DD1101 - Scar Night character design

For the task of designing a character from Alan Campbell's 'Scar Night', I was given the assassin Rachel Hael.



I began with some rough sketches and silhouettes to get the feel of various aspects of her appearence. She is described as being gaunt, and other Spine assassins earlier in the book are similarly compared to cadavers. It made sense to me to play on this, to make this character wholly unattractive and tired. It wouldn't have made sense to give a character like this any kind of sex appeal due to that, and from how standoffish and aggressive she can be(from how much I read of the book, anyway).



Here's the finished lineart derived from the concept sketches.

It was nice to step away and draw a different body type for once, but this really isn't my genre and my armour designing could use some work.

Scar Night character notes (in progress)

Truthfully, I'm not very far in 'Scar Night' by Alan Campbell. I am finding this book very hard to get into, or find myself attached to any characters, so reading is very slow and sometimes frustrating as the characters, I find, are immensely unlikeable. So here are, briefly, some notes on characters I've been making as I've read.

I'm bordering on just finishing Part One. I will finish this, but I'm finding that very difficult.


Presbyter Scrimlock
-- a priest
-- wears sandals, and a (black?) cassock
-- carried a lantern?
-- very much faith-driven
-- hates needless risk


Carnival(?)
-- angel
-- body riddled with scars--face, lips, arms, hands
-- dressed in ‘ancient leathers mottled with mould’
-- small and lithe
-- wings shimmer darkly, like smoke
-- eyes the colour of storm clouds
-- wears ribbons and flowers in her lank, tangled hair
-- held in a watchtower kept by chains

Dill
-- a young boy (11-13?)
-- thin white arms (bony all over)
-- tufts of hair behind ears
-- pink ears
-- tattered nightshirt
-- quick, nervous eyes
-- he was filthy
-- feathered wings
-- whip scars on back
-- calloused feet
-- generally timid, but very rebellious, short-tempered, and aggressive
-- uneven teeth
-- “archon of the church of Ulcis, warden of the hoarder of souls”
-- “mortal blood of his herald, callis”
-- naturally grey/white eyes (can turn purple, pink, orange, etc., depending on mood)
-- snail trails on jacket, silver button missing; shirt (both accommodated for his wings); boots loose and scuffed, trousers with wisps of cobweb; sword belt

Presbyter Willard Sypes
-- ‘ageing ten years for every one that passed’
-- ‘fingers were wasted, ink-stained, curled into claws, as if still clutching his quill’
-- requires a walking stick
-- black cassock
-- hunched back

Mr Nettle
-- wearing an itchy, hooded black robe
-- an alcoholic
-- has a daughter (deceased)
-- very violent (possibly due to alcohol)
-- stubble
-- a scrounger
-- carrying a cleaver

Rachel Hael
-- ‘young’
-- gaunt
-- hair pulled severely back, woven into a tight ‘noble’ plait
-- no jewellery
-- wore "beaten leathers"
-- scabbard on back, sword with a worn hilt
-- “blue throwing knives and silver needles ran the length of her leather-sheathed forearms”
-- “belt holding poison pouches, a blowpipe, and three stubby bamboo tubes tarnished by age”
-- green eyes
-- sickly pale face
-- a foot shorter than Dill, half his weight
-- Spine (temple assassin)