Meet Zane the soloist in this opera. as you can see he has issues... one mainly being he is opressed and in bondage against his will ("but you can't get out now your friends have locked the door..."). In our story he is the equivalent of that lost soul on the brink of being found as portrayed so expressly by this song... in other words he is the escapee to be--and consequently the main character here. he will be singing the chorus so to speak... I started this sheet last year due to incredible boredom during a trip to my sisters in louisville. Of course it was only a first concept drawing to get the ideas down as they fall out of my head--not the finished character ref sheet so if there are any errors just ignore them... I will be doing many more of these as there are alot of details that I want to work out and several things I will change.
Yes, those are spikes coming out of his shoulder. the original idea I had was that these spikes would appear on the characters as a sort of disease... Now that I think about it zane's will be running along the right side of his jaw, even though here they're on his shoulder in this first drawing. I decided to drop those as then it would seem like he was less affected by it than his "friends", who have them coming out all over the place, not to mention it would solve the problem of how to get that coat thingy off with them. I liked the concept of the lock around his neck as it symbolizes his bondage and imprisonment, besides he needed something there...
I like the leather glove especially the little metal plate things over the fingers...
The overall feel I wanted to achieve was a somewhat grunge(dare I say goth?), semi-archaic, mystical ambience yet still maintaining a modern theme. basically it will have the same undifinability as the music it comes from. I didn't want to stray too far into studds or spikes as that wouldn't really do it for me and besides they're rather cliche and if this is a comic I figured it would be best to keep things simple and free from unecissary and tedious detail... instead we're going with straps, rusty hardware, and scary looking armor :D
ahh, yes the head shots... I figured since I'll be drawing this bugger alot more I should do some of these for reference and to get a greater feel for him more than just your standard mugshot once in awhile. as with any comic one needs to get a greater three dimensional feel of ones character and so these are an attempt to do so. that dagger there is ment to be duel weilded and has a design I cooked up that would be his seal so to speak or rather his emblem. all the characters will have one and it will be a motif used throughout their design as far as the drawings go I actually like the one on top of his left side veiw better than the other one
I still can't figure out how to draw those chunks of hair so that they look right... both from that side and the top... but, ah well maybe I just need to revise it a little...
getting a bit more into details here. you can see the full emblem up there in the top right corner there... he's got it on his daggars, shoulder guard, lip ring, and finger thingies on his glove... I did this inorder to tye the whole concept together as well as give him a greater depth of culture (I think that's the correct term) than what would be apparent if I'd just left those parts blank... I always like doing that in my work... though now that I think of it it'll be a real pain to reproduce on a consistent basis... underneath all that is an idea I had for adding a tatoo to his right eye as it would make it easier to draw that side of his face... I may or may not keep it in... but, then again. I don't like his shirt though andin another sketch I changed it to a double set of rings instead of just one... which in my opinion looks better, along with a different collar.
and as you may see I was trying to see how the spikes at his jawline would work... so far I like it.
as far as technique goes I will be inking it in a great deal, but still leaving the pencil lines underneath to keep a rougher ambience to it... and to fill in those portions that would be too hard to ink otherwise. as far as colour goes it'll be pretty monochromatic with selective coloring where I feel is best.
one thing to keep in mind is that by no means are these the final design for this character. mostly these are still fluid and floating around in my head so at this point nothing's concrete. and I might not even follow through... I'm not so sure I should even be doing it like this, but if its made apparent that this is out of it and I mean really out of it, then I won't hesitate to abandon it... and f I am please don't hesitate to tell me... but at the moment I'm having a great time dreaming about it. And even if it does crash and burn at least I'll have the experience, no?
anyway, heres hoping this'll come to fruition....
-the Revig
