Socialfist In The Making: Yuri Part 1

Yuri was the simpler character to design, at least at the beginning. At that time the team was all somewhat based off of famous superheroes in the Justice League (which still had a show at the time). Yuri was the Russian Superman. Literally when originally discussing designs with Adam, the first artist, the description was "Superman with a Russian hat." I suggested a beard and a pipe. The pipe would talk to Yuri in times of trouble. Adam suggested furry boots and big shiny teeth. In short: we had no idea how to design the character (or any character for that matter). I kept the design description for the short term artists (i.e. the people who never really did anything). Finally when it came to Iori, I had a plan.I sent Iori the following description:

"Yuri/Kaptain Kremlin - The leader of the group created in a government experiment. Tons of powers. He's essentially the generic superhero built like Superman, red, yellow and black tights with the hammer and sickle. Large beard."

My amount of character design progress and thought was amazing! All that thought about personality. The way I went into the background. You could tell I really thought about the character. Like I could tell his backstory in a second at the drop of a hat and... yeah. Still no idea what I was doing. Iori did a very good job creating the following design . I liked the design at the time, partially because I did not have to give thought to it. (Tangential thought: I would not mind a coffee mug with a picture on him. Thanks Photobucket!) The design was done and I started putting him in wacky situations and . . . actually I didn't. The first version of Socialfist spent a good portion of the time leading up to Robo Stalin before switching to a battle without him (and then forgetting about him). That was one of the reasons I restarted.

I ended up actually writing a bit more about the character the second time around. I never sent the description to Iori though and it was probably good since it added very little. The second description was :

Kaptain Kremlin - Russian super hero created by Sergei Notskalm. Not much else is known.

Known Powers: Flying, Super Strength, Laser Vision, Indestructability.

Real Name: Yuri 23

The second version started with Yuri being the stereotypical psychologist while yet being an idiot. The design didn't fit the idea. Besides the hat, beard and the color scheme Yuri could have been used for any basic superhero. To be honest I was pretty unsure of what to do. I did receive an additional headshot of Yuri for the site though.

When it finally came around to redesigning characters for the current version of the comic, I had a plan. I was going to figure out characters beforehand. I did this actually and the new Yuri design is pretty awesome though I am currently waiting for a color version. When that comes, I will post it separately with the colored photo and the revisions there.