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Welcome to the occasional Bonus Content break!

This one features some concept sketches for the new character of Azarek. As I mentioned previously, I started with the old design for Grissom, before I changed that character to female. Those (very old!) original sketches are in the upper left.

From there, I did some refinement passes on the head to try to get a bit more character into the face. The original was just a bit too standard, proportion-wise, so I ended up moving the eyes up, making the head flatter on top, elongating the chin, and bulking out the jaw. The end result is a face that’s much more of the intimidating brute I was going for. And the sweeping jaw line and angles make him pretty fun to draw as well.

For the mechanical arm, I wanted something that had some amount of detail but not so much that it would be a pain to draw. I didn’t want a lot of specific geometry, like gears and greebles, that I’d have to draw over and over, so I opted for simplified wide bands of metal. But the gaps allow for lots of cables and tubing so I can still get a bit of detail and visual interest in there as well. In the end, I think it strikes a nice balance of being easily drawable, while having enough detail and being distinctive overall in appearance.

For a more thorough breakdown of the character design, including even more sketches, please check out my Patreon. The Azarek post will be public, so anyone can view it without being a backer. If you’d like to back the series on Patreon for more bonus content like this one, support is always very much appreciated!