Western Civ's Colour Practice

Rhoda said I should try to draw one of the characters like the way I did that girl. I chose the Western Fantasy Civilian because she's an interesting shape so it would be a good challenge; and a challenge it was! I don't like it as much as the girl picture, but I'm glad I had a go.

I decided her species is a 'Quilish' race. Just so you know what's intentional and what's not, I'll briefly run over the anatomy.

A Quilish being has a ridge that goes down the centre of their face from the back of their scalp to the tip of their nose. They have horns that are smaller and straighter on females, while the males have longer, more twisty ones (I forgot to draw them in, dur). Their lower jaw is very small, giving females a more heart-shaped face. Males on the other hand, though their jaws are also small, have a wider chin, giving a less "pointy" appearance. The fairly flat (except for the ridge) shape of the nose, with the wide bridge, give a Quilish person an epicanthic fold. Their eyes are very large and the tip of their nose and their mouth are small.

Their ears are fairly big and elongated. They turn down at the end on both genders, but on males they curve back up in a soft flick at the tip.

Quilins have hair that can be remarkably naturally straight (Like the Civ), but can be of any style. Head hair doesn't grow on the ridge, but they are covered in a thin, fine fur which may have splotches of other colour.

Quilish colours can be varied but are often earthy.

And now, the picture. The first is the Civ with no ambient light and the second has a pink light, like sunset. Sorry if the colours are out; I think my monitor isn't showing them normally.

A Little bit of Character History

I've been doing a little more work on my honours characters - mainly Western Fantasy Assassin - but I did it in my sketchbook and I don't have any camera batteries so the upload will have to wait.

For now though, I'll just put down some history for 2 characters for the GDD.

Don

Donovan Joseph Sheppard - Don for short - is a designer living in a city flat with his girlfriend Becca Garrett. He doesn't make a great deal of money doing what he does, but he gets by. However, he suddenly finds himself especially burnt out with work as he struggles to keep on top of it. Problems with Becca also start to wear him down until he begins to lose sleep.

When realising the risk he could be causing to himself, Becca sends him to a doctor for help. He is prescribed sleeping pills. However, he chooses not to take them.

These pills also may be used as a mechanic when Don inadvertantly eats them when sleepwalking, sending him into a deeper state.

The name of Don isn't too elaborate, and there isn't any history behind his surname (which will probably be changed later). Basically, Donovan Joseph can be shortened to Don Jo. This is a spoonerism for Jon Do, i.e. John Doe. This is meant to reflect him losing his sense of self during the game.

Blackbuck

Another name that will probably change later. I was considering using animal names for the dream characters but I'm not so sure anymore (If you don't know what a blackbuck looks like, look them up now because they're so darn cool). I wanted this character to be the main entity that Don encounters and the most helpful one. Blackbuck is meant to be genderless, but I'll probably just say "he" for sake of ease.

Blackbuck appears to be almost child-like but is distinctly not so. His bizarre facial features make him seem more alien than human, and he tends to speak in a way that shows him to be wise and thoughtful.

Generally, he's meant to represent Don's ego in several ways:

1) He holds the knowledge of Don's dreams that Don himself believes he doesn't know. However, as Blackbuck is just a conjuring of his imagination, it is knowledge that he unwittingly carries himself.

2) While Don wanders through his dreams, directionless and confused, Blackbuck seems able to guide him through when he is lost. His wide eyes represent the clarity and knowledge he possesses - in other words, it's sort of a literal way of showing that his eyes are open to the world around him.

3) In the way that he seems like sort of like a spirit guide, and the duality of the dreams that Don is in, Blackbuck is also meant to reflect the Soul and the Ego - like God and the Devil (The latter more linked to principles like LaVeyan Satanism than evil hellish things). I wanted to show Blackbuck as inhuman, possibly spiritual, so I looked to Byzantine depictions of Jesus as inspiration. His face - the large eyes, long, thin nose and small mouth - are characteristic of that sort of work and were fitting to the sort of feel that Blackbuck would have.

I don't have a picture of Don (again, the camera thing), but I have a doodle of Blackbuck I did when I didn't have my graphics tablet.

Vigil's Dysphoria

Well, I spent pretty much all of yesterday learning to centre-align the header of the blog (Seriously, why is that so hard??) so I'm gonna try to do a bit more work today. Right now I'm going to run over the name "Vidys" and its meaning, and later today I'll write a looooong post about a small mechanic and a character to accompany it.

So, Vidys.

It's basically a word that I found Jack had written down but couldn't remember what it meant. I looked it up but it doesn't seem to be anything. I thought it was a nice looking word though - sort of elegant and cryptic. I reverse-developed it to have meaning: Vigil's Dysphoria - Vigil being a period of wakefulness and Dysphoria being... well, the opposite of euphoria.

So long story short, Vidys is meant to represent the suffering Don feels through his constant not-quite-awake-not-quite-asleep state.