Original Character Reference Images
The second things drawn for the comic was the character reference images (the first things drawn were issues 1 and 2). While that’s usually backwards, Issues 1 and 2 were like the pilot episodes… could we really do this? And when we saw that the answer was yes, we moved in to fill in the “Scriptwriter’s Bible.”
Part of that “Bible” was the character reference images… which we more or less followed. As you can see, these are early sketches, and the art has generally moved forward from here.
One “character” seen here that hasn’t really been seen in the comic is Pot, Link’s pet pottery. Although we didn’t officially say it at the time, “Pot” has shown up in Link To The Present and Day Of Reckoning II.
Click the picture for full resolution.
A logo is SUPPOSED to appear on Dave’s jacket in every shot. As he’s a pilot, he’s got the logo for BOING Aeronotics. If there’s one thing you don’t want your airplane to do, it’s BOING. Also, notice that his head isn’t using the “Square” system we started using later on.
Chris was supposed to look a bit skater boy ish. Notice that his hair is a little less JRPG Crazy than it became later on. His shirt was supposed to rotate captions occasionally. ”Say No To Pot” was one of the recurring jokes during our planning sessions based on Link’s affinity to pottery. My lord these people’s perportions are horrible. Almost 2D!
Ashley was supposed to be wearing a relatively complex RPG costume as part of his character. Many of the details were reduced dramatically… his upside down Sierpinski triangle logo (I don’t know why I ever thought that was a good idea for a comic) was replaced with a “Greater Than” sign, and many of the trim details were simply ignored.
Note my error in understanding how to draw this early on… I was used to drawing video game characters whos head fit into a circle (or eventually with Dave, whos head was a square), and therefore tried to make that shape stick (see middle pose). That’s a bad habit I still have trouble shaking, a habit which causes my comic coach no end of nightmares.
Windwaker Link. No matter how hard we try, his style keeps drifiting from this style here. Notice the love/hate (or should I say smash/love) relationship between Link and Pot. We’ve never explored this part of Link’s character… at least not yet 
