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).