Ironthorn Comics -- Original Crap: Old Stuff Revamped

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Welcome to the gallery of
Stuff I'm Slightly More Inclined To Let See The Light Of Day.

I've said several times that I intended to redo a bunch of my old projects ... here's some of the stuff I actually got around to starting.

Compare the uber-old stuff to the bright, shiny new stuff of today! It makes me feel ... less depressed, sometimes.

FYI, any title here is something I'm currently working on, or working on working on, so the latest pictures relating will show up in the New Stuff gallery.
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Yes, "Randomly Bemused" is a revamped idea. The original was just a bunch of random thoughts that crossed my mind while, at the time, I was trying to get through high school. This is the old title page, featuring Nikki-who-is-not-me and her Muse, the Androgynous Elf Person.

He has a name, but I'm not telling you it.

The new teaser for "Randomly Bemused", done about a year and a half after the original idea kaputs'd. Note the change in drawing styles.

The cast of main characters: Nikki-who-is-not-me, her boyfriend D'mitri, her best friend Tsoa, the diminutive Lady Stephicus of Andronicus and the Muse.

I'm still not telling you his name.

Here's a nice shot of Raleigh, shooting fire.

Raleigh is a half-elf who's mother was poisoned with dragon's blood, and as a result she has some funky extra powers. This was done around the same time the first run of "Randomly Bemused" was starting, near the end of my anime schtik.

This is the old version ....

(psst ... scroll down ...)

.... and here's the new version.

I changed Raleigh's name to Ryn and gave her a full-body makeover. She's still "work in process", but coming along nicely.

Tell me my drawing style hasn't improved none in two years, huh?

This is the first real picture (instead of just a doodle in my notebook) that I ever did of Kendrea, the main character of "Title Pending" (I had not quite broken out of anime yet). She's an Assassin.

At first this was supposed to be a humourous comic, but then I decided that her backstory had way too much weird stuff to be funny. So now it's more serious.

But I still love this one picture. Very Looney-Toons-meets-Lina-Inverse.

This old gem introduces a second character for "Title Pending" His name is Adryn, and I'm not too sure exactly what he is. But he annoys the crap out of Kendrea. And me, because I didn't and still don't like how he looks in this one. He's been a very bitchy character to design.

This is the second version of this gag, (the first was years and years ago, before I even knew who these people were) and as soon as I have a new look down pat for both Kendrea and Adryn, there'll be another.

Here is an old one of Kendrea again, trying her hand as an exotic dancer.

No, I'm not that sick. It was part of the old storyline where she dressed up as a dancer at a royal celebration to assassinate someone. I've changed that now, because while you can't really see it in these pictures, she has a huge scar across one eye, and that would tip anyone off that she's not really a dancer.

This was not a problem while I was drawing anime, because in anime you can have such things covered by a solid chunk of hair that is cemented in place by the Powers That Be. In the style I use now, that's just not possible.

This is Lys.

"Lys" is short for Ivalysa el'Myornin. She's the princess Kendrea was hired to assassinate but ended up saving instead. Lys, for lack of anywhere else to go, offers her services to Kend'rea in return for her protection.

This picture is, like all this old stuff, still within my anime era. Lys' look was inspired more by Birgitte Silverbow, from Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time", than from any design of mine. She's missing the braid, that's about it.

This is Nils. Nils is an Imp. Isn't Nils cute?

I love Nils. His part in Raleigh's story is her weird little kleptomaniac friend.

Oh, and don't mind the random notes a wrote myself ... I do that a lot.

Yes, he is standing on the back of a chair. His total height is about a foot and a half. He's huggable.

It's such a major change from the tiny, cutsey, ratty little thing in the group picture (I'm so embarrassed I ever designed that).

Okay, this next set of stuff is the reason a lot of things I meant to work on got held back. I spent a lot of time and thought on it, and I'm still spending time revamping it. It also overlaps my style-switch from anime to Western, so a lot of pictures are too fuzzled for me to want to show.

It is ... duh duh duh ... TITLE PENDING!

Yes, "Title Pending", from the UPCOMING COMICS LIST. Wowee.

Proceed.

"TITLE PENDING"

RANDOMLY BEMUSED

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This site and all its contents are (c) 2004 by Nikita Malha
The name "Ironthorn Comics" is (c) 2004 By Nikita Malha
All rights reserved.

NEW STUFF | OLD STUFF | R E V A M P E D

O r i g i n a l
C r a p
Old Stuff Revamped

Group picture of the main cast of "Halfling", which never fell through, because I was working on something else that took priority.

As you can tell, *sigh* this was done way back in the anime era, and is the only picture I have of all four of them.

From bottom left to top right: The Archer Mage, Raxis the Bandit, Raleigh the Half-Elf and ....

Nils the Imp.

For those of you who've visited before and seen only the new version of him, (posted a few spaces below) yes, there's quite a difference. Now you ALL know why I decided to change everything.

"GROUP PICTURE"

HALFLING

"RALEIGH SHOOTING FIRE"

"RYN THE HALF-ELF"

OLD TITLE

NEW TITLE

"THE NEW NILS"

"THE NEW NEW NILS"

Second version of Nils, more animalistic with claws instead of feet. I kept the little curl to his tail, because it's just cute.

While I like the "less human, less shoemaker-elf" look to this, I definitely prefer the face and body of the previous one.

So try to picture a happy medium between the two, and you've about got it. I'll post the decided version once it's drawn.

"KENDREA: WANTED"

"KENDREA: DANCER"

... and here's a little page of sketches.

I don't normally bother scanning random doodles like this, but this shows best how far I am with Kendrea's design.

I've tried numerous outfits, hair designs, different weapons ... but, as always, simplicity won out. She's kind of a plain, don't-notice-twice kind of person, anyway. She IS an assassin, after all.

The hardest part is mucking around with that damn scar, but I think I've clinched it here.

"KENDREA: RANDOM SKETCHES"

"ADRYN TEASING KENDREA"

This, this here, is EXACTLY how I want Adryn to look. And it's weird, because I completely forgot I even drew this, until a pressing need for site material forced me to dig up some old artbooks.

The best explanation of Adryn I can give you is that he's Fae, but that's not very accurate since in Kendrea's world, there are no such thing as Fae. She herself refers to him as an entity, not a living thing.

Adryn's only relationship with Kendrea is that he seems to have attached himself to her when she was young, and has been with her for as long as she can recall. She tolerates him, because he may have answers to questions about herself that she no longer remembers.

I'm trying to do like this again, while improving him ever so slightly with my reservoir of knowledge gained in the time since this one was drawn.

But this one is pretty much perfect.

"ADRYN"

"PRE-MAKEOVER LYS"

"POST-MAKEOVER LYS"

This is another of those dramatically changed ones.

I gave her a new, original outfit, cut her hair and yes, that is a bow sticking over her shoulder.

This was done just after I'd crossed over, so to speak, from anime the Western. It still has a bit of an anime-ish streak, and the face is less accomplished than I could do now, but it's so far the best picture of Lys I have. she'll go through a few more changes, become a tad less RPG-ish, but she'll stay close enough to what you see here.

' T I S A L L F O R N O W , F R I E N D S ! C O M E B A C K S O O N !

Here's Kendrea relaxing in a chair. It's from the same book as the "Adryn" picture up ahead.

It's still a tad anime-ish, but I like how she looks in it. You'd rarely see her reposed like this.

* NEW! *

"KENDREA RELAXING"