World Building, Part 1: Designing the Protagonists

World Building

Creating a Race from 'scratch'

I'm not sure if this is as much fun for other authors, but the planning out my world while planning out the story that will be told within that world is a great deal of fun for me.  It started with my main character and quickly into the race of people he belonged to.  As far back as 2003 I knew I wanted my main character to be a 'dragon guy,' probably because of my mild obsession with the anime 'Dragon Ball Z' at the time, but it never got more complicated than that.  I was constantly changing what they could do, starting off as near analogs for DBZs saiyans that turned into dragons, to fire-breathers, to having or not having wings.  Eventually I boiled it down to the basics after reading "The Lord of the Rings" and seeing the films and maturing in my tastes and ideas a bit.  It wasn't until I had to write about them and describe them without walls of text that I began to seriously wonder what they really looked like.  So in May of 2015, I contacted an artist I discovered through Pinterest, of all places, and asked him if he would be interested in working with me on a project to design my main character, the race he belonged to, and a sword that would be at his side during his adventure.  He would later also help me create the design I use for my profile picture, which is also an important symbol in my book.  His name is Graey Erb, and he can be found on his website GraeyErbIllustration.com or on Deviant Art as Earl-Graey (We see what you did there, Graey).

The Captain Approves.

To make the task easier for Graey, I assembled a document of things I wanted to see in my new race of lizard people.  I had seen a few years ago a piece of art on Deviant Art by another artist, koutanagamori, called "Lizard Man," that served as the chief inspiration for my own lizard man.  It showed a creature with digitigrade feet, a prehensile tail, an arched neck and a pointed snout, and some horns or spines coming out of the rear of the skull, and wielded a pole-arm, with sketches of the character expressing different emotions or movements in the background.  I knew that this was close to what I wanted, but needed my characters to still be different.  And that difference was to make take them from just being a somewhat standard lizard people, to having some more draconic (dragon-like) and dinosaur-like traits.  

Lizard Man by koutanagamori @ DeviantArt.com

With that in mind, I used the physiology of the "Lizard Man" character to describe the basic body of my own lizardfolk, I went on to explain the features I wanted my race to have.  I proceeded to research lizards, reptiles, and even dinosaurs for traits that I wanted to appropriate for my race, then use pictures of the lizard/reptile/dinosaur to give the artist a visual rather than verbal explanation.  The first specimen I found is a lizard that takes it's name from the terrible antagonist of Tolkien's "The Hobbit," Smaug!

The Smaug lizard, Smaug giganteus,
aka the sungazer, giant girdled lizard or giant dragon lizard.

Clearly a reptile after my own heart, the sungazer was a natural choice to be used as inspiration for my own creation, and I choose the horn-like protrusions on the back of his head, and the texture of his scales, to add to my lizardfolk.  Now, these features are more prominent in my main character than in other characters featured in the book, due to their being multiple sub-races (some with horns and some without, for instance), but still carried over to the general flavor of the people.  From here, I had to find features for the lizardfolk my main character interacts with through the majority of the story, which are the lizardfolk without horns.  These characters, though part of the same race, had some slightly smoother features when compared to the sungazer, so I choose another lizard friend that I'm pretty sure the internet loves.

The face of a happy lizard.  Or one about to steal your crickets.
Thank you, TheLioness24 @ DeviantArt.com, for your
beautiful gecko picture!

If ever there was a friendly (looking) lizard in the world, it's the leopard gecko.  So I wanted to incorporate them into my own lizard people.  Their 'trademark' grin and skull shape along with the eye placement made them seem an ideal candidate for my needs.  They even looked similar to koutanagamori's own lizard man that they seemed to be meant to be - um - appropriated.  

But how was I supposed to say it, Ariel!

The final piece of the puzzle was the clothes, and for that I moved away from lizards and towards native peoples.  Inparticular, I focused on the Cherokee and Iroquois for inspiration, being peoples I was familiar with and lived in a region similar to where the story begins.  Since most native peoples wore leather, the most basic material I suggested Graey to think of was such, while also suggesting that fur might make sense to include in a temperate climate like that of the north-eastern part of the United States of America (where I live).  Flaxen linens were not unheard of in other native cultures, so that was suggested as well. Also, I gave suggestions on motifs and symbols that may find their way into their clothing, since these people revere fire and light.  Ultimately, Graey took all of my notes and suggestions and produced the follow pieces of art, in order.  As a quick note, I have to point out that his first version of my lizard folk was so spot on that I was immediately in love with them, and couldn't wait to get my main character finished.

The first piece of work Graey sent me, and I was in love.  Here we have my main character, #1, an average male, #2, and an average female, #3, with crest variations.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here we worked out the colors.  The females of this race have feathers as their attractive features, and the crests and colors vary according to genetics.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here we are working out the pose for the final image.  We did this after designing the sword, which will be discussed in a separate blog post.
Concept © Shane Press.

Here Graey working on an idea I had of putting an action shot behind the fully colored finished piece.  We settled on a pose where the main character is admiring the sword.
Concept © Shane Press.

The first pass when designing the clothing.  The finished piece took parts of both and worked them together, though each was good enough to be left alone on another character.
 Concept © Shane Press.

And the original final piece.  Note the shot in the background.
This was such an amazing experience getting this in my inbox.
Concept and Design © Shane Press.

I have to thank Graey Erb again for the fantastic work he did on this project.  If it wasn't for his patience and hard work, I would not have such a great piece of art to draw inspiration from when writing.  This artwork, all of it, makes writing so much easier when I can just reference them to help describe my characters.  Please take a moment to check out his work at www.graeyerbillustration.com.  And thanks for reading!