# Barbarian Schoolgirls



## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 16, 2015)

Three years ago, I came up with a concept called Barbarian Schoolgirls. It was about a huntress, an amazon, a valkyrie and a fighting nun who go to a school where they train as part of a typical RPG/fantasy class. It's high fantasy, so I call the school Fantasy High.

Here is the main character, Addison Lane, walking to school with her oversized amazon friend, Baldhart Eisenberg. Apologies for the skull bra. I wanted a really stupid costume that's on par with the chainmail bikini, and I'm hoping it works as ridiculous without being offensive.







Tools: pencil, scanner, Wacom Bamboo, PhotoShop Essentials

Technique: draw light lines, draw heavy lines, regret, erase, fix, don't ink because I'll goof it up, scan at 600 dpi, use 100 pt soft brush for most of the coloring

Colors are from this palette I found online…






…except I made my own 16-color grayscale. (FFFFFF, EEEEEE, DDDDDD…)


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## Philip Overby (Jun 16, 2015)

Love it! I always thought this was an awesome concept. I hope to see a series of short stories or a novel based on this idea at some point. Or maybe even a comic? Good stuff!


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## stephenspower (Jun 17, 2015)

The skull bra kicks ass, and there's the start of your story: she dragged into the principal's office for violating the school's dress code. Of course, she could respond that if others can wear kippahs and headscarves, then she should be able to wear her traditional tribal dress.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 22, 2015)

Philip Overby said:


> Or maybe even a comic?


Maybe…

Did some more work on the look of Addy and some allies today. Here's one ally.






Click the link in my sig if you want to know what story these two appeared in together.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 23, 2015)

Here's the full party from Awesome Warrior. I'm still trying to get the look right for everyone, and this will mean changing up weapons a bit. The healer is a fighting monk and Wallace the Iron Wall wields a two-hander with a tower shield. Karl Dragonsbane doesn't wear amor; he just shows his scars.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 23, 2015)

Same characters but at 1440p wide resolution. Why? Because WALLPAPER!

Click to embiggen:


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 25, 2015)

Another scene from Awesome Warrior that takes place before the written story:






EDIT - Updated to add sound effects!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jun 30, 2015)

I've been doing a bit of planning, including resizing the strip to the standard 2:1 ratio. (Penny Arcade's a little over 1024x512; mine's 980x490… but the original art is saved at 8 times that resolution since in the very near future, I expect ~1000p wide will be considered low res.)






(Viewed in MS forum, this^ is 699x350)

This is page 2 of "Awesome Warrior" which will be a 12-page prologue. (The comic's name will remain "Barbarian Schoolgirls"—the premise is that Addison's Junior year outing goes awry when a hungry breel shows up. When the main story starts, she is a senior and Baldhart is a freshman. Normal age range for the Fantasy High School of Fighting is 16-20; 19-20 at graduation.)

I'll have 10 stand-alone strips in addition to the prologue before I go live. I may go live with the full prologue + 1st strip, or at least the first three pages of the prologue. I'll try to resist the urge to post them here.

As I was going through my notes, I realized that 3 panels wouldn't always cut it. The pacing worked better with room for a 4th panel, so I stretched the two completed pages and scripted the others in my note pad. So far, I'm able to pull off titles for each strip. Believe it or not, this is _easier_ than naming chapters.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jul 2, 2015)

*2" Teaser*

If you were to click the Awesome Warrior link in my sig, you'd see the first three words of the story are "a deafening roar." That's the title for page 3 of my prologue.

I'd like the comic version to be a surprise, so I'll stop posting all of my updates. But here's a peek at p.3. Addison is getting beaten down by the letter R.






…and by the number 3.


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## MineOwnKing (Jul 5, 2015)

These are really cool.

I like these fighting clips, the action really brings out the personalities.

Have you ever thought of having a pet accompany them through their adventures? 

Maybe a pet monkey or a dog?


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jul 5, 2015)

MineOwnKing said:


> These are really cool.
> 
> I like these fighting clips, the action really brings out the personalities.


Thanks.!

