Rusty's Art Post 2.0

Oops, just realized I forgot to write my intro. Ok, here's a long story short. I'm sick of imageshack and moved to photobucket. However, this causes all my old links to die in my old post. So until I finish moving all of it, I've locked the old one, and reposted here. I've also added commentary to my art so you can see what my thoughts were when I was drawing them.

Art Style 1.0

This was my first Laine concept picture I ever drew. At the time I was fairly new to anime as a whole and didn't quite have a set "preference" on what I wanted in a character. All I had decided was that I wanted a sporty looking character. Hence the ponytail. She wasn't always going to be blonde either, but after drawing this prelim sketch, I realized I liked lighter tones on anime characters (despite the fact she wasn't even colored yet. ) Notice, at this point Laine did not have the trademark crescent earrings, for reasons I'll be getting into on the next pic.


Here was my first coloring. It was done using Paint Long before I used photoshop, lol. Here I finally picked out hair and eye color. I choose grey eyes because I found them to be "mysterious," which sounds pretty cheesy, but that was my reasoning. They are of course no longer grey. This is also when I decided to add those crescent earrings. The reason for that was I realized that if I were to ever draw some sort of ensemble, I wanted something that would make her pop out a bit easier. Triela was blonde already, as was Rico, and though they didn't really look like Laine, I figured it was good to have insurance. She's had the earrings ever since.


This was my first attempt at drawing some resemblance of a comic panel. You can see here my original plans for Laine's height and size. She's not much bigger than Henrietta at this point. I believe I had decided she would be 13 years old, and a Generation 1 cyborg. Funny fact is that I had accidentally drawn the panels in Japanese right to left style, but due to the interchangeability of those simple top two frames, it didn't really matter.


This is my first foray into Photoshop territory. I mainly used it for the background and the smoke effect for the gun. There's not much to say about this picture except I was trying to go for a 'badass' look. Now I just think her eyes look vacantly creepy in this particular piece, lol.


In this photo, I decided to try to draw upon the 'school girl' fetish crowd. At this point, I had bumped Laine's age up to around 15. Hence she's taller (which really isn't that noticeable with no reference.)


I think I was trying to be artsy here, but I'm not sure. All I know is again I used photoshop for the background. I also briefly put an arm choker on Laine to see how it looked. I didn't really like it, so it doesn't show up again in later artworks.

Art Style 2.0

The Tennis picture. At this point, Laine got her first 'art upgrade' as I call them. You'll notice it mainly in the eyes, but also in how I drew clothes. There are actually some folds in there. One of my favorite older sketches, since I think she looks really cute in that visor. She's been bumped up to a Generation 2 cyborg now.


Ah, this was one of the more 'unique' sketches I drew, and miles away from the usual theme I draw. I had done this because I was entertaining the idea that Laine was a primary knife user (which has still carried over a bit). However, I didn't think of it in the Pino agile, slashing, type style that the Canon villain used, but more of a Splinter Cell drop down from the ceiling and cut your throat style. For the suit I got inspiration from the Evangelion plug suits that the pilots wear, and for her visor, it was a mix of Splinter Cell and other Espionage media. I can almost hear the *bweeeee* noise and the little eye cameras glowing green.


This artwork came as an extension of "Knife Killer Laine" phase I was going through, and boy did she use that knife. I think I had in my head the idea of some super visceral scene where she's just covered in blood head to toe in a sort of heroic insanity moment. I tried to employ the old "shadow over eyes" effect due to the fact she was temporarily crazed. It worked ok I think. I remember thinking those blood splatters were really fun to do. So I just went crazy with them. Fun Fact: Only picture where Laine is wearing kakhis, lol.


Not much to say here. Was experimenting with a new look. Something undercover or something, similar to what Triela does during a particular story arc. As you can see it didn't go much farther than an extremely rough sketch. This was also my first sketch done entirely with a tablet, and not scanning in a pencil sketch first. You can see that her hair has changed slightly, instead of her ponytail, it's evolved into some sort of up-do bun...thingy...

Art Style 2.5

This was the second experiment with a new look. This time I added a badass trench coat. Because nothing screams badass like a long coat, lol. Again, I used the same hairstyle as in the last picture.


This came after a long period of artists block. Nothing I was drawing was coming out the way I wanted. So to celebrate, I drew a gag comic involving myself and my OC. It broke the 4th wall and brought Laine out into the "real world." I still think this is one of my most fun artworks, despite the actual artwork being subpar.


