There are so many fun and terribly old drawings in my Ace Gallagher file... lol

Before Ace Gallagher, I was starting to work on a story about Tier Dralcon and his quest to find (and learn the truth behind) the Sword of Ignarathos. I got as far as a chapter and a half before Ace showed up in the Elemental Guardians and I decided I wanted to write about him instead ... but Tier hung around and his story became the prequel/the plot device still in use today! This was probably drawn in 2003.

Speaking of Ace... this is NOT him lol. This is an early version of Bengal, and my goodness, he may have helped inspire Ace. I actually don't remember him ever looking this Ace-y at any point. He later dropped the headband and ended up with shaggy black hair instead. I forgot he was initially an archer (apparently also so was Tier).

Some Tier expression/pose sketches. He's such a baby here lol - though he is only 15. He finds the sword and goes through all the curse stuff, finally losing his life at 17 (which is why Ace starts having problems with the curse when he showed up in ToAG - he's 17 too...). He barely gets a chance to grow that iconic goatee... heh.

Proof I had good handwriting at one point :D I had written out whatever I originally wrote for Tier in my notebook with the drawings.

HERE HE IS! Knee and elbow pads and weird gloves and all, lol. I just realised he doesn't have a headband though! I guess he steals it from Bengal 😂 Anyway he was just supposed to be a random side character in the Elemental Guardians fanfic and he literally took over, so I'm grateful to him in any form haha.

Another early drawing, he now has his signature headband. He does loose the fancy boots and the spiky hair in the (then) final design. Still a wirey little kid tho!

And then we had THE TRIO! Despite Mioko being around longer than everybody in this article, he hadn't made the jump over yet. I originally paired Ace with Athena and Dorian, a blue-haired warrior that I'm not sure had any sort of backstory or reason why he had blue hair. The date on the back was 2004, so I was in my final months of high school here (eep, lol I told you some of this stuff was old and somewhat embarrassing haha). But at least Ace has officially lost the knee and shoulder pads.

By 2005, Mioko and Raeya join the crew (and Allan haha). I was not good at different body shapes or skin tones, so everyone looks the same. In my brain, Raeya was always much paler and Dorian more tan, but I was not yet at a point to convey it well. Still, this picture brought back some memories as the first official group shot.

Before I really knew what was going on in Ace's story, I made these little "character cards" and I kinda laughed. Ace's power is mind-reading? Wow, lol. I'm glad I opted for him to just be a normal kid (...well, you know, "normal" lol)

....So Athena was originally based on the Jill character from the Elemental Guardians. Jill could initially turn into fire-type Pokemon, and later controlled fire when I dropped the Pokemon part and focused on the elements only. It's fun because, as I know I've mentioned before, Gemini ended up taking back the fire control powers and is a "Jill character" so that whole arc came back full circle - and I'm glad Athena ended up becoming her own person after all.

Look at me trying to make Dorian all warrior-y with his pose :D Other than drawing him more stocky these days, he really hasn't changed all that much.

Mioko has also changed very little, even since his days in the Elemental Guardians. How he gets his powers has changed over the years. But I'm noticing I don't remember assigning most of the instruments listed here. When I wrote my little "Wildcard" stories Mioko was not the drummer, so I'm not sure where I came up with these at this point.

Raeya's stayed pretty consistent as well. She's always been a shapeshifter, too. I had some thing with the scars on her face signalling a family lineage or something weird but I've cut that out.

Before I got too far in Ace's story, I somehow got the idea to merge his backstory with Tier and Bengal's story. The first book called "Ace of Spades" was actually going to be mostly about Tier and Bengal meeing a young Ace already on the streets begging and gambling (and stealing) because his mom sorta kinda disowns him to focus on her 'profession.'  Due to the curse's scar (and his history with Aurora) Tier knows Ace is his son and finally reveals this to the previously-fatherless kid towards the end of the story. The climax is the 2 adults being sent to kill a dragon for bounty with Ace in tow, and Tier ends up defeating the dragon to protect Ace, but the curse finally takes his life before Ace is able to have any time with his dad.

I had drawn the entire thing in a big bound sketchbook (that's going to be fun to scan...oof) - along with book 2, which is the story we're more familiar with (Ace meets friends and has to break the curse now affecting him), but I drew this page later than them both maybe as a proof of concept or something. 

Either way, this Tier/Ace plot was first relegated to a flashback so book 1 could actually focus on Ace and the sword and not his dad, but now I've changed Ace's backstory enough that now he doesn't even get to meet his dad...

More to come :)

"Emerging Sapphyre" - 2013?

This was such a cool pose and stule and how it actually looked like she was in and out of the water and it just never got done... 

"Out of My League" - 2013?

Before this was a digital drawing with Luis and Sapphyre... it was colored pencil and pen with Christopher and Sapphyre :D It's based on a song.... ironically that I had heard while at the wedding in Christoval (where I came up with the Gemini Archives prophecy lol). It was the song somebody walked down and they were playing it while we were setting up the video equipment, and I loved the beautiful simplicity. It fit these 2 since there were some water references... but it fits Luis and Sapphyre WAY better. Now that I've drawn it with them, this one is almost like seeing a photo of you and your ex 😂

"Sapphyre Sticky Note Sketch" - 2013?

I'm assuming this was around the time of the other sticky note sketches. It came out pretty cool.

"Clothes of Sand" - August 2014

Here's the original pencil attempt at this song! There's some really cool bits of this; I love how I did the sand almost more consuming her, and doing it with pencil and erasing it out looks really cool. But her face is meh, and the pose and perspective is OK (also I think I was just going for texture but Sapphyre doesn't have scales)... but I had to start somewhere! This one walked so the one I drew almost exactly 12 years later could run 😆

"Gem of the Sea" - November 2014

I'm not sure what I was going for with this one, but it's really cool and almsot reminds me of an art card or something like that. Could definitely be digitized and take advantage of the sharp lines and shapes and "gradients!"

"Lost in the Wild, Wild Sea" - May 2015

Still one of my favorite drawings of Sapphyre (and you can't even see her face haha) It's just such a cool pose and neat lighting. I have a digital version of this one already so I knew I had a good thing when I drew it, heh.

"Heart to Heart" - April 2017

Getting closer to Sapphyre's 'official' story with a scene where she talks to Ma'Neva about fitting in. I also ended up drawing this digitally later, and forgot it was pencil first.