A little bit earlier this year (Oct 5th) I “kinda” celebrated my 2 years anniversary of the Drunken Fools. I never realized it until very recently. One thing that I realized is, how fast the characters have changed. Here’s the first articles of a series of 6 on the Evolution of the Characters. Enjoy!
| If you are new to the strip, you may not be aware of this but Billy was originally some sort of caricature of myself. Somehow, he still is. When I first started to draw back in September 2008, it was at work, on a boring call and I was just doodling some of my friends for fun. Here’s the very first sketch of Billy. This has never been posted here before! |  |
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Big bad chin, isn’t it? And the worse part of this is that my very first strip, I was using this version of the character! Ouch! |
| I ended up modifying the face a little, and this was the first official Billy, as posted on October 5th, 2008! Well, the original didn’t have that format, I first had the Newspaper format for my comic. I did reformat earlier this year to fit my website new design and the new format of my comic. |  |
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January 7th, 2009 Was the date of the first improvement for Billy. It came not too long after I bought a Tablet PC by HP, which was pressure sensitive. Gone were the experiments of: inking with a mouse, Inking Old school, transferring from old school inking to digital stuff in illustrator, etc… For now on, I would be using a Digital Tablet for inking! I took this opportunity to make some changes such as ears, eyes, nose, etc… |
| Chapter 3, February 8th, 2008. Billy is evolving again. And then came is now famous “Guinness” T-Shirt! Also, the first time I decided to complete the faces of my characters(see the forehead?), starting to plan ahead for coloring.
I really enjoy that storyline. It defines Billy as a poor guy who can’t deal with woman without having some “issues”… |
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August 2nd, 2009: Another big change into Billy’s background: He knows Stubby, Spike’s Guardian angel. Stubby was in fact Billy’s guardian angel before Stubby’s boss decided he had to take care of Spike, which was a more important case. Also, the look of Billy was improving as I was getting better (I think) at drawing. |
| Finally, the latest in Billy’s major evolution: 1- Color! 2- He got a girlfriend!  |
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And that’s it for Billy! Today, That’s pretty much how I draw him. The current storyline doesn’t define him too much, besides he may get some scars…
But as a Spoiler: Billy will evolve more in 2011 as he will be forced to play Hockey! Stay tuned!
Cheers!
 First time I drew Billy from head to toes. This was inked Old school |
 Transition period between the first version and 2nd version. Was trying to force myself at using stick figures |
 Billy today |
Billy playing hockey? He "may" look like this!
I love seeing how characters evolve, thanks for posting this! And why is it so dang hard drawing people playing hockey?!
Tks Sandy! I love when I see evolution in someone else’s work.
In my case, the exercise made me reflect on the character.
It’s really cool to see the evolution of this character. Your art has definitely gotten a lot crisper and sharper since you began, and the personal evolution of your characters in their daily lives has changed a lot as well. Thanks for sharing this with us, it was really cool to see.