Luckily I grew out of my funk, and tried to do something really special. This is my first Laine picture that involved a full anime cel shading, and background to boot. I created this picture after a conversation that involved what kind of swimsuit Laine would wear. Another forum member suggested an orange colored one, and I decided that a tube top style bikini was as good as any. I think I was originally going to go "sexy" but it ended up being more "cute" which worked out just as well in the end. Also, Laine aged by about another year. Making her around 16 years old.


I think my hormones got the best of me in this one. I have no other explanation as to why else Laine would be sitting on the floor in just a towel, eating a popsicle. Not one of my proudest moments, but I guess I know how to draw popsicles now. Also, the pose confuddled me for a bit, and as such it doesn't look quite 'right' in my eyes, but I suppose it didn't turn out too badly.


I love this one. It ranks up there with my top 3 favorite Laine sketches I've done. There was also another slight upgrade in her eyes, but nothing too drastic yet, that's coming up soon in the future. I made this pose especially for a one-shot fanfiction I wrote. It involved a casino, assassination, very James Bond-esque. I put her hair down for once and ripped her dress. She's suppose to be (acting) drunk ya know. This is also the last Laine picture I drew in pencil and scanned into my computer.

Art Style 3.0

Here we go. Another major art upgrade. About everything about it is an improvement over what I had been drawing. This picture I drew for a fanfiction that I'm still penning at the moment called "Sand Dollars." I wanted her with a new weapon, and a slightly new outfit. So I gave her the AK and the distressed jeans, plus one of those desert scarfs you always see. By this point, I've completely stopped doing pencil work and scanning. I'm purely powered by Wacom now.


A fun little "iPod" style ad I drew. iLaine, pretty self-explanatory. The pink is pretty garish, but since that's one of Laine's "character colors" I decided to use it anyways.

Art Style 4.0

Finally we come to this. My latest Laine art, and she's aged yet again - roughly 17-18. She got another art upgrade, along with a character redesign. Her ponytail has changed, from a more standard look, to a pinned up messy ponytail, which I find 10 times more appealing (to me that is ). You can see that I've also changed her eye color to violet. This was because I found grey to be a bit too boring. I also stuck her in a skirt, cause I'm also a sucker for nice legs. In other words, maybe my hormones got the best of me again while drawing this. It's also a new benchmark for shading. Before I went pure hard cel shading, but now I switched that up to a softer style that I think looks better (but more time consuming ) I still have to work on the background for this particular picture.

Well that's it for my Laine artwork right now. I'll be posting another post like this involving my non-gsg artworks. I might make a commentary for those as well.

Wow, this is really cool to see how Laine has changed over the years. I see vast improvement too. Awesome job, Rusty!

This next group of pictures I had drawn in early-mid 2008 for a project I was calling "Backland Beat." It was going to be a trial webcomic at the time. I ended up dropping it however, as the cast ballooned too quickly, without any substance, and my premise grew too elaborate to handle. Also, because I loved the old school Fallout games, I gave them all the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system RPG character sheet, complete with what skills/traits/perks they would have if they were in the game itself.


This was the first one I drew. The overall style I wanted for Backland was some sort of Neo-Western. Openly carried guns with cool looking impractical outfits. Each girl was suppose to have a role in the "group" and was suppose to fit a trope, which would make identifying each character a bit easier for newcomers. Carolyn was, as you can see, suppose to be the Boss/Den Mother.


Lyssa was created because for a short period of time, I was thinking of quitting the GsG fandom in order to push Backland Beat along. Seeing as how I enjoyed the character I had created for the GsG universe, I modified it to create this character. Her character style was largely taken from my OC, and as you might be able to tell, after Blackland went on indefinite haitus, some of Lyssa's attributes flowed back into my OC.


This was the last one I did. I wanted Sayumi, in classic anime tradition, to be some hotshot teenage Japanese prodigy. As you can see from the stats, she's pretty much superhuman and anyone who knew how the Fallout games worked, she could attack in Burst Fire mode for a mere 2 action points, which is unheard of and actually impossible in the actual games (though this is completely with kosher with universal rule set, so I believe it COULD be possible.)

NSFW!!!

Spoiler:

What else do you want me to say about this one? It's a half-nude, probably another case of raging hormones.

EDIT: Photobucket doesn't like bewbs.

Here's some random art photos I have uncategorized.


A random face study I did while bored. Tried out some hairstyles, some facial expressions. A zombie. You know the drill.


This is one of my favorite Misc. sketches. It's a fanart of a character from the game Armored Core: For Answer. Basic premise of the game is typical Japanese fanfare - Giant mecha, world changing events, giant mecha, explosions. The interesting thing about the game (and in the entire Armored Core series) is that you never actually see any of the pilots. They have voices and personalities, but you never see them get out of the cockpit. It's all about the mecha in those games.

