A blog!  Awesome!

So, I thought I would use this space to talk about the story creating process, since both me and Aliena are a bit mum about what we do sometimes, to the point where we will disappear for a month and spit out pages at the end. 

In any case, I wanted everyone to know that I am really into a videogame called Deadly Premonition.

Moving on, I wanted to talk about the character Iseult, since she is introduced relatively recently and somewhat fresh in my memory.

So, for those of you who don't remember, Iseult was introduced in chapter 18, although she's made a few appearances: whenever Audrey is concerned, she would appear in the background as a hooded figure:

Et cetera.  The hood is, of course, the AFIA sorcerer uniform.  If you'd notice, AFIA humans never wear hoods; sometimes a cap and a similiar jacket, but the hood is strictly to seperate the humans from the occult.

So let's start with the uniform.  I had wanted to give the sorcerers a sense of mystery, as well as invoke the age-old wizard/necromancer feeling with the covered face and the hood.  The most obvious image that comes to mind would be the ring-wraiths from Lord of the Rings:

What I ended up with is nowhere near as dramatic, which is probably for the best, since I didn't want the occult to feel like villains or faceless soldiers.  Although the covered face does give the figure a sense of foreboding and sinisterness, it also invokes the feeling of being part of a mob... an anonymous, faceless sentry, if you will.  As far as their silouettes go, though, I really liked the shape and silouette of Kasumi's hood from Mass Effect, so that sort of triangular, veil-like shape was what I went with.

The jacket part of their uniform, I studied parkas and field uniforms a little.  This shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone who knows me, but the cut and general shape of their uniforms was based on WW1 uniforms.  Observant readers will notice that the AFIA sorcerers actually have 2 different coats, a long coat and a shorter parka.  I haven't really designated which is worn in what situation, but I generally assume that the long coat is worn on colder days.  Or if it's raining.  Those handy hoods help too.

So what about Iseult?

To be honest, the reason we wanted to introduce her was because we noticed that at some point, Two Keys had become a sausagefest.  Additionally, Audrey did not have someone to consult with on an equal level, since Michael is in many ways an intern.  She needed somoene who's as intelligent as she is, who understands and respects her, and is respected in turn.  Although technically Audrey's subordinate, Iseult would definately give Audrey as good as she's got.

Of course she had to be an occult, but physically, I wanted somoene who didn't have the same body type as the voluptuous Audrey Price, nor the rail-thin Flicka.  She worked for the AFIA, so she had to be strong, she's also a sorceress, aaaaaand I wanted a girl with short hair.  Face wise, I wanted her to be somewhat androgenous, like Tilda Swinton.

I settled on an occult who is the same race as the one who shot himself in the Casino, and I even mostly kept his features, just adjusted it to make it suit a female form.  She's also pretty tall... I'd say she's maybe half a head taller than Audrey.

And there's her sketch!  Tattoos and all. I might have made her a bit too androgenous in the comic, apparently it was hard to tell that she's a woman.

Which is a little surprising, since I thought the name Iseult is hyper-feminine, since where I know it from is the classic story, the Legend of Tristan and Iseult.  For anyone who isn't familiar, it's kind of a tragic love story that some say was the precursor of the Lancelot and Guinivere romance.  By the way, I pronounce it I-sult, but I think the French pronounciation is I-soot.

Anyway!  I guess that is about all for Iseult!  My sentence and paragraph structure was awful because I haven't written in forever, but hopefully some of you found this interesting enough for me to write more, and maybe I can even improve!

I am listening to the Deadly Premonition OST.  It is awesome.