Serene Star

I always end up doing cast pictures for these sorts of stories because I feel so bad drawing just one character, and I love seeing how everyone fits together.  The Gatekeeper is sort of unique because the characters come from different cultures and eras, so their outfits don’t exactly match one another (unless they’re from the same place).  So it’s really fun to see them beside each other!

Honestly, if this were a true cast picture of The Gatekeeper, it would only be the four in the middle there.  The other three are characters that show up later in the story, the two girls in the second book, and the boy most likely in the third (unless I can finagle him in the second like I did the blue hair girl, lol).

So anyway, from left to right we have: Elyon Michaelis, Korei Miyamoto, Tobias Jonston, Persephone Porter, Cassandra Astria, Joshua Sterre, and Proserpina Ward.

Elyon comes from a 1920’s inspired world, Korei comes from an Asian inspired world, Tobias and Persey come from a medieval inspired world that’s the hub of all the other worlds, Cassie and Josh come from a colonial America inspired world, and Prophie comes from a steampunk/airship inspired world that doesn’t really have its own era.

Persey is what’s known as a Gatekeeper (hence the title), who is a person who is able to open portals to the different worlds via mirrors.  The staff she’s holding is a ceremonial symbol of a Gatekeeper, although it doesn’t appear much in the story.  Elyon, Korei, Josh, and Prophie are her Watchers, which are people who are able to open portals as well within a specific region of the worlds, but not ones that people can pass through.  Tobias is Persey’s childhood best friend/love interest who has no real connection to the Gatekeeper business, training to become a blacksmith.  And Cassie is the lost princess of one of the worlds that Persey befriends on Earth without realizing this fact (spoiler?  Lol)

So we’ve accidentally branched The Gifted universe out into little side stories.  Which makes sense – the main cast of The Gifted is just one of many, many people effected by the Institute’s nonsense, and each facility houses it’s own experiment.  This story is about a facility that takes people born with subtle Gifts – this is what Gifts normally are, where they’re actually undetected by most people – and turn them physical. 

Emily there is a non-Gifted (or so she thinks) person who infiltrated the facility because her best friend was kidnapped right in front of her by the Institute about six years ago.  No one believes her because the Institute is very good at covering their tracks, and Emily is determined to prove herself right while also rescuing her friend.  In the process, she meets Jaxson, who is a captive at the facility, having been taken and experimented on about five years ago.

Jaxson, for his part, happens to be able to control electricity (meaning his Gift is fire).  However, due to the nature of the experiment and the nature of his Gift, its rather unpredictable, and he’s been known to knock out the power grid in the area.  He’s a bit of a sarcastic rebel, but at the same time, it’s understandable given his circumstances.

While Emily is merely an intern, she ends up getting promoted to Jaxson’s handler when it’s discovered that she can calm him down which in turns helps him control his Gift a bit better.  Jaxson had developed a crush on her the moment he saw her, but it takes him a little bit to actually trust her.  Emily starts off feeling bad for him and his situation, but is weirdly drawn to him (she was a bit of a late bloomer and sort of obsessed with finding her friend to really crush on any boys, so she doesn’t understand the feeling).  We haven’t quite planned all this out yet, but obviously at some point, they end up getting together and so being all stupidly cute and all that nonsense.  :P

I had planned on Emily having a clipboard to show that she’s a researcher, but then realized that was a little too old fashioned before switching it to a tablet for a second.  They’re a high tech scientific research company, after all!  But then remembered Jaxson’s lightning might not be electronic friendly, so they probably record a lot of their results on paper just in case. 

But then @callistochan87 made the mistake of suggesting an idea, and…yeah.  This happened.

The basic idea was the go with one of the other facilities that the Institute runs, and this time, it would be a story about one of the scientists and one of the captives.  I ended up twisting it a little by accident, but it is definitely shaping up to be an interesting story!

We literally just started this yesterday, but I’ll admit that part of my planning process is coming up with character designs.  This helped me come up with my main girl’s name, after all, since I had an idea of what I wanted her to look like, but no solid name.

So basically the premise of what we’re doing is that the facility is one what experiments on people who already have a Gift, what we call a subtle Gift.  Subtle Gifts are the most common types of Gifts, and manifest in ways that people can’t actually tell they have a Gift.  Think someone with a green thumb, someone who is pretty accurate at predicting the weather just by standing outside, someone who excels at swimming.  The facility takes people with this subtle Gifts and attempts to make them physical Gifts, which are the sort of Gifts the characters of the main Gifted story have.  These are Gifts that manifest themselves through character actions, like how Jacey can manipulate metal.

In any case, both Piper and Jaxson were born with subtle Gifts – Piper as a water Gift and Jaxson has a fire Gift.  What makes them unusual is that they are secondary Gifts like Jacey’s – Piper’s Gift is actually ice and Jaxson’s is electricity.  Piper has always been cold to the touch, although she herself has never really felt any different.  Still, this leads her parents to think that she’s constantly sick.  So when a medical research study comes to her attention, she joins it in hopes that it’ll help her understand her condition.  Her best friend Emily joins as well as a show of solidarity.

Emily doesn’t have a Gift, but she witnesses when the Institute kidnaps Piper after learning that she has a Gift.  Piper doesn’t have the best home life – her parents are divorced and her mother remarried, but her mother and step father ignore her in favor of her step-and-half siblings.  So most people think she merely ran away.  Emily knows otherwise, although only her parents really listen to her.  She spends the next six years searching for Piper, discovering bits and pieces about what might have happened to her over the years.  She learns about Gifts and the Institute, but she has no way of accessing the Institute.  She ends up discovering which facility they took Piper to about two years ago, and selected a college and a major close by that would allow her to intern there when the opportunity comes up.

Piper managed to survive the ordeal when most didn’t, and is kept locked up in the facility because her Gift is actually rather dangerous.

