Posts tagged: Character Design

Character Design – Young Justice #14 – ATLANTIS!

So the last time I did an installment of my Character Design series, it was what was meant to be the first of two parts on our Atlantis storyline from Young Justice #14/15. And… I’m just getting to it now. Wait, when did I start inking Young Justice interiors in addition to penciling them and penciling and inking the covers? Oh, that’s right, issue #14. It’s like that made me busy or something. So, at long last, here we go!

For anyone who would like to read more about these characters both as they appeared in Young Justice and their counterparts in DC Comics comic book continuity, I’ve provided links to the relevant pages on the always useful Young Justice Wiki!

First off, Aqualad’s parents. His mother Sha’Lain’a was described as age 34, blonde with GOLDEN skin (not Caucasian), prominent gills – more-so than Aqualad – and webbed fingers and toes. And we know from Aqualad’s description that she was VERY beautiful (granted, through a son’s eyes, but still…). I originally drew her with shorter hair to better show of the gills, but Greg wanted longer hair so that changed in the actual comic. And then as it turned out you never get the best look at her in the comic anyway. She appears on one page with several panels on it and there are always many speaking characters in each panel, so there was never an opportunity for a good close up. Oh, well.

Aqualad’s father, Calvin “Cal” Durham, was described in the script as age 40, African-American, gills, webbed fingers and toes. Shaved head. Atlantean garb. That was pretty straightforward, and I tried to design an outfit for him in keeping with what we’d seen of Atlantean fashion on the show.

ShaLaina

ShaLaina

Calvin Durham

Calvin Durham


Next up were Aqualad’s friends, many of which had already been designed for the show (like Lori Lemaris, Topo, La’gaan, Garth and Tula), but some had not. Some of them were anthropomorphized mer-people, which were the most interesting design-wise.

I’d seen versions of Aqualad’s whale-buddy Blubber that were closer to human with a whale head, but I wanted something closer to whale. But my first attempt didn’t go far enough and I did a second version that was even less human. In addition losing the legs and the teeth, I added more detail to version 2 to make it seem less”cartoony.” I was determined to keep clothes on him as it’s a pet peeve of mine with intelligent aliens or other non-human creatures in comics that humans seem to be the only ones who feel the need to wear clothes.

Blubber - Version 1

Blubber – Version 1

Blubber - Version 2

Blubber – Version 2


Nanue Shark was a younger version of the King Shark character. This was another one that required two passes. The biggest challenge was that Greg was very concerned about the character appearing too cartoony, but it’s hard to get a look that is anything other than cartoony when it’s a shark head on a guy’s body. It doesn’t help that my character designs tend to be cartoonier than my finished page art, as I’m trying to design in broad, simple strokes that can be fleshed out with texture in a finished drawing. The revisions here are largely limited to losing the chin, making the teeth more irregular and like those of a real shark, and making the eyes a little smaller.

Nanue Shark - Version 1

Nanue Shark – Version 1

Nanue Shark - Version 2

Nanue Shark – Version 2


Then we had the humans of the group, who turn out to be part of a group of “purists” who are being manipulated by Ocean Master (do I need to post spoilier-warnings for a comic that came out a year ago in my blog entry about designs for that comic?). Here we see Ronal, Wyynde, and M’Chiste, all of whom are very loosely based on existing comic book characters. Loosely in the sense that it’s not much more than the name and perhaps a slight visual nod in the design.

Ronal

Ronal

Wyynde

Wyynde

MChiste

M’Chiste


And rounding out the group we have Chian and Danuuth.

Chian

Chian

Danuuth

Danuuth


The last character to be designed had to do with a land-based sub-plot involving T.O. Morrow and his robotic creations, specifically Jim Lockhart aka Red Torpedo. We’d seen an image of Jim Lockhart in his prime, but here was supposed to be an elderly man of 91. The trick was that while his human disguise was supposed to look older, his robot form underneath was unchanged so I couldn’t have him stooped over or do anything else to suggest a frail, elderly frame. I was stuck with a barrel-chested robust frame.

