Reason School Girl Uniform

So far, I've given Reason a full suit for his school uniform while Sammy and Shiina have just a dress shirt and tie, and I realized it wouldn't make much sense for a school to make only the boys wear the coat portion. So here's a quick sketch of what girls suit would look like.

But Shiina still refuses to wear a skirt. You try and stop her.

Shiina on David Violence and Size Comparisons

David always falls for the Batman patented Sucker-Punch-the-Guy-Behind-You move.

Back when I first started getting the idea for this group, I've always had Shiina and David partnered up, even though he could be just another member without being particularly bound to the others. Since they're exact opposites of each other, I figured I could get a lot of comedy out of the classic odd couple act. And since Shiina's the physically one capable of the group, that means plenty of fortuitous violence at David's expense.

I also like that she seems to be the only one who can harm a mostly intangible ghost. Does she have some strange power? Does David secretly like the abuse and let her beat him up? Who knows?!

I also did a size comparison so I know how they look amongst one another. I did a few minor tweaks to Samantha's and Shiina's heights, but for the most part, I like them they way they are now. As my three readers could probably tell with the comics of John and I, I like height discrepancies between main characters. I'm not really sure why, honestly. Maybe it's just from watching cartoons of the Disney trio while growing up.

David Redesign

He could some cucumber slices for those eyes.

I spent the last couple of weeks changing David's look. I originally had him in a straight jacket to get the idea across that he's a rather nutty guy who acts on impulse, but I ultimately decided that the look separated him too much from the rest of the group. Like the others, he's a high school kid from the same school (or at least he was when he died), so I gave him a school uniform. But, he's been dead for a while, so I wanted his uniform to be of a different design to show that he's from a generation or two ago. As for him being a bit crazy, I figured his actions would get that across.

You can also see from the eraser marks in the turnaround that I was figuring out how tall he should be. At first he was as tall as Reason, but if I want Reason to be tall for his age, I better make sure he's at least the tallest of the group of main characters. So I made David half a head shorter.

I also drew him in various expressions, which was rather fun since he's a lot more comical and exaggerated than the rest of the main characters. I want him to be like Spongebob Squarepants in that the design of the face can change drastically for the sake of making a funny image.

Samantha Turnaround and Reason Hair Redesign

Her curlers must be huge.

Continuing refining these characters in preparation of a (hopefully) future comic. 

First I did a turnaround of Reason's new hair style. I decided to avoid doing the Flinstones flip, where the part in the hair will suddenly change sides depending where the character's facing.

Then most of this week's work was spent on Samantha's hair. I've always liked her hair, it's almost like a bonnet made of circles, or a real cutesy lion's mane, but I never drew it outside of a three quarter and head on view. I also had to create a process to make sure I draw her hair consistently, as her do is the most complicated out of all these characters. I ended up with a method similar to drawing Lisa Simpson's hair, just replace the spikes with circles.

Shiina Redesign

A female who's more bad-ass than the male lead?! Well, I never!

After messing with different hair styles for Shiina in my last post, I wanted to flesh her out a bit more, both to try one of said new hair styles and to giver her a look that differentiates her from the other female lead, Samantha. Other than the hair, I've made her a bit taller and gave her boy uniform pants with the legs rolled up instead of a skirt (I figure it'd be funny if she were very intimidating to the school officials, so they'd let her wear whatever the hell she wants).

And now for a flashback. When I first got the idea of these characters (I think it was in my later years in high school), I originally made Shiina an African American. I eventually decided that she would be the most action prone character, being very capable of most any physical task and knowing various martial arts if fighting were ever needed in this story. With that change, I figured a Japanese heritage would be more suited for her, but I was always a little bummed about losing a character of color. Than it hit me when making these drawings: "DUH! Just give her both heritages!" There's no rule saying she couldn't have both Japanese and African genes! I'm already starting to get excited about what her parents could be like, one being black and the other asian.

And now for something completely the same. I'm starting to get serious about making a comic out of these characters that have been floating in my head for forever. There's still tons of preparation involved, so there won't be any comic anytime soon. What will happen is that you'll see a lot more posts of sketches of these guys and other aspects of the story as I continue to flesh things out. But there also may be less work posted in general, as making an ongoing comic means I gotta spend time leaning how to write a decent story.

So on that note, if anybody knows of any books or websites that are good resources for fledgling writers, please tell me about them in the comments or Twitter.

Reason and Shiina Hairstyles

Cue a montage at the hair salon set to I'm Every Woman.

Not much to show on this post. We've had guests over this past week, and (I think I've talked about this before) I can't help but feel that I'm being a rude host if I hold myself up at my computer in my room drawing all day like I usually do. So I tried to find something relatively simple to work on.

