Designing the Norse Gods- Forebodin’ Odin, Therious Thor and the others

First off- apologies for missing a week! I’ve been pushing through the final artwork and attending family weddings. Busy busy busy.

The original story mentioned quite a few Norse Gods- Odin, Thor, Sigurd, Freya and Hemrod. Our brilliant editor Cate helped to whittle the text down, removing supplementary characters to focus on Odin and Thor (Check out this post by Norm for more info on Odin and Thor).

Here are my first sketches and notes on the Gods.

After a bit of research, I found out that Odin is an old old man. So the black hair wasn’t going to look right for his character. Also, Thor is his son, so they have to look similar.

Storyboard sketches began to take more form…

For those interested in Norse trivia, Thor and Sigurd are playing a game of viking checkers, called ‘hnefatafl‘. Sounds a bit like an old man sneezing. There’s a few online versions of hnefatafl out there on the interwebs.

Here’s another pic from the storyboards. It’s notable for the one and only appearance of Freya, the Norse god of love and beauty.

And here’s some more recent sketches…

 

It’s obvious to me that Asterix comics have been a huge influence on the character designs.