Sketches - Chase and Margaret

So, yeah, I missed a week or so of posts due to falling horribly ill shortly after that post with Anna (and by 'horribly ill' I mean 'mild cold', but whatever), and I was actually unable to draw. And then there was a convention, don't know if you heard of it, but Anime North? Yup, recovered just in time for that, and the week before it was spent with family frantically working to get ready for it. But... Those stories are better fit for Livejournal, or, maybe, a different post someday. Costume Making is kind of like art, right?

But I digress.

Today is another post featuring things I drew in my sketchbooks and scrap paper. I think these guys are some of my more interesting characters, for their origin, if anything else.

See, one night, I had an incredibly vivid dream about this futuristic utopia-sort of world. The short version was that there was little poverty and no crime; everyone was happily living their lives in their own little world, sort of, just goofing off. Society was kind of like a cross between the positive sides of a big mall and college life.

All except for one guy, who was, for some reason unknown, wanted by the people running this utopia. He was constantly on the run from security robots (or any robot, really), or anyone who cared enough to pursue justice. There's more to it than this, which also explains how he gets by and why other people don't turn him in, but that's something for later.

Meanwhile, a woman graduating from her college program with no idea what she was going to do with herself (up until then, she was content partying and socializing, but that gets stale after awhile). Inevitably, she and the dude on the run cross paths (though she drags him to a few parties before she figures out who he is, first), and naturally, she ends up stuck with him as he continues dodging the law.

This was all clear in my mind that morning, which is sort of rare for me. It had a coherent plot and everything, and several scenes were still very clear in my mind and still made sense! I also knew how they looked like.

The first thing I did that morning, after writing down what I could remember from the dream, was to draw this:



On the left is Chase, the man on the run. I couldn't really remember his name, but I remembered how he looked like. I think I was close to naming him something else (I wrote down a list of names that sounded similar to what I remembered from the dream), but settled on Chase for irony. I think he had a slight accent, but he might have just been putting that on when he talked to people, y'know, for advice and directions. On that note, he can act all cool and confident and classy for about six lines of conversation, but once the other person talks about something other than the city or whatever answers he wanted, he is incredibly lost. Fortunately, he has Margaret.

Margaret, the girl on the right, is pretty interesting, too. I could remember her name clearly, most of her appearance, but the best part of her sort of developed as I drew her. Initially, she was in sort of a retro sundress-like thing, but I was sure I pictured her in something more modern or futuristic. I played around with her design a bit until I realized that, hey, why couldn't Margaret change her outfit frequently? She is definitely the kind of person to wear a different fashion every day, even while on the run! So, yeah, I took that idea and ran with that. You can see beside her that I wrote a list of styles she could cycle through. Really, this is also an opportunity for me to stretch and come up with lots of different outfits.

Also! With her changing style, it's kind of important for me to give her some consistent, identifying features. Those would be her curly hair, her face, and her colour scheme, as much as I can help it.

Bonus round: in the middle, you can see Chase talking to a blackberry-like-thing. It doesn't actually have A.I., just a few voice-activated features, but since Margaret is one of about two people Chase has ever extensively interacted with... He gets kind of lonely.

So yeah. I have a ton more on these two, but I already have more writing here than art, so that'll have to wait.

So, have some more sketches:



I sketched out a few other scenes I could remember later that week. Top left is what these domed cities look like from the outside, to the right of that was a hall in one of the college buildings, leading to a underground movie theater, as seen from a little service corridor.
Below that is an open ice-rink area in one of the mall-like parts of the city.



And here is Margaret looking uncomfortable at some kind of school reunion or social gathering. To the right of that, a view from behind of a different party she goes to later that night, or the next day, and drags Chase along to (before she knows who she is and such). Naturally I decided to draw them from behind, sitting at that couch.

Below the couch party is a scene from a restaurant that was also in the dream. I was more worried about the table-layout than the people there.

Bottom left is Chase, caught between two groups of robots.

Speaking of robots, the final two little doodles are some sketches for them. They're supposed to look more goofy than intimidating, since they're usually used for friendly interaction with civilians. And, hey, normally, they're great to be around. They love humans! Even the one with sawblades on his hands. He's usually in landscaping, but a few of them were out so long, they started malfunctioning...

And it looks like I drew a tiny robot beneath them that sort of resembles the GO-4s off WALL•E.

Okay, and one more for the road:



I used to colour everything in marker before I got a fancy Mac and fancy photoshop programs. Sometimes, I miss it.

That's all for now, folks!