And now for something completely different... A super hero!  Insomniac is a character I've had in mind for a long time, but could never land on a design I liked.  I'm pretty sure I like this one, though.  As a "dark knight" type character, her cloak includes a good so she can look look more dark, mysterious and scary. Her staff is retractable and can be kept in a pocket on the side of her boot. That metal thing on her right arms houses a computer with communication and navigational capabilities. Her mask includes night vision lenses.

In my world of supers, mental powers manifest themselves in different ways. In Insomniac's case, she's got a sixth sense that warns her of danger (like Spider-Man's spidey sense), along with an unusually high intellect.  Also, as the name implies, a side effect of her powers is that she doesn't sleep; she doesn't need to. (This was inspired by an article I read a few years ago about why we sleep; it's our minds that need it, not our bodies, so it makes sense that a person with a super-human brain might not need sleep.) This has given her a lot more time to perfect her fighting skills. It also allows her to live a double life.

Insomniac is Japanese, and because of her genius finished school early. When she was younger, she traveled the world, learning new skills and earning lots of money. She eventually settled down and set up her own company in  big city (haven't decided where yet, but it will probably be a fictional Asian city state; Singapore meets Gotham?).  Most of her life she has used her powers only for her own good, but after a crisis occurs (???) she decides change her ways and use her powers to fight the crime and corruption of the city she calls home.

In the Doodze's society, Waizers are the equivalent of wizards -- wise, magical gurus.  Bulgada the Waizer was not so wise one day, and while trying to invent a spell that would allow her to control an army of bugs accidentally turned herself into a bug/Doodze hybrid... an accident that, even after several years, she has not yet been able to undo. Obsessed with finding a way to heal herself, she has allied herself with the enemy, having been promised the help she needs.  But, despite her calm demeanor, her patience is growing thin...

Note: Yesterday's character, Rando, and his two brothers I have in mind, are fairly average Doodzes, besides the fact that they're bad guys. As I've been thinking about what kind of characters to come up with for Doodze, I've found myself wanting to push the limits. Doodze is funny and quirky, but I really want to come up with some stuff that's really odd.  This is a step in that direction, but I still want to push it more.

This is the first in a month-long series of character designs I'm doing for the 30 Characters in 30 Days challenge.

I did lots of sketching for that project, especially trying to figure out the character designs. The two characters in the drawing below, which you'll see in three phases of development, were to be the main characters. If I ever get around to resurrecting this concept, the characters may turn out very different. But this is the latest version anyway. At the bottom of this post, I explain the process.

Original Sketch:

Inked and Toned Version:

Full-Color Version:

The process: First the rough sketch. The girl has a hat on because I couldn't get her hair to look right. But it was just a quick sketch, so I didn't care. But I liked how the characters looked. So, I took the sketch and blew it up using my scanner/copier/printer, then taped that larger version to the light board. From there I penciled it in blue line; doing it in light blue, of course, saves the step of having to erase it after inking. After penciling, I inked it using a Japanese brush-pen. Then I scanned it and did a little bit of cleanup and stuff in Photoshop. I added the large black and gray areas, and finished with some shading. I'm not a huge fan of my own inking, but once I did the Photoshopping to it, I think it turned out okay. I went back a little while later and did a color version, as you can see. Not entirely satisfied with my color choices, looking back, but there you have it.