Jaxson isn’t my character, but what we’ve come up with is that he has a shitty childhood, with his mother bouncing between boyfriends after his parents divorced, until she finally met the man that becomes Jaxson’s stepfather.  The two get married when Jaxson’s about 14 or so, and the man makes Jaxson’s life even worse because he does not like Jaxson, since he takes attention away from his wife.  Jaxson get into so minor trouble and his parents freak out on him, mostly through his stepfather’s influence.  His stepfather suggests a new school to help end his ‘criminal tendencies’, which his mother agrees to because Jaxson used to be hyperactive as a kid thanks to his Gift. 

Unfortunately for Jaxson, this was a school run by the Institute, and through a series of probably illegal testing on the students, Jaxson’s Gift was discovered, and he suddenly vanished from the school.  When his mother inquired about why she hadn’t heard from her son, it was discovered that he was ‘never enrolled’ in the school and they have ‘no records’ of him.  There was a big case about it, one that the Institute covered their tracks nicely, and his mother sort of gave up after a year or so, although she maintains some sliver of hope that he shows back up.

Jaxson’s Gift is just as dangerous as Piper’s, if not moreso.  He tends to overload the entire power grid at times when they’re testing him/trying to get him under control.  The town they live in is notorious for rolling blackouts with no explanation, and the people who live there have just learned to deal with it.

The story is mostly about Emily’s internship and her being assigned to help Jaxson get his Gift under control.  For reasons no one can explain, least of all Jaxson, whenever she’s near, she has a calming effect on him, and he’s able to control his Gift.  He sort of falls for her at first sight, although he’s not completely trusting of her until she explains why she’s there and she gives him reason to trust her.  She, though her interactions with him and through helping plan an escape for him, eventually falls for him as well.

(Piper and Jaxson do know each other, mostly thanks to the fact that they’re the only two people who has survived the process thus far, and hey, its’s a male and a female!  We should see what would happen if they reproduced together!  Except Piper is a lesbian and isn’t at all interested, and forced reproduction puts a damper on the idea, anyway.)

So, for the designs, the first group is basically what they look like in the facility.  We have Emily, Piper, and then Jaxson.  Emily is actually in disguise here.  She doesn’t normally wear glasses or anything too ‘fashionable’.  But she’s trying to make sure no one recognizes her outside of work.  I will say that she was ridiculously cute like this, though.  And then Piper and Jaxson are in their jumpsuits that they’re forced to wear.  (Jaxson's zipper and belt buckle are plastic, because I didn't really think of that detail when I designed the jumpsuit, lol) I was originally going to just give them gray jumpsuits, but I liked the idea of them wearing their Gift color.  Makes it look a little less drab. 

Their hair lengths are part of their captivity.  They keep Piper’s short in general, whereas they buzz Jaxson’s off once a year or so and then let it grow, for some reason.  (Maybe they cut it off when he’s being particularly rebellious.)  His hair is white because it turned that color when his Gift went from subtle to physical.  No idea why.  I just thought it was a funny idea when Anijel said his hair was white, lol.

I like how Emily’s ‘color’ is purple here, since it doesn’t match any of the Gifts, thus showing she has none.

The other sheet is basically how they look outside the facility.  I was mostly wanting to show off how Emily looks, but then decided to do Piper and Jaxson as well, since I’d imagine at some point, Emily manages to pull off the rescue. 

This, of course, also allowed me to come up with new names for the characters that still shared the same names in The Gatekeeper.  This, obviously, would be it’s own Thing now. 

Azregard Starleaf/Blair Hudson - Blair is the main character (formally Persephone).  She was accidentally switched at birth with the princess of her kingdom.  Her mother was working as a nursemaid for the princess because she and Blair were born on the same day, but when Blair and Princess Azregard were around one, Blair’s father got the family banished from the kingdom.  Blair’s mother was working at the time and she had to leave in a hurry and managed to grab the wrong baby in the process.  By the time she did realize she had inadvertently kidnapped the princess, it was too late to switch her back without completely destroying the family.

The thing is is that the king and queen had wanted nothing to do with their daughter up until that point.  Also, Azregard and Blair looked remarkably alike, such that Blair’s mother was the only one who could tell them apart in the palace.  So the servants had no idea the two were switched, and neither did the monarchs.  They just continued to assume Blair was Azregard and raised her as such.

The problem was that Blair wasn’t their blood and acted completely different.  She had sympathy and empathy for people and was kind and friendly.  The king and queen, by contrast, were tyrants.  She grew up thinking something was wrong, because she identified more with the common people than the nobility.  She wanted to be a good queen but she also wanted to run away from it all and live as a peasant. 

When she was around twenty or so, the real Azregard shows up and obviously wants her life back.  Despite the fact that they raised her and trained her to be the heir, her ‘parents’ eventually kick her out after Azregard is able to prove she really is who she says she is, mostly at the urging of Azregard.  Blair, now understanding the truth, is a bit baffled at first, because the palace was her home and she had all these plans for the future.  But she eventually realizes this is the a golden opportunity for herself, and embraces her new identity as a peasant while also deciding to find her real parents.

River Johnson – River is the love interest (I said I was going to use the name somewhere and for some reason, after doing his design, he looked like a River to me.).  He’s the second son of a peasant who had met with Blair as Azregard a few times when she snuck off to explore the village around the palace.  She comes across her again after she leaves the palace and offers to assist her, knowing full well that she’s the princess despite the fact that she had been hiding her identity from him the entire time.  He talks her into cutting her hair because there’s a lot of peasants who dislike her because of her ‘parentage’ and everyone knows what Azregard used to look like.  He did fall in love with her at first sight, which is why he’s so willing to help her out despite barely knowing her.  His family is weirdly accepting of him bringing this strange girl into the house, and Blair, while grateful, is a little weirded out by their kindness.  (She fell in love with him at first sight as well, so she’s this opportunity as well to get to know him.)

Luna Harrison – Luna is River’s best friend, although there’s no real romantic interest between the two.  People always assume that they two of them would end up getting married someday, and she entertained the idea, but also could tell he never felt that way about her.  And honestly, neither did she.  She’s quick to befriend Blair and help her understand the world she belongs to now, and it takes her a bit to learn that she’s the former princess.  While River had always at least respect Azregard until he actually met her and fell for her, Luna has no love for the princess, which does make some conversations a little awkward. 

