Twelve Years

2007-01-09 06:18:33 pm

Cook of the Sea

These are aging sketches for TPP's mascot little girl, at least in the early days, an orphan who's taken in off the street by one of the characters. She has several birth defects owing to fetal drug abuse, the most prominent of which is a hormonal imbalance that makes her, while not a dwarf, very short and almost sickly. You'll note that one of the two main growth spurts is skipped. The abnormal growth pattern is why I need a special concept guide, and also I have a special fondness for this character. I tried to do this a little over half a year ago with really poor results and now I'm giving it another whirl. Still to come are six more years, but that involves busting out R-Karen and the jacket so I'm posting these up first. At the top is the year, the bottom is her current sobriquet and age. In between some sketches are explanations of what went on in between.

Thread title:

These are aging sketches for TPP's mascot little girl, at least in the early days, an orphan who's taken in off the street by one of the characters.  She has several birth defects owing to fetal drug abuse, the most prominent of which is a hormonal imbalance that makes her, while not a dwarf, very short and almost sickly.  You'll note that one of the two main growth spurts is skipped.  The abnormal growth pattern is why I need a special concept guide, and also I have a special fondness for this character.  I tried to do this a little over half a year ago with [url=http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/hatch2200-2209.jpg]really poor results[/url] and now I'm giving it another whirl.  Still to come are six more years, but that involves busting out R-Karen and the jacket so I'm posting these up first.  At the top is the year, the bottom is her current sobriquet and age.  In between some sketches are explanations of what went on in between.

[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev01.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev02.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev03.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev04.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev05.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.paragonsigma.com/images2/owlgirldev06.jpg[/img]

nate

2007-01-09 06:54:06 pm

wow, that's exactly what your comic needs, come to think of it: kawaiiiii!!

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-09 06:59:29 pm

Cook of the Sea

I put this in a Gaia thread and had to physically resist the urge to title it "KAWAII DESU NE NE NE ^_^;;"

nate

2007-01-09 07:01:49 pm

ich bin stolz auf dich mein sohn!

Soaprman

2007-01-09 07:56:56 pm

shrimp

and white wine

<SUPERsaiyanBLUE> I want comments that aren't nate :P

Hot.

13M13

2007-01-09 08:54:50 pm

l'appel du vide

The penguin disturbs me.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-09 09:30:41 pm

Cook of the Sea

That is no ordinary penguin.

arkarian

2007-01-09 09:56:14 pm

red chamber dream

zomg penguin fanart.

Is she not called Hatch anymore? That was my favourite name in the comic.

Yoshi348

2007-01-09 10:15:48 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Gah this thread's title keeps reminding me of OoT.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-09 10:43:40 pm

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Arkarian:

zomg penguin fanart.

Is she not called Hatch anymore? That was my favourite name in the comic.

No she is. That's just not her real name.

Chanoire

2007-01-10 12:31:38 am

I swear, none of the webcomics you link ever make any sense to me at all. Don't know whether it's them or me.

Not awake enough to give much feedback. It's interesting to see your plans for the character. I like the GRAARR!! one; the one next to it has a rather disturbing eye. There's something not quite consistent with the angle of the torso in the last one. Was going to make a joke about teenage rebellion here but it sounded too serious so I deleted it.

By the way, have you thought much about the practicalities of leotards as constant wear? They have certain inconveniences.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-10 01:13:58 am

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Chanoire:

By the way, have you thought much about the practicalities of leotards as constant wear? They have certain inconveniences.

Right but this is like, the future. You know, the future where stuff is invented that makes things that I want to do plausible.

Chanoire

2007-01-10 02:52:46 pm

I think I find a levitating electronic multifunction volleyball more plausible than a clothing closure which will stand up to the demands of gymnastics and still be practical in other contexts. :P Though I suppose extremely stretchy fabric is more likely. Seriously, though, if clothing and fabric technology has advanced that far, which isn't so unlikely, don't you think the styles of today would have long since been abandoned? Sure, vintage goes in and out of fashion, but how much stuff from the 18th century do you see now? I know it's not something you'd want to redo, but you might think about restyling the staples you're borrowing from current times to look as if they weren't just transported en masse from this era, like t-shirts. Well, maybe not t-shirts, since they've been around for centuries and perhaps millennia, but jeans and such. It will make the overtly futuristic elements easier to accept if they're not surrounded by items indistinguishable from those around now.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-10 04:13:04 pm

