Character portraits

A preface, before I post a bit of art:

When I was in high school, I created a group of characters whose personalities and back stories, looking back on it now, were all sort of extensions of myself (seems a bit narcissistic, I suppose, but I think maybe it was just my way of working through things that bothered me?) Over the years, they've sort of stuck in my mind, evolving and fleshing out enough that I've tried to write down their story in various ways, both traditional writing and graphic story format. Haven't succeeded much at that yet, but I'm hoping this blog will help with it a bit.

Recently I started a series of more realistic-looking portraits to try to get a solid facial reference for the characters that I could use to keep them looking consistent in any subsequent art (and also to practice my digital painting). I'm posting the first two here.

This is the character I would consider the main heroine - Raina LaMontagne. She went through a lot of evolution since her creation - originally she was a lot more confident and free-spirited from the beginning (her name was actually Rina, but that sounded more Japanese to me...not the aesthetic I was going for).

In her current iteration, she's eighteen years old at the beginning of the story, and she's supposed to be more cute and awkward than traditionally pretty. She's a bit "beaten down" by the pressures of the life she was born into (daughter of a minor lord), and has forgotten or given up a lot of what made her happy as a child, though her naivete is intact for the most part. Two major things happen to her somewhere towards the beginning of the story - she learns that a high-ranked lord has asked for her hand in marriage, and soon after she is forced to go into exile when her father's manor comes under attack by another noble claiming he owns the lands by right.

(note...not sure why the background on this turned gray when I uploaded it? O.o)

This character is one that I think went through the most change, both physically and personality-wise. She used to be pale white-skinned and half-vampire (which is a supernatural element that I don't think fits with the story any longer).

Alisha LaMontagne (previously Alavar) - She's 22 years old when the story begins, and she's the adopted daughter of the LaMontagne family. Hot-headed and irritable almost to a fault with everyone except Raina and her adoptive parents. Her major conflict stems from her overprotectiveness of Raina, to the point where she cares about Raina more than herself and her own needs. She also has a lot of resentment towards the family that she came from.
EDITED: 8/15/16




And that's it for this post! (Actually surprised I was able to write this much!) Next time will be a couple other characters ^_^