This is the first of a series of character designs from a project I've been working on lately called The Independents. It's the brainchild of a very talented writer friend of mine named Ben Christian. All of the characters and concepts in The Independents were created by Ben. I was given a general direction to go in for each character and from there I had free reign to take things wherever.
After the character designs I'll post the thumbnails for the 11 page story that we're going to try pitching as a "trailer" for a mini-series or a line of mini-series. This whole process has really been a blast, and I think the collaboration is gonna yield some great results.
This first guy is J.T. Chance aka The Quintessence. Ben described him as the "white-trash Superman" with a moustache that would put Burt Reynolds to shame. At first I had a hard time making him not look like Brock Samson (on account of the mullet), then I saw a drawing of him that Ben himself had done and he gave him black hair, so that settled it.
I added the gloves and the bottle opener on his belt loop. And I did a few drawings of him wearing a denim jacket, completing the "Canadian tuxedo" just because I liked the way it looked. The image of this guy with Superman's stature wearing a jean jacket that was too small for him and fingerless gloves from the 80's is just kinda cool.
I also used these illustrations as an opportunity to brush up on Photoshop and Illustrator. That learning curve is a steep one, so don't judge too harshly. I'm still congratulating myself for re-learning the basics (hooray for mediocrity!)
Over the next few days I'll be posting the rest of the characters with some bits of the steps I took and my thoughts during the process.
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