CHARACTER DESIGNS AHOY from the fantasy comic currently codenamed "UNIDENTIFIED FANTASY OFFERING," pt. 1! (Patreon)

So!

This morning, I'm grinding away at the script for the oversized (48-page!) first issue of a long, long-brewing fantasy comic project that I've been referring to here as Unidentified Fantasy Offering, due to the fact that its real title arguably gives away the series' overall premise.

"WHOOPS! WHOOPSIE!" UPDATE: Belatedly occurred to me that the project's real title is, in fact, listed on the filenames for the jpegs I posted. Dagnabbit! Anyhoo, though I'll continue to refer to this project as Unidentified Fantasy Project for public consumption, you fine Patrons can hear the book's actual title: Godplayers! (Presumably without the exclamation point, though I suppose Godplayers! with the emphatic punctuation might be an amusing riff to consider.)

This fantasy concept predates all the other projects you've seen here, even The Last Party's original forms as Hushed Half-Elf and Party of Two; this was intended to be my take on the "fantasy RPG action-comedy" subgenre that was a-blowin' up in comics and GN circles circa the late 2010s, such as The Adventure Zone  and Critical Role and others I can't recall at present-- Jim Zub's Skullkickers, maybe?

I never had any intention of drawing the project myself, as Unidentified Fantasy Offering (UFO) is essentially a "team book" (in superhero terms, which is definitely a relevant comparison) with almost a dozen main characters in two opposing groups; that is quite emphatically not my cup of tea as an artist, to put it mildly.

Over the years, I've run the UFO series proposal by a few different artists, none of whom showed any interest whatsoever in the concept. A year or two ago, though, I happened to run the long-dormant pitch by Matthew Weldon, an artist whose work I've been enjoying since my con-attending days of yore; why, he produced a fine illo for The Chaste and the Chained which I recently posted here!

And lo, Matthew was enthused about the UFO pitch, which was immensely pleasing to me, and has been working up a big ol' series of excellent character designs for the title's sprawling cast while we both were working on other projects. As I grind through the first issue's script before actual comic page samples can be produced, thought I'd start posting his chara designs here.

I'll start off with some of Matthew's group shots for one of the two opposing teams in UFO:

TBH, I'm not sure I can draw a fantasy comic myself, period, as the g-d costumes (and environments) tend to be so g-d detailed and noodly; so, it's been a delight to see Matthew working up these chara designs like it ain't no thing:

And a more action-y group shot, which I also love:

Gotta say, as a "fantasy RPG action-comedy," UFO is gonna lean more towards the action than the comedy, as it's fundamentally not about the wacky misadventures of low-level D&D-ish characters (though that riff is somewhat of a plot point, early on), but rather about the epically deranged struggles of insanely powerful high-level characters. (Hence the recent release of the vaguely similar-in-concept fantasy anime Ishura rattled me a tad.)

And one more group shot with three members of this team:

In our next installment, I'll likely roll out more of Matthew's individual character designs for members of this UFO group, which are even sweeter (IMHO). In the meantime, I'll pop Scrivener open again and start cranking out panel descriptions (by far my least favorite part of scripting) for p.12 of UFO's first issue; I'm hoping to finish work on this bad boy by next weekend, if possible. Wish me luck, okay?

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH, but something should be coming up in the next M/W/F slot. Let's find out together, shall we?