Disgraced Jedi general Jare, former padawan of Pong Krell, became estranged from their Master after Jare's first mission, around the start of the war--they fucked up severely. Krell devises a punishment for them: Jailbird Squad. A squad of useful specialist clone troopers who happen to also be deliquents themselves. They are tasked with the Republic's dirty, secret work for powerful political figures, and are expected to take the fall in the event of a failure. Jare must succeed as a leader, or they'll condemn themselves and the Jailbirds to death!
On top of the crate are Doodles and Judge, Knower and Theory are standing, and seated in front are general Jare and sergeant Burner.
They all have tags on my blog with art and funny posts so you can get to know them better. I'm currently editing a short story about Knower and his popstar ex-girlfriend, Seela.
More about the Jailbirds:
Doodles was a trooper who had been enrolled in a sniper assassin program after completing his basic training. Just before completing his final exam and shipping out, he was caught creating a massive graffiti mural on the side of the facility. He was forced to scrub it off by hand overnight--hardly anyone saw what it was, and there are only rumors about it now. Doodles can be anxious to the point of paranoia, and instead of producing the typical "run away!" type of cowardly behavior, he gets the "low-empathy fight-response" type of coward behavior. He's charming as a defense mechanism to cover for this, has a very sharp tongue, is very artistically gifted, doesn't sleep much, and struggles with vulnerability.
Judge is a medic with slicer cross-training. He was caught breeding and selling genetically modified hounds to wealthy patrons over the holonet. He was literally keeping the first puppies inside of a panel in the medbay. There were three, and the two remaining pups he failed to sell before he got caught were allowed to remain his responsibility, because of their uniquely biddable dispositions and remarkable genetic enhancements. He named them Jury and Executioner. Judge was also selling drugs and gambling over the holonet, but they never caught him for that because he's actually GOOD at slicing. Less good at hiding puppies. He's aloof and standoffish at first and prefers to keep his helmet on. He likes big tight hugs, loud fast music, and being in charge. He's got a bit of the god-complex doctors get sometimes. If his experiments hadn't been so useful, he knows he would have been executed for his defective behavior, so it can take a while to get through his tough shell.
Knower is a capable pilot and mechanic who had a messy affair with the nefarious Senator Tusk's beautiful popstar wife, Seela. He was assigned to jailbird squad after the senator demanded he be executed for his crimes. Knower is sweet, romantic, and just wants to be loved for who he really is... But he just can't catch a break. He's always picking the wrong woman (or man, or creature...) to be vulnerable with, and he's a bit of a relationship parasite. He just loves love, ok!? He's flirty. He's silly. He's dramatic. And he's doomed to be tortured by the narrative because I love him too much.
Theory is fucking shredded. Theory beat the shit out of a higher-ranking clone while they were both drunk, because he disagreed strongly about the tactics that the sarge was advocating for--due to personal experience. He had a history of outbursts, so instead of wasting his skills he was assigned to Jailbird squad. Theory is a bit physically stronger than other clones, not due to genetic variables, but due to his annoying preoccupation with personal improvement. He loves to read, he has a sunshiney attitude even when he's very angry, he respects women, and he talks like an annoying twitter leftist because he thinks he can enact praxis from within the system (bless him).
Sergeant Burner is a former clone commander, who embarrassed himself and an entire system by pissing on a memorial monument. It was dark, it looked like a big rock in the woods, there was no signage... He was demoted to sergeant and shuffled off to Jailbird squad anyway. He considers himself to be a model trooper despite his mistake, and dedicates himself to his new role immediately--and to the general specifically. He considers loyalty to be about the same as love, and confuses the two often. He is having a not-so-secret affair with the general that the squad is well aware of.
General Jare is the leader of Jailbird squad. They are quick with everything, especially jokes, and they love to laugh (even when it might not be appropriate). Having been trained by Master Krell, they are remarkably well-equipped to handle the pressures of their new job, but the warped interpretation of the Jedi Code passed onto them by their Master cause them considerable internal struggles. Jare has moderate chronic pain and a few mental conditions, just like me. They are very bisexual and smoke a shitload of avabush.
Jailbird Squad's game night! Whose team is winning the hoverball tournament?
This piece took 33 hours to complete, over the course of 19 days. Each hatch mark was drawn one by one with a simple round brush to achieve the blended rendering effect. Needless to say, I am incredibly proud of how it turned out. The effort was completely worth it.
Check out some details:
Fun fact: If I were to pay myself $20 per hour with my fees for the background, multiple additional figures, and rendering, I would have earned $1,110! If I gave myself a discount for using a reference image for the poses, then I would have earned $1k. But this piece is very special to me, so let's call it priceless.
Jailbird Squad has PAINT now! These designs are a starting point for me to modify when I add more to their stories. They each have the two-part Jailbird Squad insignia on their pauldrons and rerebraces.
Burner's armor is painted with the silhouette of his old commander pauldron and kama.
Knower has a painting of his old ARC-170 on his thigh, courtesy of Doodles, and Seela's signature on his chest.
Judge commemorated his genetic engineering hobby with a biohazard symbol and DNA strand in addition to his medic symbol.
Theory brawls for fun, and likes to ask his victims sparring partners to add a mark.
