Most recently on our Facebook page we’ve been updating our Insect Benchmark album with a growing image of our various creatures.  The different insects have all be drawn to scale in order to maintain a visual reference of how they compare to one another.  It’s a concept that I’ve been really excited about, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed the process.  It is quite the process though.  In order to keep this benchmark concept consistent, each insect and character in the story should be drawn to the same scale, same angle, and so on.

A light did shine through the tunnel of artwork to be completed however!

While organizing the archives (with over 15 years of work put into the story, we’ve got quite the accumulation of material), I found the character illustrations from The Small Press Idol 2009.  While we took part in the second round of the contest we were asked to provide full characater rotations (images of the character from different angles; straight, profile, and a 45degree or rear if necessary).  For The Underground’s submission  I chose Cyrus, Styx, Queen Azulon, Prince Loxyn, Admiral Cree, and Baron Tarq.  This was my favourite part of the contest, as it gave me the perfect opportunity to really solidify my handle on drawing the anatomy of insect characters; and in an unprecedented display of foresight, I drew them to the same scale and angles that I’ve been using for the current characters! This means the images are ready to transfer into our growing benchmark image, without the need for resizing or redrawing.

So stay tuned to our Facebook page as these characters stand up next to the other insects from our Creature Creations.  And be on the look out for more discoveries from our hefty tome of reference materials, and concept art.