Empyrean: Travellers

In other words, don't mind the hands. Done relatively quickly per person and trying out a faster way to shade things. Don't mind if its a bit weird.

Now! Onto the people within. Clockwise from top left:

Mk-A51 "Mkasi" (pronounced "Casey"): The clockwork girl from A Story of Clockwork, called Casey as a matter of avoiding awkward typing and pronounciation. I made her hair into a bob because I wanted it to be functional like a helmet, what with her being a prototype new generation fighting clockwork. She's wearing a city watch uniform because at the time it's the only clothing she can get while being on the run and with no friends or allies. I tried to make her look innocent because that's how she was designed. Nobody would suspect that the scared-looking 100 pound girl is actually a killing machine with an unnatural affinity for shooting people. And yes, that is a rapid-fire gun (what would be known as a submachinegun) in a world where bolt-action rifles are the latest thing. Such is steam/clockpunk.

Alex: The adventurer and the main character, hopefully. I took some cues from Nathan Drake and Indiana Jones for the adventurer look, and gave him a pith helmet, because a pith helmet is a must. Between him and Wesley, he's more easygoing so his shirt is not tucked in and in general, I tried to go for an upbeat expression. The scarf is more for blocking dust than it is for warmth, because it is HOT in Rirta, or at least where they're going.

Jacqueline: The lady adventurer. This time, I took the hairstyle from the new Tomb Raider because ... because why not? I was thinking of giving her a pith helmet too, but Alex got it due to 1) his main character status, and 2) I can draw girl's hair a lot more naturally than I can for guys. As the only person on this page with both eyes mostly visible, she took the longest though her clothes were the easiest to draw. I also like her outfit; it's not anything I've tried before so that was fun. I'm not actually sure if what she's carrying is a purse or a satchel of some kind, but it just seemed to make sense with her outfit.

Wesley: The other adventurer. He's a bit more serious than Alex and is under no illusion that he's only on the expedition to oversee his dear daddy's investments, even though he's had the education to join in the archaeological/explorative fun. Because he's more serious, I contrasted him against Alex by tucking in his shirt and wearing a tie, though the tie is loosened because, again, it is HOT in Rirta. Surprisingly though, the pith helmet wouldn't have worked here for some reason. It was either going to be the wide-brimmed pith hat thing or something local, which felt out of place for someone who just entered the continent. Luckily, I found the current hat in a picture about the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 (on an Englishman). Also, he has a drawing pad.

Nataly Volke: The hitchhiker. She and Anthony have a matching style and I was pretty careful to draw both of their faces as similarly as possible. Basically, it's a repeat of the Volke's picture with some shading differences and mild clothes adjustments to save me some work (because drawing many bullets is tedious). I shortened her duster (in the region the Volke's are from, it would make more sense to be some kind of coat, but I got the idea from Firefly. It's a duster there.) to offset her skirt and because Anthony had the long duster to break up the lines that made up his legs. As the youngest, I wanted to make her more child-like so I rounded out her face and made her eyes bigger (though I had no idea they would be THAT big. The pencil just got carried away.).

Anthony Volke: The newsboy cap was really the only thing I remembered from him when I dreamed about the siblings, so that's gotta stay. That and the colonial-style pigtail, or whatever it is. The original Volke picture had his and Nataly's eyes almost the same, but in this one, Nataly's eyes got BIG. But at least they're the same shape. His duster is just the right length to contrast against Nataly's outfit because the bottom of his is lower than her duster but higher than her skirt. Here, I don't know why his shirt would be unbuttoned for in-universe reasons; Talos is effectively central Europe, and I hear it snows there in the winter. Out of universe, a partially unbuttoned shirt says that he would be easygoing in life, even if he is currently unable to due to being under a lot of stress to take care of Nataly and, yenno, not die.