Creating Ikky Viper 

     Ikky was never a character I intended to create. About one year before I created Ozm, I started my first campaign as a Dungeon Master in D&D, obviously. I wanted to experiment with new monsters. While flipping through the Monster Manual, looking at the pictures, something caught my eye; Yuan-Ti. The pictures reminded me of snake-like monsters I had seen in my uncle’s old King Conan comics. I thought they were pretty cool, so I decided to add them into my campaign.  

     I was particularly interested in the Yuan-Ti pureblood, which was the most human-like variation. I have a habit of drawing everything in any campaign I’m involved with; this one was no different.

      But, I came across a snag; my Monster Manual only showed the female pureblood. Normally one wouldn’t guess that this would pose no problem; a few details changed and a male would be created but, in reality, it proved quite troublesome. I could not add masculine aspects to the face without losing serpentine features.

      I turned to the Internet; an infinite source of information. Surely this could solve my problem…wrong! The Internet provided me only with pictures of the female Yuan-Ti purebloods.

      I was thus forced to use my own ideas despite the difficulties. It took a few days of experimental drawing but, I finally discovered a resemblance between the Yuan-Ti and Asian people. The similarities include black hair, pale yellowish skin and other minor details.

      Knowing this, I found it quite easy to come up with a good picture of a male Yuan-Ti pureblood. This picture I was quite proud of. (I will post it later)

     In fact, I admired this picture so much, that I developed a whole character based on it. This character became Ikky Viper. 

     I included Ikky into my campaign as an NPC (non-playing character). I enjoyed using Ikky and he soon became my favourite character. 

     Throughout the campaign, Ikky’s appearance and personality developed until he became the Ikky that I added into my comic. I gave him a snake body because I needed to make it obvious what he was; a snake.