Tag Archives: character design

Oct19

Inktober 17&18

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Goodness, this is hard to keep up on weekends! Well, all I can do is my best. Sadly inspiration and energy seems to find me at 10:45pm, so it’s a scramble to finish before I collapse from exhaustion. I can’t keep doing it this way. I’m going to try to find a time in the day where my energy is at a better place.

Here’s Day 17, It’s Mama Maxie, the Carnival Tycoon from an upcoming game. Some severe proportion problems, but I will fix them. I like her dress in any case.

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Mama Maxie by Monica Marier, copyright(c)2016 Tangent Artists

And here’s today’s ink. This is a concept design for Elanai, the Mechanic from my upcoming SciFi book. He’s a Luo-Drigue—basically a lilac-colored space elf, since my daughter loves my elf characters so much and she said we needed one. Who am I to argue. Elanai is a cantankerous Rimmer who hates the kids and everyone else on the ship, but they’re pretty much the only people in the galaxy who tolerate him.

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Elanai by Monica Marier copyright(c)monica marier 2016

Oct15

Inktober Day 14: Scary Clowns

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So much for doing my pre-novel research. Assignments are starting to call, so those are going to be featured more this month. Case in point: today’s Ink is from a Carnival-themed game that Tangent Artists is working on. Here’s UNCLE LUCKY.

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Uncle Lucky, by Monica Marier copyright (c) 2016, Monica Marier

A bit uncanny, yeah? I get the feeling that he’s one of those clowns who doesn’t understand that people don’t like clowns. I think he’s blissfully unaware of how creepy he is.

Oct8

Inktober Day 7

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Quick one today. I was bu-hiz-sy today. This is Cedric. He’s the industrial lifting robot, who is in charge of all the dangerous activity on the Mallard. He loads the pots onto the launch, he uses the grappling attachment in his torso to fetch the bouys and reel the pots in again and stacks and ties them. The people on board can do this work in a pinch, but his large sturdy electromagnetic feet, herculanium frame, and powerful hydraulics mean he can do the job of six men with no fatigue or risk to life. Too bad about his attitude…

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Cedric, by Monica Marier

Oct6

Inktober Day 6

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Today’s ink is just a doodle, but a crucial doodle. I was playing with aliens. I need to come up with what the “Droloni” race looks like since I have 2 characters that are Droloni, Landri, co-pilot of the Mallard, and the antagonist, General Yzan.  I’ve never done aliens before, so I decided to come up with a skull and go from there. Here’s what I got after a LOT of drawing and erasing. I’ve come up with a female skull with and without flesh. I also drew a male skull.  Thoughts? Criticisms?

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Alien Anatomy study, Droloni by Monica Marier

Oct4

Inktober Day 4

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For this year’s Inktober, I’m doing concpet art and character design to prepare for NaNoWriMo. So here’s my first non-person design.
We’ve met, Zac, Lisa, and Henrik, so let’s meet the ship they have their adventures on. I give you, THE MALLARD

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I modeled this interstellar fishing vessel after the crab-fishing boat Cornelia Marie. Like it’s model, this is a fishing vessel that must deal with, not only planetary waters and tides, but also the perils of space, atmospheric departure and reentry and solar radiation and turbulence, so this is the total air/water/space package. This way Henrik can always fish for SOME kind of animal. I kept the shape of the hull, and the wheelhouse. I added some thrusts and stabilizers, encased the prow with transparent titanium for observation. Also, the deck is enclosed with shields that can raise or lower when changing from atmospheric to interstellar.The deck is where all the fishing gear, launches, pulleys, winches and cranes are.

Also this boat’s origin is the Saturnal moon, Titan. Which has a harbour named for the UK town of …Ruislip… for some reason. I don’t even know. I’m kinda tired.

Any comments questions criticisms? Did I get something wrong? Leave a comment!

Oct3

Inktober Day 3

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Continuing with my theme of concept art, this  Zac Scott, Lisa’s older brother. He’s very small for his age, and twelve years old, so his eleven-year-old sister towers over him. Everyone thinks she’s the oldest sibling because of her height and confidence. Timid and brooding Zac, has trouble standing out and hates making decisions, preferring to let his sister take the reins. He has a satchel, in which he carries photographs of his grandparents, some of the only family records his parents had left. They are also some of the only images left in the Universe of Bansha, Ireland and Johannesburg, South Africa before Earth became unsustainable.