Azregard Starleaf – Azregard is the actual princess who had accidentally kidnapped when she was one.  Blair’s parents attempted to raise her as one of their own, although they never changed her name and made sure she understood that she wasn’t really a part of their family, at least biologically.  They had always planned on returning her to the throne one day, but even before they told her all of this, they had trouble connecting with her.  She was a terror growing up, acting entitled and selfish and narcissistic like her parents.  They eventually gave up trying to act like she was their adoptive daughter, with Azregad finally deciding to leave home to find her true place around when she was twenty. 

She arrives in the palace and pretty much takes over the place, forcing Blair out and trying to take over her life, since she claims that it’s always been her life.  The king and queen are pleased with the way Azregard treats people, because they always felt Blair was too ‘soft’, despite the fact that nearly everyone in the palace respected her.  She’s out to make Blair’s life hell like it’s her fault she was kidnapped and raised with love and care.

Elias Brightwood – Elias is Blair-as-Azregard’s best friend in the palace, and her fiancé.  This was mostly decided through their parents, because Duke Brightwood wanted his son to be king and he has a high enough position to get the king to agree to it.  Elias is very much like Blair – he’s rather disillusioned with the nobility, in part thanks to the treatment of his younger illegitimate brother.  He doesn’t love Blair romantically, but views her as his best friend, which is why he was fine with marrying her.  The engagement switches to the real Azregard once she shows up, which Elias is horrified about.  Azregard is thrilled, throwing herself at him constantly.  When Blair, River, and Luna leave to go searching for her parents, he goes along as well, because he wanted to help (and he wants to get away from Azregard).  His status also helps them a lot on the journey.  He and Luna end up falling for each other as they spend time together, though.   

The main basic plot of the story would mostly be the group journeying around the kingdom to find out what happened to Biair’s family, since Azreagard absolutely refuses to let her know where they are.  They, of course, discover how terrible the kingdom actually is, which eventually leads to a plot to overthrow the monarchs and put Blair on the throne, since most people outside of capital city want it to happen.

Its funny because I had originally planned on these couples – Isabelle was created to be the wife of Killian, after all.  When I decided I didn’t want him to be married, she sort of lost her role, although I liked her enough that I wanted to keep her.  And I liked the idea of having someone from the third ducal family involved in the story.  But having her be the princess as well as Siegfried’s only full blooded sibling made her make sense in the story.  Yes, I didn’t like her as Killian’s wife, but as his fiancée, it works perfectly.

(I had to age her down a little, where she’s a year younger than everyone else, because I didn’t want them married.  I don’t have a particular marrying age for the culture, but I figure with Zelline being 22 and getting married to Asheron on her arranged wedding day to Levi would have it make sense that they’d wait until the children were 22 for the wedding.  So they’re waiting for Isabelle to be 22, such that Killian is actually the last brother to get married despite being the oldest.)

But still, the idea that the royal family would have a princess marry into the Eden family makes a hell of a lot of sense.  A lot of manhwas have a duchess be a former princess, after all, since it’s not like she can inherit the throne or anything.  Plus, the Eden’s are the most loyal family. 

That, of course, left Siegfried single, and I originally had the idea that her and Aurelia get together. The problem was that this was back when Aurelia was the villainess and not misunderstood, so I had been having a hard time making it make sense.  But now that she’s merely putting on a show that she’s nasty, it made sense for him to accidentally find out about the way her family treats her and her true nature, and for them to have something of a forbidden romance.  Aurelia’s family is determined to have her married to the crown prince so that she’d be empress one day, since their original idea of having Zelline’s mother be empress sort of fell through.

(Jokes on them, though, since Siegfried is actually the current favorite to inherit the throne.)

Siegfried and Aurelia are fairly opposite – he’s a bit of a jokester and doesn’t really take anything seriously (although he can when he knows he needs to) and Aurelia is fairly serious even when she’s not putting on a façade.  Still, she enjoys his non-serious nature and takes his ribbing of her when she has her mask on fairly well, mostly because she knows he doesn’t mean it and she enjoys the back and forths they can have.  I also like how opposite they look – him being so light and her being so dark.  The red sash I gave him looks great, and of course he wears it as a symbol of his feelings for Aurelia.

To add insult to injury with all of this, I also went though and tweeked the designs of Zelline and Zachariah.  Zelline’s is obviously a minor change – I just changed her shirt.  I like it a lot better now.  I think I was just making it too frilly for my liking.  Sure, she’s the daughter-in-law of a duke, but she grew up as a daughter of a poor baron, so she wouldn’t be comfortable with frilly and nice clothes.  Zachariah I changed his shirt and his hair, making it wavier and more unruly because I felt it suited him a bit better.  And Zelline has that slight wave to her hair, so the waviness of his makes sense.

Callisto brought up the thought that her character has a different naming convention than her kingdom, which is Greek/Roman in nature, and for some reason, that reminded me that Shizuka’s kingdom was supposed to simply be the Asian kingdom, and in the past, was Japanese/Chinese inspired.  I generally tended towards Japanese back in the day (and still more or less do), but I had the thought of what if most everything was Japanese inspired, but their clothing was Chinese inspired?

I stuck her in this just for the hell of it, and I rather like it, sadly.  I know I attempted to make her outfit Chinese inspired before, but eh, I never actually did anything with it.  ^^; 

I also did the other three of my own characters, but I hadn’t changed them from when I did these a month ago. 

The first sheet depicts Jennifer Hannigan, Shizuka, and her Guide, Ryu.  Jenni and Shizuka are the same person – Jenni is who she is on Earth and Shizuka is who she is when she arrives in Melohdia with no memories of who she is or how she got there.  Jenni is an archology intern who recently got invited to help out on an excavation of a Roman site in England.  Her parents died in a plane crash when she was bout 2 and she was raised by her grandfather who died a year or so before the story would start.  She went to England to start fresh, since she doesn’t really have anyone left in the world (which is what makes her deciding to stay in Melohdia a bit easier for her).

