Bleh. I originally intended to get far more done with this character today but things kept getting in the way, as is their wont. 

Anyway, this is a couple of doodles of Cass, the protagonist of Overworld, and some scrappy development of Roan, one of the other main characters. Cass is the captain of the ship Jean works on. Roan is a girl who works on her dad’s Beacon Herding ship. Basically, since even the islands that exist in a doldrum (an area with little air movement) move around a certain area and are often obscured by clouds or nightfall, beacon herders take specially designed torches that can stay in one position and set up perimeters around islands so that sailors can navigate to them when conditions are less than ideal. She longs for freedom away from her responsibilities but her father’s fanatical sense of duty won’t allow it. She’s also likely to have some degree of magical power in the story, but I’m still ironing out the details of the magic system so that will have to wait :)

artslam:

Day 3 - Kirbish / DA

More development work on Jean! (yay!)

Sorry if you’re getting tired of seeing these, I’m just determined to get a really solid foundation in my head and on paper of each of the main characters. I hoping it’ll help me picture their expressions better when I’m making the pages. 

So, I should probably tell you guys something about Overworld huh? Well, it’s set in a Wild West style world where, in the past, huge crystals buried deep in the earth, for some reason only the Gods know why, began to float. This would have been a fairly minor event had they not lifted huge swathes of the land below, some of them carrying settlements or even entire cities, up into the air with them.

This land of Overworld is where the story is set. It was a fairly lawless place where people were free to make their own fortunes (or steal someone else’s). They put shards of crystals in their boats and, voila, they were able to sail upon the winds, using the natural buoyancy of the crystals to keep them apart, and so they were able to trade and explore and build themselves a strange and detached, yet functional, community. 

Now, however, the land is subjugated by the people of the land below, their warships sent as “protection”. This action was justified in their eyes as the land is, technically, part of the continent and so still subject to the same laws. Some are thankful for the law, order and stability the Earthers bring with them, but there are those that question whether their motives are so straightforward. And there are others, still, who don’t like the shackles of law, those who became accustomed to flying whichever way the wind took them. 

Cass, Jean and the other members of their crew are, ostensibly, cartographers. As mentioned in the last post their job is to constantly keep tabs on the islands as they drift across the skies, collecting locations and meteorological data, allowing them to predict with some certainty where the island is going to go next so any other islands in their path, or anyone looking to dock there, can be warned and able to find it. 

Despite the Earther’s efforts, however, this is still a wild and chaotic land, and no-one can say for sure exactly what you might come across when you unfurl your sails and set off into the blue…

Day 3 of ArtSlam!

artslam:

Day 2 - Kirbish / DA

Clothing designs for Jean! Another bit of a rush job, I really need to work on drawing faster =/

Been having some trouble with these since clothing and colour palettes are two of a myriad of areas that I suck at. Pushing forward though, and these are way better than the last batch I came up with for him! 

Jean is one of the main characters and the Cartographer of the airship that he lives on. It’s an important role, in a world where the islands are constantly whisked away by the winds, and one that many lives depend upon. As a result, many cartographers tend to be meticulous in their work and their appearance. Jean, as you can see, is something of an oddity in that regard. He had a rough childhood and, due to his size, was often used as the brawn of gangs he was in. Despite this, though, he was an intelligent kid and was drawn to more studious pursuits, such as cartography. He just never bought into the whole pomp and circumstance of it. 

Any comments or crits on the clothing design / colours / the overall character would be greatly appreciated. I really want him to look quite level headed and also quite muscular, but intelligent and down to earth at the same time. In my head, his personality contrasts with itself in a lot of places and I’m not sure if I really pulled that off so…let me know what you think! :)

Reblogging today’s submission, Jean’s design still needs work, I think, but he’s getting there…

Jean doodles. I’m trying to get his face to look even remotely similar each time I draw it. 

Oh, I forgot to mention, this is Day 1 of ArtSlam 2012 :)