I’m sure those that follow my blog or my deviantart gallery see a slew of original characters all over the place. That’s because I have an overactive imagination. I’ve been one of those crazy daydreamers since I was a kid. Things have not changed either. My main inspirations for my sketches are either original stories, or RPG (role playing game) characters.
To this day, I come up with random stories in my head and characters to inhabit them. Unfortunately my grammar skills are… loose, on a good day, so I never bother to put words to paper. But I do tend to do massive amounts of character sketches just to get things out of my head. The stories that do see the light of day I tend to keep to myself because… see above grammar issues.
Anyways, I was rummaging through my sketchbook and noticed I had a bazillion sketches of characters I never bothered to scan because I’m a lazy butt. So I forced myself to go to my scanner which was a WHOPPING 2 feet away from my laptop (I KNOW, huh?!) and scan some character designs I played with. So my session at the scanner lead to this long-winded blog post. You can thank the scanner.
Sit tight folks, this is how my brain works!
Bluebeard
After I saw Disney’s Tangled for the first time, I had the sudden urge to play with fairy tales.
I am easily influenced.
One of my favorite and one of the more morbid fairy tales out there was Bluebeard. A lovely tale of boy meets girl, boy marries girl, girl finds out that boy is a serial killer and has been killing all his wives and keeping the bodies in a locked room.
Good Clean Family Fun!
Below are two sketches for my version of Bluebeard which revolved around the runaway bride and a helpful woodsman who got her out of that pickle. Here’s Lotte, the unsuspecting wife of Bluebeard who found the bodies and took off running.
And Rodger, the ex-soldier now woodsman who found Lotte hiding out in his shed. She attacked him with a rake shortly after their first meeting.
I really should go back and do a character sketch of Bluebeard himself since I had some great ideas in my head on what I wanted him to look like. Maybe next blog post.
Shattering Utopia
Shattering Utopia is one of the few times I actually dove into the realm of fanfiction. And this story was large enough that I worked on it with three other friends, Scott, Dasha, and Doug. It was based on the great cartoon series, Gargoyles (Which I’m a huge fan off if you couldn’t tell already) and took place a little after the second season ended. The plot revolved around a group of scientists and leaders called the Utopian Society who picked up Dr. Anton Sevarius’ work and ran with it, creating plans of apocalyptic proportions. So a small group of characters ended up banning together to try to stop the US.
Chaos ensued.
Here are a few players in that game:
My character, Roberta “Robbie” McKenzie was one of the ring leaders of our band of heroes. She once was human but was kidnapped by a group of scientists and partially mutated in a series of experiments. Later on she escaped. Robbie was a fun character to create because she was extremely layered. She was smart, savvy, cold, aloof, and REALLY great at her job.
Payton Chantra was a character created by my friend Scott. He came up with the concept and I ended up running away with it. Payton was a teenage boy who was also kidnapped and experimented on by the same group of people who took Robbie. They used wolf DNA on him instead of Gargoyle which resulted in him having hyper senses and a crappy attitude at times. He was also a very skilled magic user. He escaped with Robbie.
Walden Croyer is another character concept Scott created that I went wild with. Walden was one of the original scientists to create the DNA strain to mutate humans. When he realized that the US was up to no good he instigated the escape of Robbie and Payton. Walden is the father figure of the group and has tons of info on the people they are up against. He injected himself with the strain and has been slowly mutating over time.
Marcus Donovan is my friend, Doug’s creation. Former Black Ops Soldier who got out of the business and assumed a different identity when he realized the government was making him a patsy. The US set their sights on Marcus due to being a fine psychical specimen. Robbie kept them at bay and he joined up with the band. He is the man who finally gets them organized and turns them from a small group of vigilantes and into a full underground movement.
I posted this pic before but the story isn’t complete without Lanara, my friend Dasha’s character. Lanara was also a kidnapped experiment, but in a different lab from Payton and Robbie. She was a young teenaged girl who ended up being fully mutated into a Gargoyle. She joined the band and has become a huge help with her magic skills. Eventually she gets mixed up with their benefactor, Richard Du Bois, a rich playboy. But alas, I still have yet to sketch him.
Victorian Sundown
My new story and new obsession (who I am playing around with my friend Jen and once again, my right hand man, Doug). It’s a steampunk, western, romance. And lord knows I’m a sucker for all three things. Still fleshing out the details but the story will revolve around two “Soiled Doves” Named Jezebel Norton and Anabelle Leigh Langly. You can kind of tell their personalities in the sketches. I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of them soon since they are currently a host spot in inspiration land.
I’m sure I tortured you all long enough with a peek on what inspires me most. I figured I should at least try to explain what I draw since it can be a bit incomprehensible. Just about every picture on my blog has a story behind it. If you’re interested in the story, just ask!
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Subject #2 – Colleen from 