I've wanted to change Reason's hair for a while now. Not because I don't like it, but rather because there are some popular characters that have a similar style. Now that I'm gonna give him a new do, I think a simple part or something else low maintenance would be the best way to go. Thanks to him being super tall and lanky, he would like to bring less attention to himself, so something crazy that requires tons of hair gel wouldn't suit him. He'll still have the bit of premature white hair though.

As for Shiina, I just wanted to see what she'd look like with shorter hair (I find short hair cuts to be super cute on girls). I'm digging the styles that cover a lot of her face, but not the side that the scar is on, as if she's proud of it and is showing it off like a badge.

Scary School Zombie

Coincidentally, this is how I usually look in the morning before my shower.

Thanks to jury duty, I have nothing new to show. So here's a pocket sketch I drew a while back to work out what the zombies in my Scary School pic would look like. Like I said in a previous post, I didn't want a typical rotting flesh zombie, so a came up with the idea of some sort of living goop that animates human remains like puppets.

And even regular puppets are scary enough.

Samantha and Loid for Amanda

Silly Sammy, bows aren't for dudes!

You see, people? If you say nice things about my work, you're GUARANTEED to get a thank you drawing from me!*

Ages later, I finally put up a new post. Took me a while thanks to preparing for holidays (aka last minute Christmas shopping) and doing some art work for friends, including this one with Samantha, Loid, and Belle for fellow artist and Twitter friend Amanda. She always has kind words about about the stuff I post, including these characters I made for the Scary School universe. And believe me, with all the fan art I've made, it makes me ridiculously happy when someone says they like my original works.

I also drew some of her crafts in the image, including the awesome little figures she made of the Ghost Adventures crew. Go visit her devianART page so you can see more of her work.


*Not a guarantee.

Reason's Mom

Turtle neck sweaters for the win.

My current project is going to take a while, and I don't really have anything decent to show yet, so it's time to pull out another old pocket sketch. This is Reason's mom, one of the few times I made a character for the Scary School universe other than the main six. I haven't developed her character much, other than making her look warm and inviting. And, like her son, she's quite lanky.

Reason Model Sheet

Why's he so skinny? This guy needs to eat a cheeseburger!



Well, this took longer than I thought it would, due partly to me misjudging how long it would take to think up and draw a bunch of poses, mostly due to actually having various things to do these past few weeks such as an interview, drug test, and having relatives over. Oh, and I also got a 3DS and Zelda 3D, which I'm trying very hard not to play even as I type this.

But back to the actual drawing. It may seem unnecessary to make a model sheet of a character that will probably only be drawn by me, but I actually like model sheets just for the sake of looking a them. Even if I don't plan to draw the character on any given model sheet, I just like looking at the various poses and expressions. To me, they're art in and of themselves. Plus, this may look good in a portfolio.

Reason Model Sheet Sketch 2

It was the second one from the left, officer!



Another sketch from the Reason model sheet that I'm very slowly working on. Like I said in the last post, I don't wanna put a bunch of stuff up when you'll see it all in the end anyway. I'm pretty much done with the sketching, all that's left is the ink and paint in Photoshop.

This drawing in particular is for size comparisons. I posted this cuz it's the only other drawing I've made that has all the Scary School characters other than that piece itself.

Reason Model Sheet Sketch

Cuz I assume EVERYONE wants to how many heads tall he is.



Not much this week, just a couple of drawings of a Reason model sheet I'm working on. I have a bit more than this done, but there's no point in showing a lot when you'll see it all in the finished product anyway.

So move along, nothing to see here.

Uh... Thanks...

...Could've done it myself though... Just saying...



Another older sketch from my pocket sketch book. I drew this back when I had the idea that Reason never took his left hand out of his pocket for whatever mysterious reason (you see what I did there?), so Samantha is being nice and cutting his food for him. Cuz, y'know, you need two hands to cut a steak. Although now, I allow him to take his hand out, so this makes less sense.

But I guess I doesn't matter. To anyone else, it just looks like Sammy is taking his food. But she has her own food on her plate! Don't be so silly!

Charlie

Wise guy, huh?!



Here's yet another character from the Scary School universe, though he's not in that actual drawing. I haven't fleshed him out very much, I just wanted an antagonist that wasn't part of the paranormal part of this world. He's a bully from Reason's an co.'s school, but he's more comic relief than an actual threat.

Also, I drew this before I decided to have Reason be the only one to wear gloves. I guess I could've easily changed it, but I was too lazy to erase those black marks before I scanned.

Wait! Not too lazy! Too busy! Yes! Much better.

Shiina and David

A g-g-g-GIRL!





More sketches of a couple of characters in my Scary School drawing.

