Clarissa is so a-peeling

This was my first multi-panel Clarissa story. It's pretty wierd, but I had fun. Her outfit was inspired by the outfit worn by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, which in turn was inspired Bruce Lee in Game of Death, I think.

 The action takes place on the planet of Plantano, a mostly tropical world. It is in a twin-star solar-system, which means it is tropical summer across the entire planet for nearly the whole year.

In the background you can see the dwellings of the local humanoid inhabitants, the Jewk-Sin. These are ovoid capsules built on poles high above the forest canopy. This is because of the other inhabitants of the planet: the Lushies. Lushies are dim-witted giant Yeti like creatures that eat the tropical fruit of the planet, but are just as likely to eat anything they confuse for tropical fruit. Which, considering their alarmingly tiny brains, is nearly everything. The Jewk-Sin only come out at night, when the Lushies sleep, to harvest the fruit for their own survival.

Close up detail of Clarissa. Yumma Yum Yumma!

Clarissa vs. Cleavil

I've decided to name Clarissa' nemesis "Cleavil" (a contraction of "Cleavage" and "evil", the two things that define her). I see the two of them facing off in many new and exciting ways. Cleavil, more often than not, tries to capture and tie up Clarissa in order to put her in situations of near certain death (as is the tendency of all super-villians, rather than outright murdering the hero). Girff and Grillo are always there to rescue Clarissa, but not before getting an eyeful of either her or Cleavil in a state of undress;)

Cleavil tying up the unfortunate Clarissa

Clarissa and Cleavil face off

Enter the Villian.

Every Hero needs a villain, and Clarissa is no exception. I've been working on a concept for my lady of darkness and this is what I've come up with so far:

I wanted her to be plump and curvy, as a contrast to Clarissa's more athletic figure (although Clarissa has some curves of her own to be proud of). All I've figured out so far is that she's the head of an evil alien corporation that makes it's money by taking over newly discovered planets and stripping their raw materials out to sell to the highest bidder. She hates Clarissa, a crusading space journalist, who is constantly trying to expose her nefarious activities to the rest of the universe. She and her henchwomen are constantly trying to capture Clarissa, and Griff and Grillo have to come to her rescue, usually resulting in or the other of the two ladies ending up with their clothes off (possibly both of them;)

I still have to figure out a name for her and design her henchwomen, but keep an eye out for her in future installments.

four-eyed alien wink goodbye ;;)

A little taste of what'e to come...

Here's a close up from my next Clarissa adventure. A special preview for people watching my blog;)

Clarissa has a new outfit? what could possibly go wrong...

Clarissa Pinup 2

Another warm up sketch of Clarissa in a pinup pose;)

Clarissa Pinup

A quick pinup sketch of Clarissa. Normally I do a sketch in Photoshop or SAI, and then ink the final version in Illustrator. Then I take the inks into Photoshop to add color. That's the system that works best for me. For this sketch, however, I did everything in SAI. I've only been using it for a short time, but it's really growing on me. I think with a few more additions and improvements it could easily become my favorite drawing program. But to g

Happy Christmas from Clarissa!

Clarissa wishes you a very happy Christmas.

Wanna unwrap your present?

Hang in there!

Hang in there! Clarissa, Griff and Grillo encounter a Globa-Worm

Clarissa, Griff and Grillo are out exploring seemingly desolate planetoid, when suddenly the ground gives way beneath their feet. Unbeknownst to them the crater-covered rock has been taken over by a Globa-worm, a creature which bores into the heart of small planets, hollowing it out and absorbing its nutrients. It continues to grow beneath the surface of the planetoid, until there is nothing left but a shell of relatively thin rock. The beast then lies in wait beneath the surface for the unsuspecting prey which may land upon it's rocky outer covering.

Only Grillo can save Clarissa and Griff from becoming the Globa-worm's next meal, but only if he isn't too distracted by Clarissa losing her clothes in the rescue attempt.

Here is a bit more info on Gloga-Worms, for anyone who cares (and I cannot think of any good reason why you should).

