Characters of The Kadarinadh Chronicles

[Kat Daragon]

I put this on my profile, but it’s relevant and so bears repeating.

I began my creative career writing fan fiction in high school as a way to pass the time – either in study hall or in between lessons (I don’t say ‘classes‘ because I actually wrote during classes when we were supposed to be doing work but I finished early because I was that smart).

When I got to college, I found out about online Role-Playing Games, and I became addicted.  I whipped out a character from one of my fanfics, tweaked her background so that *I* could emulate her (we are nothing alike in real life), and gave another character to my brother when he decided to join.

The site that is nearest and dearest to my heart is Sithlore Online S.W. Roleplaying – one of the longer-titled RPG sites out there.  Not the biggest – I think the Combine still holds that title.  My “boys” (I was the only High Priestess in a faction full of male characters, including my younger brother’s) became like family to me, and after a brief hiatus following my first year, I became a Legend.

I used a different character for the Combine, in the end.  I was daunted by the sheer size of their message boards, but their In-Character chat rooms (especially the bars!) were just right for an NPC I’d developed for Sithlore who was closer to my own personality.

More than a decade later, after having dropped out of college (twice! mind you) and divorced, I joined my local GCOM group for therapy. I already enjoyed the game, and was always up for a battle, but I really got hooked on Sentinels of the Multiverse when one of my gaming buddies walked in with a shiny new edition of the fan-made Cauldron Expansion.  Now, some of you may recognize that this labor of love was built using the software\ tools\ engines \programs \designs \etc of Hero Machine.

So, I decided to check it out, and had fun bringing my Combine character to life.  I’d never given much thought to what she looked like, beyond “stereotypical Irish lass.”  And yet, within a week, there she was, medical bag in hand, ready to go bar-hopping.  Now I’m determined to bring the rest of her crazy in-laws to life and post them for posterity’s sake.

<span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Notes for the Legally-Inclined</span>:certain names have been abbreviated or withheld so as not to infringe upon their owners’ copyright.

[Kat Daragon]

So here’s my first stab at Gavin, my main character’s brother.  He’s a bodyguard, 7’0″ tall, and he’s supposed to be a massive, hulking brute.  A flesh-colored wall, as it were.  Here he’s training outdoors.  In the interests of full disclosure, I’ll admit I did some polishing in Paint after finishing him in HM3 – but I was able to get a lot done in Hero Machine first!

I’m only a little bothered by his ears.  They’re not as damaged/scarred as I’d like them to be, but they’re better than I thought I’d get.  I really wish there was an option where I could import or upload my own image to use as (say) an insignia, then I could add that item to his left bicep, mask it to his arm, and rotate it into place.  Then it would be perfect!

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[Kat Daragon]

This is Keira Lockhart, my battlefield medic.  Boy, was she a blast to roleplay!  She was born in Ireland (spelled in my RPG\fanfics as “Eire”) and her late husband was from the highlands of Scotland (now don’t go confusing the Hig’la’ders with the Skaats ;)). And did she ever have a thick brogue on her!! She dropped her leading aitches, trailing tees and dees, any hard cees or kays before tees…

I doona think there’re but one in ten in th’ room what could understand ‘er once she got herself on a tear…

She was widowed (on the ba’tlefield, poor thing), but later remarried (although her second marriage turned into The Notebook, so I’m not so sure how happy that worked out for her). She’s a bit of an apprentice priestess to my main character (whom the series is tentatively named after), and the religion is somewhat of a mish-mash of old polytheistic societies.

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[Suleman]

Heya! Welcome to the forums. I really like the background you made for Gavin. Nice and detailed, but colored distinctly so everything is clear.

The problem with ears is that they’re so small in non-closeup pictures. If you added more details/scars, the end result might look a bit messy from further away.

If you really want scars or battle damage for your characters, though, look no further than the Zombie-categories. This one has a scar from Head -> Zombie. I have also found success with this Insignia item, which I masked to the ear here.

 

If you use them, you might want to fiddle a bit with the colors and transparencies, too, so that the scars blend a bit better into the surrounding skin.

[Kat Daragon]

Oh, my God!  That looks almost perfect!  I even used that exact insignia, I just rotated it so the claw slash went up-and-down vertically instead of at an angle.

But that zombie scar is the missing piece, I think, combined with the transparency settings you mentioned.  I didn’t think of trying that part.

Dangit, now I have more fiddling to do!  😀

[Kat Daragon]

I am much more satisfied with this outcome.

I didn’t use the zombie piece, after all, but with a little bit more erasure, a different 2nd color (with 50% transparency on it), and near-total transparency on one layer of my “ear mask,” I was able to get rid of the claws completely.

I think this looks much more like the result of an attack by a wild animal when he was 5, don’t you?

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