This first one is an old line drawing of the villains who would become Rayla and Aqu:
Rayla Har'tei and Aqu Abbe'nei used to be Vulcan Greyhame and Horus Acroan, respectively. But their names were way too derivative, so while I didn't change their looks very much, they got a re-name for the reboot.
The Fears were a side-story that I ended up cutting. They were honest characters, and were intricately woven into the plot, but they were also super flat and static. So I cut their whole bit, because while it was cathartic to imagine "versions of me that I fear becoming" - The Frail, The Lunatic, The Brute, The Shadow, The Fool, and Nobody - there's already plenty going on with the Influences and the Fears were just too redundant.
The Thief was another storyline I cut, because this time it just didn't work. Edric Nadab, the Influence of Prosperity (corrupted to Greed), was born as Shylock - a way-too-obvious Shakespeare reference, and also anti-Semitic. So he was the first target for an originality makeover. I didn't much like Shylock's plot in the comic, so I wanted to vamp it up a bit - there was a side-story where a thief was stealing things, who was really Caleb/Edric in disguise, and he then made bank via insurance fraud. It was going to be a little noir-detective-like bit, but with the full reboot, it was just too much. Plus, giving the character sheets made it a bit too obvious what was going on. I made the decision to cut the Thief at almost the last minute, though: Edric's spells (Hedge, Forge, Vault, etc.) are all words that have one business-oriented meaning and one other possible meaning, and Nadab-as-Thief was going to use one set of meanings while Nadab-as-Himself used the other set. But it was just unworkable, so I cut it.
This was the original design for Nathanael Thorn's power form, Scourge - who was called Shadowflare back when Thorn was Daisuke Kuroda (ugh, just typing that makes me cringe). Shadowflare was a recolored Bass sprite, and so I really just added bone trim, and I didn't like it. Too busy. So I went the opposite route and made Scourge just be Nathanael, but with a "disguise" of sackcloth and rags to hide his identity until it was time for the reveal.
Finally, we have some old designs for Pandaemonium. Again, with the "super-derivative" (it was kind of a theme, but then P:S did start life as a sprite comic). I'm really happy with how Pandaemonium has turned out for the reboot, so I'll close with that for comparison:
OK! That's all for this week - but I'm on time, which means I have a full week to get some real art progress done. Wish me luck!
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