Jim Lockhart

Jim Lockhart


Whew! That’s it! Finally we have completed our look at my original character designs for issues #14 & #15 of Young Justice. I promise we’ll get to the next story arc much, much sooner.

You can find my previous Character Design installments here.

Coming to the pages of Young Justice…

Cold as Crystal, with eyes that BURN!

Cold as Crystal, with eyes that BURN!

He is coming…

I can’t show you the whole cover to Young Justice #23 yet, but when you see it in a month’s time, you’ll see one of my favorite covers I’ve drawn for the series so far, and one of my favorite character designs. The character in question appears before then, but here’s an even earlier peek, pencils and inks by me, colors by Zac Atkinson.

As always, you can find Young Justice at your local comics shop or in digital form!

Character Designs & Creating a Cover: Young Justice #14

We’re going to jump ahead in sequence of our Creating a Cover series, and we’re combining it with the next installment of Character Designs. That’s because most of what there is to tell about this cover is about the desgin work that needed to be done for it, and there are SO MANY new characters appearing in Young Justice #14 that I thought I’d get a few of them out of the way with this entry before detailing the rest of them in a separate entry on YJ #14 in the near future.

Long before I drew the issue itself and even before I’d seen a final script for the story, I needed to design the cover for the issue, needed early for publicity and solicitation purposes. The scenario I was given was to do an underwater downshot of Aqualad, Miss Martian and Superboy surrounded by Hooded Atlantean Purists. Furthermore, Superboy was to be wearing one of Aqualad’s spare costumes, but MINUS the Water-Bearers, BackPack and “A” belt buckle. He was also to be sporting a clear oxygen mask that covers his mouth and nose with some form of filter/re-breather attachment. Miss Martian was to have shape-shifted into a more underwater-friendly form, having ditched her usual cape and morphed herself to copy Lori Lemaris’s mermaid tail from the waist down and having grown Aqualad-like gills on her neck.  She was also meant to be shorter than usual, but that didn’t end up being a big issue with the floating figures on the cover.

The Purists were meant to be cloaked and hooded Atlanteans of Aquaman’s type, i.e. to the naked eye they look completely human.  Like all Atlanteans, there were to have bare feet.  I was also instructed that their eyes were to magically glow from within the shadowed depths of their hoods.

Miss Martian’s mermaid form was almost a non-issue, as it was just putting the top of her body on the bottom of the design for Lori Lemaris, plus adding gills identical in design to Aqualad. Superboy was basically in Aqualad’s costume minus key accessories, plus the addition of an oxygen maks. And I had to design the Purists.

Purists first:

Atlantean Purist A
Atlantean Purist A
Atlantean Purist B
Atlantean Purist B
Atlantean Purist C
Atlantean Purist C


I wanted to give the Purists interesting looking hoods, as I figured we’d be getting a lot of shots of these hoods serving as close-ups of characters in the actual story. I also wanted lots of draping fabric that could swirl in the water and make interesting shapes and suggest movement. The draping sleeves and tabards tended to get even more elongated once I was actually drawing the story. The whole design evolved a little bit once I started drawing pages, but we stayed close enough to the approved model that no one complained! I wasn’t sure about a color scheme, so I put these three options together, half-expecting to have someone suggest an option D. Version B was chosen, but which do YOU prefer?

Superboy Underwater Mask
Superboy Underwater Mask


Next up was Superboy’s air mask. I wanted to keep this simple and unobtrusive. I wanted Superboy’s face and expressions to be unobscured, and I figured we were dealing with advanced Atlantean technology and we didn’t need to be constrained by anything resembling current diving gear and oxygen tanks. This is what I came up with, and it actually became further simplified in the story, losing those square-ish bits at the corners of his jaw.

So now it was time to design a cover!

