BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: GRAND MAL pitch sketches, pt. 1

This month, my Patreon's informal "Design Tuesday" feature will be featuring my initial, circa-1992 sketches of the lead characters from the anime Bubblegum Crisis, drawn as part of my Studio Proteus pitch to write and draw an original, English-language BGC comic miniseries. (Non-SPOILER ALERT: The proposal was eventually successful, and in 1994 wound up producing the 4-part Dark Horse miniseries Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal, sadly long of print and never to be reprinted due to intractable licensing issues.)

A few words, as we start out with Priss (of course):

I drew these initial takes on the Knight Sabers' hardsuits and character designs on my once-beloved linen-finish cardstock as a time-saving alternative to producing fully-inked illustrations, which would've taken too long while I was still in the midst of finishing off the artwork for the last few issues of Dirty Pair: Sim Hell. Not an ideal medium, TBH, but what the heck.

Alas, I was a good five years out from sketching leather jackets based on photoreference, hence the notably drawn-off-the-top-of-my-head jacket Priss is sporting here.

Interestingly enough, while BGC designer Kenichi Sonoda was one of my key artistic influences in my first decade of manga inspiration, I can't say that I'd specifically riffed off his character designs until Grand Mal. I'm happy to say that I got a lot better at emulating his approach during the actual miniseries.

Next Tuesday, another Knight Saber! But WHO...?

TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: The DISTRESSED DAMSELS weekly feature for the $5+ Patron tiers boasts a pair of (mostly) unpublished first-draft, DiD-intensive Empowered (very) short stories. Behold the original ending of the "throwaway joke" iteration of the project, folks!