Adhiratha

www.fluidfriction.com



Adhiratha, the brave and selfless charioteer who finds Karna at the river banks and risks his life for him and the child Heerusama. Taking them into his house, he raises Karna as his own son, though Heerusama leaves to pursue a different fate, to be reunited with Adhiratha and Karna only years later and under very different circumstances.

Adhiratha is noble and kind. A good husband to his wife Radha and an inspiring father to both Karna and his adoptive younger brother Shon. In the early years of Karna's life, he plays an important role both in teaching Karna about the world and in raising him to be humble and generous in spirit.

Though Adhiratha has enjoyed no formal training in arms, he is exceptionally strong from years of dedication and hard work and has made a formidable opponent to those who threaten the people he cares about when it has been necessary to defend them.

Na-Mina

www.fluidfriction.com



Daemon-Queen of Dahka, wife to Heerama and mother to Heerusama, Na-Mina indirectly plays an important part in the unfolding tale of DevaShard.

Born in the rich and corrupt trading ports of Nysathor, her father was a wealthy trader known for having a hand in the slave smuggling business, taking daemons from Umbra and Dahka to Nysathor to be sold. She was to originally to marry Heerama’s father, before a series of unpredictable events led her marrying Heerama in his stead.

Beautiful and dangerous, it is not wise to cross the Daemon-Queen of Dahka or those who serve her. It is said that a blood curse runs through her family line and that many of that descent are tainted by it's touch.

Heerama

www.fluidfriction.com



Also known as the 5-tailed Daemon-King, Heerama is the Daemon King of Dahka, father to Heerusama and son of the previous Daemon-King of Dahka.

Son of a long line of daemon-King warriors, Heerama took the throne when a small group of Im-Himnan elite warriors stormed Dahka to take the life of his father’s concubine, Na-Mina. He later married Na-Mina.

A sombre and quiet man, his motives often remain a mystery to all but those who are closest to him. However, he has fought and risked his life many times to hold the borders of Dahka and keep back the great evil that looms ever in the shadows across the great bridge.



His closest associate is Aduri, the 4-armed healer from Uundan whom he trusts with his life and closest counsel. As he is too often called away to battle and the defense of Dahka, the care of his son Heerusama falls often to Aduri.

On the field of battle, Heerama is implacable and few in the world of Bhumi could hope to stand against his fury for long.

Heerusama

www.fluidfriction.com



Daemon-prince of Dahka, son to Heerama and Na-Mina. Heerusama’s powers are great, but he struggles to tap into them because of the blood curse that has fallen to him through his mother’s bloodline. His skills require calm, clear thinking, but his blood curse blocks that, instead filling him with rage and bloodlust.

Aikoh

www.fluidfriction.com



Aikoh, who is also generally known to our in-house team as "bird-girl" is one of the main characters throughout the entire DevaShard series.

The closest associate of Heerusama, the Daemon Prince, they have been friends since his earliest childhood years. For reasons that remain clouded at the beginning of the series, they are very closely bonded and for much of the books remain inseparable. Not without power, she users her skills to support Heeru in all that he does, even when his motives seem a little questionable.

Concept Art - Characters

www.fluidfriction.com

Wanted to focus in a little more on some of the different concept art we put together whilst developing the characters and our world and thought I would begin with the character art.

First entry coming up...

India Launch

www.fluidfriction.com

DevaShard: At First Light - Out in India now!!!

It is now available in all major bookshops across the country.

For the Indian market we designed this special cover in-house featuring our interpretation of Surya the Sun God:


A couple of weeks ago we reached a major milestone in our worldwide roll-out and I wanted to write something about it...

Feel free to give your feedback.

Aduri - the Dahkan Healer

www.fluidfriction.com

Aduri

Originally from Uundam, little else is known about Aduri's past. With 4 arms and standing at over 7 foot he cuts a very impressive figure. Highly trained in fighting arts, he is extremely skilled, yet by profession he is a powerful healer with the ability to cure many diseases and speed recovery from all but the most fatal wounds.

Heerama's oldest friend and greatest ally, he spends much of his time training, looking after and where necessary protecting his son Heerusama, the Daemon Prince.

Below you can see the development of Aduri's appearance from the earliest pencil sketches, through to more finished drawings, the addition of inks and then the final colouring stage bringing him truly to life.



Pencils - Keith Burns
Inks - Keith Burns
Colours - Johnny Tam

DevaShard: At First Light - Trailer

www.fluidfriction.com

For those of your who haven't already seen it, this is the trailer video for DevaShard:At First Light , the first book in our comic book series.

Cosplayers of Comic Con

www.fluidfriction.com

Comic Con definitely wouldn't be complete without the cos-players and there are definitely a hell of a lot of them!

Here are a few pictures for your general enjoyment:

The Villains...











Spidey and the Black Cat



Of course the girls of Comic Con









And cute/annoying/ridiculous

San Diego Comic Con

www.fluidfriction.com

My apologies this has taken me so long to get up, as everything has been really hectic in the last 2 weeks since I got back, but I thought I would finally put up something about my trip to exhibit at San Diego Comic Con.

