The Eighth Evil Ex…Eight Times

Deviant Art started a Scott Pilgrim contest. The notion was really simple: create the 8th evil ex. So when I say simple, I mean AWESOME. I was really pumped for the idea so I came out of my sketching frenzy with 8 different entries. None of them look great, and I can’t just blame the scanner (but yeah, that scanner leaves a lot to be desired). Good or bad, these were fun so quality is getting wavered. What follows are the entries and the text I submitted with them.

Name: Sigurd Smith

Viking or Just-Really-Liked-How-To-Train-Your-Dragon

Status: Hates You and You Love Him For It

Bio: His and Ramona’s relationship was very one-sided. He met her at the height of her battle hammer wielding days and thought that she was the bees knees. He adopted an ax to emulate her coolness, but Ramona recognized the move of desperation for what it was and cut if off. He tries to keep a cool exterior, but he still carries a torch for her.

Dah Breakdown:

+Grease stain next to his knee

+The proportion of his legs

– He’s not as stylized as he could be. He’s a little longer than most Scott Pilgrim characters and has more hesitant lines. With a little more weight of the line and steadiness of hands I could help the sketch a lot.

Name: Ralph Daring

Magician For Hire

Status: Has 3 Cats

Bio:When dating Ramona led to more fighting than he was used to Ralph decided to take his aptitude for sleight of hand to a new level. While trying to be a badass for Ramona he uncovered that magically he would only ever excel as a White Mage. Ramona breaking up with him probably had more to do with his ignoring her to practice fighting magic, but he blames his inability to do nothing more than some revive spells and conjure adorable bunnies.

Dah Breakdown:

+ I think that he’s one of the most successful characters of all. He looks like he might fit in an SP book, his inking isn’t terrible, his character comes through in a fantastic expression and the ideas execution is sweet.

+ He magics bunnies from nothing!

– There are things wrong with him, but I’m satisfied enough not to have to nitpick.

Hey! I distinctly remember seeing bunnies drawn by Bryan Lee O’Malley. I thought that I saw them in one of the dream sequences in Vol. 4 but I cannot find it. Anyone have any idea where they are?

Name: Patty O’Neill

Subspace Safety Officer

Status: Not Irish

Bio: Patty and Ramona had a relationship of convenience. You don’t meet many people in Subspace, so Patty was a breath of fresh air. Ramona thought Patty’s constant indifference was endearing, until she understood that he was indifferent to her too. When she caught Patty away from his safety post and in someone else’s dream doing….well, it was over.

Dah Breakdown:

+ I really like the idea for this one. Most of the ideas are fun and work with SP but only because they’re explotations of some prexisting geeky trope. This on the other hand could only work in the SP universe and that uniquness is something that I’m really happy with.

– I think that the dead-to-the-world stance works, there’s just something that I’m not happy about with it. It might be that the line work isn’t that strong, or that they eyes are too close together, I’m not sure.

-The one jacket side with his hand is a little too long to be correct. Things like that bug me.

Name: Rocco Wright

Monster Trainer

Status: Has Got to Catch Them All

Bio: I’m pretty sure that Rocco wasn’t even sure that Ramona was interested in him. Completely surrounded by cute animals, Ramona was swayed by their adorableness and followed Rocco around. After a successful battle one of Rocco’s monsters leveled up and transformed into a giant monster. When it tried to eat Ramona she decided that it was time to bail. To this day it is not known if Rocco knows any of this happened. He has currently started a new game and is traveling with six new creature companions.

It can not be confirmed, but it does seem that one of these is, in fact, just a rock.

Dah Breakdown:

+ The idea. I was looking for something that was a classic video game homage and something I was interested in. My biggest video game loves are FF and Pokemon, so when this idea floated through my brian I was pretty pumped.

– I really like the six monsters that are paired with Rocco (ONE IS A SNAIL SHARK) but I didn’t even try to make them in an SP style.

-/+ Rocco looks a lot like Scott. It makes sense, he has Scott’s wide-eyed enthusiasm and a rivaling disregard for his surroundings. I had the opportunity to alter it, but it felt right so I left it unchanged.

Name: Jebidiah Jonesy

Hobo

Status: Nicknamed “Patches” After an Interesting Birthmark

Bio: Originally a millionaire businessman, but squandered his money buying Romano lavish gifts she did not care for. Now spends his time guarding his valued street knick-knacks (they have no actual value) with a specialized fighting style: Ho Bofu. He also has control over an army of zombies.

Dah Breakdown:

+ I was blank on ideas so I got a couple from my friend Max. This is his first.

– I like the idea, but not the picture so much. That probably comes from hobos not being my favorite thing to draw and the purple of the paper. I was really hard in blue line and in pencil to see what I was doing.

– The one knee is way too tall for the body. That or Jonesy has one leg super shorter than the other.

Name: Randall Redford

Physical Educator

Status: He Likes Short Shorts

Bio: Randall was in the same year as Ramona at the University of Carolina in the Sky. She was his first serious girlfriend and that made Randall very clingy. When overnight Randall was placed first string on the UCS Dodgeball team, inherited money from a dead relative, and joined a fraternity, he went from being very dependent on Ramona to kind of a dick. Randall could not have a girl dump him because he would lose some of the rep he had earned the day previous, so even now if you ask him he’ll tell you, “Yeah, we’re just on a bit of a break, Brah”.

Dah Breakdown:

+ Max idea #2.

+ I just really like how this one turned out. He had to be the quickest one that I did, had the best expression, and just came together without a problem.

– I’m not sure how great the hands are around the dodgeballs. Then again, it might be the flames that I have to work on.

Name: ?

A Dinosaur?

Status: Mysteriously Awkward

Bio: Reports indicate that this being may once have been a human male. Contact has not been successful to date. Potentially it has eaten all that have attempted communication. May enjoy The Flash.

Dah Breakdown:

+ It’s a dinosaur!

+ It’s still a dinosaur!

+ It is just so very awkward.

+/- I think this is what an anthropomorphic dinosaur might look like if drawn by Bryan Lee O’Malley?

+ I know that this entire character might be a huge turn off for some passersby, but I’m still reveling in the discomfort that I hope he exudes.

Name: Wiliker Rod

Cowboy

Status: Personally has met the Good and the Bad, but hasn’t been acquainted with Ugly yet.

Bio: Ramona and Wiliker met on one of Ramona’s semester breaks from The University of Carolina in the Sky. Though raucous fun at first, chaffed legs from bull riding and repeated attempts from Wiliker to brand her had Ramona looking forward to the end of the vacation and the end of the relationship. To date he still has the most unique first name of all of her boyfriends.

Dah Breakdown:

– I’m not in love with the face. When I started looking at other profile pictures throughout the books I realized that the eyes were farther from the nose than I had illustrated here.

+ The bull. I’m pretty confident when I draw animals, but odd perspectives will always throw me for a loop. I thought the bent head of the bull would be much harder than it was.

– Oh the feet! Everything in the sketch was pretty figured out but I never did resolve the feet. By the time that I saw that I was already using the inking brush. I decided that instead of trying to tighten the sketch I would just go for it. NEVER JUST GO FOR IT. Take the time, finish the sketch. Otherwise you end up with feet that are ½ of the head’s size.