Princess Boudica!

Colors!

Here's a sheet of some color ideas that we created right before we started making the Skadi comic. We sent this out to the other Dummcomics artists, and had them vote on which one they liked best. Which one do you like best?


Below is the winner.
-Luke

Diseasoid is Ancient!

As you learned in the last post, Katie drew up the first Skadi concept sometime in 2003. However, Diseasoid (the creature who would eventually become Skadi's loyal slave) is much older! I think I drew the first Diseasoid concepts sometime in 2001. I was sketching while watching The Forbidden Zone, and I came up with this weird little creature who I decided was a medieval executioner. I built up a cast of characters around him, including his peasant friend named Pea-Bowl, and an angry nobleman named Land Owner. I'm still having trouble locating drawings of these guys, but here's the earliest drawing of Diseasoid I could find:

After I started working at Spumco, I continued to experiment with Diseasoid's design. Fred Osmond was my supervisor at the time, and he's the master of cartoony flesh wrinkles. The drawings below probably owe a lot to Fred, even though they pale in comparison to his own drawings.

Below are some Milt Gross studies (plugging in Diseasoid as a model). I was trying to give Diseasoid a little more appeal, instead of turning him into a grotesque monster-type.

I threw in these below just because they're really strange. The story behind Diseasoid's newly acquired "lips" is even stranger still.....but I think I'll save that one for later....like never.

Below are some clean-ups to wrap things up.


The current Diseasoid is a more humble and appealing creature than he used to be. I think that's probably due to Katie's influence on him.....or maybe Skadi's.

-Luke

The Evolution of a Barbarian!

Allow me to take you on a journey through the creation of Skadi the Barbarian! My girlfriend and creative partner, Katie Rice, scribbled out the first image of Skadi around 2003.

Here it is!




We both instantly took a liking to the character and went through a period of about a month or two where we couldn't stop doodling her. Here's some early drawings by Katie that built upon the original design.





My early drawings of Skadi were a little different from how Katie drew her. I tended to add more anatomy and slightly more realistic proportions.





Here's a few of Katie's drawing which carry a more "stylized" approach. I like these drawings a lot, but I think we both felt that they were a little too graphic for the look we wanted for Skadi.





Here's a drawing by Katie that we used as a basic character model when we started doing the comic strip for Dumm Comics (nearly 5 years after these drawings were done). I felt that it contained all the best elements of the Skadi drawings we had done in the past.


Of course, this is far from the final design.....and it's not really our intention to even have a "final design". It's too much fun drawing new stuff to constrain yourself to one design.

-Luke