Art Thread: Menagerie RPG

Wanted to try an draw a Charade that took less than twenty minutes and it sort of looked good. The left most gun is my preferred design, but I’m up for opinions. Also, for comparison, I wanted to draw another dark-haired girl in a pony tail with a uniform-y costume to make sure I wasn’t making the designs too generic, so here’s A10 for comparison.
image

2 Likes

So awesome as usual. Nicely simplified, though the top/tunic/torso looks a little unstructured.

The leftmost gun looks a bit like a power stapler. I’m currently preferring the one at the top. Also the built-in taser in the gloves. :slight_smile:

A personal favorite.

I’m taking this as to mean my simplification of a kevlar vest does not read well. Some shading may help define the shaped better, but I’m doubting it. Back to the sketchbook for that one.

Dammit, at this rate I’m never going to get over my love of weird comic book 90’s guns.
Also, now that I’m thinking about it, did Charade integrate Link’s skyhook system into her guns (making them grapple guns in a very literally sense) or into the power gloves? I thought it was the former, but now I think it might have been the latter.

It’s Grifter, his gun shoots angst.

1 Like

I’m pretty sure it’s not the guns, it’s his superpowers that allow him to expel angst through any medium.

She looks a little too flat, even with a high-tech AEGIS kevlar vest.

That particular gun is pretty cool. Though I never quite got the Grifter veil look and how it actually worked.

It was actually the latter (the gloves). She actually was going to use them one time against Dr. Infinity, then everything move down to ground level and the opportunity passed. :slight_smile:

Maybe there’s a story in that somewhere.

If you’re taking suggestions, I always wanted to know about spur of the moment villain Professor Midnight and his minions the Late Shift. Otherwise I’m going to write some cheesy 80’s action tripe where Charade and Concord finally team up to fight bad guys.

Do realize you’re disincenting me from writing it in favor of seeing Cheesy 80s Action Tripe. :smiley:

I’ll write Cheesy 80’s Action Tripe regardless (which apparently is more popular than I first thought), I’m just giving ideas.

Yep, we’re going here.

3 Likes

Not shown: Otto’s fist indented in his jaw.

So Troll’s… a joke. Not even really a joke, just the punchline. But he’s part of the Menagerie history and that means he should probably show up in some of the artwork. He does fulfill one of my favorite roles… the punching bag C-tier villain. Marvel’s The Wrecking Crew, Stiltman, and Shocker; DC’s Nightshade, Copperhead… Solomon Grundy depending on the occasion.

And while those villains have their charms… Troll’s entire reason is to have absolutely no charm and just be a very punchable face, which is a big loss for a warm-up villain. A good C-tier villain should be someone you like to see pop up because it means this is a chance for the heroes to show off. Troll… just sort of attracts fists. His official character design does a lot to help that image and I’ve less prettied that up and more replaced parts I didn’t like with my more preferable design elements. A bowling ball on toothpick legs is always grade A design work in my book. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anyway, here’s some previews of some images I have in mind featuring the Blue Meanie here (mostly because I don’t think I post enough pre-prod work here and I’m sure someone would be interested in that stuff).
1
2

1 Like

With that last picture, now I’m picturing Radiance vs. Troll ending with her using holograms to dress him up in a frilly dress for tea together, and Alycia bemusedly snapping pictures to go on social media.

1 Like

“Father always used to say that a powerful image is more effective than a thousand words, or ten thousand guns. Come to think of it, I think that’s sort of Troll’s message, too. Ironic, that.”

image

1 Like

I’m afraid I didn’t incorporate that into the thread I did, but let’s stick a pin in that one. Who knows what tales may come?

I have… plans.

Trying to clean up some of the previous design.


I’m thinking a lot of Charade’s design is going to get lost in the dark colors I’m using for her. While this fits her character, but I wonder if lightening some of the colors might help a bit in readability. Thoughts?

1 Like

From a comics / illustration standpoint, the lighter tones are probably better. They make the character and all her bits of kit easier to see. In reality, Alycia would probably go for darker tones, but, hey, “reality.”

(I do like the drawings above, btw. :slight_smile: )

Fun story for the red. That was in my swatches as “Rusty Red” which means I color picked it from this image. This has the added benefit of keeping the Chin/Quill contingent’s color schemes same range.

But on that same line, the “greys” came from Batman’s costume in Justice League: War (I think that’s the right animated movie). And if it’s good enough for Batman, it’s good enough for Charade.

1 Like