Anyways, this is from my personal favorite character in the game. Wynne D. Fanchon. She plays a large role in the game and has the most awesome snarky, yet professional personality. Depending on your path, she's the champion of the good guys or the bad guys. And since I'm a sucker for pretty women, she's a good guy in this picture here. Hence, the wistful expression as dramatic wind is blowing the long hair.

As for the outfit, it's a pilot suit. It's a Japanese game involving mecha, was it ever a doubt I would NOT use a skin tight suit? I realized I've been fanboying too long on the character so I'll stop now.

TL;DR version - This is Wynne D. Fanchon from a game I enjoy. She's not quite done, as I need to still put details on the suit, but I like how the helmet turned out. It's a mix between a fighter jet helmet, and a motorcycle helmet.

Here's some random art photos I have uncategorized.

A girl closing her eyes with pony-tail is cute.

You seem to be good at close eyes face.

The next set of pictures is from an independent project of mine titled Refrain. Refrain is a cop/mystery series that I've been working on for some time. It's set up much like a TV series in that there are multiple episodes, each with their own specific case, but an overall arcing plot for the entire season. This has taken the place of Backland Beat which was a dropped project of mine.

Episode 1 – titled “Queue” - is roughly 60% finished, and with a final expected page count of around 80 pages, give or take another dozen. Episode 2 – titled “Host” - is about 10% penned out.

I'm not sure how I'll release this story for people to read at the moment. I wouldn't put it on ff.net, so I'll have to look into it.


This is the primary main protagonist of Refrain, Sloane Harper. She's a 21 year old Detective within the Special Cases Division of the police department. The standard fashion and style for the universe is typical 21^st century, but with Sloane I wanted to create an outfit that stood out. So using the tried and true “belts/buckles = cool” I gave her jacket, sweater, skirt copious amounts of zippers, fasteners, buckles, etc. During design, I decided that she wouldn't use something discrete or small like a pistol, and instead use a large gun that would be carried openly, so I gave her a shotgun that goes on the scabbard attached behind her waist. I also decided to make her left handed, because there aren't enough left handed people in media.


This is a more recent, updated picture of Sloane's face/hair. I mostly drew it because I find annoyed/angry expressions on anime females particularly appealing. I dunno what that says about me, lol. But as I titled it, I put a lot more detail/realism into her eyes than I would with normally, since they're the focal point of the whole sketch.


To contrast the more unconventional look of Sloane's outfit, and her younger age, I created Marron McCrea. She works in Refrain's version of a SWAT team in the Civil Defense Division, so her gear is all “tacti-cool.” She's 25 years old and holds the rank of Sergeant. She's the most mature of the main characters and the most experienced with police protocol, though Sloane does “outrank” her as a Special Cases Division police officer. Marron doesn't show up in the story until Episode 2.


The last of the main characters is Adam Lockard. He's 20 years old and also works within the Police Department, and a 1^st year rookie with the Civil Defense Division. I was originally going to draw him in tactical gear like Marron, but I had just finished that sketch so I was weary of that style – instead I put him in off-duty clothes. He holds the entry rank of Officer.


This is one of the more prominent secondary characters, Alix “Nika” Torreville. She's a 20 year old college graduate student prodigy in the real world equivalent of MIT. She's also a notorious party goer and general wild girl. Nika normally plays the role of informant or technology expert for Sloane. She's perhaps the first example in the story of someone who's “more than” human. As you can see in the picture, she has an artificial left eye. I tried to give it a look of “circuitry.”


While creating the universe of Refrain, I decided I wanted almost all the technology to be original, including the weapons. This was a test I drew, and also the weapon Sloane carries while on duty. I believe I used a Benelli M3, a SPAS 12, and a Serbu Super Shorty as inspiration for it.


Yup, I also turned to designing vehicles too. I didn't want Refrain to turn into the world of “wacky” sci-fi with completely alien/off-the-wall looking technology. I have however turned all vehicles in the universe electricity based, instead of fossil fuels. This motorcycle, the XRS 470, is from the fictional manufacturer Kaimatsu Motor Industry. This is what Sloane drives aroud in as a personal vehicle. It's not quite finished yet and I want to tweak a few more things about it.

EDIT: Because a certain someone demanded it, here's the old Adam concept picture. Though his clothing is pretty different now.

Yay! You put up the Refrain stuff! You've just made my day.

Looking forward to the rest of the Refrain when you get around to it.

Rusty wrote:EDIT: Because a certain someone demanded it, here's the old Adam
concept picture. Though his clothing is pretty different now.