Shizuka is a Dragon Tamer whose ability is speed.  This ability did bleed into her normal form in that Jenni was shockingly fast, but she had no interest in running or anything or that nature, so no one noticed it before.  She uses a katana and the magic of being an Elecus Uni allows for her to be proficient in it without any training, and the combination of her sword skills and her speed makes her rather deadly.  She’s pretty much the only one of the Uni whose rather excited about what’s going on, but this is mostly due to her general love of learning about ancient cultures, and Melohdia is full of ancient Earth cultures.  Her dragon there is Tonbo, who is secretly the King of Dragons.

Ryu is also a Dragon Tamer, although he has no dragon.  He has no interest in becoming a full fledged Tamer, either, because he prefers crafting things.  But he comes from a long line of Tamers, and so it’s expected that he’d become one.  The fact that he has no dragon at his age as sort of made him a disgrace, so when Tonbo showed some interest in him, his family pretty much threw him at the dragon.  So when Tondo suddenly started traveling towards Azibo, he was forced by his family to follow the dragon, which is reluctantly agreed to.  Ryu is the first person that Shizuka comes across in Melohdia, and he’s rather relieved when Tonbo choses Shizuka over him, since it means that he could focus more on his own interest.  But he agrees to travel with Shizuka and become her Guide because that meeting forged a connection between the two of them, and he’s interested in seeing more of Melohdia, anyway.

The next set is of Owen Lewis, Geoffrey, and his Guide, Alden.  Owen is sort of floating around at the moment, having arrived in England recently because he’s trying to distance himself from his family.  He’s the younger of identical twins, and because he was born second, he’s been overlooked his entire life.  Despite the fact that he does everything better than his brother, his twin is the golden child, the one who does no wrong and is the shining light of his parents’ eyes.  But he’s an awful, selfish sort of person, and his parents are awful, selfish people, and he decided to just be done with them and leave it all behind.  He’s doing his best to scrape by with the little that he managed to save and what little his parents threw at him because they didn’t think he’d be able to survive, but he’s worried that he might be proving them right somehow.

Geoffrey is a Pirate, and absolutely no one is sure what the hell that actually means.  His ability is knowledge of weapons, meaning he can use any and all weapons without any training (whereas the others can only use one specific weapon).  This bled into his normal form though his interest in all non-firearm weapons, although he never used any himself.  For the most part, while he’s not thrilled and enthusiastic about what’s going on as Shizuka is, he’s going with the flow of everything, because there’s no point in fighting this.  It is the first time in his life that he’s recognized and praised for his accomplishments, though, so he starts to warm up to everything fairly quickly.

Alden is a scholar, and he’s in Azibo to attend the university that’s been established there because it holds most of the knowledge of Melohdia.  He, like Ryu, is the first person Geoffrey runs into upon arriving in Azibo, but he’s also the cause of him not arriving with the others right away.  He finds Geoffrey annoying at first because he’s distracting and he doesn’t really want to help this stranger, but sadly, their meeting forged a connection as well.  Alden doesn’t make the connection about who Geoffrey is until he hears people talk about the arrival of the Electus Uni, at which point he delivers Geoffrey to the others.  He agrees to travel with the others because it figures it’s a great opportunity to gain knowledge from all over Melohdia.

(Alden actually belongs to @anijeltaventry. I'm just sort of going off what I remember of him from the original RP we did. ^^;)

The last sheet is of Dimitri Kaminski, Leilani, and his Guide, Olina.  Dimitri actually came to England about two years before the story started because his ability in Melohida bleed more heavily into his real self, which is prophetic dreams.  He had been dreaming about the future and more specifically Melohdia all his life, which actually out a strain on his relationship with his parents because he was branded a freak fairly early on.  Because of course the ability to predict the future isn’t actually a Thing, and his obsession with it got old really quick.  The visions, though, grew to a point where he eventually got fed up and left for England early, much to the relief of his family.

Leilani is a shaman, and was pulled into Melohdia two years before everyone else by the other god of the world.  However, he’s the Uni of an island kingdom that has yet to be discovered by the rest of the continent, or at least not officially.  So they have no clue about the Electus Uni or what’s going on.  They’d just been having these people with Divine Gifts show up and have sort of started to worship them, in a way.  Leilani, with no real memory of why he arrived and no proper visions of the future with the others yet, has been chilling on the island for the past two years, up until a man from Caelestis shows up and finds this guy who is very clearly one of the Uni hanging out with these clueless people.  So the man decides to take Leilani with him ad claim that he’s the Uni from Caelestis, because no one would believe he’s from an island no one knows existed.  (This man isn’t exactly the greatest guy, either).  He takes up the name Livius and just goes along with him, because he has been having visions about this moment.  But this all happens prior to the Uni actually arriving, so the fact that there’s two Uni from Caelestis sort of starts to bring doubt towards the current Uni, and they get into altercations with Leilani and the man.  Leilani, still having no clue what’s going on, goes along with the man for a while with the others trying to figure out what Livius’ deal is (thinking him to be one of the natives in on the scheme).  It doesn’t take too long for them to talk Leilani into joining them, though, as he quickly starts having proper visions upon meeting them.

Olina is the daughter of the village chief where Leilani ended up.  Like the others, she’s the first one who come upon Leilani, and she’s been watching over him ever since.  The two were inseparable on the island, and she helped him understand life there.  She allows him to go with the Caelisti man only because he would talk about being taken away, so she knew it was going to happen regardless.  However, she follows them off the island and keeps an eye on Leilani, mostly because she feels compelled to.  She ends up joining the others before he does and she’s the one who tells everyone who Leilani actually is.

Keven is @anijeltaventry's, and Adam is @callistochan87's.