Cook of the Sea

Right, but to me it's like how the english language will have changed dramatically in the nest two hundred years. It doesn't make sense to try and reinvent English for purposes of writing a future story even though it makes sense in a literal sense because people won't be able to relate to it. Clothes have meaning, like they say something about a person, and that's a language that will have changed in two hundred years to an unrecognizable point. I'll do the occasional flair or futury thing with the clothing design, but it's not a good idea in my opinion to stray too far off the beaten path. Stories that go hogwild with "advancing" clothing for the future usually tend to serve little more than to reinforce "it is the future omg" or to make a sideways joke about how funny fashion might look in the future, or any number of things that, for me and my purposes, are no substitute for the personal identification of a reader with a character wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

EDIT: Also, I maintain that life in the US or Japan or Britain or any of the developed countries is a lot more scifi than people realize. I was at Wal-Mart the other day, and after paying for groceries on an automated checkout machine that spoke to me in a pleasant female voice as I touched options on a screen, and gave me change automatically given what I put in the thing, and knew whether I'd bagged an item yet or not, I tried to walk out an in door and a pleasant voice warned me that I was going the wrong way. And then I went home and talked to people in Sweden on my personal laptop computer.

My point is that I don't want people to see the technology in TPP as "magic" or "scifi" as much as just an advancement of things that we already have and use in day to day life. People who look like today's people assist with that.

Right, but to me it's like how the english language will have changed dramatically in the nest two hundred years.  It doesn't make sense to try and reinvent English for purposes of writing a future story even though it makes sense in a literal sense because people won't be able to relate to it.  Clothes have meaning, like they say something about a person, and that's a language that will have changed in two hundred years to an unrecognizable point.  I'll do the occasional flair or futury thing with the clothing design, but it's not a good idea in my opinion to stray too far off the beaten path.  Stories that go hogwild with "advancing" clothing for the future usually tend to serve little more than to reinforce "it is the future omg" or to make a sideways joke about how funny fashion might look in the future, or any number of things that, for me and my purposes, are no substitute for the personal identification of a reader with a character wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

EDIT:  Also, I maintain that life in the US or Japan or Britain or any of the developed countries is a lot more scifi than people realize.  I was at Wal-Mart the other day, and after paying for groceries on an automated checkout machine that spoke to me in a pleasant female voice as I touched options on a screen, and gave me change automatically given what I put in the thing, and knew whether I'd bagged an item yet or not, I tried to walk out an in door and a pleasant voice warned me that I was going the wrong way.  And then I went home and talked to people in Sweden on my personal laptop computer.

My point is that I don't want people to see the technology in TPP as "magic" or "scifi" as much as just an advancement of things that we [i]already have[/i] and use in day to day life.  People who look like today's people assist with that.

RT-55J

2007-01-10 06:24:43 pm

Armor Guardian

Quote from SABERinBLUE:

My point is that I don't want people to see the technology in TPP as "magic" or "scifi" as much as just an advancement of things that we already have and use in day to day life.

I take it that levitation the next logical step in the evolution of volleyballs.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-10 07:10:39 pm

Cook of the Sea

Well I nuked the volleyball, along with Gremlin and Logbot, so that's debatable.

Chanoire

2007-01-10 08:03:07 pm

Oh? I didn't know/remember that. I was just being tongue-in-cheek when I referred to it anyway.

I see where you're coming from; I've thought the same thing about language in stories set in different eras/places. Sometimes it's more jarring to have differing clothing and such; a couple of SF short stories I've read have referred, in passing, to men's eyeshadow and other cosmetics, for example, and it both reinforces that it's a futuristic setting and makes me reevaluate whether I should see it as strange, which is undoubtedly part of the writer's intent.

Regarding language, I've sometimes seen some made-up word used throughout a book and thought that that was part of the futuristic setting and it turns out it's just that character's idiosyncrasy. A character named Joat, which sounded foreign enough to English to suggest membership in or descent from some other culture, turned out to have named herself that for jack-of-all-trades. (She's the one Modus reminded me of.)

Anyway, I don't disagree with the design decision, I just wanted to examine it. I'd still like to see a couple of different touches here and there, like, say, pockets at the ankle level, or jeans being standardized as some other color. That's just a thought, though, without knowing anything of your plot and little of your setting.

I have to say it strikes me as really funny that you're talking about using clothes to identify with the characters while you yourself wear the same thing every day. I don't know if those reinforce or contradict each other. =)

Oh?  I didn't know/remember that.  I was just being tongue-in-cheek when I referred to it anyway.

