The portrait of the woman done in colored pencils is probably just me playing around with my tools. I don’t recognize her as a character in any stories.
The rest of the page is dedicated to sketches of one of the survivors of the empire I mentioned yesterday. A finished portrait can be found here.
Part of the background for the King Roach series (at least in the version in this 2003 sketchbook) is ancient, lost empire. History has forgotten it. It was powerful and, basically, fundamentally, corrupt and evil. It had the sort of advanced technology that looks like magic to pre-industrial cultures. Tiny pockets of tech staffed by former citizens of the empire (kept in stasis) lay hidden in unexplored pockets of the world. Woe to anyone who pokes about in those pockets.
Most of King Roaches adversaries are giant monsters. King Roach stands about 15 feet tall. His enemies range for slight shorter than that to much, much larger.
For the fun of it I cast versions of various movie monsters as King Roach opponents. This one is a version of Anguirus. Anguirus has the distinction of being Godzilla’s first sparring partner. He appeared in Godzilla Raids Again, the first sequel to the 1954 Godzilla. The figure at his feet is an “average” human male. Increase the figure in size by three and you get a rough guess as to how King Roach compares in size.
If I ever get around to doing the King Roach series I’m unlikely actually many movie analog monsters. They’ve already got their own movies. As much fun as I have drawing them I don’t really have any new stories to tell about most of them – “Giant monster appears and King Roach has to figure out how to make it go away without getting squished” – is good once. After a couple dozen times it would just be tedious.
Here we have a variety of supporting characters for the King Roach series. This version of the series is set in the Sentient 39 universe. The technology of the society is about the level of 1950s Earth. There are finished versions of some of these characters in my Epilogue.net gallery.
If I remember correctly (this sketch is from 2003) the four tentacled thing at the bottom left is a member of one of the alien races that populate Cthulhu Mythos stories. Unfortunately I’m not sure where my copy of the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana is at the moment and I haven’t been able to find a species in Cthulhu Mythos Wikipedia entries that seems to match so we’ll just have to leave the creature anonymous.
The trapweaver is one of the “lower” species in the plant/animal symbiotic biosphere. Trapweavers live in small colonies of about a dozen individuals. They weave elaborate structures from the grasses of the great plains. When prey animals enter these structures the weavers work together to pull the structures down, entangling the prey. The weavers then stab the prey to death with their sharp beaks.
The void opal is a precious gem that forms in space. (The words “void opal” and the image of a shining, multicolored gem came to me at the same time. Void opal. I love the sound those words make.)
Another image from that hypothetical Sentient 39 encyclopedia. This is one of those species I’ve never gotten around to naming. It comes from a biosphere where plants and animals have developed a direct symbiotic relationship. Most animals species have plants that grow directly out of their bodies. The plants act as part of their digestive system. The plant is also part of the animal’s reproductive system (as the animal is part of the plant’s). The creature depicted here is a member of the “dominant” species of the world, that is, it’s a civilization builder.
When I design a character I try to make him/her distinct enough that he/she could be recognizable if depicted naked with a shaved head. I probably only succeed to the degree that I can recognize the characters when I encounter them again.
One of these days I want to put together an encyclopedia for the Sentient 39 “universe”. I’ve had this idea on and off for years. I’ll do an illustration or two and then get distracted. I know this fellow was intended for an encyclopedia entry but I no longer remember if he was to have individual entry or if he was an example of one of the many off branches of humanity.
