DISTRESSED DAMSELS: Yet more late-90s ROSE (without LILY) commissioned sketch sets! (Patreon)

Following up on Wednesday's post re: the 2002 Dirty Pair statue set, I dug up a few more damsel-in-distress sketch sets from only a few years earlier (I think), judging by the character design approach. Commissioned by a generous friend who could appreciate the (figuratively) sketchy stuff, the sets weren't particularly narrative in nature.

The first one might even be from the mid-90s, not long after I'd first worked up the costume and character designs for "dandelion-hair Kei" that would eventually appear in the 1998-ish Dark Horse Presents serialized story Dirty Pair: Start the Violence:

...or "dandelion-hair Rose," perhaps. Either way, gotta admit that I did not remember her having quite that much hair volume in these early sketches.

UPDATE: I thought that first Rose pose (ha ha!) looked a tad familiar; turns out I reused it circa 2005 in an Empowered vol. 2 DiD scene:

BTW, looked that page up in the Empowered webcomic serialization, and holy crap was I ever pouring on the bonus g-d commentary back then, as attested by three long paragraphs about the 180 degree rule and unrealistic hair flourishes. 

In fact, might as well paste in that commentary text here for s'more bonus content:

Panel  2: Slightly odd choice, here, to flip the orientation of Emp in the  scene from left side (in panel 1) to right, in a minor violation of the “180º rule.” Flopping orientation also places the partially visible rope  and Goatee Guy’s hand on either side of the center gutter between  panels, which is a bit of a screw-up. Not quite sure why I did this, but  I suspect this was an attempt to fit the shot within the slightly peculiar, angled shape of the panel—or maybe not. Mysterious!

Panel 3: Note the slightly odd artistic flourish of having a lone lock of  Emp’s hair loose—and not tied back by the blindfold, as clearly should  be the case from the previous page’s panel that showed Emp putting it  on. While technically this is an—ahem—“unrealistic” bit of artistic  license on my part, note that this is something I do all the time, as I  play around rather randomly with Emp’s hair to add visual interest to an  image. Here, I thought the “rogue lock of hair” made the shot a teeny bit more interesting, admittedly for reasons I can’t quite define. This concept is why I occasionally draw her hair quite a bit longer than it  should theoretically be, or flowing dramatically in a manner that would seemingly require violent motion or an unseen wind machine. “The Rule of Empowered Hair-Related Cool,” one might call it, in reference to the familiar TV Tropes category.

Note  that, between panels 4 and 5, randomly “flopping” the way Emp is facing  is another form of minor “180º rule” violation. A better way to handle such a change of character orientation would have been to switch the  camera angles for panels 3 and panel 4. That way, Emp would’ve started  out facing to the left (with the transposed former panel 4), then be  seen from a straight-on view (with the transposed former panel 4), then  end up facing right in panel 5. This would’ve made for a trio of panels  with a more pleasing flow (IMHO), as if the camera would be smoothly circling around Emp, rather than jumping placement without rhyme or  reason. Judge for yourself below, though pardon the cropping in this  quick 'n' dirty Photoshop job showing a marginally better series of  camera angles:

(To put it mildly, putting that much g-d effort into webcomic commentaries back then was NOT a productive use of my time.)

Next up are the scans from another incomplete set drawn as a double-page spread on the back of some Gen13: Magical Drama Queen Roxy photocopies, which I did fairly often for some reason. (Needless to say, I'll have to post scans of the front of those photocopies at some point, as they mainly feature pencil Work Stages that only several people have ever seen.)

Note that, years down the road, I'd use the "stick g*g" for Ninjette's harrowing scene at the end of the ninja fight in Empowered vol. 3. Left half of the page:

The vaguely feminine hint of an arm on Rose's unseen captor at upper left hints that this might've been another Red Monika riff borrowed from Joe Mad's Battle Chasers, as I drew more than few such sets for another generous friend who was a fan of both BC and my version of the DP. (Plus, the "stick" riff certainly hints at a low-tech milieu.)

The set was never quite finished (as the upper right corner shows), so ne'er shall we learn for certain if ol' Monika was at work.

The unusually tight close-up on Rose at lower tight is an interesting change of page, gotta say; might have to reuse that aproach someday soon.

NEXT UP IN DISTRESSED DAMSELHOOD: Knocked out a set or two of $20 DiD art reqs recently, which will likely be the subject for February's end-of-month bonus post for the $10 & $20 Patron tiers. Before that, I'm hoping to maaaaaybe post the first DiD-content pages from The Chaste and the Chained, but as I've not yet started 'em, I might have to use something else for the month's next damsel-y post. (I do have a few more vintage scans like today's kicking around, FWIW.)

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, TBH! Let's find out whassup next on Monday together, shall we?