Being very experienced at unintentionally embarrassing myself, I thought I'd take the initiative and do it on purpose for once.... A number of years ago, I was focused on the idea of a comic/graphic novel series on the signs of the Zodiac, both Western and Eastern. The poor Western signs have been beaten to death in no small amount as C-list villains in various comic book series. Of course, that didn't stop me from fooling around with the ideas. The most interesting thing that came out of it was the character, personality and story ideas for the Eastern signs. For some reason, back then I attempted to immortalize my ideas as incredibly amateurish, manga-like representations of the characters - ugh, I still literally cringe each time I look at the images. About a year or two ago, in an attempt to salvage some internal self-respect, I took a quick re-try at each concept in an attempt to do some of the characters (sketchbook) justice.
To punish myself, I threw in the original concept for the characters below next to the updated quick sketches. If there is a lesson here it is that just by continuing to work through it, you'll probably get better without realizing (lesson two would be that sometimes it takes a long bit of stepping away and then coming back with fresh eyes to realize this).
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| Comic hair never looks right once you start thinking about things such as realism and gravity. Any resemblance Dog may have to Henry Rollins is purely intentional. |
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| If I ever get around to a full concept, balancing her size and strength with her feminine appearance is going to be a challenge. |
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| Any resemblance to Im Ji Hye is, also, purely intentional (in fact, I think I may have even looked up a number of pictures to help sketch this out - I wanted a rounder, fuller face instead of a thinner, sharper one like the original idea). |
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| This probably is my favorite sketch. Ram wasn't a character I had a lot of ideas for story-wise, but due to this sketch he probably ends up as the first story if they ever get created. |
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| Rat didn't come out as androgynous as needed. It also bothers me that in this sketch he resembles someone I have met in real life (which is surely unfair to Rat)! |
Now that another year or so has gone by, it is probably time for another look at the original idea and to work on a few more updated sketches hopefully.
