2005's videogame-magazine Xmas "STEALTH ELF", pt.1! (Patreon)

Behold, my initial designs and roughs for a 2005 Christmas feature I worked on for the videogame magazine GamePro, where former PSM art director (and designer of the Empowered logo!) Eugene Wang brought me on board to provide wacky illustrations for an article about giftgiving options for gamers.

The star of the piece was Santa's "Stealth Elf," a tacticool cutie (very) loosely homaging Metal Gear Solid's Solid Snake:

The main point of the article was ID'ing various types of gamers, and what the magazine recommended for each:

The main illo for the article was a kinda-sorta sequential full-pager:

...which I modified with a sexed-up primary image, as seen below:

...though the second and third panels on the final version more closely resembled those in the initial rough.

NEXT TIME ON "SANTA'S STEALTH ELF": Later in the month, we'll see the work stages for a very rare cartoon strip featuring the Stealth Elf (as I've only drawn, like, five or six strip-format  comics in my entire career) and a completed illo, including the full-color versions of both.

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Unknown at this time, TBH, but something will be going up on the ol' "M/W/F+" posting schedule. (Emphasis on the "plus" part this month, as I'll have to squeeze in a few bonus posts to finish off this feature while getting through scheduled Distressed Damsels content for the $5+ tiers, Unnamed Robot Comic, Life Drawings and so on.)