Things ain't the way they used to be, you'd better believe it. There was a time when the development of StarStrikers was like a series of cataclysmic events, and every few years I would have to wipe the slate clean and start over. First there was the original, very rough round the edges StarStrikers, which was then followed by the webcomic version, and afterwards the new novel incarnation. You could probably go back and divide those three periods down further and have more "micro-reboots". The basic premise has always remained the same though: Corinne, Lowenstein, Sylvia and Darryl living together in Morrigan Manor, fighting corporate alien raiders and having exciting, fun, somewhat light-hearted adventures. I used to make a lot of changes at once that would alter the Strikerverse significantly, like how the "Big Bang" that formed the universe was followed by the huge rock from space wiping out the dinosaurs. Nowadays there aren't cataclysmic changes, just lots of little ones. It's more like how all the continents of the Earth used to be stuck together, before gradually separating into the world we today inhabit.

Sylvia's mouth is sort of like a continent too, and not just because it's enormous. It's a good example of how I keep making small changes in the run-up to publication. In her original model sheet she had more of a "generic anime" look, with bigger, googly eyes and a tiny mouth. While I was struggling to design the red dress seen here, it dawned on me how constricting that face was, and that it wasn't as true to the character as it could have been. I thinned out the eyes and tried a wider, more expressive mouth. It seemed to work better, so much so that I actually went back and had a second pass at her original design. At twenty-three, Sylvia's a grown woman, not a little girl (seriously), so I don't think she needs such a tiny mouth. She's a big mouth, so let's give her a bigger mouth.

I needed two new outfits for Sylvia for the illustrations in StarStrikers: First Strike!, and the red dress was originally supposed to be for when she attends a formal party, but I felt that it maybe wasn't formal enough. So it became one that she wears later in the book while "on business", and the the third design replaced it for the party chapters. I've made a last minute change while I've been writing this so that her dress went to mint green from violet, which was too close to her standard outfit. Of course the internal illustrations in the book won't be in colour anyway, but let's get a little variety in there anyway, ja?

Workplace Corinne seems to have really thick lineart across her face, I don't know what the deal is with that. I might get a lot of mileage out of this getup since this is what she wears while filling in for her dad as the face of Moritech. Nightwear Corinne was a lot more fun, what with her half-awake expression and, yes, the mouse slippers. It also afforded me a rare opportunity to draw Corinne with her hair down and without the bow.

In a perfect world I've have been able to take as much time as I wanted with these designs and create individual poses for each of them. Also in a perfect world I've have had five Corinne designs and no Sylvias, and then I could have dubbed this model sheet "Five Faces of Dorkness". Oh well, maybe some other time.