Art Archive Skotti's Commissioned Art For Me (Now with two Sith chicks!)

Right, just to get this out before people go any further, this isn't my art. I pay my best friend, the aforementioned Skotti, to create it. I'm one of those people who can't draw a straight line without a ruler. But seeing as how I have an account here and she doesn't, she agreed to let me post it for her. Besides, I had to promise her girlfriend not to let her get any geekier, so I'm taking one for the team here. jk

Ultimate Arachina #01: Powerless
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Syn and Gnosys, Dark Ladies of the Sith
[image=http://homepage.mac.com/alienyouthct/skotter/LadySyn.jpg] [image=http://homepage.mac.com/alienyouthct/skotter/LadyGnosys.jpg]

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween C
[image=http://homepage.mac.com/alienyouthct/skotter/UA14C-1.jpg]

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween A
[image=http://homepage.mac.com/alienyouthct/skotter/UA14A-2.jpg] [image=http://homepage.mac.com/alienyouthct/skotter/UA14A-1.jpg]

Bonnie Newell: link
Hiskari Dorset Conceptual 2: Stage 3 Stage 2 Stage 1
Ultimate Arachnia, Arc 1: link
Chadaara Ko Conceptual: link
Hiskari Dorset Conceptual: link
Taram'aclay Conceptual: link
Unnamed Yuuzhan Vong Jedi Conceptual: link

 

Unnamed Yuuzhan Vong Jedi Conceptual:
Character:
She's just a character idea we're batting around right now. In the past, the Vong were Force-sensitive. Her ancestors were... well, to be blunt, nerds. They decided to see if they could create extragalactic travel much for the same reason as the Outbound Flight Project: just to see what was out there. They settled in the Outer Rim, and escaped whatever happened that stripped the rest of their species of the Force. Eventually, she came to the attention of the Jedi Order and was brought to Coruscant for training. She's still mildly technophobic, but doesn't have the manic religious opposition to it that the rest of the species does. At least that's the story until we can figure out how to create a logical Vong lightsaber that doesn't include technology.
Image:
There's not really a lot of female Vong resources out there, and the nature of society means that with all the self-alteration, there's no real template for STARTING a Vong character, except for pointed ears and a big forehead. I'm sure the pencils don't do it justice; a lot of the beauty of Skotti's pieces come out in the ink stage at the earliest, which is why she usually doesn't show me them until then.

 

Taram'aclay Conceptual:
Character:
Taram'aclay violates a lot of the canon of Dooku and Shaak Ti layed down in the EU, but oh well. She was Dooku's apprentice at the time of him leaving the Jedi Order. Tara was discovered to be having... meetings... with Shaak Ti's padawan and was brought before the Jedi Council. Knowing her Master was plotting to leave, she allowed them to expel her and continued learning from Dooku after he too left. She became involved with many of his projects, including working extensively with the clones on Kamino, going as far as to take a variant on their own armor as her own.
Image:
Ironically, this is a character from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction, hence the resemblence to the name of another character. Her armor will most likely end up colored instead of the pure white of the clonetroopers, but I'm not sure what color yet. Possibly a glossy black with the flat black bodysuit, or blood red with the black bodysuit beneath it. Not sure.

Hiskari Dorset Conceptual:
Character:
Honestly, not much to say about her. She's a consular, very "by the books", etc. She's cannon fodder, or more precisely, saber fodder for my story.
Image:
She's unashamedly based on the albino Nautolan seen here. I hate when they try to overexpand on a background character, like they did with Kit Fisto. Apart from the eyes, he's not particularly aquatic-looking. His hands should be larger and webbed to support the notion that he swims, he supposedly has gills that are... well, he's shown shirtless and with mostly bare legs in the cartoon, so where are THOSE hiding? I had passed the ideas back and forth with Skotti and we'd abandoned the idea of a Nautolan character just because I was so dissatisfied with the species. Then we found the above piece and took up the character idea again. And I have no clue what she's wearing; Skotti just popped something together so she wasn't nude. She's currently scheduled for one full-color piece that has her in typical Earthen teenage girl clothing.

