This was a fun pic! And I got to draw a Virmir I had not drawn for five years. ;) Hopefully this will clear up some confusion about some of my characters that look a tad similar.
This is just the "Virmir chain" of characters, or more specifically-- gray foxes with that weird "antennae-hair" thing going on. I could probably extend this thing back 15 years with hundreds of characters and thousands of arrows if I wanted to increase the scope. (Not gonna happen. ;))
Some short explanations of the characters. The numbering is a rough ordering I'm pretty sure they were conceived. What appears here is the most current design for each. Some of these had some tweaks to them
1) Kendo Virmir - Dark Age Legends (2006) My very first fox character was in a story-based forum RP. He wasn't the main focus-- I had several more foxes in there and 20 or so other assorted characters, but he's the start of this particular branch of craziness. (Yes, he is floating. ;))
2) Julian Urocyon - Crimson Flag (2007) There was actually a prototype version of Crimson Flag I attempted to draw back in 2007 that never really took off... because I couldn't really draw back then. ;) A sort of proto-Julian was to be the villain. Later on in 2008 when I recruited Tod Wills to help with the latest, and current version of Crimson Flag, I pulled Julian from the proto-comic and the rest is history.
3) Kendo Virmir - Metamor Keep (2007) This is "MK Virmir", or the "grumpy one" from my Metamor Keep Tales. Do not blame him. He has his reasons. ;)
Though my MK story arc is complete, I love MK Virmir to death and will continue to torture him FOREVER. More recently I threw him into the Epic Battle universebecause I thought it would be funny. However as a sort of recompensation, I let him destroy Santa. He's shown here as being in both the Metamor Keep section and the "Virmir Gang" section, since I sort of inducted him in as an honorary member to do fun side comics with and such.
MK Virmir is probably the closest I ever came to writing "me" into a story. A lot of his thought patterns are based on my own-- with a few minor but crucial differences. (Basically, the whole anger/irritation/resentment thing. ;))
4) Kendo Virmir - Author/Artist/Fursona (2007) When I started interacting with the Metamor Keep community back in 2007, as usual I took the name of the primary character of my stories as my pen name. I had done this with past projects before, but never really felt a personal connection to the character.
However, people very quickly (albeit jokingly) associated me with "the grumpy one", which is very much not me, so I pushed that author and character were not the same more and more, building my online image in my head long before I was able to draw. Pretending to be a cartoon animal in a chatroom was incredibly relaxing and fun, and thus the toony Virmir was able to express himself for the first time.
5) Lucian Urocyon - Crimson Flag (2008) People who have been following my comic for a while know that I did not always draw it by myself. Tod Wills sketched the first big chunk of it, while I inked and colored his sketches. Way back when we were working out character designs, I showed him an old crappy picture of MK Virmir I drew and said "kind of like this". And that's why Lucian looks the way he does today. ;)
I do regret this a bit. Lucian is very different from MK Virmir, and I should have been a bit more original with his design. But on the other hand... MK Virmir was just a character from an unrelated story! It's not like I'm suddenly going to get good at art and start drawing him myself constantly years from now or anything!
*facepaws*
;)
6) Lucile (2008) One day I noticed that a *lot* of people have an opposite gender version of their online selves. "Ha ha!" I thought, "Those people are weird. I'm gonna try and draw a girl Virmir just for kicks!"
And, well, I kept drawing her. ;)
I honestly really like her design, especially with the hat/sword additions I made recently. Her robe is kind of similar to what I imagined on my personal fursona waaaaay back in the beginning before I got the idea for the cape and pantslessness. The basic idea behind Lucile is I, as a male, do not have very many stereotypical male traits (HATE sports, HATE cars), and a few downright girly ones (YAY! Cute foxes!!). So as an inverse-- a female version of me would likewise not have many stereotypical female traits and also a few male ones. I.e. she and I would be exactly the same. ;)
If the main Virmir were taken out of this batch and I had to choose a new primary out of the remaining 9, I would choose Lucile.
7) Lucile - Metamor Keep (2008) Lucile from Metamor Keep has nothing to do with the above mentioned Lucile, and is really included here just so I can say that. I have a *terrible* habit of recycling names. Back in 2008 when I first conceived the character, I did not know I'd be drawing girl-Virmir Lucile so much in a few years. Phooey, happened again. ;)
On the flip side, the Virmir/Lucile combo does provide some sort of consistency throughout my works that I'll probably revisit.
8) Virumiru (2009) "Three tails is a good number, I think. Much more than that and it becomes difficult to do basic things like sit down. ;)"
That is... really all there is to Virumiru. He's just a kitsune parody. I'm not a terribly huge fan of kitsune or multiple tails, but he's fun as heck to draw. I'm not sure if I'll ever think of a story for him though. He's just out there doin' oriental stuff!
9) VirBot (2009) When I set up the chat room for Crimson Flag, I changed the generic sounding "ChatBot" which announces system messages to "VirBot" because the world revolves around me, pretty much. Also I added some basic AI when chatters mention his name, and of course, I had to draw what he looked like. ;)
The glowing red eyes are inspired by the ex-animal bots in that one Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon.
10) Lucile - Crimson Flag (2010) Did I mention I really love Lucile's design? I did intend for Lucian to have family apart from his father and sister in the comic from the beginning, but the more I drew the original Lucile above, the more I wanted to use some variant of the design in Crimson Flag. CF Lucile has only been in one short scene so far. You can probably guess she'll be back. ;)
