Sweet. I'd been thinking about showing off my own bit of Sluggy fan art for a while now.



I drew this for Halloween last year, in the spirit of the many webcomic artists who like to draw their characters dressed as other characters for Halloween. For those unfamiliar with the costumes, they are dressed as the Light Warriors from the first of Square/Enix's Final Fantasy games. I apologize for the overall quality of the scan--the paper in my sketch pad doesn't scan off very well.

I tried to emulate Pete's artwork as closely as I could, using poses and facial expressions I found in the comic as well as image searches for the Light Warriors character classes. Left to right: Sam as Thief; Kiki as herself; Zoe as Black Belt; Torg as Fighter; Bun-Bun as himself; Riff as Red Mage; Sasha as White Mage; and Gwynn as Black Mage. Some elements from the drawing I'm happy with, other elements less so. I'm particularly happy with how Torg and Zoe turned out (despite that Zoe looks a lot buffer than she does in the comic). I'm not so happy with Sam and Sasha's faces--in fact, I'm not sure everyone can immediately tell that's Sasha. If I had to do it again, I think I'd draw her with the hood down instead.

Torg and Gwynn were the easiest characters to assign a class to: given Torg's swordsmanship and Gwynn's sorcery, making them the Fighter and Black Mage was a no-brainer. (And I like that Gwynn's glasses can be made to look like the Black Mage's glowy eyes.) Riff was similarly easy, given that he'd be one to carry weapons or blow things up with arcane power. And it helps that the Red Mage is periodically portrayed wearing a long coat. Sasha was a little harder to assign; I finally decided that, as tinker of the group, she'd be more inclined to smack bad guys around with a hammer. I went back and forth on Zoe and Sam, however, and even still can see their roles swapped. I think what finally made me choose was that it was easier to come up with a Black Belt costume design that showed off Zoe's tattoo than was a Thief's.

@ habitually_dubious
That is so incredible! I may have to bust out 80's slang.

Bodacious!

Damn, habitually_dubious, that's awesome! Really good work!

I think you're being too hard on yourself about Sam. He looks great to me.
I have to agree that Sasha is kind of hard to recognize. I think the problem may be the lock of hair across her face. It seems to kinda break up the flow of the lines, imo.



There was one thing that bugged me. Why does Zoe have antennae?

...okay, okay, they're Sam's fingers. Took me a moment to get that.

Thanks, arch, Orz.

Sam giving Zoe the 'rabbit ears' was kind of a last minute addition, and one that may not have been the best idea. I was well into the ink work on our heroes when I realized that I had no idea where Sam's left arm was going. And if we can't see his arm, there's a pretty decent chance he's grabbing Zoe's butt--and Zoe has entirely the wrong facial expression for that to be happening. Drawing Sam giving her ears was the first thing I could think of. I've since wondered if drawing him waving or flashing a peace sign might have been better.

I drew another shot of Gwynn as the Black Mage, and I've thought about going back and drawing up versions of other Sluggy characters as Final Fantasy Original characters. Oasis seems an obvious pick for Kary the Fire Fiend. And I can see Darth Grater or the Minion Master as Garland and one of Aylee's more dragon-like phases as Bahamut.

Do it!!! You have amazing skill. I'm just copy/pasting the comic and making small changes. (though in some cases there are many small changes)

Also, News!!

I told Pete about the fan art in his last defenders blog, and he likes the idea. SQEEE
He does want to know how each "artist" (used quotes cause I only qualify loosely), and should be contacting the mods soon(relatively speaking) on how to declare something suitable or not. I will continue creating fan art, try to keep in contact with Mr. Abrams on using these as filler for him, as well as pestering the mods if need be.

Sasha as the Black Widow, in a more relaxed stance.

Awesome, arch! I'd be happy to have my fan arts used. Feel free to use the 'habitually_dubious' screen name when referencing the pics, or use my first name which is Jack. I don't have a preference either way.

Here's the other piece I drew of Gwynn. This one I drew for my godson as a coloring book of sorts full of knights and dragons. I got down to the end and realized I didn't have any wizards or sorcerers, so I revisited my idea of Gwynn as the Black Mage. I based the robes on Pete's picture from comic 040914, but the rest was entirely my invention.


I like this picture for the most part, but Pete definitely draws better magic smoke than I do.

If Pete wants to use the one I posted and can't find the original, I can get the artist to resend it.

@Steave
Right now I'm waiting for Pete to give the word on when to send this stuff to the mods. I have no idea what he has saved elsewhere or not. To be on the safe side, I'd get the original resent, that you'd always have a copy. :)

@habitually_dubious That is beautiful!

Now for my next trick.

Because what can be more destructive than Kiki after a pixie stick?

Nearing the end of the cast, we now have Sam the Man as Hawkeye.

Continuing with the theme.

ZHOAS as Mjolnir

@arch: *sinister chuckle*

Can't wait to see Thor swing her.

Shouldn't Sam have been Thor, then? :) Fits better as a stupid brute, too!

PS; kudos for .png, makes everything better!

I was basing it partially on this, but primarily on the dynamic of the next few I do. And thanks, gimp makes it easy to transfer an image to .png.

Sat down this afternoon and revisited my rendition of Sasha as the White Mage from Final Fantasy. My scanner really just doesn't do graphite very well. >:\



Not super happy with this, but on the whole I think it turned out okay. I'm particularly unhappy with how her leg came out. If I did it over again, I think I'd just have it covered by her robes.

Unlike the picture I drew of Gwynn, I made sure to include a couple references from the comic in this one. I threw Kiki in for good measure, with a funnel on her head because it just seems like the kind of thing she'd wear on her head like a party hat. For those unfamiliar with the Final Fantasy series, the White Mage typically wields a mallet or a mage's staff. Leave it to Sasha to carry both, just in case.

I like Sasha, she's long been one of my favorite characters, and of the Sluggy Girls, I think she's the cutest all around. Sure, she's a weird girl, but all around she's smart, fun, pretty, and just has an all-around good attitude. There is just something infinitely huggable about Sasha, in contrast to Zoe's intimacy issues or Gwynn's prickliness or Oasis's murderous-ness.

@ hab_ dub
Thats amazing! I think you pegged Sasha's personality spot on! Plus all the little touched you added, the bears, the funnel, the floaty device, are all squee-tastic!