These are incomplete in the sense that none of Addison's monologuing is posted here. Hopefully, you'll like the action sequences better with her voice. They work without it, but her monologue gives a bit of insight into why she's out here. (A little. I'll admit my plot-heaviness is equal to that of a typical action flick.)



MineOwnKing said:


> Have you ever thought of having a pet accompany them through their adventures?
> 
> Maybe a pet monkey or a dog?


Addison will dabble in druidry at some point, so I'll likely have animal companions come up then, though I have no plans for a permanent pet. That doesn't mean it won't happen.

Right now, I'm going to finish Addison's "Awesome Warrior" story (hopefully in August or September) then get her and Baldhart together in one strip and focus on the Fantasy High School of Fighting for 10+ strips—most of which are stand-alones, unlike the prologue, which will likely end up as a 12- or 13-strip adventure. I have plenty of pre-written material plus stuff I've come up with in the past couple weeks. I can definitely write a lot faster than I can draw, so no worries of running short of ideas. They'll have been thought through long before I can draw them!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jul 8, 2015)

Here's the breel in what may be my only full body shot of him!







This is a screenshot of page 4, panel 3—before coloring, of course.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Aug 27, 2015)

I haven't updated this thread in a while, and it's likely I won't. But just for fun, here's the latest drawing of the original four characters.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Aug 31, 2015)

Update: Nissa is Baldhart's mini-me!

Confession: Baldy's hair things aren't the same blue as the background. I forgot to color that part. Whoops. Just imagine a slightly different blue, and you'll get the correct image without me having to upload again.


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## SeverinR (Sep 9, 2015)

"Oh, MY gosh, Like she should talk? She hasn't even mastered the Falchion yet. Like, Gag me with a dirk."
Valley Barbarian school girl attitude.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Sep 28, 2015)

Nissa in gold valkyrie armor.





Like Maude Lebowski wore, but the breastplate doesn't resemble a pair of bowling balls.

EDIT - Added wings.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Sep 30, 2015)

Addison and Baldhart on their first day of school. Well, not that young really, but the youngest I've ever drawn them. One is more enthusiastic about school than the other.






EDIT - I know what's bothering me about this now. Addison is a tiny adult because I'm giving her the narrow waist. My rough sketch (not shown) had it right. String-bean Baldhart looks properly young, but I'll redraw Addison.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Oct 1, 2015)

I gave Addy and Baldy the same kind of kilt (and same size too, it seems). And now Addy's in a better mood because she's playing with her power over animals, giving her sort of a Disney-princessy following. Yet, Baldy is still fascinated by whatever's on the road ahead. There must be something off-camera that looks so awesome you'd need a better artist to draw it.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Oct 6, 2015)

Playing around with that first walk to school. I like young Baldhart's twiggy figure. It's quite fun to draw, especially when she gets hurt.


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## Nimue (Oct 6, 2015)

I really like the watercolorish backgrounds you've been using, they look super cool, and set off the character art.  And great color choices!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Oct 6, 2015)

Thanks. See post #1 of this thread for the best color palette ever. I wish I knew who made it, because it's the only color palette I use. (Only difference is that my grayscale has 11 colors: white, black, and nine grays from 10% to 90%.)

I really love the "rough round bristle" brush in PhotoShop. If you have a tablet, at full pressure you get the splotchy effect as seen at the edge of every picture, but if you use little pressure, you get a bunch of thin lines like I used for the wind.


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## Nimue (Oct 6, 2015)

Hey, there's a big ol' difference between having a color palette and picking five or six colors that really work together.  I should know...I do not do the color theory...navy blue and more navy blue, anybody?

I recently splurged and bought Kyle Webster's PS brush megaset on Gumroad because I saw a few artists giving it love.  I'm not necessarily the kind of artist that would get a lot of mileage out of it--I've used the same brush to paint everything for the past two years--but holy crap is it fun to play with.  Legit media effects.  I think you might find it even more useful because there's a looot of inking brushes and painty brushes that are really designed for cartooning.  Worth a look?


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## Legendary Sidekick (Oct 7, 2015)

I only have PhotoShop Elements. It came with the tablet. I wonder if it's compatible with CS5 in the sense that that brush set would work. I do like those brushes!

