Have a good slide into 2012!! Luna and Erik are celebrating, too. Okay, Luna is celebrating. With Glogg. Maybe a bit too heavy. Glogg can be the seed of satan.
Luna: "Another one for mee!!!!"
Erik: *counts the available aspirin in the medicine cabinet*
The dog (its name is Shah): Mistress is talking funny again!!! :D
I have done some sketches of the female characters, who appear in Phantom of the Opera or in case of my interpretation "Opera".
La Carlotta - I have something of a person in mind, who tries a bit too hard
to appear like a Grande Dame.
La Sorelli - I think, I make the ballett dancers a bit to thin related to their time period.
But La Sorelli is described as something swanlike. And as a drama queen, if I recall that correct.
Christine Daaé - Well, Christine again. In her modern day apperance.
But the character designs from my modern day series and Opera doesn't differ.
Meg Giry, Madame Giry and a random ballett girl. The sketch started as a attempt for La Sorelli.
But I thought, this looks more like a Meg. And Madame Giry is the Giry from the novel.
The Keeper for box five with some missing teeth.
Still don't know, if Madame Giry is that dumb,
as she appears in the book.
And again a little Luna sketch. Sorry for that. It is a modern day appearence.
And I made the sketch yesterday together with the Christine sketch in a café.
The face in the upper left corner didn't turn out, as I wanted.
This is only more or less a collection of doodles, I made last night in Painter X
Some of the character designs or pretty much all of them are pretty rough. This has much reasons.
1. It's the first time after a long hiatus I drawed this chracters.
2. I am still not as good in sketching with Painter X as I am with traditional pencil and paper.
3. I have not really decided yet, if I want to go with a much more realistic style.And I want to redesign a lot of characters. My style has changed over the years.
But here we go with whith the known characters from the novel by Gaston Leroux. And my additional characters.
From left to right, upper row:
Raoul de Chagny: The viscount de Chagny is in love with singer Christine Daaé, who he already met as a boy, when he saved her scarf from the sea. At this time father Daaé was still living and told the two children stories from the north and about the angel of music. Raoul is described in the novel in a pretty androgynus way. Blonde hair, small mustache, almost the face of a young woman. I'll try to stick close to the description. And he is a mopey lovesick stalker. But I consider this behaviour pretty normal, regarding his young age. Erik, who behaves in a similar way, is much more creepy.
Louise Manot (Luna): Luna is my own character, I put into the story. I have alread told a bit about her in this entry. Because she is a female character, this makes her one of the more complicated characters. Mary Sue alarm. So if you point out, that she is a Mary Sue, I am pretty okay with it, because I think, every fictional has something mary sueish or gary stueish going on. The difference is only, how clever they are written.
Christine Daaé: Singer at the Opera house. After her education at the academy she undergoes futher schooling through her angel of music. Yeah, she believes in angels, who speak to her through her mirror in her wardrobe. On the other hand, she wouldn't even today considered to be odd. Just look, how many angel channelers and angel believers still exists today. And Christine is only about 18 to 20 years old. I think, the real odd part is her foster mum Mamma Valerius. This person is so naive, you really rub your head over her.
Lower row from left to right:
The Phantom of the Opera and Cesar the horse: The Phantom of the Opera, Angel of Music or simply Erik. I gave in this sketch Erik the black mask and added Cesar, the horse. In one scene of the novel Erik steals one of the opera's staff horses the white gelding Cesar, who is refered as the Gray of the Prophet. The Opera's barn manager describes how a shadow jumped on the horse and went off with it. I drawed Erik raising his hand in a way like: "You have seen nothing, got it?!"
The Persian or just Daroga: He roams the Opera house a the beginning of the novel in a pretty similar way like Erik. So some of the staff think, he is the Phantom of the Opera in a different appearence. He knows Erik from the not so rosy Rosy Hours of Mazendran, were Erik killed off some people who were sentenced to death. He saved Erik from a similar fate and organized his escape from Persia. The Daroga was something like a police chief in Persia. So he was part of the regime under the shah. That's one of the reasons, why I never fully got his moral ramblings: Hey! You were also part of this regime!! So shut it and put your morals a bit aside. And on the other hand, maybe he would have got some more information out of Erik, when he wouldn't have got his moral ramblings and yelled at Erik. It wasn't really psychologically smart. The Daroga refered himself as a friend of Erik. I never had the feeling, that this was really the case. It was more like admiration and disgust the same time, what the Daroga felt for Erik. And this not really a base for something like a friendship. And as Leroux described in his foreword, that the Daroga was already very ill and had trouble to remember the story. So I have no reason, to believe everything, that is written from the point of view of the Daroga in the story.
Armand de Chatée Roge: This is another character by myself. He is the manager of the Opera house prior to Debienne and Poligny. After he quit this job, he stays at the Opera house as a conductor. He is a former Opera singer, which may be a bit odd, because of his noble ancestry. But the house of Chatée Roge is one of the minor noble houses. And to be true, Armand don't give a crap about it. He stumbles more by accident into the happenings around the Phantom of the Opera. He knows the spooky stories about the Phantom. But who the hell believes really in ghosts besides some ballett rats, when they had a bit too much liqueur?!
A random Ballett rat.
Ramon de Chatée Roge: Ramon is the twin brother of Armand. Well, he is some sort of Don Juan. For real. He loves the women. Okay, he is a married man... But it is not an odd thing to have mistress. He is a pretty self centered character. When I have to portray him as an animal, I would choose an andalusian stallion. One of his quotes could be: "If I wouldn't exist already, somebody should invent me." Well, you are welcome, dude. A little side note: His character was the base for the character development of Nikolaj, a darkelven shaman from my second comic project Darkelven Tales.
And here is the musical support for this character sheet:
Just a small introduction to the ones, who are not familiar with St. Nicolaus Day. It is the day here in Germany (and some other european countries), were St. Nicolaus brings chocolate, sweets and other small gifts to the children who put the night before their polished boots in front of their doors. It isn't a official holiday. But many still do this custom with the boots filled with gifts. And because "Modern Day Erik" takes place in Germany (Just because I am most familiar with the modern insanties in Germany...).
Funny note, until today, I can only think of St. Nicolaus as a differnt guy from Santa Claus, who is refered in my family to as "Joulupukki" which is the finnish word for Santa Claus. And I am very sorry to my american readers. But I have to say it: The real Santa Claus lives in Lapland on the mountain Korvatunturi (which means "ear mountain"). And from there he hears all the children in the world. Well I don't know, who the guy up there at the north pole is.... Maybe, maybe it is Joulupukkis twinbrother with the same job or it is the same guy and he just has two workshops!! One on the North Pole and the one (and main, of course) at the Korvatunturi.
But aside from this. I hope you like this MDE-episode. And for all, who are not familiar with the Phantom of the Opera. It is basically a story about an ugly musician, who falls in love with a beautiful young singer. And who stalks her.
Sorry for the delay in the blog. I am working at the moment on another illustration jobs and hadn't the time to work on Modern Day Erik or the main comic. But the job will be finished soon, And I will show more on my project. In the mean time you can get a climpse of one of Erik's cats in his household.
