Eris Tanner

I've been working on a new webcomic that I'll be launching in a few months, and in preparation I wanted to do a series of posts about the characters and the story I'll be creating. I wanted to start with Eris Tanner, who is the main character. She's an athletic space explorer who's been training for the journey of going into space and discovering new worlds ever since she was a kid.

For the most part I knew what I wanted Eris to look like since the beginning, but there were several different drafts of the story, one of which started off with Eris on a hospital satellite ship, she's wearing a kind of futuristic hospital gown in this first image.

I did a bunch of other sketches figuring out her overall look as well.

When I got the final draft of the story done, I was able to focus more on the outfit design and think about how future humans might dress, and how Eris in particular might dress. I went through a bunch of different ideas, here they are below.

Eventually I settled on a kind of bodysuit with a coat over it, and did a few variations on it.

The final lineup for the design is below

I wanted her final outfit to give her flexibility and also have the ability to function as a space suit or be worn under a larger space suit. The jacket also gave her the ability to conceal a weapon as well which would be useful in the action scenes.

Eris is an optimist, an idealist, and is a very kind person, however she's also a professional and can be serious minded when it's needed. She's also a natural leader and good at making new friends. She serves as the 2nd in command on the interstellar space ship she's been assigned to.