The Chronological Tagg: 2012-2022

Last week I polled my Taggerung Patrons on who they'd like to see a bit of bonus content of - my non-Lesser-Than-Three characters, Edgar and Skippermon, or Tagg. Tagg was the winner, so please enjoy a lookback on Tagg's development!

As a side note, if you'd like to go back and see the progression of my Lesser Than Three characters, these 'Chronological Collections' now have their own folder in the Collections tab. Feel free to check them out!

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Tagg is technically my most prominent character outside of Lesser Than Three, but that's not saying a whole lot since he appears so little in comparison. I imagine he gets a ‘oh yeah, that guy’ reaction whenever I revive him. Still, he’s a character I like a lot and has gone through several changes over the years, and I thought it would be fun to see how far he’s come!

Taggermon - or Tagg - was created as a Digimon OC and the evolved form of Skippermon. For those familiar with Digimon, he was created as a Xros/Fusion era Digimon so he’s roughly an Ultimate level with no forms in between him and Skippermon. Considering I’m mostly indifferent to Xros now I’ve played with giving him a proper Champion form, but I never quite got around to it. Maybe someday!

The whole reason I created Tagg and Skipp is because back in 2012 there were no Digimon based on otters - and can you believe as of writing there still isn’t a canon Ottermon? It’s crazy! Tagg’s name is a reference to the Taggerung from the Redwall books, but doesn't take any direct reference to the series aside from his attack names - Lutra Pearl, Galedeep Slash and Firebrand Barrage.

2012

I don’t think this one ever got posted anywhere - this was the first sketch I drew of Taggermon! I remember exactly where I was when I finished this sketch and somehow that makes me feel older than the sketch itself. He gets a pretty radical wardrobe change when I refine the design but the core idea is definitely there. His arms are remarkably skinny despite otherwise looking pretty fit and, more notably, he’s got legs.

This was the second pass at Tagg and sets the standard to what you’ll see going forward! Unfortunately he ended up blind in one eye, but that’s the price of progress. A lot of humanoid Digimon have exaggerated proportions with large arms and legs, and while I kinda gave him larger footpaws for a while, this was the most I ever pushed his arms. It’s not something that comes naturally to me, and you might notice that even my Digimon fanart tends to use pretty different proportions to canon.

If I’m being honest I’m not sure where the inspiration for his kitchen-sink outfit came from - what’s going on in that top of his? I wanted his spear to evoke ocean waves and came up with something I was pretty happy with. The slingshot is in reference to Skippermon, who wears a slingshot on his back. His scars were based on BanchoLeomon who has large scars on his torso - I thought they would suit a warrior like Tagg and gave him lots all over his body. In hindsight, having such huge scars all over kinda just makes him look mange-y…

Some high level Digimon can change into different ‘modes’ that give them extra strength - this was my first pass on a mode change for Tagg, the MarSword mode. MarSword… hmm, I wonder who’s sword that was originally...? Aside from the sword and cape it’s not super different from vanilla Tagg and I’d end up revisiting the design later.

2013

Expanding his Digimon lore, Taggermon H-Bloodwrath was a DigiXros/Digifuse, which is where two Digimon fuse to become stronger. In this mode he fused with another one of my fakemons, Tribemon - a hyena Digimon - which granted him an energy canon and a slashing attack. There are no hyenas in Redwall, but there are hyenas in the Redwall in my heart.

[Incidentally, out of all the main characters in Lesser Than Three only two of them share a species with a Digimon, with one of those only being created last year - clearly Digimon does not like me as much as I like it…]

2014

The first official reveal of Tagg’s blind eye! I made a few minor design changes here - the leather for his belt now wraps around the rings, and I tried to make the strap on his chest make a bit more sense. I rarely ever dabble in digital painting so I have a fondness for how this pic came out - though in a perfect world I would have put something in the background as well, haha.

A second pass at Taggermon MarSword mode! I wanted to give this mode it’s own personality - Normal Tagg is very adept at fighting both in water and on land, and I imagine this mode to have more of a focus fighting on land. Just changing the greens in his outfit to reds changed the vibe quite a bit.

This was supposed to be another painted pic but I never got around to finishing it, and it been so long that it remains a Patreon exclusive. I’m still really fond the idea and would like to tackle the it again someday.

2015

I streamlined his design a bit more, toning down the amount of scars he has and simplifying his top to be more visually coherent. I lengthened his spear as and gave it a handle that would both make it easier to use as a slingshot & potentially be used as a guard as well.

2018

 The first (and so far, last) public appearance of MarSword mode. I wanted to make it stand out more from his normal outfit than before and came up with something simple, but appealing. Putting Digimon aside, I imagine that the rings in his outfits are commonly used clothing where he comes from, so I repeated their usage here. I think he looks pretty heroic in this outfit!

2019

Eepy otter! There’s no big changes in his design here, aside from the band on his arm being slightly open now. I left the sling out of his spear for now - I like the idea a lot but it’s hard to say if it’s actually practical, or if being practical matters for an anthropomorphic otter warrior. Most importantly I’m including this because it’s still one of my favorite pics in general, haha.

2022

The most recent Tagg design at time of writing! I really wanted to push his design to be more otterlike so I gave him a longer torso and neck. I feel like the line between drawing ‘purposely exaggerated proportions’ and bad anatomy is thin, but I do really like how he came out. I made the metal rings more of a reoccurring theme by adding a few more to his top, and made his scars smaller to make it more clear they are battle scars.

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What’s next for Tagg? Currently, he lives in my head separate from Skippermon and his tamer Edgar - a vagabond endlessly going on adventures. I have a story in mind I’d love to include him in down the road, but I haven’t completely settled on what role he might have there. I want to make sure to do him justice!

 To be honest, I don’t think Tagg was ever a particularly successful Digimon design compared to his pre-evolution Skippermon, but he’s still a design I love in general and one that lets me explore a more fantasy element compared to my Lesser Than Three characters. I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about him, and seeing him pop up here and there as time goes on!