Sofie Thorne is an original character I made for a Utena-based RP. She’s blind, much too short for her age (14), and is quite skilled in music, especially the flute. Recently I made a digital painting of her just for fun:

Then, I was assigned a “superhero style” cover for my Electronic Cover Illustration class, so rather than draw a guy in spandex prancing about NYC, I decided to re-tool Sofie as a blind, echolocating, singing superhero named “Nightingale”. And the story is set in modern Amsterdam. It’s about time we had some young/disabled/European superheroes, goddamnit. Then maybe I’d actually READ superhero comics. XD

I’d love to actually make this a comic someday. So many ideas, so little time…

Remember the Nightingale cover I posted a while back?  (If not, click the “Nightingale” tag under this post to see it.)

I did some more concept sketches for the character today. (Click for fullsize.)

I’d like to get this story planned out over the summer while I’m in Belgium (and where I’ll be able to visit Amsterdam easily, which is the setting for this particular tale), so I can work on this story in my spare time.

So, Editor’s Day is coming up here at SCAD, and I’m planning to pitch this Dutch Blind Superhero story to DC and Marvel.  That calls for a it more concept art, so here’s what I’ve been cooking up lately.  (If you’re unfamiliar with this story, check the Nightingale tag at the bottom of this post, or click here.)

First off, another cover, this one is not totally polished, but I think it gets the idea across.  It’s Sofie, without her Nightingale getup:

Next, two character designs.  The first is Emily, Sofie’s deaf cousin, and Jack, Sofie’s guardian/bodyguard/butler. (Yes, I’m aware he looks rather effeminate… this is what I get for drawing cute girls too much! I’ll fix him up.)

And a few environment concepts- An average street in Amsterdam, and Sofie’s mansion:

I really need to figure out the story rather than make lots of random pictures for this. But that’s all I can come up with at the moment… my brain is fried as far as realistic storytelling goes. Maybe once I’m settled down in Brussels and have some time to think without all this stress I can get into it. In the meantime…. concept art!

I made this sketch today while listening to some of my classical music. I think it would be cool if all of the chapters were related to some famous classical music. I purposefully misinterpreted the meaning of this one to be much more morbid, though.

Also, that girl isn’t the main character, some poor unnamed dead girl floating in the Donau river. And yes, that is edelweiss!

A sketch of an opera house:

Sofie doing her best impersonation of Lumiere from Kiddy Grade:

I found this old picture that I drew a year ago for my friend Ivy’s birthday. (She’s the one who was visiting recently and got me into Avatar.) It’s Toph VS Sofie Thorne, my blind character from Nightingale.

It’s interesting for me to look back on, because this was when I was still figuring out the Sister Claire style, but I hadn’t yet started to do vector lineart in Illustrator. (The difference is astounding to me. D: ) Also, since I had never seen Avatar back then, I got Toph’s earthbending stance totally wrong. Hahaha… XD;;

EDIT: I like Sofie in the Sister Claire style, she looks too cute. T_T! So I did this little sketch of Sofie dancing with her iPod:

More concept art for Nightingale. Man, I wish I had a clone of me to work on this while my other self keeps doing Sister Claire. They are so drastically different in pretty much every way.

Nightingale Pose practice by *Yamino on deviantART

Oh, and for you Avatar fans: Another stupid crack-tastic comic. I love drawing Katara and Sokka. WATER TRIBE!

Katara’s Bad Habit by *Yamino on deviantART

Yet another concept piece I threw together while brainstorming. On the left is Sofie in a fancier outfit… perhaps a visit to to Opera. On the right… A winter riding outfit? I’m not really sure, and considering that she doesn’t pick her own clothes, she probably has no idea, either.

I don’t want to talk too much about it in case this doesn’t go through, but I’ve been contacting several sources to help me gather research for this. I want to it to be very authentic, to the point that I’m studying 3D street views of Amsterdam on Googlemaps to get a better sense of the locale. Ideally I’d like to stay there a while to get a real feel for it, but that’s a little pricier. =P

Some practice sketching of Emily, Sofie’s deaf cousin. While Sofie is usually more mild-mannered and pokerfaced, Emily is the opposite. She might be mostly mute, but she never has any trouble expressing herself.

I started drawing on 10/27/09, 11:13PM. Unfortunately, I forgot to start the recording earlier, so I don’t have the part where I started the sketch. But I think the most important parts are still here. =) (I tried to record a video while I was drawing the Nightingale sketch, but it didn’t work. T_T)

I’m sorry I didn’t let everyone know a lot sooner, at the last minute I realized it was a good chance to do it. I’ll let everyone know more in advance next time. =)

BTW, I’m not talking to myself, I was replying to messages people were writing on the chat. XD

Here are the finished artworks:

Dawn in Amsterdam by *Yamino on deviantART

PERFECT by *Yamino on deviantART