 

Chadaara Ko Conceptual:
Character:
Chadaara Ko is the lover of the aforementioned Taram'aclay. She's based on the Jedi Weapons Master prestige class in the WotC RPG. Obviously, with the difficulties in her past, Mace Windu isn't willing to teach her Vaapad but she splits her time between learning from other masters to further her knowledge of the other six forms of lightsaber combat, teaching the Temple younglings about Shii-Cho, and secret meetings with Taram'aclay when the latter is on Coruscant. She doesn't feel comfortable taking an apprentice because of her age and the Tara situation, and her genetic heritage as a pack hunter makes her feel uncomfortable working alone.
Image:
The character will actually be based off of a friend of my artist, and so this is just a sketch to see what Nirvana (the friend) thinks of "her" costume. There should be a production piece of Taram'aclay and Chadaara Ko sometime next week.

 

Waooww .... Very nice works!!!... Especially "Hiskari Dorset" looks to good ....

Keep up to goodwork !!! (Both you )

 

Impressive work! The female Vong has this beautiful but sinister thing to her... brings one to think about her story for sure

 

Thanks (from the pair of us). The fact that we figured out something for Hiskari means that I'm reexamining relationships in my story. Chadaara Ko (or at least that particular character) was originally to be a Nautolan but I was dissatisfied because of the problems with Nautolans I mentioned above. Now that we've figured it out, I still want to use her, but I've already written the groundwork for Tara/Chadaara. *pouts* No fair.

Then again, half of my amusement with Hiskari is that she's 4'6".

I haven't figured out the entirety of it or how to integrate her to my story, but I'm hoping I can figure out something.

 

Awesome stuff! I bet you can guess which one is my favorite (in case you can't it's the Twi'lek girl ). They are all very cool images. Great job on the Yuuzhan Vong female w/o a lot of reference material.

 

The Vong will likely remain uncolored, but the inkless colors of Taram'aclay should be done soon. I just need to roll Skotti out of bed. Which is easier said than done...

 

For as much as you seem to disagree w/ my Twi'leks' figures, yours here is not terribly toothpick-like and you plan to make her plumper! I'm all for it. Remember, the body types we see in the movies and comics are only few of many. I'm sure we'll see some extremely obese Twi'lek female someday, who's trying to pass herself off as a talented dancer. Don't expect it to come out of my camp though.

Thanks for stopping by my thread to leave feedback, alienyouth. I can't want to see what else you and your friend come up with here. Please be sure to stop by in the future.

 

Taram'aclay is an exception because she's part of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic, therefore she's going to be modeled after an actual actress who isn't a toothpick herself.

 

Oh, very cool. You might say I have a lot of experience with that sort of height in a humanoid . I like that idea that you've apparently got ideas for a lot of different, non-standard body types here. I'm also a writer, and I can see how that could appeal, creating a lot of interesting situations...

That said, these drawings are really excellent! You have a very nice artist here. Great coloring (love the shading!) and linework going on. Really gives them a personality.

 

Glad you like them. This is actually nothing compared to some of the stuff she churns out. Hiskari, the Vong, and Chadaara were all popped out in about an hour or two. No inking, minimal coloring, etc. I'll see what I can find out of her fully-completed pieces that would be appropriate to post here (most of her stuff is Marvel or DC).

And I like the height differences. There's a couple in my story where one is 6'1" and the other is 4'11". You can make a lot of jokes there.

 

Wow that's a fast production rate! So that means by tomorrow, we should have 6 more images, amirite?

 

Hey, if you wanna foot the bill, I've seen her push out a full production piece (pencils, inks, digital color) in about an hour. It'd take longer now because she draws and inks by hand instead of using OpenCanvas, but still...

 

Hiskari Dorset Conceptual 2:
Character:
See previous.
Image:
Just a bit of fun with her as I continue to try and decide who survives in my story: Chadaara or Hiskari. It's not at all what I intended, to be honest, but I liked it too much to complain about it. Expect to see another water-themed image if I do pick Hiskari to survive just to play up her amphibious nature. Skotti's actually hoping I pick Hiskari, because that means four pieces instead of three that I have to pay her for.

