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At one point I was going to do the comic all on my own.  I’m unashamed of the fact that I love illustrator. The whole thing woulda been in vector and I would have spent FOREVER. (edit: the whole thing IS in vector, I meant to say I woulda pen-tooled everything) This is a concept for Charlotte. CAN YOU IMAGINE TBG LIKE THIS?

But Chris insisted on being the artist. I’m glad he won that argument. He brings something to the table that I never could. Also, he’s a pretty cool guy to work with.

Contrast this with the way Charlotte ended up. She’s way better now.

I (Ginger) had a brief skirmish with D&D 3.5 in 2006. All of the players were very new to it and so we didn’t make it past the tavern without straight up orders from the DM (who himself was quite experienced). It went up into a ball of flame and I don’t even remember what my character was anymore.

In 2008 another group formed. DM’s choice: d20 Modern. At the time I wanted to play a wizard so I wasn’t jazzed. I also didn’t understand the mechanics of D&D in general, so I made up some wacky fundraiser lady. I didn’t understand how much no-talky was involved in this particular campaign though so she ended up being quite pointless.

Fortunately my DM allowed me to swap characters. I decided to make a character that would fill the gaps in our current party. Our party was fairly trigger happy but we had no real melee powerhouses.  We needed someone that would really fly off the handle to keep things interesting. As I listed off everything our party was not, that goofy bounty hunter Chris and I had kicked around for years kept popping up.

Chris and I wrote a short story to figure out how this guy would work in that campaign. We came to the realization that this lil’ guy was a lot of fun to write.

I found that he was TONS OF FUN to play.

“We should make a comic.”

-Gin

We began to refine our story. Sam developed a history and emotions. His old character design wasn’t conveying what he’d grown into.

Larger, more expressive orbs replaced the squinty eyes. The tall, lanky build was swapped for a shorter, well-muscled frame. Sam now favored t-shirts, dress shirts and ties over sweaters.

Creating Sam’s look also helped define the style of the comic. We experimented with more exaggerated features. I’m more comfortable drawing that style, but we felt it didn’t work for the tone of the story. Eventually we landed on a cartoony but somewhat more naturalistic style.   

The process of designing Sam Grant is a reflection of the The Brothers Grantdevelopment as a whole. There’s been a lot of trial and a enough error to fill a cargo ship, but we’ve learned a lot through that. We hope the result is a story and characters you will care about.

New story starts July 26th. See you there. 

Sam started life as the neighbor of a vodka swilling teddy bear pyromaniac. Proto-Sam (he hadn’t earned a name) was some sort of thug/antihero. At this point I was thinking Clint Eastwood, but some of these drawings remind me ofDuke Togo. “Sam” had no personality beyond his fists and a face carved from granite. Little of proto-Sam survives beyond his eyebrows. They are capable of withstanding a direct nuclear strike.

-Chris 

Character Design: Sam Grant

The next few posts will center on the Sam’s character design. The idea of Sam started before Ginger and I were married. He evolved from a side character in an aborted webcomic to the anchor of a much more ambitious story.

As Sam gained a history, personality and depth, his visual representation matured. Nine years of sketchbooks are littered with dozens of takes on the character, but I’ve broken them down into three distinct stages of development I’ll share over the next week or two. Enjoy! 

-Chris