Gee...I wonder who'd do such a thing.

I consider this Sloane's color test and also, some always useful practice with photoshop. Originally, Sloane was suppose to be a blonde, but when messing around with the color pallet, I found that this red/honey color worked really well with the aquamarine eyes so I kept it.

To quote Eric Cartman: "That's hella cute!"

Your art keeps getting better and better. Love the new Sloane.

Awesome drawings man. Sloane's look is great, both the outfit and the colour pallette (the changed red-ish hair one)

Thanks for the comments everyone, I greatly appreciate them.

Here's something I threw together quick using photoshop. It's a satellite/diagram view of the city of Sphereport, where Refrain takes place. I've never done one of these before, so I'm not sure if this was the best way to do it, but it's good enough for now. I can always edit it later.



EDIT: Doh, that should be 10,381 Square MILES, not feet. FIXED.

Very slick.

Another sketch of Adam from Refrain. This is him wearing the typical Sphereport PD "Class 2" equipment, involving a sidarm, primary weapon, light body armor, and radio. This is comparable to Marron's outfit seen in her sketch. There are currently 4 levels of equipment, Class 2 being used primarily for light raids and suspect apprehension. Though Adam is somewhat against the regs, and should have that shirt tucked all the way in, but everyone knows that "half-tucks" are badass.

Overall, this took about 2 hours to plan and sketch out.



Excuse the ghetto (i.e. shitty) shotgun there. It was a place holder for the pose I wanted. I'll be replacing it later.

As Cartman would say - "Kick ass!"

Sweetness Rusty.

You could also use the shotgun as something he picked off the fallen. Never a bad time to have a room sweeper of a sidearm.

Well... I'm speechless. I think it's enough to say I'd kill to be able to draw like that. You, sir, are seriously

Now I'm going to mourn over my lack of artistic skill

So I've either been watching too much Mad Max, or played too much Fallout 3.

I was trying to find justification for this picture, so I decided that during down time Laine wasn't adverse to playing an MMORPG. In this case it's a post-apocalyptic game, and her username is "Laine_Of_Spades" So this is her Character Sheet. It's uber geeky, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Awesome picture, dude. I love this Laine!

...I wish there was an MMORPG with a stat system that sensible...

also, awesome design

So hawt, I need to turn on the air conditioner!

Thanks guys

LoC978 wrote:...I wish there was an MMORPG with a stat system that sensible...

Dude, I totally hear you. Part of me is glad I don't have such a distraction in my life, and part of me knows that if there was an MMO that hit me just right I'd disappear off the face of the Earth.

This is the most beautyful of Laine!

What's that Wheelman's skill be like?

*hazards a guess*
well, the closest thing I can find to your six used attributes would be either D20(name a system), renaming Wisdom to Willpower, Dexterity to Agility and Constitution to Endurance... or the Shadowrun system, renaming Body to Endurance and Quickness to Agility... but I can't seem to find anything akin to a driving skill in either of those, so I'm guessing you're hybridizing it with the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills system...

in which case, Wheelman would be a perk that simply increases driving/piloting skill, making Laine more likely to succeed in a situation where skilled handling of a vehicle is required.
Am I close, Rusty?

LoC - Yeah, that's about the gist of it. It's a bastard child of a lot of RPG style stats kinda mushed together.

Wheelman - LoC, you hit it pretty much on the head. It basically gives a bonus to any situation where a vehicle comes into play. Also would allow the character drive a vehicle where most couldn't use one. Like maybe the average joe can't drive their jeep along that narrow cliff side, but a wheelman can. Everyone who can't bum a ride will have to walk.

So from the last post. Laine chose for her character a Fast, Evasive, Manipulative, Ranged Character, but can't take much damage and doesn't rely on special attacks.

Right, so I wanted to do something a bit more complicated - just to shake things up a bit.

In this one I wanted to show that just because the cyborgs aren't exactly "normal", Laine's still pretty much the same as every other teenage girl out there. Well, at least most of the them. So with that in mind, cute standard room, clothes on the floor, up-to-date technology type stuff, and of course a big huge plush bear. Fret not, there's a gun in there too, if for nothing else than to add more clutter and remind everyone what kinda girl we're dealing with.

It's not colored, obviously, but I have gotten the principle line art finished and mostly cleaned up and given it a title.

(Right Click > "View Image" for a slightly larger version)


I suppose I might have chosen a slightly easier perspective for this, but I wanted to have this particular pose, so I had to deal with trying something new for the first time.

Sweeeet.

Gina would totally be all over her.

