Characters!
What ho, everyone! Here are the characters in my comic strip! Many of you probably recognize at least a couple of them. I've had most of these characters since high school (Mac even longer), although a couple of them were added in college. They've gone through gradual changes (I hope improvements), and a month or so ago I did a bit of a redesign, changing the way I drew certain things. I'm not sure I'll use these exact images anywhere on the site (Michael Henderson is right - drawing characters smilng straight ahead on blank backgrounds gets old fast), but this is more or less how all the characters will look in the strips (sans color) I have yet to figure out Courtney's wardrobe.
I don't think twice about most of my characters' clothes; I've tried to kept the styles generic enough that they won't go out of style, and different enough from each other that you can tell them apart. Then once I found something that worked, I just keep it and they dress that way forever. Witho Courtney's personality, though, I want something that will read as fairly trendy. I know very little about what 14-year-old girls think is trendy. But even ignoring that, I'm having a hard time finding something that looks right. So, if you've got any pointers there, I'll take 'em.
The character descriptions I think are in their final versions (meaning this stuff is what you'll read when you go to the "characters" page on the eventual site). So any opinions or thoughts on the character synopses or designs will be appreciated.
From left to right...
MAC is enthusiastic about life, but he’s a little naïve. By the time an idea is fully formed in his mind, he’s mustered enough momentum that there’ll be no stopping the hilarious antics and high jinx. (I hope you like antics and high jinx.) He has a big crush on Jenni and a talent for music that was little known until some moron blabbed it on the Internet.
CONRAD PAVLAKOVICH’s goal in life is to be cool enough not to get picked on, but not so popular as to stand out from any crowd. Unfortunately for him, this would be uninteresting to read about in a comic strip, so someone is usually playing havoc with his comfort zone. (I hope you like havoc.)
JENNI GREENE is like the Sticky Tack that holds the group together. Her emotional well roundedness makes her the ideal candidate for handling any tricky situation with aplomb, most of which could probably have been avoided if anyone had listened to her in the first place.
OLIVER CHAPIN is the MVP of every school sports team. He’s definitely a people person, always willing to stand by his friends. It’s anybody’s guess how long he’ll be content to live his life based on the expectations of others, but we’ll leave that alone until one of us gets a leather couch.
JO PHILIPS is a quiet intellectual type who likes to muse the mysteries of the 14-year-old-girl universe, which they tell me has a lot to do with unrequited and nonexistent romance.
COURTNEY STEVENS definitely revels in the high school life. Clothes, shopping, gossip and friends take up most of her time, but she makes good grades and is mstly good to her friends, so don’t hold it against her too much.
All in all, I'm happy. I got away with only one "'Splainin' Hand" and no one doing "The Point".