It's not as pretty as I wanted, and there's some big problems with it but I'm out of time and too tired to work on it any further. For now, here's a cheesy Fisher with a victory grin! Style of this inspired by my amazing classmate Candice Prince who is a constant source of inspiration for me.
Also, I finally drew my two covert Jedi characters Kedi Knight Tak Rene and his Padawan Kase Ramada, in a style closer to my normal one but trying to be slightly more realistic, inspired by the fricking sweetastic awesome STAR WARS Knights of the Old Republic which I have finally begun to read. (And which is extremely enjoyable!)
I'm slowly getting better at drawing women. :) This is Kase, about 17 years old. Her master is looking decidedly annoyed - perhaps he sees some other Jedi! (Tak doesn't really like most Jedi, calling them 'stuffy.' The only Jedi he really likes are his fellow covert operatives, his own Master Veks (very grudgingly) and of course his favourite Jedi of them all is his padawan, but that comes with the field of her being his constant companion.) Neither of these two Jedi really have a home - because of Tak's rather grumpy opinion of the restrictive Order, he hardly ever lets them return to the temple. Instead, he and Kase are true nomads, wandering the galaxy and routing criminal factions wherever they can. They're willing to do almost anything to get the job done and very often travel undercover. The only times they ever return to the temple is when the Council expressly orders them to, or whenever Tak realizes that his padawan needs a break and for her sake brings her home. (Tak, if he could, would stay remote all the time. He's a true maverick, in the same spirit as Qui Gon Jinn and Quinlan Vos.)
Respectively, their specialties:
Tak; strong in the living force, expert hacker, covert undercover operations, Soresu lightsaber combat, piloting. Tak is particularly good at using the Force to improve his own stealth and can move about almost completely undetected if he wants to. Partially out of need, Tak has become extremely skilled at Force jump and Force run techniques, though he is not nearly as acrobatic as his padawan.
Tak Rene is a known maverick and has been rated a Grey Jedi by the Order in his era. While extremely loyal to the Order itself, Tak famously can't stand spending more than a few days within its temple's walls. Disliking the attitudes of more conservative light Jedi, Tak is sometimes considered a bit of a pest whenever he's at home, as after a few days he always inevitably falls to some sort of mischief making, be it hacking top secret files or stalking his old Master Veks. Tak disagrees whole heartedly with the idea of attachments being forbidden, which gets him into trouble at one point when a rival Jedi Master makes the conclusion that Tak is a little 'too close' with his ever present apprentice. Tak's ready to fight the master (Tak seems to think that the best way to solve disputes with other Jedi is beating them in combat) but backs down at the insistence of his padawan. When the Master presses the issue, Tak eventually pleads to Master Veks for help and a consular ends the dispute.
Originally, when Tak took Kase as his padawan the motion was protested because it was believed that he would have a bad influence on her. Tak didn't help this matter, as he refused to leave the temple until custody of Kase Ramada was given to him. Unable to stand the thought of anyone but himself training her, Tak was ready to fight for the right to train her. Tak and Kase met when Tak was an injured senior padawan and Kase a youngling detailed to help in the medical bay to learn basic healing. Here, they formed an unlikely friendship, partially through Tak telling Kase wild tales of his missions. After Tak recovered from his injuries he continued to visit his young friend whenever possible and maintained the opinion for the rest of his apprenticeship that she was the only good thing about the temple. Two years after he was knighted Tak returned to the temple to take Kase as his apprentice.
Kase; rather generalized in both the living and unifying Force, Kase becomes an expert in Ataru lightsaber combat (also adept in Soresu, the style of her master), covert undercover operations and pilotting. Kase is particularly good at controlling animals and like her master, is excellent at the Force run and Force jump skills, though she is decidedly more acrobatic due to her Ataru fighting style. Somewhere along the way, Kase picked up the use of the blaster and while she dislikes using these weapons, she has talent as a sniper. Kase is not as stealthy as her master.
Almost immediately upon her clearance for apprenticeship Kase was apprenticed to Tak Rene and not long after they were ordered to a Sentinal outpost world. Here they stayed for several years while Tak trained Kase with occasional visits from Master Veks and Jedi Knight Harrison, as well as Harrison's older padawan Nires. The base was kept for the most part a secret (partially because Tak dislikes Jedi visitors) and so for a while Kase's training was fairly peaceful. This all ended however when Tak got the scent of a criminal organization and without much ceremony, decided that they should abandon their posting. Impatient with sitting around, Tak was finally able to begin Kase's field training in the field of covert investigations. Due to their isolation, Kase and Tak became for the most part inseparable friends, Tak treating Kase much like an older brother would a much younger sister. Later, after Kase's knighting, she would continue to serve alongside her old master for the rest of her life. Eventually, Kase, despite her more conservative ways, was rated as Grey as her master.
