The Adventurers: Gothic Guardians.

The Adventurers: Watching over the city.

Late last year (2013) I started this drawing of The Adventurers. It is an idea I have had for many years, that of The Adventurers perched like gargoyles on a church (not terribly original as Batman has been doing that for a long time). I drew a biro sketch in one of my Uni books many years back which is the basis of this picture. It no longer exists today. 
I'm quite happy with how this picture turned out. I was wary of applying the strong shadows but I think it paid off. I look forward to the day it is a coloured cover of an issue of The Adventurers comic!

                        Merry Christmas from The Adventurers!

Adventurers Snow globe. The only way we can have a winter wonderland in Australia! This is a picture done for my wife. It's full of "easter eggs" for her. The penguin, reindeer and small tree are decorations. The tree is also based on our tree with some decorations included in the pic. My favourtie decoration being Batman!

Merry Christmas and thank you to everyone who supported and encouraged The Adventurers Comic over the year!

Development of The Adventurers Comic Characters. Part 2: Rocbadger.

As mentioned in the last post, one character idea I had was a furry character. At first he was visualised as a type of "Space ranger" character. He was pretty much imagined in his red and blue suit from the beginning but was put on the shelf until it was time to make the half-ling sized team of The Adventurers.

What do these two pictures have in common?

Well, fantastic jaw lines for one thing. A reason that Rocbadger was so fully realised as a character could be that he already existed in the form of Tilly, my orange, fluffy, persian. I think her personality also influenced the attitude that Rocbadger has! Her profile greatly influenced Rocbadger's design. She had an overhanging brow, ear tufts and a jaw that jutted out like Batman's.

Batman from The Animated series that is. I am a big fan of that series and particularly the comics based on the series (these along with the Bone comics, are what heavily influenced me to do an all-age comic). I love the design sensibilities used for the characters. I also love the protruding jaw profile Bats has.

An older Rocbadger with a scared Ellie. Not sure she would feel the need to hide behind him now!

Above, you can see that I experimented with giving Rocbadger a more badger like appearance. Of course it didn't work... he looked too old and that jaw line was way too small!

Rocbadger in two different styles.

This design is much closer to the final version. You can see that I opted for The Adventurers Comic to be in the more clean line, dynamic, 'animated' style than that of a more detailed style. These early pictures show a older, wiser Rocbadger, than the one who appears in the comic. 

What's in a name?

So why is he called Rocbadger? The name actually comes form a Proverb in the bible:

 Proverbs 30:26 "The rock badgers are a feeble folk, Yet they make their homes in the crags; " NKJV

I had no idea what a rock badger, (or conie or hyrax in other versions) were, so I filled in the gaps and made one up. This also ended up providing him with a origin point to start with but you'll need to read issue 2 of The Adventurers to find out more!

Rocbadger designs including an unfinished turn around.

I was pretty settled on Rocbadgers design. I even began to do the final 'turn arounds' for him. Yes, he was almost finished, that was until... but more on that later.

Next: Booster