His clothes, like his sister’s are a mix of too big and too small. His shoes and jeans are clearly too tight for him, but he wears an over-sized shirt and zipped up jacket, these are other elements that make him seem thin and babyish next to his sister. So that’s Zac.

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Zac Scott, by Monica Marier 2016

 

Oct2

Inktober 2016 Day 2

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Here’s Day 2 and I reveal the first half of our 2 protagonists, Lisa Scott. I already knew that Lisa was an 11-year-old Earth refugee, but I was surprised by how much I learned about her while drawing her outfit and character design.

The gloves were fun, looks like she likes to pretend she’s a grownup while she tinkers with things, no doubt with that tool belt of hers, probably filled with mismatched tools with broken handles and other defects.

The tee-shirt she’s wearing is too small. Either she’s holding onto it for sentimental reasons, or because she couldn’t find a bigger one. Her socks (cut off in the picture) have no heels or toes, but I imagine she likes it better that way, since she prefers to wear flipflops. Perhaps, she’s like my girl and would rather go barefoot when she can.

That’s all for Lisa now. Stay tuned.

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Lisa Smith, by Monica Marier 2016

Oct1

INKTOBER 2016

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It’s that time of year again, folks! I might be crazy trying to do Inktober this year, but this is actually going to be less about drawing and more about learning to budget my time. It’s also about getting ready to start writing again. I’ve gotten so bogged down in old writing that I feel like I’ve forgotten HOW to write again. I really haven’t written anything new since 2014, and that’s a big problem.

So my 2016 Inktober album will be looking for inspiration and casting my book for NaNoWriMo. It’s going to be a pre-teen/teen scifi space opera, partly a comdey—you guys know me—that I’ve been sort of fleshing out with the help of my kids.

Today, I did an expression sheet for one of the main characters, Henrik Cates: the captain of the fishing star-ship, the S.S. Mallard. Want to find out more? Keep watching this site.

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Expression Sheet: Henrik Cates by Monica Marier 2016 using Prismacolor Premier pens

(Just a note: I will NOT be doing “Carpe Scream” this year. I just can’t do both projects, sadly.)

Oct23

Inktober 22

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Here’s a little fan fun for today. I’m a HUGE fan of Rebecca Sugar’s series, Steven Universe. I love it so much I will have to save how much I love it for its own post because I don’t have the energy today. It’s just awesome go see it! TL;DR awesome ladies of all shapes and sizes with crystal powers fighting to save Earth with the help of a sweet young boy who you just want to hug. Not saccharine, not sappy, just a lot of heart, good messages, great characters, and awesome music. Fun for all ages.

Rebecca Sugar, meanwhile has encouraged fans to make their own “gemsonas” or crystal gem versions of themselves.So today I humbly submit to you: Malachite.

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Today’s inks were all about getting down Rebecca sugar’s own style: colour scheme, paying attention to the star detail, round flowing lines without a ton of detail, the gemstone placement, and, most importantly, to not shy away from my real body-type. Her style embraces the curves and flaws of real people, so I’ve been extra honest here with my curves.

I added colour in photoshop, because you really NEED colour on a crystal gem to make it stand out, but the ink version is below here. So, I had fun today! Later!

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Oct19

Inktober twofer

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I missed yesterday’s post due to force majeur so today I’m posting a two-fer. These are both character illustrations for the upcoming Skeleton Crew RPG book character creation section for ready-to-plays. The first is a Jacobean scardey-cat called “Headless Hob.” I approached him as sort of a “Canterville Ghost” meets Scooby Doo villain and he came out looking darling. The next is rougher and more visceral. It’s supposed to be an ancient Celtic warrior wight. I was inspired by the traitor ghosts in Return of the King. I think it would read a lot better with a black background or some other finessing. In retrospect this was a hard one to do with just ink. Anyway. More tomorrow. Bye!

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