Together they are a dynamic and dangerous team. Unlike most masters, Tak was willing to do the unthinkable to get the job done and often used Kase as bait when she was young. When she was older, they continued this tactic, with Kase taking on more deadly roles, from the made up persona of a bounty hunter to even a cantina dancer. With Kase remaining undercover but in the open, Tak would use his stealth mastery to keep himself hidden until the opportune moment, Kase acting like a remote agent. Masters of disguise and equipped with the Force, often it was only the very strong minded who ever detected these two Jedi. Because of their success, Tak and Kase eventually both earned some very high bounties on their heads, but would usually manage to evade capture. When their enemies began investing in expensive anti-Force devices for their retention, Tak and Kase responded by vanishing for a few months, usually secretly back to the Jedi Temple, which no criminal dared to attack. Sometimes during missions they were aided by Knight Harrison and his padawan Nires, other Jedi Covert Operatives.
I'm not sure what era they belong to yet. Any suggestions on this would be helpful!
Deju vu? Yep, more editing, but at last my layout is in its final form. Copperbane now hosts a random useless tower - tell me, what the hell purpose does a fortress need a random disconnected tower for when they already have a bunch of much better ones, including one with an actual roof and windows? They don't. Maybe that's where the radio array went. I never do go into detail of what happens to it after Born of Fire.
Anyway, it kind of makes sense that the Fletch might still have the array - maybe that's what the grandparents watch over when they aren't taking care of their grandchildren. Perhaps, using the array, the Fletch are better able to guard Rimer against the threats that lay within the stars...
I can't even describe how much I miss him. This doesn't do him justice at all. Just four more days until we can be together again... I can hardly bare it...
Okay yep. I have some Star Wars fan characters - but I'm not insane like a lot of fans. I try to keep mine as cannon as possible and I only have two, both of whom I've had for years. This year I decided to redesign both of them, even though they'll probably never be used for anything, because it's fun to play in other people's creative sandboxes once in a while and I have a real thing for Star Wars. I have no idea what era Kase and her Master Jedi Knight Tak Rene belong too, though I like to think of them being several hundred years before the fall of the Republic at least. Respectively, the beads in Kase's hair are yellow for lightsaber prowess and black for covert operations, the two areas of the Force in which she is being trained. I tried to model her and her master off of the canon Quinlan Vos in a way, who often runs covert operations for the Jedi Order and has thus shifted into being a Grey Jedi. At the start of Kase's training (shown here sort of - she's about 14 and is of the catagory of women who never really grow any boobs) she's a proper, by-the-book Jedi of the Light. But eventually her master's influence (Tak being moderately Grey, but nothing really towards actual Dark) as well as lack of contact with the Jedi Temple has its effect and by the end of Kase's training, she's as grey as her master.
I tried to make Kase fairly militeristic and boyish. After looking at a lot of the designs for the existing female Jedi, I realized that their tunics are longer and quite a bit more dress-like. Jedi typically try to style their mode of dress a bit after whatever race or planet from which they derive - this is seen in the dress of Luminara Unduli and Bariss Offee. I'm still not sure what planet Kase (or her scurvy master) hail from, but I wanted to go with something a little different than the plain khaki for Kase. If you could see her full gear, you'd see that her full tunic is in fact longer than that of a typical male Jedi's.
Personality wise, Kase has a strong thing against dressing too girly or even acting feminine. If her master would let her, she'd crop most of her hair off and dress fully like a dude. It's a good day for Kase when somebody can't guess her gender, or calls her a guy. Her dislike of femininity gets her in trouble later when she's older of course, as often she and her master have to go about in disguise, which sometimes means not nessacarily dressing in a way that she particularly respects.
Kase is flawed this way, but that's what makes her real to me. She also has a strong dislike of hyposprays, another thing which she has to conquer during her training. Usually Kase obeys her master's every command, but if a hypospray's involved, then she gets a little free with her lightsaber. It's very un-Jedi-like.
Otherwise, Kase acts like any other Jedi and for a long time, so does Tak, afraid of influencing her. Unfortunately, eventually she picks up some stuff anyway, because padawans are taught to learn from their master's example and follow them nearly everywhere for the sake of this observation, loyally protecting them in battle.
I'll be putting up more sketches of these guys soon. This was a nice break from animating.
Only three scenes left to animate! Here's one of the layouts... it's a little different from the rest. Obviously the channel I chose for my bumper is YTV. It was a lot of fun drawing the logo and everything in this childish pencil crayon style. This is the only background painted in TV Paint for this project.
I probably won't get much work done today, so I'm just animating a small scene. I have to print off my storyboard and finish off my Christmas Cards. Then tomorrow it's the long haul getting this done, all the way til' Friday. Might haveta pull an all nighter. I'm worried.
Born March 18th 1990 in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, Rosanna is currently a second year animation student at Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Besides animating, Rosanna also dreams of being an author, with her first book coming out this fall. When she isn't working hard on prose or animation, Rosanna is either sharpening her illustration skills, working on either of her comics, hiking or reading. To Rosanna, the only good hike is a very long one - 15km+!
Rosanna also runs a weekly Speedie of the Week. Keep tuned.
