STS-70: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Seren

Here's the last of the updated designs for the Of Stars and Swords cast in arc 2: Seren! She was the hardest to get right, mainly because I was hesitant to change her look after the first arc...but she's not a superhero, so there's no good reason for her not to change when the rest of the csat designs looked so good.

I'll leave the rest to Caroline.

We were originally planning on keeping Seren’s outfit from arc 1, and just updating her belt, daggers, and arm armour. But as everyone else’s designs started coming together, we realized she just wasn’t as interesting in comparison and I really wanted to continue the trend of changing her look to line up with changes to her self-identity. Her new outfit is an upgrade focusing on hilighting her strengths: stealth, speed, and connections. We also decided to visibly link her to the Dorae-Kos by creating an emblem for them that’s kinda hard to miss on her back.

STS-69: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Kyros

Today's look at the Of Stars and Swords Arc 2 character is Cato's brother, Kyros! I'll leave the explaining to Caroline...



After we figured out Cato we started applying his reject designs to a base for Kyros, this group’s heavy. Kyros needed to look like the kid who always wanted to join the army, but never had the discipline for it. His early designs were too muddy and bland, and didn’t give a strong silhouette (and we didn’t want to go the gladiator route). Our biggest challenge was keeping him from looking like Chloe 2.0. His final outfit borrows strongly from Greek and Roman armours, with a chevalier-inspired upper chest guard.

STS-68: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Kieran

Time for another look at the Of Stars and Swords Arc 2 cast. This time it's Kieran, who we've shown off more than a few times and, like Maeira, now looks completely different!

Now I'll stop typing and leave the rest to Caroline's words.

Kieran was also held back by his original design from a few years ago. While we were streamlining him, we decided to ditch the bow and let him focus on his swords exclusively. Most of Kieran’s changes have come as a result of Graham figuring him out while writing scripts for arc 2. His personality and attitude weren’t matching the sketches I was putting together. He needed to be sharper featured, and more rugged and militarian. The final costume was inspired by Japanese Samurai armour (jinbaori for the coat, kyahan for the leg gaiters, and even the sword placements), Game of Thrones (primarily outerwear worn by the Starks) and the streamlined fantasy designs in Dragon Age.

STS-67: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Anica

Here's another look at a character for Of Stars and Swords Arc 2! This is Anica, the only character that we managed to nail down on the first go.

Now here's Caroline's design and her talking about it.



We got lucky with Anica, I knew exactly how she needed to look from the beginning. Our goal was to borrow shapes found in Ancient Egyptian clothing, but combine them in a different way. I wanted her to look like a wealthy merchant’s daughter, so her clothing needed to be rich and colorful, while also practical for daily wear.

STS-66: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Cato

Next up in the look at the character designs for Of Stars and Swords Arc 2 is Cato. As you can see, he went through some fairly dramatic changes, and I'll let Caroline do the talking about the rest of it!



Cato was the hardest to pin down. We always knew we wanted him to have a Greek influence. I originally pictured him as being tan and blonde, and he gradually got darker with each draft. When my original ideas were too bland, I started looking to Troy and East of West for inspiration.

STS-65: Of Stars and Swords Character Design: Maeira

The character designs for the second story arc for Of Stars and Swords are basically finalized! We've posted a few iterations of them here on the blog, but now it's time to show off what the characters will look like when the comic actually starts!

First up is Maeira! From here on out, it's all Caroline talking about it, as well.



Graham came up for the original design for Maeira yeeeears ago. When it came time to polishing up her design for the comic, we tried to stick to her original costume as much as possible, even though it didn’t have a strong silhouette and was kinda bland. As we developed the other characters we started to notice that our older designs weren’t holding up, so we started from scratch again.

STS-64: Of Stars and Swords Arc 2 Cast

Caroline recently put together some portraits for the main cast for the next Of Stars and Swords story arc! Outfits aren't entirely final, and some are already changed from after these were done. We'll have more to show soon. The start of the second arc is still a little ways off, but that doesn't mean we can't keep showing off art until we get there!

STS-63: A Bunch of Sketches

Hey everyone! A slight change of pace in this post, as this is full of Graham's art instead of Caroline's. It happens, and hopefully there'll be more of both to show soon as we work on finishing our first Of Stars and Swords story and start to develop some new things.

For now though, here's a bunch of sketches Graham has been doing to get back into the groove of drawing again. There's a good chance these will get inked in the future (maybe even by Caroline), as well.

