRAAAZ who are all meant to be physically strong, so I give them large, blocky or round frames, often with some visualization of stress or strain visible on the surface. The characters who are fast and unpredictable are slimmer, shorter, and tend to smile more. Mutated characters have visible skin defects and/or differences in the structure of other external organs that may or may not relate to their abilities. Hair and skin color are usually assigned by those that would make the most sense based on their location. There's no such thing as a place where is doesn't matter what hair or skin color a character has. Brittain in 1941 wouldn't have a lot of black soldiers and Germany in the same period wouldn't have a lot of brunette soldiers with big noses. France, on the other hand, would likely have a number of visitors from its colonies who are not white and who don't speak the best French. America would have a lot of black soldiers during this time, but no Asians on the pacific front. Hair color is also important, obviously, and I don't believe in giving characters a hair color not on the brown spectrum unless they dye it and have a reason for doing so even if that reason is just "I think it looks cool." No serious protagonist should have recently dyed hair unless it's part of a plan to deceive somebody. No serious action protagonist would have a pink streak through her hair unless it had significance to her because of her past. Basically, nothing in the character design should be without an explanation in-universe. The explaination cannot be "The author thought it was cool," but it can be "the character thought it was cool."

[isaacfriedman]

Everything I just said about human character design also applies to alien and monster design. If it cant be explained in-universe, it shouldn't be there.

[JessJackdaw]

@joannekwan Oh my gahh Jo, stop you're too nice. XD It's more like I get too into it.

I think it's probably due to the fact I watch an unhealthy amount of nature and science documentaries. D-Don't do that. You turn into that kid that knows all the animals at the zoo, and can't help being annoying telling everyone about it.

I uhh.... thankfully don't do that.... umm.... anymore.

@jessiepolfliet Oh jeebus the pressure. Umm, okay I'm going to be honest here. This is my first venture seriously tryiing to make a webcomic. I've made comics in the past just for fun, never publishing much at all, mostly just for my friends to see. I've written some stories before, and a scarce few have ever been read by others because I just hand-write them and keep them. So, I'm inexperienced. I don't honestly know how long things take to produce and make, and right now I'm cranking out the buffer for the comic.

So! I do have a deadline for myself, and that's the end of this month. Will I make it? I don't ultimately know because making comics is a whole new beast than what I'm used to, but I will do my absolute best.

story?

Wait... I did a bit of a double take because I haven't actually talked about the story at all. XD Just the world lore and character personalities I think, because I didn't want to spoil anything important.

No serious protagonist should have recently dyed hair unless it's part of a plan to deceive somebody

@isaacfriedman Oh my gosh, yes. This right here. I swear, as much as I like odd color hairstyles. Having a human character have blue hair in a war torn country makes no sense. Seriously, I've had blue hair before. It washes out so quickly and you just end up with green hair after. The upkeep is horrible, and there's no way a character in a setting like that could be dying their hair that much. XD Haha oh God, I kinda want to see that.

"Hold up guys... I got to re-dye my hair again. Commander John, reload my mag, while I soak my hair with something that costs more than our food rations."

[isaacfriedman]

That would make a great SNL or Flying Circus sketch XD "Hold on, hold on, just need to let it sit for a bit" "WE ARE UNTER FIRE!" "Just a mo', got to let the follicles soak, y'know." "THEY HAVE TWELVE GOD DAMN TANKS." "And I have four more bloody minutes! Let the panzers come as long as my locks are the right shade of indigo moonlight I don't give a damn." "HOW DID YOU MAKE CORPORAL???"

[sarrowsmith10]

I think it's probably due to the fact I watch an unhealthy amount of nature and science documentaries. D-Don't do that. You turn into that kid that knows all the animals at the zoo, and can't help being annoying telling everyone about it.

I think you just described my whole childhood. Can we please be friends? XD

[JessJackdaw]

Sure! Why not? We can struggle not to correct people when they mispronounce animal names together. XD

At least the knowledge wasn't complete waste I guess. I've saved a lot of snakes' lives telling people the difference between a poisonous and non-venomous snake. Seriously why does everyone feel the need to kill snakes? They eat vermin! D:

Sorry, animal rant over. XD We can resume on topic now.

[otterchild]

Wow what amazing design work!