Tarynn the Aloes Elf

Tarynn
Species: Elf of the Aloes Tribe
Gender: Female
Age: 57
Height: 97’ 2”
Hair: Dull pale green
Eyes: Aquamarine
Skin Color: Pale, with a slight green discolouration on her back where she sleeps on a bed of moss
Other characteristics: Wears a two piece with a sarong and a necklace. Wavy, damaged hair, with a varying number of ahoge at the front. Ears are stubby and more swept back than is typical for an elf

I've written a full bio for her, but I tend to find the wall of text that is so very typical for posting new characters a little intimidating - hence I'm going to break it up over a number of posts, with some more comics and pictures to spice it up a little! Rest assured: I will explain why I chose that comic for her first appearance. But for now...

Cue the music!

You can post it all, no big. To be fair, I think people who can't read a long bio in one sitting aren't the folks you'll want giving you critique anyway.

AisuKaiko wrote:

You can post it all, no big. To be fair, I think people who can't read a long bio in one sitting aren't the folks you'll want giving you critique anyway.

A very valid point! However, I think I may still opt to do it this way. Hopefully it'll help people feel like they're getting to 'know' the character over time like you would do with a real person, rather than the somewhat alien process of finding out everything at once. With that in mind, here's her...

Background

Tarynn was born to a perfectly normal elven family living in the Northern part of Prayaga Island. The youngest of four, and the only girl, Tarynn was often unable or unwilling to participate in her elder brothers’ rowdy activities and so became accustomed to occupying herself. She instead focused on exploring the strange world that is Prayaga Island, drawing the beautiful gardenesque scenery and describing it through poetry.

This idyllic childhood was interrupted soon after Tarynn’s 19th birthday. While venturing into some of the more remote parts of the island’s natural walkways she came across a young and inexperienced human mage. Being understandably trigger-happy and jumpy, he tried to defend himself with a smorgasbord of magical attacks and curses. Due to his inexperience only one curse actually stuck, and even then it only had a partial effect: essentially draining Tarynn’s supply of good fortune, or ‘luck’.

From then on Tarynn’s presence brought nothing but misfortune to those around her. The great and seemingly unbreakable vine walkways that crisscross the island would sometimes snap without warning when she crossed, plunging her and anyone else on board towards the lethal ground. Plagues of Boom Bees infested the beautiful gardens of their village whenever she walked through them, and attacks from Tonorions became commonplace.

After much deliberation the elders, with great regret, decided to 'temporarily' banish Tarynn from the island until the curse could be lifted. As a sign that this was not the end, her mother tearfully gave Tarynn her favourite scintilla necklace, which she now always wears. Tarynn drifted from place to place, finding no welcome anywhere because of the bad luck she brought; finally settling in self-imposed exile on the border of the Great Rocky Fields, in the forest behind Milkadis Temple. She lives in a small cave set slightly above a floodplain.

If there's anything that doesn't work please let me know and I'll change it. Next time I'll give a deeper insight into her personality, and into how her past has shaped who she has become now. But for now, here's a sketch! (I really need to learn to colour)

Cheers

Tried a lot harder with this one, but fell off the fine line between detail and clutter. However, it proves a necessary point about her...

Personality:

Tarynn has an unstable character, swinging between two extremes – how she’d like to be seen by others and how she really is. In the rare presence of others she tries to act gracious, elegant and refined. She doesn’t try to be very chatty though. Think of how a butler/maid acts around their master – being very formal, dignified and polite, but not friendly in the typical sense. However, when she is stricken by one of her many blows of bad luck this ‘mask’ slips and she’ll let her true self loose. She becomes uncouth, waspish and pessimistic, bitterly cussing everyone and everything and cynically lamenting her circumstances. During some of these times she’ll forget about the presence of whoever may have been accompanying her, which may lead to them overhearing a couple of choice remarks about them! These traits, along with her influence of misfortune and self-imposed isolation, make her difficult to be friends with.

She is also extremely vain, and is riddled with insecurities about her own appearance. The biggest thorn in her side are her ears, which are swept back and stubby – a very unattractive feature for an elf. She is also notably poorly endowed, and so chooses to cover up the area in question with a top and matching sarong woven from limpobo leaves (these wear out quickly, forcing her to spend a lot of her time replacing them.) Although her face is well proportioned and pretty her thin plain body and cold eyes gives her an overall lack of sex appeal that keeps her at the level of an ‘acquired taste’.