Doodles collects stickers and scribbles with blacklight paint pens when he's nervous or bored.
Individual references:
They can still have their blank shiny armor too because it's easier to draw. I might also give them katarn or ARC armor for fun. I color-coded them because it's cute.
Thanks for looking at my Very Special Guys :] I love you. MWAH 💋
I'd like to do art trades but I absolutely cannot guarantee stylistic consistency or quality or even legibility right now honestly. If you don't care about that please reply with a ref image of the character you want me to draw (I prefer clone troopers but any star wars thingy is fine). My OCs are tagged so if you're real keen just pick one
Clone trooper tattooing his squadmate. Left breast: Pantoran face tattoos, right forearm: anatomical heart pierced with arrow and blacked-out ribbon, left bicep: upside-down Jedi symbol.
Jare squinted at the horizon and tugged their cloak tighter. The air on the frozen moon was still and quiet, only punctuated by the crunch of boots stomping through the thick blanket of snow.
It was Knower, the squad’s pilot, who broke the silence. The speakers on his helmet gave his voice a staticky texture. “You’re uh, really sure the ice couldn’t’ve held the ship, sir?”
“You s-saw the probe footage,” Jare hissed, teeth chattering against the cold. “I think we’d all prefer our ride home t-t-to be dry.”
“Well sure, sir.” His accent made the statement into a rhyme. “But our shuttle is much smaller than a Venator.” He paused, and added, “And you seem a bit chilly. Sir.”
Usually Jare would’ve laughed at that, if their jaw hadn’t been commandeered by the weather. With all the shivering and involuntary clenching, it was beginning to ache. They wheezed pitifully instead.
Burner shot a glance over his shoulder, and scowled under his helmet. He felt a prickling indignation at the insubordinate implications in Knower’s little jab, but he didn’t want to break it to Jare, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care. They’d landed on the closest solid ground to the downed Venator, which seemed like a reasonable choice at the time—the holoprojection made the six mile hike out on the ice look much shorter than it really was.
It was easy for the squad to joke about it from the comfort of their pressurized, temperature-controlled suits of armor. But Burner couldn’t help but feel for Jare, who had little more than an ill-fitting standard issue winter coat and the Force to keep them warm. They’d wrapped their cloak tightly around themselves, which couldn’t have provided any more insulation than a wishful thought.
“Sir, it’s only two miles now,” Burner offered apologetically, “But if you need to stop and do that uh, meditation… thing, that warms you up again, we can—”
“N-No n-need,” Jare cut him off. “It’s just-t-two miles.” They continued to trudge forward in front of him.
“Another stim then, sir?” Burner asked.
Judge, the squad’s medic, spoke up from behind him. “No dice, sarge. Dosed ‘em when we landed. Unless you think a heart attack would help.”
“And I c-can’t even abuse stimulants,” Jare grumbled through chattering teeth. “K-Krell would’ve loved this when I was a padawan, you know. Said it-t builds charact-t-ter. Would’ve told some bantha-crap story about a Jedi who walked a hundred miles uphill in the snow with nothing but robes without-t shivering once, because the Force alone can sustain us, or whatever.”
“Could Krell do that sort of thing?” Burner asked.
“Of course not-t. He ate and slept and wore big fark-k-king coats in the cold like anyone else,” Jare hissed. “Not that hypocrisy ever mat-t-tered to him.”
Burner understood, at least in part. The training sergeants on Kamino were harsh, often needlessly so. Maybe creating new Jedi knights was an unforgiving process too.
“Sir, let’s take a break. Just a short one.” Burner placed a hand on Jare’s shoulder, and motioned for the squad to halt. “That scrap heap isn’t going anywhere,” he added, nodding at the downed ship looming in the distance.
To his surprise, Jare stopped marching and looked back at him. Their nose and cheeks were reddened by the cold, and they studied Burner’s visor, as if they could see right past it. He was glad they couldn’t actually see him, or how worried he was. “Alright,” Jare sighed, teeth continuing to chatter. “But I’m not sit-t-ting in the k-kriffing snow to meditate the cold away. One of you t-temperature-controlled jokers gets to be a chair for the next t-ten minutes.”
"Oh, I could just kiss you!" General Jare exclaimed. "I can't believe you got this back for me after I lost it again," they added as they clipped their lightsaber back to their belt.
Burner rolled over to face the General as they grabbed the edge of the couch. Nobody would be finishing the datawork tonight.
---
"Sorry about the slobber," Judge said. "Good thing I like hounds," Jare replied, and placed their hand on his knee as Judge leaned in.
---
"You smell like engine grease." Jare looked down at Knower as he knelt beneath his BARC speeder. Knower smiled and asked, "Wanna find out if I taste like it, too?"
---
"I thought one of you would've stomped on it by now!" Jare shouted over the music. "That's not a proper thank you," Doodles shouted back and tapped a finger to his lips. Jare leaned over Burner's head. Burner daydreamed about facing the other way around.
---
"Kissing your hero is a bit of a problematic trope," Theory told the general, placing a hand on the back of their neck and stepping closer. "You're a bit of a problematic trope," Jare replied and grabbed the trooper by the waist.
