The Chronological Tanner - 2013 - 2021

Tanner and Syrus have been best buds since they were small and Sy is always his go-to person to hang out with. He tries hard but unfortunately not always the best at reading the mood - oftentimes he figures if he’s having fun then Syrus must be having fun too, right? He also doesn’t really grasp that he’s Sy’s only close friend, but to be fair that’s not something Sy advertises. Still, Tanner is always there for Sy in his own way and they both get along well despite their contrasting personalities. He tries his best to make sure Syrus is living his best life having a good time, like it or not!

Fun fact! Tanner is one of three characters that has an incredibly specific theme naming going on in Lesser Than Three (His last name is also part of the theme in this case) - but the theme itself is completely irrelevant to all the characters involved and more of an in-joke with myself, so I wouldn’t really expect anyone to notice it without me pointing it out first - but kudos if you can figure it out!

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2013

Tanner is the newest of the Lesser Than Three main cast, being created in 2013 with everyone else being created somewhere around 2007-2009. The reason I brought up the theme naming earlier was because I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason he exists - to continue the in-joke with myself - because I barely remember anything about him from this time. I drew this in February of 2013 and as far as I can tell, didn’t draw him again until the following year. Something about his outfit is incredibly nondescript even considering he was my third character who wore a black tee and blue jeans at the time.

2014

He looks so anxious in most of these sketches! Why? Did you end up giving all your anxiety to Syrus?? The only character trait I remember from back then was that he was quite the romantic - he probably would still react like that if his crush liked his post. Between his uninspired design and having little to make him stand out otherwise, I ended up focusing on other characters and forgetting about him. As a result these were the only three times I drew him with this design, and I think this is the first time I even posted them anywhere!

2015

Can you imagine a scenario where Syrus and Tanner weren’t ever friends? Towards the end of the 2015 I was figuring out what kind of stories I wanted to tell with Lesser Than Three and came up with a specific scenario I wanted to tell with Syrus and his then best friend. I needed a one-shot character for that scenario so I brought Tanner back from the grave - but I ended up liking his design so much that he ended up taking the roll of Sy’s best friend altogether. In hindsight that was for the best - the original guy had a personality that could be pretty unpleasant at times, which probably would have made Sy kinda miserable. Everyone dodged a bullet there!

There’s something special about Tanner - Sometimes I say that he lives in my head and I honestly mean it - with everyone else I could tell you things that influenced their designs here and there, but with Tanner I have absolutely no idea. The shape of his face is quite unlike all of my other characters at the time, he has a more distinct hairstyle that isn’t inspired by his species, his jacket is pretty different from mostly-simple clothing everyone else was wearing. He just happened within a couple of sketches, the biggest initial change was his jacket. He’s by far the easiest character to write with entire comic strip ideas just spontaneously appearing all at once… to the point where he and Syrus unintentionally became the main characters. It’s not even that he lives rent-free in my head, I think just flat out refuses to leave.

2015 Tanner’s initial concept was a guy that was really easily amused to the point that he’d crack up at near anything remotely funny (Making him more of a stereotypical hyena that Syrus, ironically) - but that faded away pretty quickly as it became apparent that his curiosity was his driving force. Tanner thinks hard all the time, and to his credit he’s had many questions that nobody else has likely had before! 

I don’t know what my deal was between the 2015 pencil sketch and the touched-up digital one - literally every change I made was worse. Why five fingers?? 

2017

In 2017 I wanted to start making my characters look a little more like animals and a little less like people with animal heads and Tanner was the first one to get an overhaul. His ended up being the most drastic redesign at the time and I was really happy with it in the end - even though his modern looks isn’t too far off from this, I’m still fond of this particular design. A few months later this Tanner made his debut in the first Lesser Than Three comic strip!

The ‘Satisfaction’ strip is included partially as an example as his early laughing fit tendencies, but mostly because the second panel is still one of the favorite Tanners I’ve drawn. He isn’t prone to laughing fits anymore, but they did leave him with a love of nonsensical shirts. (The sweater was based on a real one I found online at the time)

2018

In 2018 he changed a little more, exaggerating his proportions more and his face officially going from rounded to pointed. He also got a new outfit that ended up being his default since it’s easier to draw, and officially ditched shoes! Part of me regrets not putting stripes on his lower arms since the upper stripes get covered up a lot , it it is what it is!

For lack of a better place to say it, for a while I referenced Tanner by using the last comic I drew him in, which had the unintentional side effect of playing ‘telephone’ with the stripes on his face, so if you pay attention they basically do backflips over time. If I were to compile these comics into a book sometime that’s one of the few things I would definitely fix, haha.

2019-2020

The tail end of 2019 I finally decided ‘hey, what if I was more consistent with Tanner?’ and settled down to make my first (and at the time of writing, only) Lesser Than Three character turnaround with Tanner.  His whole design has remained pretty consistent since then, but more importantly, the stripes on his face are consistent! 

2021

And that brings us to today! Comparatively speaking Tanner got to speedrun to his modern design - faster than Wheeler, who has been around the longest! Thats why I say there’s something special about this guy. Or perhaps he just really really wanted to become the main character - we’ll never know! Compared to Elijah - or almost everyone else really - he doesn't have quite as much to post, but I hope you enjoyed seeing him change through the years!