I, uh, mistakenly thought the ears she had shown me were Mickey ears, and when I went searching for pictures of the merchandise on the Disney site, all I found were Minnie ears, and I was like, Keven would totally wear the Minnie ones and Adam the Mickey ones, but when I looked at the picture she sent again, nope, they were Minnie ears.  Even though she said Keven pulled the bow off for Adam, I like to pretend that they live in a universe where both sets of ears exist.  :P

I don’t really see Adam at the sort of actually wear the ears, so I instantly thought of him holding them instead.  And it made for a cute pose!  It looks like Keven is showing him something, which makes sense.  I have no idea where their city would be in comparison to Disneyland (I picture it being, like, around San Diego, for some reason), I still see Keven as the sort of try to frequent Disneyland often, so he’d know where every neat little thing is, lol.

This turned out so well, especially for a random little piece.  Keven turned out really well, and Adam actually kinda looks like how I see him?  Like, I don’t know if he’s actually that much taller than Keven, but I see him as being at least around 6 foot, for some reason.  And of course, had to include the jacket, so he probably looks cooler than he actually is, lol. 

My original plan for this was to actually redraw the original, just in my current style.  But that wouldn’t have included two of the Electus Uni that we had come up with after the fact, so I had the idea to, instead, draw something in the spirit of the original, that would include those two characters.

Like, the idea here is that the original was the before – when they first arrive in Melohdia and having no clue what the hell is going on.  They find Geoffrey and Leilani later – Leilani much later – so in the very beginning, it was just four characters.  This one represents the after, when everything’d said and done and they’ve decided to remain in Melohdia rather than return to Earth.  (Because I believe that was always the end game, that they would remain and continue to be Uni and help out and all that.)

(I won’t lie, part of the reason I decided to go that route is mostly so I can have Shizuka and Sethos holding hands, lol.)

In any case, from left to right we have: Shizuka (with Tonbo on her shoulders), @anijeltaventry's Sethos, @callistochan87's Evania, Geoffrey, @swankifiedcos' Freyja, and Leilani.

Everything in the picture actually revolves around the little dragon there.  Evania is making some kind of remark about him while Shizuka responds, while the others look on, for the most part.  I did have the idea of having the walk the other way, being all symbolic and all that, but I could visualize it going the other way. 

So, like every other time I draw these guys, I had a couple of new ideas pertaining to them.  This time its sort of involving their roles in the group.  I basically simplified it – like, Sethos heals people, Evania has holy magic, Leilani sees the future in his dreams, Freyja is super strong, Shizuka is super fast, and Geoffrey is a master of all weapons.  But I also assigned them actual roles within the world as well – Evania is a priestess, Leilani is a shaman, Frejya is a Valkyrie, Geoffrey is a pirate (lol), Shizuka is a Dragon Tamer, and Sethos is a…healer, go figure.

Basically what I changed was Shizuka, where she was a samurai, but then I realized that I used to draw Tonbo with her a lot and I was like…well, what if she was the Dragon Tamer rather the her Guide (who is someone native to their kingdom that travels with them?)  It does actually make a ton of sense.  Like, they all master the weapons they are given, with Geoffrey mastering any that’s handed to him, so Shizuka would still know how to use her katana.  But this is just an added thing where she can hear and connect to Tonbo.

In any case, this is just me blabbing.  I really like how this turned out!  They all look really good together, and I’m pleased with the posing.  I mean, it really does look like they were walking somewhere and stopped to have some sort of conversation, and I love that.  And all their outfits turned out super well, I am so happy about that.  Its always neat to revisit old designs and see how much better they look in your current style!

Katrina doesn't look quite as judgemental in this one, but eh. She's still sizing Jacey up, and this is really supposed to show the differences between the two girls. Katrina is the ex-girlfriend of the guy that Jacey ends up dating in the story, and she's trying her damnest to get back with him because suddenly he's the Hot New Thing in the music scene. Problem is that she's a literal bitch whereas Jacey is pretty much a cinnamon bun, so it's not hard to tell who he'd prefer to be with.

(Also, he's been in love with Jacey much longer than he's known Katrina, he just sort of thinks he missed his chance with her in high school.)

I do like how they both turned out. I really like Jacey's outfit, where her goal is to be cute yet comfortable. Katrina's supposed to be a bit sexy, wearing the sundress she wears in the story when she's attempting to appeal to Jin for the first time since the breakup.

BUT THEN I also decided to tweek it slightly, since Eve was just…standing there, looking all awkward and shit.  So I thought, oh, I should have her interacting with Jacey there, and put her hand on her shoulder.  And since I was changing it anyway, I decided to add Dean to it as well, because when I did the original, he wasn’t even a character, and now he’s supposed to be one of the mains (if only because he has the fourth Gift).

So from left to right, its Dean Cassidy, Eve Thibodeaux, Jacey Morgenstern, and Jin Lee.

Dean and Eve are an actual couple when the story starts, which is why I have them holding hands.  Eve and Jacey are childhood best friends, and then the story is basically about Jacey and Jin getting together, I guess.  I don’t know.  I like how it feels like Jacey and Jin were having some sort of conversation, and then Eve and Dean were walking by, and Eve is basically greeting Jacey. 

Eve and Dean aren’t my characters, but the outfits I put them in where my choice.  Eve’s supposed to be pear shaped, which isn’t really a body type I do that often so I sort of fail at it.  But I have seen pair shaped people wearing leggings and a longer loose top and they look really good, so I figured the same could be said of Eve.  Its comfy, its cute, and it looks good on her, and that’s all she asks for.  As for Dean, Callisto-chan mentioned he wears breezy clothes, but I’m like, nah, he’s a nerd, so he probably wouldn’t really put effort into his clothes.  So it makes sense for him to wear cargo shorts and button downs, at least in my opinion.  He would be wearing flip flops to go with the breezy idea, but he bikes everywhere.  And what is the one piece of clothing all nerds have it they can manage it?  Converses, duh, lol.