Young Justice #14 - cover rough 1

Young Justice #14 – cover rough 1

This was a relatively tight drawing for a cover rough, but we seemed to be pretty firmly locked into a concept, so I felt I could do something fairly tight I could then use as a basis for the final pencil art. Given that the characters were floating in water, I wanted the heroes to be “surrounded” in a fairly 3-dimensional way. I tried to make it clear that the Purists were not only coming from all sides but also from above and below.

The feedback was that DC wanted a little more of a feeling of action. Also, they wanted the piece to have a little more focus, so it was suggested to emphasize Aqualad a little more since it was his story.

Young Justice #14 - cover rough 2

Young Justice #14 – cover rough 2

The revised version is pretty similar – I just changed the proportion of some of the characters, bringing Aqualad forward and pushing Superboy and Miss Martian back. I turned Miss Martian’s head to better show off the gills on her neck. Aqualad is now deflecting a magical attack from one of the Purists with one of his hard water blades.

This version was approved, so from there it was the routine progression of pencils and inks, with color by Zac Atkinson.

Young Justice #14 - Cover Pencils

Young Justice #14 – Cover Pencils

Young Justice #14 - Cover Inks

Young Justice #14 – Cover Inks

Young Justice #14 - Cover Color

Young Justice #14 – Cover Color


And there you have it!  Young Justice #14 goes on sale TODAY both in digital form or at your local comic shop!

As always, questions and comments are welcome.

Character Design: The Cambodian

Issues #9 and #10 of Young Justice feature Captain Atom and a number of characters dating back to the late 1980s Captain Atom comic book series, the creative team of which – not coincidentally – includeed Greg Weisman, producer and head-writer of the Young Justice TV show and co-writer of the Young Justice comic.

Before a cover or a page of interior art for this story had been drawn, I was told that one of the villains in the story would be The Cambodian, although the character name was going to be changed, and that we’d need to reinterpret the character for the animated look of the Young Justice series. BTW – the character was ultimately never renamed, he was just referred to only by his given name of Rako, and the title “The Cambodian” was never used in the story.

I was sent the following as reference for The Cambodian character. I did some hunting online, but honestly didn’t find anything that helped me out much beyond what I was originally sent!

 

Original Cambodian Design

Original Cambodian Design

Captain Atom #7 cover

Captain Atom #7 cover

The image on the left shows a little more detail of the character’s armor, but Greg pointed out that the gray coloring from the cover of the character’s first appearance in Captain Atom #7 was the color scheme he considered “correct.” Armed with this and my understanding that the design sense of Young Justice tries to mix the colorful look of the superhero genre with a touch of practical functionality and realism (costumes with visible padding, closures, wrinkles, etc.) I set out to design “my” version of Rako – the Cambodian.

 

Cambodian Model - original

Cambodian Model – original

Cambodian Model - revised

Cambodian Model – revised

The design on my left is is pretty much a straight up translation of the original armor. I was concerned that the original armor was a little boxy and generic. I decided to offer it side-by-side with a version where I took more liberties. I tried to invest the design with a little more detail suggesting ancient armor while keeping the visor and the overlapping triangle design elements from the original. It was my understanding that the armor was modern, functional armor in a sci-fi world, so that meant it could still be stylized and streamlined, even with these ancient armor design elements. I kept the gray color scheme that Greg wanted, but also retained the red color of the visor from the more widely used gold and orange color scheme of the original armor and added a sash in a matching color.

The feedback on this second design was very positive, although I was asked to keep the design of the sword closer to the original (which I hadn’t been able to see very clearly) which includes an odd little rod or secondary blade parallel to the main blade. The design evolved slightly from there to what appeared in the actual story. The headpiece on the helmet become more pronounced and the trim was changed from a lighter gray to what I’d wanted to be a dull bronze color.

A good look at the armor can be had on the climactic page from Young Justice #9.

Young Justice #9 page 20

Young Justice #9 page 20

See more of The Cambodian Rako in Young Justice #10, on sale today!