Artist's commentary
The Gulliver Group has a run in with the local enforcers over the matter of violating no-fly zones and dropping anchor within city limits. The crew is amused by the sheriff's colorful use of language - they have no idea what he's saying.
The Gulliver Group
The Gulliver Group is an all-female group (with the exception of their accountant and technicians) that was founded by their captain Lychee Sapindaceae. It was originally part of an undergrad project where she selected Adventuring as a focus for entrepeneurship. When it produced moderate success, she made it her fulltime occupation, bringing on board her closest classmates at the time.
They travel from city to city, making a living off of odd jobs and Kill-20-Monsters quests. Then, before they have to start paying parking fees, they move to another location and repeat the process. This is also how they evade certain taxes (they are not popular with municipalities).
Gulliver Group members in the picture besides Captain Lychee include B.B. Fayne (First Mate and navigator; she does not look where she is walking - not a good trait for a navigator), Getty Abarashi (Medic and cook; her degree was in animal husbandry but oh well), and Melissa DeFont (Bazooka Girl; she made up this job and joined on the condition that she could have it).
The Sheriff's Posse
Marshall Barkrum is the sheriff of Lowtus County. He is a humorless man who does not know how to drive a conversation. He used to have a sidearm, but I forgot to draw it. But even without it, you can tell he is a tough and serious dude, as evidenced by his tough and serious wolf paw tattoo.
Barkrum and his posse try their best to keep things orderly, though characters like the Gulliver Group often give them trouble. He has at his disposal the artillery landship Arbitrator, but it is expensive to operate so he only brings it out when he needs to intimidate someone or discourage an attack.
Posse members include Henry Thurst (analyst and consultant; carries a laptop with him, is terrible in a fight. Maybe shouldn't be in a posse), Jorgus (grappler and secretly a huge fan of the Gulliver Group; he is trying to hide how super excited he is from his boss), and Mr. Huang (dunno what he does. Posse filler).
Augh! This picture took wayyy too long. I finished it three days ago, and it took me until now to finish writing this up. I started drawing this back on the 8th, so it's taken about 3 weeks to complete. Setting aside time to work on art is hard with a full time job and competing distractions like games and manga! Well, hopefully all the time was worth it - I can say with confidence that this is my proudest piece so far.
The Gulliver Group's airship has gone through 3 names. Originally "Sea Gals" was written on it. Then I was like "wait, I have another idea!" and wrote "Gulliver" on it. I probably tried that like 8 times until I gave up because the font kept looking really old-fashioned, so in the end I settled with the kanji 海鳥 (umidori - "sea bird"). Not very clever, but it was an aesthetic I was finally satisfied with.
Anyhow, here are some bonus configurations of the picture I made because it was easy:
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/672/confrontationv2.png
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2931/confrontationv3.png
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1537/confrontationv4.png