Jacey I randomly decided is now a Skirt Girl (or more accurately, skort girl).  I had also started off making her a Beanie Girl as well, but slowly settled into her wearing braids because it’s cute.  And it is cute on her!  She is definitely doing her own thing that somehow works really well for her.  And I like that I managed to include penguins on her shirt, too.  :P

Jin’s just Jin.  His design hasn’t really changed, because it’s perfect.  Trying so hard to not be the pretty boy with his punk-ish clothes, but failing miserably with his K-pop haircut.  :P

So these guys are guardians in Crystal Toyko, with Selene there being the third generation ‘Sailor Moon’.  I’m not at all sure of any of the details, because I wasn’t exactly in the habit of writing shit down back then (not really in the habit now, admittedly, but that’s beside the point), but premise of the story is that, two years prior, aliens attacked the planet and somehow managed to actually defeat Neo-Queen Serenity and her guardians.  In a last ditch effort, they sent away the children in the palace, in hopes that the next generation would be able to defeat the aliens.

Tsukino Shizuka/Sailor Selene – Shizuka is the second daughter of Princess ‘Small Lady’ Serenity and her husband, Helios, and the one who inherited the Moon powers.  No one’s quite sure why she woke as Sailor Selene rather than Sailor Moon, although the theory is that her mother is still holding the power (unlike when Chibi-Usa was born, and Usagi didn’t have the power anymore).  She ended up running into a classmate while being sent away from the palace, who took her in and managed to talk her family into pretending that she’s their cousin, Taiyou Tsuki.  When she’s not transformed, her hair is actually black as a way to disguise her.  She does take her mission to defeat the aliens seriously, although she’s unsure how she is supposed to manage something her grandmother couldn’t.

The cat with her is her guardian cat, Neoma.  She’s the daughter of Diana and some random male from Mau, I don’t know.  The two of them have been together since day one, since they were born almost at the exact same time. 

Taiyou Haruki/Helios Knight – Haruki is the oldest of the Taiyou siblings by about two years.  He went to the same school that Shizuka had attended before the attack, and while he didn’t know her personally (since he was two grades higher), he still had developed a crush on her.  Probably like everyone else, since she wasn’t really hiding who she was back then.  He is rather surprised when he awakes as Helio Knight, and he half wonders if his crush was just because she’s the leader of the team, despite the fact that Shizuka also has a crush on him.  He’s sort of the serious one in the group, but mostly just because he’s the oldest.

Taiyou Hikari/ Sailor Eos – Hikari is the younger of the Taiyou siblings, and had been in Shizuka’s class in school.  They had been on friendly terms, although not enough to call each other ‘friends’, but Hikari had admired Shizuka from afar.  She jumped at the chance to help her when she came across her fleeing the palace, and the two became actual friends real quick.  When she awakens as Sailor Eos, Hikari suspects that she was drawn to Shizuka because of that.  She’s rather bubbly and optimist.

Tsukino Usagi/Sailor Earth – Usagi is the older twin of Shizuka, and the one who was expected to inherit the Moon powers, which is why she was named Usagi.  However, she ended up inheriting her grandfather’s powers instead. She doesn’t particularly mind having her position usurped by her sister, and she takes her job as her protector seriously.  She ends up with her grandmother’s family, which was the plan, posing as Shingo’s granddaughter and going by the name Tsukino Yuri.  Her hair becomes more of a blond color when she’s not transformed to hide her identity.  She still interacts with Shizuka, but they have to act like they aren’t actually twins.

Yukimura Manani/Sailor Astraeus – Manami is another classmate of Shizuka, Hikari, and Usagi who doesn’t really have a connection to any of them until she awakens her powers.  She, like Hikari, admired Shizuka, and she has a crush on Hikari.  She does befriend Usagi when she comes to school as Yuri, since she has no real friends and wants to change that.  She’s a bit serious and intelligent to a fault, and some people compare her to a robot. 

Nakano Seiki/Aster Knight – Seiki isn’t actually a member of the team, but rather someone who high ambitions who somehow managed to strongarm his way into gaining a transformation.  He somehow got it into his head that he should be the future ruler of Crystal Tokyo, despite being a Normal Ass Guy, and the best way to do that with low effort is to, you know, marry Shizuka, the heir that’s his age.  While he attempts to charm Shizuka, his efforts are sort of in vain due to her feelings for Haruki, although she considers him a friend.  He also manipulates the others into accepting him, although Usagi also doesn’t trust him.

I had planned on giving them their original uniform designs before deciding to give them the ones from the design sheet I was inspired by.  Mostly because they are second/third generations Earth guardians, and their uniforms shouldn’t be that different.  I really like the uniform I have Helios Knight, because he sort of looks like a magical boy in it, lol.  (Also, its sort of how you can tell Aster doesn’t quite belong.  Given that the girls’ uniforms are identical, his should be identical to Helios’ as well, if he was an actual member of the team.  Its close, but not the same.)  I changed Manani’s guardian name, which was originally Oceanus and then Eris, to Astraeus because he happens to be the god of dusk, and that makes sense from a team standpoint.  Selene, Helios, and Eos are the main deciding factors, since they’re siblings in mythology, and Earth can still work because of Sun, Moon, and Earth.  And since Eos is dawn, it stands to reason the fifth member would be dusk.

(Aster also works in context, since he represents stars.  But that’s beside the point.)

In any case, a couple of weeks ago, I had this flash of inspiration that Su-jin wasn’t the only saintess in the world, and the idea sort of evolved from there as I was thinking about it.  I like the idea of there being others like her in the world, and that one of them happens to be a villainess in the story.

Of course, I had a bit of an issue with the idea for a moment.  Su-jin’s summoning is supposed to be special, because it’s been ten years since the world lost both their saintess and the Master of the Magic Tower, because they had to wait until Asheron had enough training and magic in order to summon the saintess.  But I was like…well, if there were other kingdoms summoning saintesses, wouldn’t it stand to reason that they would borrow a different Master to summon one for them?

That gave rise to the idea that the others summoned weren’t saintesses, but rather failed attempts at summoning saintesses.  They started off being from different kingdoms because that’s what the saintesses idea started off as, like the other kingdoms were taking advantage of the lack of one to attempt to summon one themselves.  But then I had another flash of inspiration of…well, what if they were summoned to Elysia?  I mean, they’re failed saintesses, they don’t have to be from elsewhere.  Like, what if the Magic Tower were taking their strongest mages and attempting to summon someone, but couldn’t because none of them were strong enough, and it was only when Asheron finally attempting it that it worked?

