RoMi Sketchdump

Early last year, at the suggestion of the good people at 910CMX, I decided to do a couple sketchdumps to sharpen my skills and get myself motivated and inspired. It paid off, of course, because, well... Let's face it, the early half of 2011 was the more productive one for me, art-wise. So as a tribute to that success, I've decided to post a couple of those sketchdumps here, for those of you who haven't seen 'em yet.

After sitting on my mental bench all spring, RoMi banged on the door of my right brain again and demanded to be drawn a second time (okay, I'm embellishing that story - she's not an aggressive person at all), hence this kinda-sorta-character study thingy.

If you recognize the head(s)-to-thigh pose on the right, good job. That sketch did eventually turn into "So Gross." However, it was originally intended to be her reaction to anyone trying to hug her. Namely, a very loud dual-scream that'll have you begging to have your ears sewn shut. I had sketched Sekkai (~Sekkai-Strife) as the person doing the hugging, but then I realized that the pose resulted in her head cozying right up to RoMi's... umm... tracts of land. >///>; While this would have been totally in-character for Sekkai, the pose itself ended up looking awkward, so I erased her.

Being a professional designer of clothing and jewelery comes with the perk of leaving your mark on everything you create. In RoMi's case, that mark is the swirly design you see on the upper right. It's meant to resemble two beings connected to each other (get it?), and it shows up on everything she makes, including the adventuring knife on the left. Can you spot RoMi's symbol in my two finished drawings of her?

The remaining two poses that didn't become full drawings are meant to tap into the ambiguity of RoMi's identity: Is she one person or two? When speaking, she'll refer to herself with singular pronouns 95% of the time, but she feels uncomfortable calling her heads "heads," as this would imply a demotion of the twins from the status of "people" to the status of "body parts." In those cases, she'd rather use the plural pronoun "we" or refer to her non-speaking head as "my sister." (There are some exceptions, like when she's suffering from a cranial injury or ailment: "My heads hurt.") She also talks to herself when she's alone, lost in thought, or under extreme stress. She can even wear different facial expressions, provided they're not too different. (The top sketch has Ro showing embarrassment and Mi showing annoyance, both of which involve blushing.) As for the pose on the lower left, I imagined this as part of a scene where RoMi is bouncing ideas off of a customer. Most of the time, Ro is the speaker of the two "sisters," so when Mi speaks, you can bet that what she has to say is very important... so important that even Ro turns to watch.

RoMi is (C)