Kinda ran out of things I really wanted to post that I'd personally drawn, so might have to scrape a barrel bottom or two and post some things I wasn't really planning on doing, since there's still a lot of art from others to post, so eh.

But anyway, this was a preliminary drawing of two possible concepts I made for the character I'll be playing for the Wolfriders of Malvia campaign's third season, Armin Blair. Considering it was done in 2016, it's been quite a long time in the making I guess! Despite that there's a lot that isn't finalized with him by any means, to the point that these drawings are both invalid since I've changed his species since then. :B

But anyway, the idea during initial development was that, like I did with Milo coming off of Talbot, coming off of Milo I wanted to play a melee combatant instead of something ranged. I came down to either wanting to play an Unarmed Ninja (dipping into Monk for some Styles stuff) or a Daring Champion Cavalier (a cavalier without a mount and with Swashbuckler-like stuff instead), as I wanted to play a mobile melee fighter that focused more on dodging/parrying and counterattacking rather than just stood around and tanked or something. The Ninja would basically dance around enemies, ducking and weaving, dodging blows and retaliating with attacks of opportunity and sneak attack damage. The Cavalier would be more of a duelist, someone who waits for enemy attack, parries, and strikes back. I've since pretty much settled on the Unarmed Ninja, and maybe I'll use the Cavalier for something else.

In terms of outfit, the ninja obviously has a bit of a generic ninja-y look to him, and there wasn't much of a direct inspiration from anywhere. The Cavalier was more inspired by a vague Dark Souls style (hence the pose he's got), the color schemes of both taking from the Elite Armor set.

I also wanted to play someone charismatic for once, instead of a nerd or a grumpy loner. I settled on a character who seems kind of sleazy and slick, with "bags" under half-lidded eyes and a big toothy grin, but wasn't actually a cheat or much of a liar. Gambling was also a core concept, not only in terms of actual games of skill like cards and dice, but also in generally anything. Wagers, contests, duels. A typical bet of his is that if you can hit him in 30 seconds, you get 10 gold for every hit, but if he can dodge you the whole time, he gets 50 gold. That sort of attitude and look is mildly inspired by Lupin the 3rd and stereotypical Japanese gangsters.

So basically, Armin is meant to be a rogue-ish character that fights unarmed and dodges around enemies that likes to gamble and talk his way through things. What he ISN'T anymore, because I've moved on from these concept drawings, is a ring-tailed lemur with that hair style/color or those exact clothes. I decided quite a while ago to switch to making Armin a red panda instead of a lemur, because introducing primates into a world that's had no primates thus far is a bit odd to me, and I can maintain the fluffy tail and dark-under-the-eyes look with a Mustelid. The general outfit stuck around for longer, but I've recently decided to redesign it to be thinner and more sleek, maybe more of a uniform/suit kinda thing than the baggier looks I've had thus far.

There's more to Armin, but I'll probably post the next sketch I made of him and talk about him more then.