And to make matters worse, they weren’t able to be sent back to their world because of the lack of power.  Like, failed saintesses had been summoned before, but usually the Master would send them back after a couple of weeks as he recovered from the summoning, and then they’d attempt again.  So these girls were stuck there, and all that nonsense.

I liked this idea, because it gave Simone a purpose in the story, lol.

From left to right, we have Park Su-jin (Su-jin Eden), Simone Hughes, Siobhan Luna, and Hoshino Suzuno.

So Su-jin is The Saintess, the one summoned right before the story starts and is one of the main characters of the story.  She’s from Korea, about 21, and an orphan who, sadly, had a hard time making friends because she tended to be a bit brash at times.  She’s excited at this new chance at life, although she’s a bit worried about messing things up and not doing things ‘properly’ and losing her new family.  She’s not really comfortable in fancy noble clothes (you know, except on occasion for like a ball or something where everyone else is dressed fancy, too), so she gravitates towards commoner fashion.

Simone was brought to Elysia about five years prior to the story starting when she was twenty years old, and she’s American.  She was taken on the very night that she discovered her boyfriend in bed with her best friend, and she never really got to fully process that, and has been searching for a way to go back to Earth ever since, thinking for some misguided reason that she could make amends with her boyfriend or something.  She does get married in Elysia, mostly as a way to protect herself because unmarried women are sort of frowned upon.  Her husband is a merchant, and she’s been more or less enjoying that life up until now.

When she hears that a Saintess has actually been summoned, she seeks out Asheron to beg him to send her back home, because summoning a proper saintess means that he has the talent to send her back.  He does agree, albeit reluctantly, since he just spent a month in a coma after summoning Su-jin and he’s not thrilled with the idea of doing it again, but he also feels somewhat responsible for her being trapped there because she had been falsely summoned (of course, not by him). 

(Spoilier, but of course she figures out at the last minute that its been freaking five years and that everyone in her life most likely had moved on and what not, and that she’s made a family for herself here, and that she genuinely loves her husband.)

Siobhan was the first one summoned to Elysia about nine years prior to the story, when she was eighteen.  She’s from Ireland and a little bit irked that she was summoned with no way back home.  She, however, was quick to make due with her situation, since there wasn’t much she could so about it.  She’s the only other girl from our world that happens to have magical powers, in the form of potion making.  She is a part of the Magic Tower because of this, but barely, and Asheron makes a special request of her to teach Su-jin (and Zelline by proxy) how to make potions to make the lessons a bit easier.  Siobhan is married to a blacksmith and has two kids with him, and has absolutely no intention of returning to Earth, because her life is here now.

Suzuno is the last one who had been summoned, about three years prior to the story starting.  She’s from Japan, and she was about seventeen when she was summoned (meaning she’s actually the youngest of the four).  She was a bit pissed about her summoning, because she was starting to get her life in order, or at least she thought she was.  She’s a bit of an arrogant girl who tends to blame others for her faults.  She’s taken in by a lessor noble family, and their son manages to convince her that she should be the one who’s the saintess because of all the hardship in her life thus far.  She’s basically out to steal Su-jin’s power from her, so their encounters with her aren’t exactly…friendly.

I think it’s funny, because I really, really like Suzuno’s design now, and usually with this story, I end up making the ones whose designs I fall in love with not villains, but for some reason, she’s still giving off spoiled rich girl vibes, and I love it, lol.  Simone’s is nice as well, although it looks a little more modern than I really want.  But, like, it still works, because she also looks like an upper class commoner, which is what she is.  Whatever, she’s cute, that’s all that matters, lol.

Basically about a week ago, I had the idea that Su-jin isn’t the only saintess that’s been summoned to the world, and that were was this ‘evil’ saintess that they deal with on occasion because I felt like the story needed some sort of villain character.  The original concept I did of her reminded @callistochan87 of my Aislin, although I had intended her to be Korean like Su-jin with the thought that they all come from Korea.

But that idea sort of stuck with me, and I had the thought of maybe that wasn’t the case, and there were saintesses from other countries.  Naturally, since Aislin is Irish-American, my first thought was to, in fact, make her Irish, but honestly, I see an Irish character being the brash but good hearted sort, so I quickly made her out to be a friendly saintess for Su-jin to interact with, which then became a sort of mentor.

So I set out to make a new villain saintess, and came up with the idea of making her Black, just to add diversity.  And than what happened with Aurelia happened to this character, and I fell in love with her design.  >.<  I gotta stop doing that.  And thus, she became another one of Su-jin’s saintess friends.  So finally, finally, I decided to go back to that original design, and made her Japanese instead.

Now, the idea I had with them being all saintesses doesn’t quite mash up with the idea I had with Su-jin’s summoning, in that they had to wait until Asheron could produce the spell to summon her.  I mean, they could use another master, and my first thought was that they needed a master of the kingdom to attach the saintess to that kingdom.  But then I had a better idea.

So basically, only a true Master of the Magic Tower could summon a proper saintess.  The other three were done by other kingdoms in hopes of maybe summoning their own saintess instead, since typically it’s Elyisa that ends up with the saintess.  But none of their mages were strong enough to summon a proper saintess, instead pulling young girls randomly into the world.  (This is the reason why Elysia had to wait until Asheron was ready, because they knew it wouldn’t work properly.)

Simone Arita – Simone is a 25 year old Black American who got summoned to a Japanese-inspired kingdom (because I thought it would be neat if I happened to have a different culture shoved in there) who was summoned about five years ago.  I don’t have much on her, other than the fact that she’s literally the only Black person in this world, so no one quite knows what to do with her hair, so they just sort of make due, lol.

