This is basically a compilation of several drawings for a project I've been working on. The guidelines are to create a poster... and that's it. Everything else is up to myself. So I decided to go with one of the suggestions, that being a poster advertising a rock concert, which left me with the question: what rock group will I use? I ran a few groups through my head and then I thought of the Gorillaz, which made me want to create my own fictional band. (Not really so much a "toony" band, but just the idea of creating a band was appealing.) But the concept of a British band stuck and I decided to make them a sort of Euro band, having a mix of British and Irish members.

Most of the things about the characters you can read in the notes, but here's some other things that weren't necessarily listed.

I started reading the 'blue monday' graphic novels by Chynna Clugston a while back, which introduced me to the mod style (That, and the 'Teen Titans' cartoon with their villain Mad Mod. Actually, Chynna Clugston illustrated a recent issue of the comic 'Teen Titans Go!' with Mad Mod AND included characters from 'blue monday'. *squeels shamefully like a prepubescent girl*). That was the inspiration behind my first band member (the far left). I kept his outfit fairly simple, but I did throw in some things here and there, like some Beetles and Pink Floyd memorabilia (Yellow Submarine tie, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club patch, Dark Side Of The Moon button, ...).

The girl was influenced some by the 'blue monday' comics, too. Actually, I even included some patches on her jacket. (Clover is my favorite of the bunch.) There was also a little influence from Avril Lavigne, specifically with the bracelets/bracers and the tie. I'm a kinda proud of coming up with the amusing little shirt she's wearing.

Also recently, I watched 'Eurotrip' again. If you're familiar with it, it has Vinnie Jones who plays a lesser role in the movie as a Manchester United soccer (or football, if you wanna get technical) hooligan. He was a big influence on the conception of the third character. After doing some digging around I learned about an actual movie about these kind of guys, starring Elijah Woods called 'Green Street Hooligans.' I'm actually curious about watching it. (As a side note, if you haven't seen 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' and/or 'Snatch', GO RENT THEM IMMEDIATELY AND WATCH 'EM!)

The fourth, and final, character was a result of listening to too much Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys. Love their music and I definitely wanted a straight-up Irishman in the band. And some of you might've already recognized him from a previous drawing, seen here: [link] . I just took him and improved upon the design. I especially wanted to give him more tattoos, because he was influenced by Brad Pitt as Mickey in the movie 'Snatch'. ("I f*ckin' hate pikies." Man, I love that movie!) And as a matter of fact, the armband tattoo is basically just like the one I've been designing for my friend Blake. [link] Also, I think it's helped that I'm currently taking a class at college called Irish Life and Culture. Pretty interesting, so far.

As for the group portrait drawing around the bottom, that was the initial sketch of them so there's some differences between the designs. Just wanted to clarify that.

So I guess that's about it, then. Sorry if it went on a bit too long for your liking. I just love talking about original characters and the thought process that goes into them. Anyway, I hope you like them. I still haven't actually figured out a name for 'em, so if you have any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them.

-----EDIT-----
made the comment that I needed a Finnish metalhead in the group. I wasn't so sure about it at first, but the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. So here he is, the darker, brooding element of the Euro band. I had a few different inspirations with the conception of the character design. As soon as CubaNectie had said "Finnish" and "heavy metal" I instantly thought of Skwisgaar Skwigelf from the Cartoon Network Adult Swim show 'Metalocalypse'. (Technically he's Swedish I guess, but just a technicality. I'm not very keen on the cartoon itself. Much too violent for my taste, but I went and checked it out after a few people commented that the pessimist character I did a while back [link] looked like Nathan Explosion.) So there's a little of Skwisgaar in there, along with a bit of Ville Vallo (from the Finnish band, HIM) and Wayne Static (from Static-X... I love that beard ). Anyway, hope you like the addition.