 

The Globa-Worm Lifecycle

Figure 1: A Globa-Worm egg, encapsulated in a space vacuum resistant cytoplasm, travels through space until is reaches a suitable planetoid, and then hatches.

Figure 2: The Larval stage Globa-Worm uses its strong jaws to consume the material of the planetoid and, in the process, burrows a deep tunnel to the center of the rocky mass.

Figure 3: Having dug to the center of the planetoid (using its inborn gravitation sensors to locate the exact center of the mass) the Globa-Worm larvae undergoes a metamorphosis. It begins to grow additional mouths and rapidly begins to consume all the material at the interior of the planetoid.

Figure 4: Having consumed all but a very thin outer shell of the planetoid, the Globa-worm lies dormant beneath the surface. Having consumed the majority of a planetoid, the beast is now capable of going thousands of years without another meal. It does, however, maintain sensors connecting it to the surface that pick up the vibrations of anything living on the surface, or anything which lands upon the surface. Sensing the like, one of the now hundreds of mouths breaks the surface in order to capture the meal. The Globa-Worm completes the lifecycle by a-sexually reproducing a new batch of eggs, which it launches into space in three thousand year intervals.

A little preview of what's to come...

Next time Clarissa ends up in a particularly awkward situation. Finished version coming soon...

A quick Clarissa Pinup sketch

Done in SAI in about 30min. SAI is my new favourite program for doing digital sketching. the stabalizer is a brilliant feature. I find sketches done in photoshop tend to have very jagged lines and it's hard to be precise when freehand drawing. I do all my Inks in Illustrator because that allows even more precision.

Clarissa gets her own back

This time Griff and Grillo have been messing around with Clarissa's Disintegration Ray and when she gets it back it's payback time!

As I mentioned in the About section Clarissa carries a pretty special weapon. It is a combination Dictaphone and Variable Electromagnetic Spectrum Pistol (or DiVESP for short). It can both record important interviews, and fire any form of electromagnetic ray across the entire spectrum with a variable strength and pulse.

So it can be set to do pretty much any sort of damage. Even to be able to disintegrate clothes without harming flesh. I wish they would hurry up and invent one of these:D

Sticky Lick

While exploring a newly discovered planet in the Gluteus star-system, Clarissa has an unfortunate encounter with some of the local flora. Fortunately for her the acidic nature of the plant's digestive juices isn't strong enough to harm her, but it does have a peculiar effect on clothing. Griff and Grillo are fortunate enough to be recording while this happens...

Hold on tight

Griff isn't one to disobey an order...

Clarissa gets Pantsed!

It was only a matter of time.

In case you were wondering, in the future all underwear is banned, and the universe is a much happier place because of it.

Griff and Grillo's first strike!

As I mentioned in the "About" section Griff and Grillo have mistaken Internet porn for a form of earth communication, particularly Sharking videos. This is their first time in action. Needless to say, Clarissa is less than impressed:

More concept art for Clarissa

Here some more stuff from Clarissa's early development:

Clarissa's Face. Early rough sketch

Handbras are the greatest! second only to no handbras;) Early inked Clarissa Pic.

                                                Rough sketch and inks of Clarissa's final 'look'.

Clarissa's Butt

This was my first neatened up, "final" version of Clarissa. Griff and Grillo are out of it, we can assume this is a POV from their camera;)

Concept Art

So these are the first 2 concept sketches I did Of Clarissa Griff and Grillo. I had the characters in my head for a little while and had tried a few different versions, but this is the first time I started to really nail down the final character design.

This was my first concept sketch. Clarissa still had pupils, different goggles and wore a dress.She also had a different fringe.

More early Clarissa concept sketches.

This is close to my final version of Clarissa. Her Eyes now have no pupils, her skirt was changed to Hot pants and I gave her goggles that would show her eyes even when they were down. Griff also lost his Jetpack (for now).

I still want to keep developing the characters and tweaking them. Good cartoon characters should always be developing over time, improving and even reinvented to stay fresh. I'm excited to try her out in some different outfits sometime.