digital sketches.

Thinking more about how he might emote. This guy is obviously going to
let me express my inner Heckle (or Jeckle, if you prefer) and (to some
small degree) Ren Höek :)

I also figured out how I want to think about the wattle. I was concerned
with it looking like some kind of spherical "scrotum"; hanging off his face,
but now I see that I can instead show how they hang and move more like
"gauged earplugs", which is quite fitting :) Yay, process!

If it seems like so far it's all about Gerik, that's because I'm going to be slow to move on to the other characters until I have a good visual and mental handle on each one, inside and out.

I've also been thinking more about the characterization as I sort through
this visual process. Which is different from how I worked through the
Ironclaw pictures, for example - for that series, I wrote first to help
figure out the world and concepts, and then basically illustrated the text.

For this, the ideas are lagging slightly behind the images. Of course I have
the basic structure from the folktale to follow, but the reinterpretations are
coming as I work on the pictures, not before. So I'm responding with
ideas to the visuals, not the other way around.

Anyway, in the original narrative, the rooster is the last to join the group.
And so Gerik is the last to join the band before they get to the big city. I
envision him as a washed up singer. He is not much older than the rest of
the band, but he's already burned out on fast living and wasted mild
successes at an early age. He was in another band that was starting to get
gigs and local fame. It went to his head and he wound up self-destructing,
taking down himself and the band's one shot at making it big.

Disgraced and unable to find any other group to work with, he crawled into a
bottle. He punishes himself and his voice with chainsmoking and vice-related
Other Bad Choices, backstory, lost love, blah blah. When the Bremen folk
arrive, they know nothing about what happened, and are quite willing to
give him a shot (it's hard to be taken seriously as a band with a donkey
braying the vocals).

He still manages to put his voice to work, and while it was a sweeter sound
long ago, there is still something compelling and raw about it. As a veteran
rocker, he's the one with the most actual performing experience and helps
round out a group that is eager, but not at all polished; and so his
particular motivation is redemption.

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