This was a commission done for R3 Member Zhanzero, the character being another videogame babe, Bastila Shan, from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. What a blast this one was! The character wears this tooled and textured leather armor kit, and in working out how to render it (not being a textrure renderer in my usual style) we discovered that Roland actually always interpreted it, while gaming, as tracery or gilding, while I saw it from the image refs as being a worn leather finish. So, in the color presentation, I did a version where I worked out a fine orange gilded tracery pattern, complete with secret TRDL easter eggs hidden within. Also, though I continue to draw sub-par lightsabers next to the rad raytraced intensity of the CGI refs, I thought she had pretty cool hair, with those strands across the forehead…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was a commission for Zanzhero, that fine fellow, an accomplished inker in his own right (fan in excess of my ability, certainly!) and fellow Hitchy enjoyer. Roland digs on the video game babes! This one is Rikku, his favorite character from Final Fantasy, who was,i thought, a pretty interesting character design. I love drawing Japanese characters from animation and game franchises because the designers strike with unusual or unexpected color, composition and pattern choices that tend to intrigue me. It’s just so DIFFERENT from what i’d expect to do myself, so drawing them involves really studying the character model sheets or refs, where available, to get a sense of what’s going on. This was no exception. I had fun trying to work out the detail in the vest, the arm armor plate and the bracer, etc. I also think this was one of my better cute girl faces… anyway, I did two versions, one with a dusty storm background and one with blue sky, and the latter was the client selection.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was a piece commissioned for R3 General IronLung’s Aids Ride preparation celebration, by R3 vet Musical Druid. The challenge was simply to draw Lung crossing the finish line in victory. What an awesome commission subject! Now, the Aids Ride is not a race, but I went ahead and treated it as such here, adding an impossibly fast crest over an impossibly high climb, recognizing Lung’s recent victories over hill climbing on his fixed gear. Since he’s riding one of my bikes in the Aids Ride, Toro, I wanted to draw him on his own, so here he’s on his fixed gear, Schwixie, which I’ve tried to render faithfully. I got most of the details right. I missed a kickstand mount brazed to the frame behind the cranks. You’ll note the bike brand, i hope. I’ve faithfully recreated his preferred riding gear, including clip in shoes, camo pants (causing the Aids Ride people to sweat) and his new Team Lope riding jersey, which was a surprise reveal for him last night, when I presented MD’s piece to him. He’s got a Camelbak on, however, it’s stuffed with bacon, because, well, of course it is. The crowd might look familiar. Anyway, some edits to be done include touching up the bike and adding his sleeve, which i forgot to digitally incorporate!

Good luck to one Lung on his ride, and let he be immortalizeds forever here!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Dr. Go Kuniyoshi is considered by many in to be the father of the posthuman development concept, responsible for much of the technique and methodology used in the early posthuman programs.

Art and Origin: Thom Chiaramonte

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Name: Dr. Go Kuniyoshi
Affiliation: Covert Star

Attributes:

Melee: 5
Reflex: 10
Muscle: 5
Vigor: 5
Acumen: 50
Observation: 40
Will: 15

Life: 25
Influence: 105

Abilities: N/A

Origin:

Very little is officially known about the majority of Dr. Go Kuniyoshi’s life. His official records were redacted sometime prior to his publicly acknowledged involvement with the Japanese defense team Covert Star, and all prior records of his public service, government employment and ven university affiliation were purged by the Japanese government. It is believed by some that his well-known reputation as the father of the posthuman development movement is, in fact, more accurate than generally understood by the posthuman development community, as highly classified intelligence recovered from the wreckage of an Arges research vessel in the Antarctic revealed records suggesting his involvement in posthuman experiments that far predate the earliest known posthuman programs on record. Some believe he single-handedly created the earliest chemical and nonotechnological hybrid treatments that led to early physiological optimization courses, though the vast majority of records from the period have been lost, and most of his work in the later periods of posthuman history have involved either confidential project work for private corporate supernormal programs, or the best known of his work, the development of the Covert Star Initiative for the japanese government. Despite his name and credentials, Dr. Go Kuniyoshi is of unknown ethnic background and age, and has never given public interviews about his history or past work, only the very rare lecture on posthuman methodology breakthroughs given at three conventions held in Switzerland, Belgium and Tokyo, … Read on for more awesome…

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pbr seen!

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This is a piece done for the R3 Jam, the subject being Warren Worthington III, known as Arcangel.

Since, in the 90s, Warren was mutated into one of Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen, with the intent of destroying homo sapiens and enslaving homo superior, and this got a spiffy, if garishly colored, costume design courtesy of (I think) Walt Simonson (?) I thought I’d play up that angle, as it was the first time he was referred to as ‘Arcangel’. I darkened the color palette and simplified the wings. The idea here is that they won, first of all, and that Arcangel is the ruler of wherever the hell, let’s say North America. He doesn’t need to sprout wings to fly, since they are entirely mechanical and he just hovers and flies around however he wants, in this form, anyway. So, to give him a regal and creepy appearance, I have him forming basically a long cloak with the wing structure. Plus, a look back? From a Horseman? Not good.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Alchera is the New Zealand/ Australian regional defense team.