Tarynn claims to ‘choose’ a life of solace so as not to inflict more misery on those around her – in reality she views it as a prison she can’t escape. Too late she realised that she had squandered her childhood spending time alone in the forest rather than spending it with friends. She longs to return home to her family and eagerly awaits the day the mages back on Prayaga Island discover a cure for her curse.

Two drawings to finish off this time: the first is the design brainstorm I first drew when creating the character, trying to think of little unique quirks for her. The second is... an abomination XD But I'm quite proud of the colouring job on it.



Next time: her abilities and hunting habits!

Looks great so far!
I'd drop the reference to the average chest size of humanoids in Felarya though, just 'less than average' would be fine. I mean yeah, most female characters in Felarya are portrayed as being rather generously endowed, but it's probably mostly either because their creators like big boobies (who doesn't? XD) or because most art depicts them as such regardless of intended breast-size. I don't think it's written anywhere that 'Felaryans have huge breasts' - just a thought.

(Love the little comic strips BTW... the look on the fairy in the last panel is hilarious! And the chibified grumpy Tarynn is really good too)

She's back, and her tactic to use Vivian's ploy to catch prey... actually seems to work, in a very roundabout way!

TheArchvile wrote:

I'd drop the reference to the average chest size of humanoids in Felarya though, just 'less than average' would be fine. I mean yeah, most female characters in Felarya are portrayed as being rather generously endowed, but it's probably mostly either because their creators like big boobies (who doesn't? XD) or because most art depicts them as such regardless of intended breast-size. I don't think it's written anywhere that 'Felaryans have huge breasts' - just a thought.

An excellent point - I've editted the post accordingly! The above 4koma doesn't seem to really reflect that, but then again she is trying to copy Vivian of all people. XP Thanks for the feedback! And now, finally, the last of the info prepared about Tarynn:

Abilities:

As she was banished from her village before she could be properly schooled in the art of magic Tarynn lacks the wizardry prowess that is so typical of her race. However, years of hard graft dealing with the bad luck her curse brings has honed her survival skills to peak performance (even if most of her tactics are really just variations on how to retreat.) She is extremely resourceful, and has developed a sort of sixth sense for danger; understandable given how many times she has been exposed to it.

She is also a fine artist, craftsman and seamstress. Having spent her childhood drawing the landscape of Prayaga Island she has an excellent eye for colour and detail; abilities she has been able to use in her crafting and weaving. Although her toolset for these hobbies is much less varied since her banishment her resourcefulness allows her to continue these interests even in her exile, if only during brief snatched moments of safety and well-being. She also dabbles in poetry when the mood takes her – generally producing quite sombre and depressing sonnets, which suit her throaty, raspy voice when singing them.

Hunting Habits:

As her bad luck negates most of her chances at getting food Tarynn has learned to live off a variety of vegetation supplementary to her normal prey. She has a particular weakness for Oosoon berries, and keeps a stash of them that she harvests from the nearby Misty Glade at the back of her cave. Citroise fruits are another favourite, almost to the point at which she smells like them. Ultimately though she tends to survive off of telltale fruit, stam roots and trulps. Despite these compromises she still doesn’t get enough food to fully sustain her, and as such is very thin.

When she does find prey, she’ll go to any lengths to catch it. One of her greatest assets in her arsenal is her persistence, leading her to give chase to prey normal lazier predators might not think is worth it. This repeated chasing, along many hastened retreats when presented with danger, has given her formidable speed. Having learned the hard way that playing with your food just increases the risk that you’ll lose it again she will swallow any creature small enough (except elves) as quickly as she can. The thought of treating any prey as anything other than her meal has never occurred to her – stories of some of the weirder friendships in Felarya confuse her. She generally tries to feed off the streams of adventurers trying their luck in Milkadis Temple.

That's all folks! I'll be working on more 4komas for a while yet, but I've got a bigger project in the pipeline that will hopefully give her some more depth beyond the gag character she has so far been.

Cheers