Sometimes you can find the most awesome stuff in the most unexpected places. This last weekend I was at the supermarket buying groceries and out of nowhere, my girlfriend pulls out a Hand Scythe. She intended to scare me, but instead, I was very excited. This plastic toy was a perfect match to the weapon used by one of my characters, the “Grimm Creeper”. I had to buy it. Luckily I was able to find a second one too.
Halloween is always a great time to find plastic weapons and cosplay items. Last year we found a cool life-size Captain America shield, and this year it’s the Grimm Creeper’s scythe weapons.
Original Grimm Creeper by Ralph Contreras
In my original sketch of the Grimm Creeper, I had drawn his weapons very similar to the ones I recently found. In later drawings, I modified and stylized the scythes. After holding and simulating how the weapons work in a fight (I was testing them out in the supermarket), I’ve decided to go back to my original concept: a simple and direct weapon.
Redesign Grimm Creeper by Ralph Contreras
It’s really great having these props. I now have several ideas on how he can wield his weapons. I know that it will help me to come up with better action poses when I draw his fight scenes.
This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.
Last week I was working on character design sketches for one of my characters named Nemcromn. These were drawn in a pocket sketchbook I carry around. I thought it would be cool to upload these to show the steps in my thought process when designing what I want a character to look like.
These are sketches of Nemcromn’s Face. I did a 3/4 view, a front view, and a profile. I was trying to capture a sinister look. He wears a skullcap. His face has two major scars and his left cheek has one that stretches to his ear. He’s a mystic Zombie Necromancer so I tried to reflect this in his skin by making it look a little rotten. He also has no pupils.
Here’s a front full-body view. I like to draw a quick sketch of the form, then I can start customizing the character’s look. When I originally came up with Nemcromn’s look a few years ago I was really into Brom’s artwork. With his industrial mystic goth creatures and characters.
Here’s a sketch of Nemcromn with a little more detail. The skullcap stretches to cover his upper chest as well. He has leather straps wrapped around his waist and chest. The chest traps hold a small cape that goes over his left shoulder. Like the sketches of his face, Nemcromn’s body is that of a corpse. I wanted to show the scars and stitches that cover his entire body.
So who is Nemcromn? In life, he was Stephen Boyle, a wealthy adventurer who traveled the world looking for new and exciting challenges. Rock climbing, deep sea, and sky diving. He wanted to experience any and all he could. He began to get bored with these types of challenges and started to look inward and beyond. This route took him to dark places and eventually to the study of life beyond death. Using his vast fortune he bought all the knowledge he could in the study of life, death, and the undead. He became a powerful living necromancer and his studies taught him of the dark power that coexists with all life. In these studies, he learned of a celestial object traveling through space that could increase his power 1,000 times that of what he could possibly achieve on his own.
He discovered that one of these objects would fall to earth. Planning on taking the energies from the fallen object, Nemcromn using his original identity took 6 of his childhood friends on a dangerous hike up the mountain where he knew it would arrive. Like his former self, his friends were also adventures in extreme sports. Planning on sacrificing them and using their life forces to bond with the energies Nemcromn made a fatal miscalculation. The object fell to earth sooner than he thought, hitting the group and killing everyone but two of his companions. Nemcromn died in the impact that day. The power he craved was completely absorbed by one of the survivors, John McCarran. McCarran used the power to become one of Earth’s most beloved heroes, Solarus The Radiant Guardian.
Nemcromn who was now a master of life and death was not so easily defeated. No one knew of his secret life and Stephen Boyle was buried at his family plot. Several weeks after the funeral Nemcromn the lord of the dead dug himself out of the grave. He was now a powerful mystic zombie with more power than he had when he was alive. The necromancer used his dark knowledge to escape the afterlife. Now with a new purpose, he wants the destruction of Solarus and complete control of the world’s dead and living. He works in the shadows sending agents both dead and alive to set his plans into motion.
This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.
Here’s a quick sketch I did a few days ago of one of my characters, the Grimm Creeper. He’s an assassin/hunter who primarily works for Nemcromn the main villain in a comic story I’m working on. He has hyper-quick reflexes, agility is a master of stealth, and several fighting techniques.
This blog post was originally published on my former website, Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Artist Blog.