I use regular soft brushes to color characters (usually the 100-pt at 600dpi or the 45-pt as 300dpi), but for backgrounds, I like to draw everything on the tablet. I draw characters in pencil, but I figure out how exactly to fit them into the scene after scanning.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 4, 2015)

I really think Addy and Baldy look adorable this week.








^from the 11-6-15 strip​
Am I allowed to call them "adorable" when there are pieces of brain and intestine in their hair?


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## Steerpike (Nov 4, 2015)

There's a typo in Baldhart's name on the list along the right-hand side here:

ham2d


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 4, 2015)

Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed!


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## Manalodia (Nov 7, 2015)

Legendary Sidekick said:


> Nissa in gold valkyrie armor.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Okay, this is cute, especially with the Norse artstyle patterned into stars ^_^


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 17, 2015)

The thing about making my characters young… it means they still live with their parents. I had no idea until this week, but drawing characters' parents is surprisingly fun!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Dec 8, 2015)

I'm finally making strips that don't take place on the same day as the first strip. The season even changed... to CHRISTMAS SEASON!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 6, 2016)

Here is Baldhart as a not-Barbie and Nissa as a not-Lego Elves. Lego Elves count as girl toys. (And yes, the girl Legos are better looking with more detailed faces, rubber hair, skirts... and Lego Elves have elf ears.)

I also made Raggedy Addy, though she's not in this picture. Raggedy Addy is least likely to get me sued.





The premise here is that the boy toys are too violent, and the girl toys are sick of it so they solve the problem... well... with violence. So they don't solve the problem. So sue me. (Better you than Mattel or Lego.)


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## Ireth (Jan 6, 2016)

Lego elves are awesome. My youngest sis got two sets for Christmas. She wouldn't let anyone help her put the sets together. XD


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 6, 2016)

My youngest got Elsa's castle. Me and my older daughters assembled it, since Hannah is still Lego Duple-aged.

I'm glad they want help. I haven't outgrown Legos.


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## DMThaane (Jan 7, 2016)

Bah! Of course the castle figures are losing! Where's the artillery, the fortifications, the dragons! Let's see those girl toys take a trip down to _my_ neck of the woods and see what a _real_ Lego collection brings to the battlefield. Not-Barbie won't seem so tall when a dragon's spitting fire at her from the top of Orthanc.

Incidentally it's my experience that you may not outgrow Lego but if you keep collecting it long enough it can definitely outgrow your ability to store it.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 7, 2016)

There are not-Muppets that tower over not-Barbie.

Raggedy Addy is a not-Muppet-slayer. It's like a wyvern-slayer, but in a not-Toy-Story setting. In my sketches, there's no evidence of her killing anything wyvern-like, but she does wear a teddy-bearskin cloak. (I also sketched some heroes on the Blue side today.)


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 13, 2016)

A short series of drawings for a personal project.











I had an old They Might Be Giants song playing in my head.

For the record, Baldhart is in her usual outfit by the time her body is fully formed. I also like her hair better they way I drew her as a Barbie doll. The hair is especially fun when she swings a weapon.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 15, 2016)

The green thing's too big to "come alive" like Baldy does, so I worked in a different monster who can fit entirely in the picture (and can also fit in the pencil-missile one).


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 15, 2016)

And here's the chase...!


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## Legendary Sidekick (Jan 18, 2016)

I forgot to draw the wings, but he's being erased so... uh... I DIDN'T forget. Yes. I omitted the wings on purpose.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Feb 26, 2016)

I'm going to resist the urge to post too much art from this, but I'm currently experimenting with a short story that includes illustrations. One thing I noticed is that in order to work illustrations into the text, I'm better off NOT drawing detailed backgrounds. Thank God for that! The characters are way more fun to draw than backgrounds, and not having to add speech bubbles is nice too.

Will this sort of thing sell? I have no idea.


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## Legendary Sidekick (Nov 5, 2016)

My wife was at a paint night party, so I joined her. But instead of painting, I drew a huntress attacking a monster. (Pencil on full 8.5x11, scanned and colored.)


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