 

Ultimate Arachnia, Arc 1:
Character:
Arachnia is the codename of Astrid Jansen, a classmate of Peter Parker's. When he visits Osborn Industries on a class trip, she is there with him and is bitten by a black widow spider after the commotion of Peter being bitten startles it. Unlike Peter, her bite was potentially fatal until the intervention of an unknown third party. She gained amazing new powers from the bite and put her skills as a fashion designer to use to create a costume, taking equipment provided to her by the the same benefactor so she can begin a crime-fighting career. Followed by her sidekick, the fraternal twin of her girlfriend, she does her best to fight crime while still maintaining a more positive public image than Spider-Man does through judicious use of the media.
Image:
This is the teaser image for the first story arc. It's just her in her original costume. Like the Wasp, her costume is constantly evolving, either in minor changes during patching or complete new versions. She's a massive composite, bringing together my friend Samantha, Spider-Girl of the MC-2 universe, and Spider-Woman 3. Skotti hates the little mask, so it'll change in further pics. She eventually steals the Black Widow's costume, and also dons armor that looks like Batman's from the most recent Batman movie.

 

Updated with inks and colors of Hiskari Dorset Conceptual 2.

 

Bonnie Newell:
Trick or treat? O_O

 

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween A
This is the first stage of a full production piece. I figured that I'd let you watch the entire process to see what Skotti does. This is Hiskari again. For anyone who's following, the fan fiction I'm using her in isn't true Star Wars. It's Buffy the Vampire Slayer-based, in the episode where they turn into their Halloween costumes. We needed a full costume (as opposed to the bathing suit) for Hiskari, so we looked more to the girl underneath. She's Japanese and so Skotti looked to that country's fashions (both contemporary and historical) to fashion a set of robes for her. She's a consular, and so we decided on something more aesthetic than functional. The hilt is part of a durasteel sword. Unlike Kit Fisto's lightsaber, Hiskari's blade does not possess a dual crystal, bifurcating cyclical-ignition pulse system and cannot be used underwater. The sword is a relic of her own people, which allows her to carry it to diplomatic events as well.

 

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween A
We added Taram'aclay in now. She's actually a bit too short here or Hiskari is a bit tall; Hiskari in actually should come up to about her chin. I guess we'll write it off to platform boots as a part of her dressy robes. Taram's left arm has a lanvarok strapped on over the gauntlet, but between this scan and the inking, it was smoothed out so that it looks like one big piece of armor. Sure, people know she has a weapon in there, but they don't know until it's too late that it's a bunch of metal disks spit out at high speed and controlled with telekinesis. I'm definitely liking how Taram came out, especially compared to our previous costume designs for her. Much better.

 

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween A
Inks! Skotti's going to do a cleaner scan for our own purposes, but this is sufficient for uploading here. We flipped the two characters, and Skotti fixed Taram'aclay's gauntlet. I'd ask for advice on what color to make Hiskari's outfit, but I dunno if anyone is even reading my babbling, so it'll probably end up being shades of dark blue or purple.

 

Ultimate Arachnia #14: Helloween A
Almost there. Hiskari's dress is going to be a pain to color, so Skotti's saving it for last. Taram'aclay's armor is all good to go, and I'm quite happy with how the whole thing came out. I'm half-tempted to add some lighter purple spots to her lekku, but I think Skotti would slap me with a fish if I asked her to do that. She hates when we do certain characters of mine because they're spawning grounds for freckles.

 

Looking good so far... great line work and colors. But they all have the same bodily features and facial expressions, I guess there should be something done about that if you want the personality of the character to show in the picture. Because all I see for now are just "bimbo" types posing with lighstabers. Greatly drawn by the way, but the representation isn't really interesting in my opinion.

 

The concept art or 14A? Because the concept art, I told her to just stick 'em on there. I was more exploring costuming, coloration, and features than I was caring about making them look interesting. 14A is the "cover" art for that particular chapter of my story, and those are always kinda posed. Especially if I'm introducing new characters. 14B will be Taram'aclay out shopping with a poor clonetrooper loaded down under a pile of bags. 14C will be Taram'aclay and Hiskari dueling. 14D will be Chadaara being murdered.

I suppose body type-wise, that's something I need to work with Skotti on. That's the problem inherent in any type of commission environment: your ideas live in your brain, not theirs. I'm trying to compensate by working up the different characters in Poser so Skotti can see what they're supposed to look like, but that wasn't done until Skotti was already in the process of inking 14A. I know Hiskari is supposed to be a bit shorter and slimmer than Taram'aclay. 4'6" and 5'2", respectively. Tara is the heaviest of the three, or rather the most voluptuous. Chadaara is taller and slimmer, but more muscular. Hiskari is the shortest and has the stereotypical Asian body type.