Comic Con is kind of an insane experience! People call it the geek convention of the world, but in reality it goes far beyond that. No doubt it holds more than it's fair share of lifelong comic fans (often referred to by misunderstanding non-believers as geeks), however nowadays Comic Con goes way beyond the small and focussed fair to promote comics and artists and bring hardcore fans together that it was years ago. These days it is the premiere international bridge between the comic, games, movie and merchandise industries. An incredibly vibrant event, it is full to bursting with everyone from your neighbourhood kid, to the world's most famous stars, producers, directors and of course the ever amazing Stan Lee.

Walking around the booths you are quietly amazed at the unbelievable range and extent of creativity which is showcased across these 4 industries, with more and more often the original inspiration and creativity coming primarily from the comics field. Gone are the days when comics where adults only read in the hidden quiet of their spare rooms while their wives slept, guilt and enjoyment hanging equally over them, now comics are the driving force behind the most original creativity to hit films, games and merchandise in years and it's all there at the SD Comic Con!!!

Now enough blathering, time for some photos!

A glimpse of a typical corridor of the event. Now imagine 13 halls full of this:



Yours truly working hard:



Homer:



Star Wars is always HUGE at these events:

DevaShard Interview in US

www.fluidfriction.com

Here I am being interviewed on Shazap.com about DevaShard

Part 1:

click here to see more videos like this

Part 2:

click here to see more videos like this

Viilal - the life stealer

www.fluidfriction.com

The assassins from the spine of the world instil deep fear into the hearts of men throughout the lands of Bhumi. Not truly alive, they exist only to take the lives of those they have been hired to. Unwavering focus and unshakeable resolve leads them relentlessly towards their assigned targets. Only the sun god has the power to strike fear into the life stealers.

Viilal is a member of this ageless clan from the land of Shyatha and his target runs fearfully in front of him...

The appearance, movements, clothing, weaponry and expressions of Viilal were developed over sometime. Here is a breakdown of some of the stages:


Firstly our penciller Keith Burns builds the basic stature and movement style of the character through rough sketches known just as "roughs"



Then we develop some of his more advanced and unusual movements in roughs



After that, we produce more detailed pencil sketches of his face. Pencils are usually done intitially in blue, as it is easier to remove the lines later if they are in blue.



Then we produce pencils of his upper torso



And eventually his entire body



Then we move on to the inking stage, where our inker Ken Cheung paints black ink onto the pencilled drawings in order to add in shadow and light, bring out important aspects of definition that have been created by the penciller and in some cases, outline the strongest lines.







In this case we also experimented with adding in a little red colour to create an unusual effect





This last inked image of Viilal that we used for our Character Design Competition is both sinister and somehow amusing at the same time



Finally we scan the inked images into the computer and our colourist Johnny Tam paints the colours in using a WaCom touch screen. In our office we call him the Wizard.

Characters of DevaShard

www.fluidfriction.com

For the next few blog entries I will be going into detail about some of the major and minor characters that we have created for the DevaShard storyline.

As much as possible I will also be uploading artwork which showcases the development of these characters from the earliest rough pencilled sketches all the way to the finished people. In this way you will literally be able to see the individual characters of the graphic novel series coming to life from earliest concept to final realisation.

Please drop comments and give me your feedback!

Creatures of Bhumi

www.fluidfriction.com

Beyond the animals that roam the lands of Bhumi, there are older, darker creatures that have taken this land as their own since before human memory.

Terrifying Ice Dragons scour the open tundra of Im-Himna occasionally ravaging the nearby settlements and terrifying the inhabitants.

Further South beings have harnessed the giant insects that roam the lands and are now commonly known as the insect riders.

In the bowels of the Earth nameless blind and grossly deformed monstrous creations make their home.

Whilst in the land of Umbrastra rumours continue to persist of a great bone dragon whose impossible life continues to strike fear into the hearts of all...


Ice Dragon




Insect Riders




Creatures of the Underworld




Bone Dragon

Animals of Bhumi

www.fluidfriction.com

What kind of world would it be that didn't have animals living in it? Well an empty and rather boring one for a start.

Bhumi in fact is a world filled with a myriad of animals and other creatures. Many of them are similar to those of the Earth (as Bhumi itself represents Earth in an ancient mystical time, before the world was torn) and some of them are vastly different.

I don't want to reveal all the different exciting animal inhabitants of Bhumi now and spoil the excitement of discovering them in the books to come, but here are some of our early concept drawings of a snow dog:

The Lands of Bhumi

www.fluidfriction.com

After putting together our map of the world and then separating it down into different lands and looking at what the characteristics of each land and it's people would be, it was then time for us to start working on our concept art.

Of course this meant creating the actual close-up look and feel of all the different lands, so that we could have our main characters traveling through them and interacting with the people of each land.

Today, I am featuring some of this concept art so you can see for yourself how we envisaged these areas in our mind and put them together on paper.


Im-Himna the icelands




The Half-Light City




Broken MoonGate




Bridge from Dahka to Umbrastra




The Province of Dahka




The City of Rhimn