The first batch is a group of Marvel's cosmic characters: Captain Marvel, Nova, Mantis, and Gamora.

Second group are all X-Men: Cyclops, X-23, Kitty Pryde and Lockheed, and Storm.

Third group are all Spider-Man related: Peter Parker, Miles Morales (Ultimate Spider-Man), Gwen Stacy (Spider-Woman), and Anya Corazon (Spider-Girl).

STS-62: Of Stars and Swords Preview: Anica

As the first Of Stars and Swords story arc draws to a close, we've been giving you all some small looks at the cast for the second story arc.

First, we showed the designs for Kieran and Maeira, a pair of Elves that will be joining Seren..

Then, a few weeks ago, we showed off the design for Cato.

This week, meet Anica! As with Cato, she's been a primary character in the Prose story. Visually, we wanted Anica's design to have a bit of an Egyptian influence, as part of our push to show more of the world beyond the usual "everything in fantasy is white and European". At the same time, we wanted her to have some more color than the other designs, especially since the other characters tend to wear darker, more subdued outfits.

STS-61: Of Stars and Swords Preview: Cato

The first story arc for Of Stars and Swords is nearly over! We've been a bit slow on getting these last pages out, and we apologize! But to tide you over, how about a look at the future?

The second story arc is already in the planning and prep stages. There will be a new cast of characters joining Seren, and while you've seen a couple of them in a previous post, how about one more? Oh...wait, did I not mention those two in we showed you last time would be joining up? Oops!

So joining them AND Seren will be a familiar name to anyone reading the Of Stars and Swords Prose sidestory. That story's lead, Cato, will be joining the comic in the next arc! And here's a look at him. He's gone through a couple of stages of design, and we'll show off the fairly drastic alterations and work we've done eventually, but for now, here's his (probably) finalized design!

STS-60: The Mad Lord

The newest Of Stars and Swords page features the return of the main villain for the first story arc, the Mad Lord. We're over a hundred pages into the comic, but we've only seen him TWICE! And both times were in the Issue 0, back in 2012! Since it's been so long and we actually needed him for the current scene, Caroline did a proper design for him. So here's Caroline's design sketches for the Mad Lord. Enjoy!

STS-59: Of Stars and Swords Cameo Concepts

Of Stars and Swords is, right now, in the home stretch for the first arc. We're going to be done in around ten pages! It's exciting and we're having a ton of fun reaching the point in the story we've been aiming for, and not expecting to really ever get to, since the very beginning. And in the lead up to the end of our first story arc, we decided to have some fun with background characters by inserting the likenesses of some of our comic creator friends.

While we've done four cameos, only two of them received design sketches. Why? Because we're weird that way. Or mean. So to make up for being mean, first I'll plug our two friends that didn't get concepts drawn.

First is Sarah Roarke, creator of the comic After Daylight. She's on this page, in the second to last panel...dead center with pink hair!

Second is Larry Watts, currently the penciller on Robyn Hood for Zenescope. He's on the last panel on this page, being grabbed by Seren and looking appropriately terrified.

Now, on to the concept art!

First up here are two characters that aren't cameos at all! Just updated designs for the Elf and Dwarf Commanders since we hadn't seen them in so long. But the third headshot here is of Jules Rivera, creator of the comics Valkyrie Squadron and Misfortune High! She first showed up on this page and managed to return in the most recent one!



And last we have Gustav Carlson, creator of Backwood Folk and Eve of the Ozarks! He appeared first on this page and then came running back again! Caroline had to design what the Elf mages would look like for him, so there's also some work on that design here, as well.

STS-58: Of Stars and Swords Process - Color Comparison

We recently went through the wonderful experience of Caroline's HDD dying. For obvious reasons, this slowed down our usual one page a week update schedule for Of Stars and Swords. The page (Page 14 of Issue 5) we put up that week wasn't entirely finished, and we figured you might like a side-by-side look at the unfinished page next to the now-finished page.

On the left is the unfinished one. Specifically, what's missing is shading on the figures. The backgrounds are actually done, but the figures are still just the flat colors. You can see how Caroline chose to shade them on the right.

In a lot of ways, the left page LOOKS done. We could probably put out comic pages that look like that and they'd be perfectly fine, overall. But when you see it next to the final page, you can really see what Caroline does when she's coloring, and that it is absolutely worth it!

Enjoy, and as always, click the image to get a better look!

