Exclusive Patreon update on new RPG romantic comedy PARTY OF TWO! (Patreon)

Following up on last Friday's introductory post on the project, here's a lot more of my still-in-development pitch for a fantasy RPG romantic comedy/ sex farce I'm calling Party of Two—as in, D&D adventuring party of two.

The basic concept: 

HE is a fierce, axe-swinging dwarf barbarian, manfully cultivating the stoic hardheadedness, bloodthirsty rage, and apocalyptic worldview required of a valiant but furiously death-seeking warrior bound for Valhalla—and soon.

SHE is a half-orc cleric worshipping a goddess of (tough) love, a good-natured healer whose relentless warmth, sweetness and affection—and horniness!—inadvertently but constantly undermines her dwarven partner's dogged attempts at steely discipline and coldblooded detachment. 

Can this starcrossed pair of dungeon-raiding, hanky-pankying monster slayers ever become more than just "adventurers with benefits?" Find out in Party of Two, folks! 

Anyhoo, in the last week or so I did up some page roughs for a new random story ideas in both digital and analog media. The first two-pager, "Hilt Deep," sketched hastily in the Clip Studio Paint app, establishes the situation mentioned above:

(I haven't drawn a g-d real action scene in at least a year and a half now, so this project might skew violent to scratch that itch for me.)

Like Empowered, this "sexy RPG comedy" probably won't have actual nudity, but will have pretty overt—if non-explicit— sex scenes. (That might rule it out for Webtoons, though I've not investigated the matter in any detail as yet.)

No idea if I'm gonna retain the dwarf barbarian's goofy, pseudo-Scottish speech pattern going forward, a dubious riff which does seem a tad at odds with his pseudo-Norseman tendencies. (Yeah, I've probably listened to a bit too much Critical Role over the last few months, where such faux-Celtic dwarven dialects abound.) 

The next one-pager was originally more complicated—with the dwarf in the background, reacting to the half-orc's metatextual secret-sharing— but to knock out the piece in under an hour of worktime, I just stuck with close-ups of our winsome and betusked heroine:

Next up is a quick sketch of the couple in action, as suggested by one of my generous $20-tier Patrons in an April art-request solicitation. (Note that, if time allows, I try to sketch every suggestion made by the $10 and $20 tiers, as a wan attempt to reward those tiers for the extra generosity.) I might revisit the hand-sketched piece later in Clip Studio Paint, as I try to dredge up viable tools and brushes on that app.

Yesterday, I randomly thumbnailed a 7-page story during the morning shift. Note that the story's pagecount expanded as I was working on it, hence the out-of-order roughs:

Interestingly enough, I've never before done base roughs at this size; I usually do 8.5" X 13"  page-proportional sketches first, then recopy them at this size in quad thumbnails, as seen with the Empowered and Sistah Spooky's High School Hell roughs I posted here a while back. Then again, this is just a conversation scene, after all; thumbnailing a far more complex fight scene at this size would be tougher to pull off.

And now, the same page roughs, cropped out of the quad format and in the proper order: 

Yes, folks, it's my beloved "five slightly abstract panoramic panels" as an opener.

The story has the flustered dwarf asking the usually half-nekkid half-orc why she cavorts hither and yon so immodestly. 

As a cleric of a love goddess and a child of a clothing-optional orc culture, she isn't inclined towards covering herself up.

When she points out that her barbarian partner rarely wears very much clothing either, he protests "that's different," though she too finds his immodesty distracting.

Panel two above is a flashback to the couple lying together in a snowstorm, as the dwarf recollects that "the strapping wench's body puts out more heat than Moradin's fewkin' forge."

The barbarian's issue with the fetching cleric's scanty attire isn't one of cultural conservatism as such, but the fact that he has an exceedingly difficult time keeping his hands off of her. Cue the ending sex scene!

Anyhoo, that's all I got on Party of Two for a bit. As I said last week, I'm not sure where this project will be going, but I'm at least having fun doing designs and roughs for it—as opposed to, say, the currently stalled-out Empowered vol.12. (More on that matter later.) 

Next Monday on this here Patreon: As usual, more life drawings, folks!