CHARACTER DESIGNS AHOY from the fantasy comic currently codenamed "UNIDENTIFIED FANTASY OFFERING," pt. 2! (Patreon)

So!

This morning, after finishing a freelance cover illo after a full week of work on the g-d thing (ouch), I'm back to work on 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, though I accidentally revealed the actual title, Godplayers, in our previous installment.

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? (Rat Queens would be another example, I'm told.)

I never had any intention of drawing the project myself, as Godplayers 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 Godplayers 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 Godplayers 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 a Matthew group shot for one of the two opposing teams in Godplayers, which you saw in our previous installment:

 Leader of this team is the as-yet-unnamed Lich Queen (or Lich-Queen, hyphenated?) , identified here only by her basic title. Here's Matthew's first design:

 ...followed by a more skeletal version:

 ...and another take, playing up the idea that the Lich-Queen (formerly a Witch-Queen!) was quite the hottie in life and still considers herself so:

 Here are some notes I sent along during this process:

 Now for Matthew's first take on the other Undead member of the team, a Death Knight:

 ...whose face was covered up in the next design sketch:

Looking damn good, if I do say so myself!

Here's a sketch I sent along exploring the concept that both these Undead characters can project "auras of terror" at will:

Gotta say, as a "fantasy RPG action-comedy," Godplayers 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.)

 In our next installment, I'll likely roll out more of Matthew's individual character designs for other, less-deceased members of this UFO group. In the meantime, I'll go back to work on recopying my layouts for Godplayers #1 into a legible form, to accompany a script I finished last month. Yay?

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?