Shelby Bly

Characters character, concept art, Shelby Bly 0

Click on image above to view full size.

Character Synopsis

Shelby is a twenty-something university student who plans to spend her summer break on an archaeological dig with her father, Dr. Robert Bly, to catch up on lost time. Although her father was once an adventurous globetrotting archaeologist, Shelby has no wish to follow in his footsteps and is instead studying to be a simple historian. Her the goal is to one day work in a temperature-controlled museum studying artifacts found by the more adventurous sorts. Her over-protective father supports this rather than encouraging her to follow in his danger-ridden footsteps. Shelby’s world is about to be turned upside-down when shadows from her father’s past suddenly re-emerge.

With the aid of her friends Maia Avanti and Joel Rio, Shelby will attempt to become an adventurer to unravel the mysteries of both the mythical Vril and the past she thought she knew. Although she finds the prospect of adventuring to be exciting after her previously sheltered life, the reality may be too difficult to accept and to survive.

Concept Notes

Concept Notes
Behind the Scenes

Here is the brand new concept of Shelby Bly with her brand new ‘do. I had to change her hair model after finding, much to my absolute horror, that the previous model had an unfixable error on the back of the model (why did I wait so long to render Shelby’s back since I needed to fix her backpack at some point anyway?!?!) Well, this model has far more dynamic movement morphs so maybe it will be better in the end. I hope so. It means a lot more work for me right now in that everything I’ve made so far will have to be re-updated. SIGH My work is never done. Oh well, keeps me out of trouble. I also fixed Shelby’s aforementioned backpack and updated several other materials. I think, notice the emphasis on think, that this is the final concept. A few more test renders and such should prove whether or not that is the case.

Shelby Bly was the first character I came up with when I first brainstormed the ideas for this graphic novel. The hardest part of developing her character (besides finding a good/perfect hair model) was coming up with her name. I decided early on to name her after some famous female adventurer. That’s when I came across the awesome story of Nellie Bly. If you have never heard of her, I highly suggest you look her up or at least click on that Wikipedia link. I finally had the perfect surname for my adventurer that was both short, easy to spell, and had an awesome backstory. The name “Shelby” came from my love for my Ford Mustang and because I wanted something no more than two syllables.

As for her looks, Shelby has always been a blue-eyed blonde with realistic proportions. The exact sculpt of her face changed as often as my mood and I had the damndest time choosing the perfect hair model for her. She also had, almost from the beginning, a jungle green shirt and I’m not sure why that is.

Below you will see some of the alternate outfits and other variations of this character that will be needed for the graphic novel. In the novel, the characters change their clothes as needed like normal people rather than wearing the same outfit in every scene. Some of the following alternate outfits are finalized concepts but others I am still working on so these may be subject to change. Click an image below to zoom in.