Evolution of Dumb-Crow
Dumb-Crow needs pretty much no introduction. His appearance hasn't changed very much since 2007, apart from minor refinements and such.
His origins as a Wood-Stocks(Woodsters) card game clone
The Dumb-Crow character was originally created back in January 2006 for a card game similar to OkidokiCharlie's own Woodsters card game(The name of his old card game have been lost by now, including the cards themselves, so we may never know how his card game actually looked like). Back then my Project 67 character didn't exist yet. It wasn't until around the end of January (or early february) in that year that Project 67 was created.
There isn't much to say about this early period, other than the Dumb-Crows didn't have the twirly eyes like they have nowadays. His tail was much smaller and didn't extend in directions other than downwards. There was even a small moment where by mistake his tail had four feathers instead of the usual three.
Becoming an enemy of Project 67
Although it may not be the definite source, my first Project 67 comic was where the Dumb-Crows became the enemies of Project 67. In the comics it was their job to find Project 67 and bring him to their leader, King Dumb-Crow.
It was from here the Dumb-Crows would sport the twirly eyes they now have today. Interestingly, in the comics Dumb-Crows also appear to have some very defined eyebrows. While Dumb-Crows also have eyebrows in the second comic, in certain panels their eyebrows are absent. I think what happened is I either forgot to draw eyebrows on the Dumb-Crows in those panels, or that detail was being phased out as the comic went along. The former point might be more valid though.
The Retirement of the Dumb-Crows Army
Following the disastrous events of their last battle against Project 67 in 2006, the Dumb-Crow army grew increasingy weary of having to go out and fight all the time, so much that they started protesting in front of their own king.
After his Dumb-Crows retired and moved out of the castle to settle down and live a more normal life, King Dumb-Crow started to experiment with avarious ways to create the ultimate Dumb-Crow soldier in hopes of beating Project 67 and his friends, but neither attempt succeeded and shortly afterwards the remaining Dumb-Crows moved out.
Eventually the king retired from trying to take over Spirit Dream Island and nowadays just lives in his castle. Despite this though one Dumb-Crow or two choose to continue living in King Dumb-Crow's castle for whatever reasons. During the course of this period Dumb-Crow's design started to gradually change, only to revert to the old one every now and then. Even so, the pics below demonstrate how the visual appearance of Dumb-Crow became more defined as time went on.
Dumb-Crows and their craziness
Between 2007 and 2012 the Dumb-Crows were having a bit of crazy stuff going on. This includes things ranging from trying to catch Number Two to having their belly replaced with a question mark, to working on a construction site where disasters keeps happening, etc.
These rather unusual things was just me having fun with the character, and even to this day I keep putting Dumb-Crow into bizarre or awkward situations.
In 2009 my style became a bit stiff here and there when it came to drawing my characters. Dumb-Crow however seem to have mostly survived this temporary visual downgrade, despite some imperfections in a few spots.
The Dumb-Crows' Absense
Despite a brief go of playing a game of cards with Bonkella in 2013, from 2013 to 2016 the Dumb-Crows has been mostly absent.
The reason why is because my attention went more towards making GTS drawings. 2013 was also the year I started to draw Lucy from the Lazy Lucy series, so most of my time was devoted to making drawings from that series.
2014 to 2016 was probably the period where the Dumb-Crows saw the least attention(with the exceptional Old-Style-Dumb-Crow drawing here and there, but that doesn't count from my side.). 2017 seemed to promise a return of the Dumb-Crows, but once again they were left to rest, and in 2018 they didn't appear in any of that year's drawings at all. Their future seemed almost bleak from this point...
The Dumb-Crows' Return
After around 3 dull years of almost nothing, and also having an entire year off, the Dumb-Crows finally returned in 2019, with some of the usual craziness from past drawings also showing up here and there.
Even though the quantity of Dumb-Crow drawings are nowhere near as high as previously, it was clear that the Dumb-Crows still have life in them. The drawings from 2019-2021 perhaps sums up some of their latest adventures, shenigans, and disasters.
In a nutshell, since 2007 the Dumb-Crows' general design has barely changed, and there's no sign of their design changing any time soon. Who knows what the future will hold for the Dumb-Crows.