Star Shard Week: Character Concepts

With the advent of the publication of Frederic S. Durbin's The Star Shard, I thought I'd have a Star Shard Week on my blog to showcase some of the artwork I did during the story's serialization in Cricket Magazine.

I'll commence Star Shard Week with the character designs I undertook to begin my work. After reading the manuscript, I started sketching my impression of the principal characters. Once I achieved what I felt was the essence of each character, I created simple model sheets that I referred to for the rest of the year as I worked on illustrations for each of the ten chapters of the story.

Cymbril, the heroine.

This was one of the many dresses I designed for Cymbril during the story's run.

Loric, Cymbril's mysterious new friend.

Head studies for Urrt

My goal when drawing Urrt was to combine frog-like and humanoid features in an appealing way.

The Urrmsh, gentle giants with a gift for song, are the creatures who operate the giant claws that propel the massive Thunder Rake. They are also called The Armfolk and I wanted to be certain they lived up to their namesake.

Rombol, master of the Thunder Rake.

Everyone felt Rombol's beard should be longer, so I added to it in this revision. 

The Star Shard, by Frederic S. Durbin, is a fantasy adventure story about Cymbril, a girl on a journey of self-discovery.