Here's the earliest surviving image of Mei Li:
I think there may have been an
earlier design, but it is forever lost to the sands of time. There's
not much I can say about this sketch beyond the fact that her hair is blowing
that way so I could avoid drawing most of her face. Also, the little
circular weapon in her hand is a pretty cool looking kind of extremely stylized
deer horn that can be purchased from Wing Lam Kung Fu. In these early
sketches, she was called, simply, 'Wind'.
A rare color sketch:
Here the weapons she's using are tiger-head hook swords. I own a
pair of swords like this, which are interesting in Chinese folklore in that
there's no folk hero that was ever really known for using them. One
thing you can actually do with them is hook the ends together, as shown
here, and then swing it around by one sword, thus doubling your attack range.
Anyway, here I've drawn her in a kind of action pose, and put her
hair in a bun.
A more recent image:
I was getting down to the wire here. I was knee-deep in chapter 2,
about to introduce the chracter, and she still didn't look right. Mei
Li is supposed to be pretty young, in her late teens, and I was having a
lot of trouble getting it right. I was scrambling for references, and
began basing her on a mixed bag of Shu Qi, Zhang Ziyi, and an exchange student
I knew in High School named Yin Yee. In the end, none of those influences
are really apparent, but they did bring me to the final design.
A lost sketch found only recently:
The face was pretty good, but I still couldn't nail the outfit down.
The final design:
I drew this on the same morning that I drew Mei Li's first appearance.
I was worried that I was at the point where I had to introduce the characters,
and still hadn't nailed the design to my satisfaction. I was very
happy with how she turned out here. I got lucky at the end. Mei
Li's outfit here is inspired by Shao Lin monk attire, with traditional kung
fu calf bindings.
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I think there may have been an
earlier design, but it is forever lost to the sands of time. There's
not much I can say about this sketch beyond the fact that her hair is blowing
that way so I could avoid drawing most of her face. Also, the little
circular weapon in her hand is a pretty cool looking kind of extremely stylized
deer horn that can be purchased from Wing Lam Kung Fu. In these early
sketches, she was called, simply, 'Wind'. A rare color sketch:
Here the weapons she's using are tiger-head hook swords. I own a
pair of swords like this, which are interesting in Chinese folklore in that
there's no folk hero that was ever really known for using them. One
thing you can actually do with them is hook the ends together, as shown
here, and then swing it around by one sword, thus doubling your attack range.
Anyway, here I've drawn her in a kind of action pose, and put her
hair in a bun. A more recent image:
I was getting down to the wire here. I was knee-deep in chapter 2,
about to introduce the chracter, and she still didn't look right. Mei
Li is supposed to be pretty young, in her late teens, and I was having a
lot of trouble getting it right. I was scrambling for references, and
began basing her on a mixed bag of Shu Qi, Zhang Ziyi, and an exchange student
I knew in High School named Yin Yee. In the end, none of those influences
are really apparent, but they did bring me to the final design.A lost sketch found only recently:
The face was pretty good, but I still couldn't nail the outfit down. The final design:
I drew this on the same morning that I drew Mei Li's first appearance.
I was worried that I was at the point where I had to introduce the characters,
and still hadn't nailed the design to my satisfaction. I was very
happy with how she turned out here. I got lucky at the end. Mei
Li's outfit here is inspired by Shao Lin monk attire, with traditional kung
fu calf bindings.Back to Characters
Back to Hard Underbelly