The Archer's Affable Sidekick by Kevenn T. Smith

I have one last Rebel to post for 2018. It's been a busy year for me - doing the My Husband is Not a Rainbow book, singing with a band called Bullseye Womprats, working with a local high school's theater department, and working on illustrations for a 6-book series. I hope to do more Rebels to come next year, especially since there's a great new She-Ra and the Princesses of Power show on Netflix now.

This Rebel illustration features Josh. It's time to go in Deep-Fan Mode.  Josh was created to be a protege of Bow and only appeared in two mini comics that came with the vintage figures, "Across the Crystal Light Barrier," where he was named and seen having a picnic with Adora, Glimmer & Bow, and "Don't Rain On My Parade," where a character wearing "Josh colors" appeared playing a flute. If he was Bow's protege, and Bow played a musical instrument, the harp, then it's seems likely that Josh would have played an instrument too - the flute hanging from his side by ribbons. So yes, I maintain that *was* Josh in that panel of that comic.

I gave him a headband as an homage to the vintage Bow action figure, and I used the hat band from his appearance in "Don't Rain On My Parade" for it.

The mini crossbow recalls Bow's archery, and the clover bolts also hearken to Bow's heart tipped arrows. I gave him blue clovers because picnics can happen in fields of clover, and the trees in Whispering Woods are predominantly blue, so I thought that there could be a blue clover in the Woods. I also imagined that perhaps he had been in a Horde Youth Group, and would have had training with a crossbow, as many of the Horde characters have crossbows. I gave him shoulder epaulets like Adora's, but in blue, to tie that in.

His bracelets are the same as the vintage Bow action figure's, to further visually tie them together. The boot design, I took off the Dekker action figure from the Masters of th eUniverse Classics line, because I liked the element of stitching it had that was like the stitching that Josh's tunic had at the chest. Also, the boots were a turned-down style, and male characters on Etheria favored a turned-down style of boot - like Seahawk and Snout Spout. I also thought the gems on the boots were a nice echo of the circles on Bow's boots at the top and the ornamental flare many of the female characters have at the top of their boots.

And then, there's the bowl of potato salad - started as a joke by someone on He-Man.org, that Josh brought potato salad to the picnic in "Across the Crystal Light Barrier." The potato salad grew to have a life of its own, and is now synonymous with Josh. I used colors from his design and tried to give it an Etherian feel.

This illustration of Josh is available as cards, prints, postcards, t-shirts, hoodies, skirts, dresses, scarves, bags, pillows, phone cases, clocks, duvet covers, and more at my Redbubble store! Click the picture to go there.
"The Archer's Affable Sidekick" by Kevenn T. Smith
Pencil, Ink, Photoshop
©Kevenn T. Smith 2018
Josh character ©Mattel 2018