I'd love to see a colour version of this, but I'm guessing you'd prefer to spend your time working on drawing rather than shading stuff.

Piero wrote:Gina would totally be all over her.

...imagine a handler walkin' in on that... especially if Laine was receptive to her...

Sweet one man, and you're right: you've chosen a bitch angle to draw, nice job pulling it off.

Only minor thing that's bugging me is that the laptop's touchpad and keyboard seem a little offset to one side.

Saw it the other day. Sweet.

So, has Laine appeared in any fics or anything yet? Also, I've seen her with an MP5, AK-47, and a variety of other weapons, does she have a "standard weapons loadout" (i.e. Etta: P90, Rico: Dragunov etc.)?

She and Kara occasionally partake in recreating Top Gear challenges and epic races, however their handlers always hush it up to keep the insurance rates down, so all the records are...lost...

Alfisti wrote:Only minor thing that's bugging me is that the laptop's touchpad and keyboard seem a little offset to one side.

...must be a widescreen HP

(I'm typing this on one of those)

Thanks guys, glad you like it.

SPARTAN 119 wrote:So, has Laine appeared in any fics or anything yet? Also, I've seen her with an MP5, AK-47, and a variety of other weapons, does she have a "standard weapons loadout" (i.e. Etta: P90, Rico: Dragunov etc.)?

She's been in a few short story one-shot fictions I've written (can't keep track of where they all are. Somewhere on the forum ) And no, she doesn't have a "standard" kit. Officially it's because she and her partner aren't picky and use what's available in the mission area or just choose on whim. Unofficially, I just draw what I want.

Piero wrote:I'd love to see a colour version of this

I have every intention of coloring/shading this one, so I'll post an update when I get that finished.

Kiskaloo wrote:She and Kara occasionally partake in recreating Top Gear challenges and epic races, however their handlers always hush it up to keep the insurance rates down, so all the records are...lost...

Shhhhh!

LoC978 wrote:

Alfisti wrote:Only minor thing that's bugging me is that the laptop's touchpad and keyboard seem a little offset to one side.

...must be a widescreen

Bingo, it's a widescreen laptop.

rusty-spring wrote:...no, she doesn't have a "standard" kit.

'cept for the Ka-bar, right?

LoC978 wrote:

Piero wrote:Gina would totally be all over her.

...imagine a handler walkin' in on that... especially if Laine was receptive to her...

Gina's handler would probably just go and knock back a few stiff drinks or smoke some cigarettes. Except that he doesn't actually strike me as either a smoker or a heavy drinker, so maybe not. Bottom line, however, is he's used to Gina causing him stress. After all, she's basically known for two things at the agency: 1)posessing a mischievious streak a mile wide and 2)hitting on basically any cyborg with a reasonably mature looking body.

I suspect he'd considered jacking up her conditioning level on several ocassions, but unfortunately for his stress level he believes that the ability to think independently is important on the battle field. He's probably also ocassionally wished he'd selected some sweet little kid instead of believing that "an older teenager will be easier to deal with than a child."

As I've noted before, Adamo is a good soldier, but not so great with some of the other aspects of being a handler.

rusty-spring wrote:I have every intention of coloring/shading this one, so I'll post an update when I get that finished.

I was going to use the "Full of Win" one but this one was too awesome to pass up after I saw it.

LoC978 wrote:'cept for the Ka-bar, right?

Absolutely.

Why shoot someone when you can get up close to say "Hello."

rusty-spring wrote:

LoC978 wrote:

Alfisti wrote:Only minor thing that's bugging me is that the laptop's touchpad and keyboard seem a little offset to one side.

...must be a widescreen

Bingo, it's a widescreen laptop.

I stand corrected Never seen one like that before (though most of the folks I know seem to be Mac people )...

I didn't have much time so I just did a quick sketch. I was really trying to pull away from the whole ponytail hairstyle, but damned if they don't happen to work really well in anime.

As always, trés cute!

Love It, Rusty.

Ponytails do work really well in anime... pity they don't live up to standard (most of the time) in real life. Or at least, not without using apparently a buttload of product.

Awesome man.

Alfisti wrote:Ponytails do work really well in anime... pity they don't live up to standard (most of the time) in real life. Or at least, not without using apparently a buttload of product.

I would totally love to have my hair look like that. *jealous*

Lovely picture of Laine.

Man, Rusty! I really wish I could draw as well as you; then I could do Allison some justice outside of print description...

Long, long overdue, but I finally managed to replace the placeholder in Adam's second picture and replaced it with what it should have been.



It's basically the full size version of Sloane's shotgun that she had chopped down.

Verra nice.

But we need more cute pictures of Laine.