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Puppetcancer In reply to mearn4d10 [2009-12-04 03:08:04 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! You can probably guess from the poses and facial expressions exactly which photos I was using throughout that fourth column, too.

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mearn4d10 In reply to Puppetcancer [2009-12-04 21:48:01 +0000 UTC]

Yep! And I wish to note that the OverHand Mechanicals and New Vanu blade are well done!

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Puppetcancer In reply to mearn4d10 [2009-12-04 23:31:19 +0000 UTC]

Thanks! I'm sorry there wasn't a decent way to show off the compass in the pommel, but I was pleasantly surprised how well the final look of Keegan/Otto's sword came out. As for the flamethrower gauntlet and the mining drill, I drew Otto's pose to match up with the sizes of some of the devices from the previous Ray animated images.

I did this drawing by drawing a character, filling out a column with tweaked versions of that character, then beginning the next character. I went in the order of Ray, Otto, Jessica, and Greta, and occasionally recolored various parts of cloth or buttons across a row so that all four characters would have more visual cohesiveness as a group, like the Dinobots. LOL

There's also a subtle one-out-of-four-is-deliberately-different theme running across the overall 4x4 grid. i.e. Most columns and rows each have one design element that doesn't conform with the other three.

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Puppetcancer In reply to Xandera007 [2009-12-01 20:15:00 +0000 UTC]

Thank you and bingo on spotting the pre-Keegan pre-dirigible-crash pre-transplant Otto. I was hoping somebody would figure that detail out. Good work!

BTW, when I first started this project, I knew I wanted to do a row with snow in the background from the showcased backstory event where Ray, Wilbur, Rudolf, and Otto somehow held off those ten thousdand electrically reanimated cadavers. However, I realized that I didn't want to come up with three additional looks each for Wilbur and Rudolf, and I definitely didn't want to confuse any viewers by accidentally depicting Wilbur and Rudolf suddenly undergoing sex changes to transform into Greta and Jessica.

i.e. I just didn't want to put up with viewers concluding, "So those two chicks used to be guys? Dood, that's messed up!"

Ironically, do you remember thsoe two 1940s "mannish" fashion sketches you sent me months ago? The hat is based off what one of those ladies were wearing. i.e. In a way, you DID think of that hat. It's also visible (barely) in Greta's hand in the CD illustration.

I was looking at previous drawings of both mine and yours to keep the design of Greta's wool consistent.

For Jessica's (and especially Otto's) face, I looked up photos of them from DemiCon 2004 and beyond. Austin had this aristocratic arrogant pose he did for several photos of him in that costume, so I decided to go with that same expression to set him apart from the other three characters in terms of visual personality. Granted, in retrospect there are always some things I wish I could have done differently in this illustration, especially concerning the subtle interaction among and between the four GWSG, but with each shift of a limb's angle or direction of the eyes, the new variant would create a wholly new set of conclusions to the audience based on what each character was apparently thinking about at the time. ex. In the last row, Ray LOOKS like he's oogling Greta with X-Ray specs, but I didn't realize that when I was drawing each picture one character at a time and later putting them into the 16 boxes. (Actually, Ray is probably reacting to seeing Greta's "other" body, since many of the devices and instruments they're carrying in the fourth row allow mere mortals to see ghosts and haunted objects.

Nuts, I just remembered that I forgot to put in the "glowing whiskers" visual effect on Greta in any of the four pictures of her. Maybe I'll alter that.

I'm still really happy with the Swiss mountaineer look of Greta's in the first row, BTW.

BTW, the clasp-held books on Greta's hips are based on the male Alchemist character class in the Torchlight computer game. It literally looks like he's got armored books over his thighs like some sort of steampunk samurai, and I just had to incorporate that really inventive concept into the GWSG somehow. (There are several design elements in Torchlight that are really creative IMO. The hanging-books-as-part-of-the-armor idea seemed perfect for Greta's practical side, although in the game the books are clipped onto the belt from the book's spine. I figured in my variation that Greta would appreciate being able to quickly look up something without having to unhook the entire tome off herself. BTW yes those are silver clasps on purpose, and if you look closely you can see a slight difference in hue from the color of the other character's buttons in a given row. )

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