STS-57: Of Stars and Swords Preview - Kieran and Maeira v2

Back in 2011, as we were gearing up to launch Of Stars and Swords, we showed off a pair of character concepts. It's been five full issues of the comic, and we're close to halfway through the sixth, and final for the first story arc, and said characters never showed up! Well, not in the comic. The pair have more recently shown up in the comic's prose side story!

Well, here are Kieran and Maeira again, with a much more finalized design! Finalized for what, though? Details to come. For now, here they are!

STS-56: More Scifi Sketches

I promise this will have a name beyond "scifi comic" eventually, but for now, that's all it is. Most of what you see are my (Graham) sketches and designs, since I'm doing the pencils on this project, but every so often Caroline does a sketch of her own, and that's what we're showing today. A couple of sketches Caroline did of one of the main characters of the comic, one in pencil and the other just in pen.



No updates yet on when, exactly, you'll get to see the comic pages, but I promise you they're coming! Until then, as always, our webcomic Of Stars and Swords continues to update weekly and is nearing the end of Issue 4 of the story! And you can catch up there on the website or on Comixology!

STS-55: Summer Seren

Summer's almost over, but we've got a summer sketch for you! Caroline decided she just had to draw Seren enjoying the summer. So here it is, done in crayon! Enjoy Seren in her usual cheerful form.




Speaking of Seren, Of Stars and Swords Issue 0 and 1 are available for sale on Comixology now! There are also DRM-free versions available in our store on the sidebar to the left, as well as a newly compiled version of The End with new lettering!

STS-54: Scifi Character Design Update

We've been focused on Of Stars and Swords here on the art blog lately, but I'm still quietly working on a scifi comic. An 8-page short is nearly completely penciled, along with multiple scripts written, so things are coming. For now, though, here's a look at some character designs as they've evolved in the working.

You can see the original headshots of the main cast here and then a full lineup of the cast here.

First up is a color test on that previous lineup. Everything here is still in various states of flux, even in how some of the characters are designed on the whole. So certain characters might look completely different when the comic itself is out! Click to see a larger version!

Next up are a couple of sketches that Caroline did. These are her takes on the four main characters, with a fairly heavy redesign attempt to one of them. It is very possible I might be adapting some of her ideas into the final character designs...

STS-50: Goblin Design Sketch

Look at that! Finally up to fifty blog posts!

For this one, I give you how Goblins look in Of Stars and Swords. Caroline and I talked this one through a lot before she tackled the design, but we both came from the same direction. The idea was to make this a recognizably goblin-like design, but not to copy what, say, Lord of the Rings had already done. So we've still got the big head, small body setup, but Caroline went with a few different ideas here: three fingers and toes, legs that reverse slightly at the knee, and somewhat bat-like ears.

And, of course, Caroline made him cute.

STS-48: OSAS Mage and Priest Designs

Recently in Of Stars and Swords, we've introduced a new city with a political system built around a group of Mages and Priests. The idea was that everything in running the city was divided equally between the two groups, and so we needed designs for how everyone would look. Beyond some very minor suggestions from me, all of this was Caroline as she tried to find some less than traditional influences for how to dress the characters.

First up are the designs for the two groups of city guards. So far, we've only shown the Priest Guards, and you can see them fully colored here on this page.



Next, we needed the two leaders. These are our really important characters that can't just be blank faces, and Caroline really had fun with the pair while still playing off the guard designs. And next week, when Issue 3 of the comic starts up, you'll get to see both of these guys right away!

STS-47: OSAS Dwarf Designs

At the end of the Issue 2 for Of Stars and Swords, we finally had our heroes encounter a fantasy staple: Dwarves. So here's a look at Caroline's design sketches for the two main Dwarves in the comic at the moment.

On the left is the Dwarf Commander, who never got a name because I never bothered with it. Maybe later. But he's much more our standard Dwarf, beard and all. Even then, Caroline made sure to keep him with a closer-cropped, dignified looking beard to help his military look. The armor he wears became the standard for the Dwarves, so any background Dwarves you see tend to be wearing the same design, though usually with helmets.

On the right is Algvi, the scout that joins up with the characters to lead them underground. With him, I gave Caroline only two suggestions: Make him bald and give him some kind of tattoo on his head. She ran with that, added the wonderful mutton chops, a nice nose scar, and roughed him up in a way that gave him a lot of character. His armor is, essentially, the same as the Dwarf Commander's, but leather rather than plate.