Concept, Design: Thom Chiaramonte and Joao Marques
Illustration: Joao Marques

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Alchera

Base of Operations: Sydney
National Affiliation: Australia, New Zealand

Leaders: Wallaby and Tarawera
Members: Karbon Kate
The Player
Lyge
Tsunami
Tangkuinya

Developed as a regional defense team, Alchera was the product of the larger Alcheran Initiative, a joint Australian/ New Zealand posthuman development program covertly funded by the American Government, in order to fight the specter of global posthuman terrorism. The team was immensely popular abroad, though divisive at home, being comprised of members that represented disparate social and ethnic classes in both countries. Further, the public relationship between team leaders Wallaby, a white Australian, and Tarawera, a Maori activist, would lead to criticism from the conservative parties in both governments, and instigate an uprising of ethnic clashes in the years that followed. Despite their difficult roles in their home region, when appearing in other parts of the world as part of rescue operations, or pursuing posthuman criminal groups, Alchera were met with respect and adulation by the international community.

:::

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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1. TRDL Character Factory, No. 58: Tsunami
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This is a piece done for the R3 Jam, the subject being Lex Luthor.

A concept piece.
The year is 1953.
A young, brilliant weapons designer, Lex Luthor, one of the principal architects of the post-war military industrial complex and Cold War alarmists, identifies the imminent future threat of a culturally-embraced, seemingly all-powerful alien entity active in the West without government controls. Operating a heavily-modified prototype deep-sea diving mechanism, and employing a flachette dispersal system equipped with shards of ore believed to be sourced from the alien’s own homeworld, and acting while the alien is relatively inexperienced in the use of his abilities and unaware of his limitations, and far too trusting of his civilian fellows, drags the Man of Steel to the depths of the ocean, beyond the reach of the ultra-violet radiation on which the alien is sustained. Weakened by Kryptonite deposits in the protective paint on the mechanism, the alien is unable to break free from Luthor’s grasp, and is injected in the orifices of the skull by high-velocity Kryptonite fragments, until dead.

Luthor is rewarded for his efforts in protecting the free world, with exclusive government contracts and forms a private defense militia to assist the American government with policing, security and operations needs domestically and abroad in the decades to come. In memory of the incident, the company is named Black Water. Luthor dies from radiation poisoning three years after the alien, and is unable to enjoy the spoils of his work.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Blackguard is a supergang frequently employed by South American and Caribbean drug cartels.

Concept, Design: Thom Chiaramonte and Joao Marques
Illustration: Joao Marques

:::

Blackguard

Base of Operations: Miami
Affiliation: Pan-American Drug Cartels

Leader: Backbone
Members: Midas
Rudeboy
Bombardier
Mist
Praetor

Blackguard began its career as posthuman criminal enforcers as a Confrontation Team developed to provide a conflict against which the Liberty Group could avail, in a botched attempt by the American Government to foment support for American security policy in Central and South America. It didn’t take long before Blackguard were employed by the very drug cartels the United States had hoped to scare by using the pretense of a posthuman criminal group active in the region as an excuse to send the Liberty Group across the border to administer American foreign policy under cover of defending liberty. Employed by the underworld network of loosely organized smugglers, gun runners, drug traffickers and mob enforcers, Blackguard had the opposite effect than the PPD had anticipated, luring the Liberty Group, and others, away from major criminal activity in the Gulf, and becoming folk heroes to much of Central and South America. They would frequently return to American soil, making Miami their base of operations, influencing negative public opinion regarding national posthuman defense, worshipped by the dangerous urban gang youth that populated the seaside communities, and continued to be a thorn in the side of the PPD until the era of unchecked posthuman conflict would bring war to the streets, from South Beach to the shores of Cuba.

:::

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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The Fingers of Hirabah are a sensationalist terrorist supergang who claim to be religious extremists but are actually secular mercenaries.

Concept, Design: Thom Chiaramonte and Joao Marques
Illustration: Joao Marques

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The Fingers of Hirabah

Base of Operations: Bangkok
Affiliation: South-East Asian Criminal Collective

Leader: Bangkok Bill
Members: Nadir
The Aksehiran
Humble
Ionisette

The Fingers of Hirabah were easily the most feared posthuman terrorists in history. Despite their name and affectation, they were never actually attached to any fundamentalist extremist agenda, but rather used the international community’s fears of Eastern terrorism in the posthuman age, as a means to further destabilize and influence their enemies, foes and clients alike. In reality, the Fingers of Hirabah were shrewd businesspeople, cultivating an aura of danger and unpredictable violence, while covertly conducting some of the most damaging covert actions against enemy nations, private industry and political leaders in all of South-East Asia. Their image was as fabricated as their early Western Confrontation Team contemporaries, but unlike those in the West, the Fingers of Hirabah were always a sadistic, lethal organization.

:::

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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