Siobhan Luna – Siobhan is the oldest saintess at 27, having been summoned at 18 nine years ago from Ireland.  She’s the first one to be summoned after the saintess’ death, and while the king was angry that she didn’t have holy magic, the rest of the kingdom was rather apologetic about the fact and went out of their way to make her life comfortable since there was no way to sending her back.  She turned out to be decent potion making skills, and she comes to Elysia to teach Su-jin (and subsequently Zelline) potion making.

Suzuno Hoshino -  Suzuno was summoned about three years ago from Japan, and she’s very much one of those people who blame her own misfortunes on everyone else.  She thinks she’s entitled to everything because she suffered somewhat in Japan, even though most of her misfortune and suffering was her own.  (All of those summoned were orphans when they were summoned, so that much wasn’t her fault.  What was her fault was how she dealt with it, thinking everyone was against her for some stupid reason.)  She’s basically chatted up by this random guy who convinces her that he could make her the saintess or something, which, in her mind, means that everyone would have to love her and do what she says, so she jumps at the chance. 

(When I was coming up with Siobhan, I immediately knew that's what her name was, and then when I was trying to come up with the Japanese girl's name, Suzuno struck me, so I knew I had to make the Black girl have an S name, since the established saintess is Su-jin, lol)

Simone and Siobhan are both married (and Siobhan has a couple of kids), although they were forced into it like Su-jin is.  Su-jin is forced because the empire is, of course, worried about another kingdom convincing her to come to their kingdom instead, and wanted to give Su-jin a solid reason to remain loyal to Elysia, and in his old fashioned thinking, he figured he’d tie her down to a man.  (Su-jin wouldn’t have left, anyway, because she quickly falls in love with the people of the empire and wants to protect them.)  Suzuno isn’t married, because, you know, everyone is worthless and all that. 

I really like their designs.  Simone’s was just on a whim, and I figured the bright yellow would look really good on her.  I also knew that I wanted to make Siobhan’s hair short and wavy, and came up with this that’s so perfect.  Her outfit is so great as well, giving her a bit of a motherly vibe.  Suzuno’s is…odd, but it’s meant to be.  She’s used to wearing ‘sexy’ clothes, and it annoyed that this is the best that she can manage.  I can see Su-jin remarking that she doesn’t think her outfit’s supposed to look like that, lol.  But still!  It’s somehow cute!

I had originally created Isabelle to be the wife of Killian before deciding to scrap that completely.  But I happened to like Isabelle, her design and her insecurity, and realized that I happened to have a male character that happened to not have anyone attached to him.  I hadn’t planned on him having any sort of romantic interest, but the idea of the blusterous Siegfried falling for the timid Isabelle was too tempting.

At first, they were supposed to either already be married, or be engaged, when the story started, in that they were arranged to be married at a young age like Zelline and Levi had been.  But I love the idea of Isabelle getting all flustered at the attention Siegfried gives her, so instead, he’s attempting to court her.  (He did originally have a fiancée, but she ended up breaking the engagement herself because she’s a stick in the mud and couldn’t stand his teasing and his joking nature.  She, unsurprisingly, is a member of Aurelia’s clique, and while she did enjoy being engaged to a prince, she also believed she was only good enough for the crown prince.  Isabelle, but contras, while she does get flustered, she still enjoys his teasing and his nature.)

Siegfried is Asheron’s best friend, or at least he says he is.  He delights in teasing Asheron above everyone else, and spends a lot of his free time with him.  He’s pleased when Asheron freaks out and gets engaged to Zelline because he’s one of the few people who actually knows that Asheron is in love with her.  He’s mostly overlooked in the royal family, because they don’t think he’ll amount to anything, but he has the most support from the common people to inherit the throne, since he’s the only one who actually acts in their best interest. 

Isabelle, like I said, in the youngest daughter of the Dalton Ducal family, and she’s ignored to some degree as well.  Her mother died giving birth to her, and everyone sort of blames her for it.  The Daltons are kinder than the Hensely’s are, so they don’t abuse her or anything, but she’s looked down upon and scoffed at for the most part.  She thinks she’s worthless because of this, and Su-jin, upon learning of her situation, decides to take it upon herself to befriend this poor girl, much to her surprise.  She’s not sure what to do with all the attention she’s suddenly receiving. 

They ended up looking really good!  Siegfried looks somewhat coy and Isabelle flustered, which obviously is what she always is around him.  They are a bit more matching than the others, and its very blue because of that.  They’re also the only couple that have similar hair colors, interestingly.  I didn’t plant that, but it’s a nice little touch.

I won’t get into details about how the two of them end up together, since, as I said, it’s a spoiler.  But I suppose it’s not too huge a spoiler that Aurelia ends up turning out not be the villainess people think she is.  She’s mostly forced to be an ass by her mother and to some degree her father.  They expect certain things out of her, and look down on most everyone.  Her family expects her to get engaged to the crown prince because they feel that’s the only position befitting of a daughter of the Hensely family.  (Zelline’s mother went through something similar in her youth, but managed to escape it.)  Aurelia herself has no interest in the crown prince, and the royal family sees her as a snake, anyway.

As for Killian, he’s the stoic one in the family.  He takes his role as both heir to the Eden dukedom as well as being the oldest brother very seriously.  He, of course, loves his younger brother and subsequently his sister-in-laws dearly, and would do anything to protect them, which Su-jin doesn’t see right away.  He did have a fiancée when he was younger, but she died ten years prior to the story starting in a demon attack that killed both the saintess and the Master of the Magic Tower (she was a massive botch, though, and he had been trying to think of a way to dissolve the engagement, anyway.  Still he didn’t want her dead, and he knows it’ll look terrible if he found someone new quickly.)

Overall, this turned out nicely.  I am in love with Aurelia’s outfit, which is what gave me the idea that she secretly wants an administrative position within the palace (which I decided was an archivist in the royal library).  Both of them are characters who wouldn’t be smiling much, lol.  And there is a lot of red in this, because I decided, for whatever reason, that they’re matching color was going to be red.  >.O  (It is sort of funny that their hair colors are opposites, since they are from opposing families and all.)