I see where you're coming from; I've thought the same thing about language in stories set in different eras/places.  Sometimes it's more jarring to have differing clothing and such; a couple of SF short stories I've read have referred, in passing, to men's eyeshadow and other cosmetics, for example, and it both reinforces that it's a futuristic setting and makes me reevaluate whether I should see it as strange, which is undoubtedly part of the writer's intent.

Regarding language, I've sometimes seen some made-up word used throughout a book and thought that that was part of the futuristic setting and it turns out it's just that character's idiosyncrasy.  A character named Joat, which sounded foreign enough to English to suggest membership in or descent from some other culture, turned out to have named herself that for jack-of-all-trades.  (She's the one Modus reminded me of.)

Anyway, I don't disagree with the design decision, I just wanted to examine it.  I'd still like to see a couple of different touches here and there, like, say, pockets at the ankle level, or jeans being standardized as some other color.  That's just a thought, though, without knowing anything of your plot and little of your setting.

I have to say it strikes me as really funny that you're talking about using clothes to identify with the characters while you yourself wear the same thing every day.  I don't know if those reinforce or contradict each other. =)

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-10 08:07:20 pm

Cook of the Sea

Quote from Chanoire:

I have to say it strikes me as really funny that you're talking about using clothes to identify with the characters while you yourself wear the same thing every day. I don't know if those reinforce or contradict each other. =)

I'm finding that a sort of motif I tend to get into with designs is to have one or more static or variations-on-a-theme articles of clothing that defines a character and then the other articles vary, like modus's pants or hatch's leotard and sometimes the jacket.

arkarian

2007-01-11 12:05:27 am

red chamber dream

Quote from SABERinBLUE:

Stories that go hogwild with "advancing" clothing for the future usually tend to serve little more than to reinforce "it is the future omg" or to make a sideways joke about how funny fashion might look in the future

See Back To The Future Part II for more on that. :)

And I loved the volleyball. ;(

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-14 12:01:45 am

Cook of the Sea

Two more years added.

Banjonator

2007-01-14 05:38:06 am

holy sh**!!!
those are excellent! Shocked

arkarian

2007-01-14 11:50:02 am

red chamber dream

2210 is incredible. I'd hang that on my wall along with "Insert Coin, Press Start".

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-14 11:30:31 pm

Cook of the Sea

Nothing to do with the first post, but here's something else.

Chanoire

2007-01-19 03:11:11 pm

Thought the chin thing on the left figure was a mechanical goatee or something. =D The nose seems a bit pointy on the left, as if the bend in it is a bit too sharp and possibly too close to the tip. The arm looks very masculine with that big muscle (though the hands look neutral to female), but I'm assuming these two pics are of the same person and the right one looks female. The ear on the right one is very pointy, as if it had been compressed horizontally. I like how the eyes are done; they look small at first but I don't think there's actually a size problem, it's just that only a small part of them is being drawn, which is plausible in this minimalist style. The right one's eye is particularly good. The right one's nostril might be a bit too big, making the part near the cheek too thin. The angle of the jaws don't seem to match between the two drawings (i.e., where the bend is in that line) but I'm not sure which is right. Actually, looking at the larynx of the one on the left I wonder if you intend to portray a pair of fraternal twins, or the same character in male and female versions? That seems more likely when I look at the brow ridge on the left too. >_<

I like these drawings, and am looking forward to seeing more of this character.

Thought the chin thing on the left figure was a mechanical goatee or something. =D  The nose seems a bit pointy on the left, as if the bend in it is a bit too sharp and possibly too close to the tip.  The arm looks very masculine with that big muscle (though the hands look neutral to female), but I'm assuming these two pics are of the same person and the right one looks female.  The ear on the right one is very pointy, as if it had been compressed horizontally.   I like how the eyes are done; they look small at first but I don't think there's actually a size problem, it's just that only a small part of them is being drawn, which is plausible in this minimalist style.  The right one's eye is particularly good.  The right one's nostril might be a bit too big, making the part near the cheek too thin.  The angle of the jaws don't seem to match between the two drawings (i.e., where the bend is in that line) but I'm not sure which is right.  Actually, looking at the larynx of the one on the left I wonder if you intend to portray a pair of fraternal twins, or the same character in male and female versions?  That seems more likely when I look at the brow ridge on the left too. >_<

I like these drawings, and am looking forward to seeing more of this character.

SABERinBLUE

2007-01-19 06:10:09 pm

Cook of the Sea

Fraternal male/female twins. That, you know, still look really really similar.