Character portraits 2

Continued from the last post...

An interesting thing that I neglected to mention about nearly all of the characters in this story is that they were originally named after online friends of mine (I had A LOT back in my high school days). Raina, as I mentioned before, was originally named Rina after an adorable Korean girl (she used to call me oba-san, or "auntie" in Japanese) that I talked to a lot. Alisha's name used to be spelled Alicia; her namesake was someone I sang with frequently for one of the e-myus I participated in (she had a WONDERFUL voice). They didn't have much to do with the characters they were named after, but as I said before, because these characters were so close to me, I guess I wanted to give them names that would mean something. In the past few years, as I've been trying to pull it all together into a viable story, some of those names have had to change for aesthetic reasons, but they all still pay some homage to the people they were named after. I get a bit nostalgic thinking about it, since most of these people I have fallen out of contact with.

(Um...for some reason the site is making my pictures darker when I upload them?? Have to look into this...)

Alex Sinclair (previously Alexandria DeLorre) - 19-20 years old at the start of the story. Alex was named after my friend Lex, who was sort of a mentor to me in terms of writing and, well, life things. The character's name changed to Alex after I had a few people tell me it sounded too modern and/or like the Superman villain, Lex Luthor XD I envisioned this character as having a face like a Roman statue - long nose, strong jaw and chin. She's also supposed to be extremely androgynous (it's hard for me to achieve the balance between feminine and masculine when I draw her - sometimes I achieve it, sometimes I don't). She's a soldier and has never been interested in traditionally feminine things. Ran away from home at age 14 because of an extremely complicated home situation (though her life may have become even MORE complicated after leaving...)

Gregory Lawrence - named after another singing buddy of mine, his name also stayed the same. He's the only male main character...probably because I dislike drawing men XD Gregory is average in looks, above average in size (I envisioned him at around 6'2"), and always seems to have facial stubble. He's Raina's age, and ever since the two met at around age 14, they've grown as close as siblings (he and Alisha are her two best friends). He's kind-hearted to a fault, but never set his mind towards marriage or courtship, instead throwing himself into a career as a guardsman. Lost his parents at a very young age and spent a year or two on the streets before being adopted by a blacksmith (tried an apprenticeship there, but the trade didn't interest him).

Those are the four main characters (with Raina being at the forefront), the ones who go through the most change in the story.