Trial by Comics Character Design Contest Entry

There's going to be a bit of copy paste in this post fair warning, because I don't want to have to ask people to jump through three different posts.

So this guy is actually a character from Past Away whose design I never got to. I thought he'd be good for this contest because I've already got his whole backstory though up.

His name is Adze. That's not his real name, but it's what he goes by. I took this from some random site I found

"The Adze is a vampire in the legends of the Ewe people of Ghana and Togo. It takes the form of a firefly, but if you capture one, it will revert to human appearance. This can be dangerous in itself, because in its human form the adze may attack and eat your organs, but it can be defeated. However, in the insect form, the adze will suck your blood while you sleep and spread disease, which is a possible explanation for malarial outbreaks. The victim of an adze becomes a witch who is possessed by the adze’s spirit."

Anyway, have you guys ever seen the movie "Beasts of No Nation"? You should if you haven't. It's good, but depressing. Anyway it's about child soldiers, I forget what country they were in, but yea, somewhere in Africa. When I was watching that movie, as what looked like 10-14 year olds killing etc. I thought, what would these kids grow up to be?

Well that's what happened to Adze. Past Away takes place about 150 years in the future. So I imagined there was some sort of war where he was from, and he grew up in some army from the time he was a young boy. But then his side lost and he escaped to America. I liked the name Azde because it's a monster that can change forms and create "witches" possessed by the adze spirit. His role in my story was going to be sort of like the main competitor for the power of the group for the main character. Because of his background he's unflinching in life or death situations, but his ruthlessness is scary for the group, on the other hand it is the apocalypse soooo..

When he got to America he made pretty short work of the local gang bosses since he was not only ruthless, but also had a lot of real military experience. He took over large segments of underground activity and has been slowly amassing an empire for several years.

First Design Pass

He ended up getting caught on Halloween(when the zombie breakout happens) and that's when the other characters in the story come into contact with him. They find him as the sole survivor in a patty wagon, chained up.(Did he kill the guards or did zombies???) They are faced with a dilemma because they don't know him and only know he's a criminal, but leaving him chained during a zombie apocalypse is basically killing him. So they set him free using a dead guards keys, or whatever works as keys in the future.

He's actually not an evil character and ends up being a bit of an anti-hero. He's...I guess you could say viciously pragmatic. He's the type of person you actually don't mind having on your side when the world is ending.

I also made a little gif showing some of the coloring process

Well that was a fun little project. Good luck to all the other peeps in the contest and thanks @
kommienezuspadt for throwing it.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments, and of course thanks for looking!