The girl is Shiina, which is a name I really don't like anymore. I want her to be Asian, and thus an asian name, but I can't remember why I chose the name Shiina specifically. What's another good Asian name? Anyway, she's the f*cking serious one of the group, rarely showing a great amount of emotion

The ghost that hangs out in her backpack is David, named after a friend from high school. He's is not the f*cking serious one of the group, but rather the f*cking crazy one. But he's funny crazy, not evil crazy. I imagine most of the comic relief coming from him, mostly by picking on Reason, who is, unlike the rest of the group, not used to the whole paranormal stuff and is scared easily.

Anyway, these two come in a pair, as some of the comedy comes from them being dead opposites. Despite that, they feel the need to be around each other for some reason that I haven't fleshed out yet. Though David died in his late teens in an insane asylum, he could have dead for a long while, so maybe he was friends with one of Shiina's relatives from a few generations back or something. Idano, I'm just throwing ideas out.

If fighting or a lot of action in general were required in this story, it would come from these two. They both know how to fight (hence Shiina's wooden sword/poor example of forced prospective), and I also had a gimmick idea that I stole from Shaman King where David could posses Shiina or anyone else in the group if they need to fend for themselves and needed to know kung-fu real quick like.

Belle

But probably not the Belle you were looking for.



Another sketch of one of the characters in the Scary School pic. She's a little ghost who's name is Belle, and she has a bell! HA!! You see what I did there?

She was created mostly cuz I wanted a cutesy little mascot for the group. Story wise, even the gang doesn't know her origin or how she died because she doesn't talk, either because she can't or chooses not to.

I remember when I first started thinking about her design that I wanted to her to have a cut noose around her neck, but I figured that be a little much, and it also implies that her death was caused by suicide, which I don't like for her character.

Casual Samantha

I like short shorts. ...Not wear them, mind you.



Not much this time, just another sketch of Samantha. I was imagining what she might wear when she's not wearing the dark grey school uniform. Cute enough. I may do that with the rest of the characters someday. Although I imagine Reason wearing formal stuff even when he doesn't have to.

Loid

Not that kinda loid.







Yet another character from the Scary School pic. He's a friendly little monster boy that has the power to shape shift, and he usually does that by sorta multiplying parts of his body so they become big jumbled messes of whatever the body part is, like you see in the last two sketches. Think Akira, but more creepy and comedic than horrendously disturbing. Since doing that with his teeth and jaws is rather dangerous to those around him, he's been given a pacifier to... uh... pacify with.

He lives with Samantha, who considers him a younger brother, but in a way in which an only child who suddenly gets an adorable little boy to take care of would. So thus she spoils him rotten and he tends to like her more than the others in the group.

I also said in the notes that he likes to act like different animals but doesn't always necessarily turn into them, which I just thought might be cute and funny, seeing as he's a kid. Based on the life span of his particular species of monster, he's a toddler, but in human years, he's centuries old.

Blog Sign

I has one.



I made this after getting jealous of other bloggers having custom images for their blog titles. It was created in Illustrator, cuz, I mean, c'mon! I'm not gonna make a bunch of squares in Photoshop! I didn't wanna make the frames in Photoshop either.

*Rim shot*

Starting at the top left and going clockwise, the characters are Me, Dad, Samantha, Reason, Moose, Hopper, Animal Crossing version of me, Mr. Resetti, Yellow, Red, Mom, and John. I was thinking of putting Bob in there, but decided to only put characters that have been featured more than once.

Also, we all hate Bob anyway.

Samantha

...has a sad, apparently.




Here's another character from that scary school drawing. If I remember correctly, I named her after a friend from school (although she usually went by Sammy). I wanted a girls name that was at least three syllables long for some reason, and her name popped into my head first.

Samantha is the second youngest and the smart one of this group of kids that I talked about on Reason's post. She's a bookworm, and has the reserved, shy disposition that usually goes with that type of person. I usually picture her in constant possession of some book, maybe an encyclopedia on the supernatural. If action were required for this story, I guess it could also be a witchcraft spell book, or somethin'. I also imagine her as a possible love interest for Reason, and there could be an on again, off again relationship between them due to him refusing to elaborate on his mysterious left hand of mystery.

On that note, I think of her as being 15 years old, and I said before that Reason is 17. Is a two year age difference too big for a relationship for high school kids?

...OOH, I can talk about their outfits. I wanted them to wear school uniforms, but I didn't want to do the typical japanese sailor outfit. Since a slightly gothic look could go with the supernatural theme, I thought I could give them a made up school uniform design were there's lots of black, like all the kids are going to a funeral. It could also be a good contrast for the ghoulish stuff they deal with, where in they're normal school life is boring and colorless, but they're ghost/monster hunting is hectic and colorful.

...And I swear, I got the idea of the dead being more colorful than the living before I saw Corpse Bride.