Backstory From My Old Comics: Chance is, essentially, the leader of a group of misfits who went on a quest to defeat the Great Elemental Spirits and deactivate the Seven Ancient Towers of Phainein. While most of the characters surrounding Chance are often quite eccentric and/or goofy, Chance is really serious and uptight. He's a bit arrogant, too; he thinks a lot of people are stupid, but he doesn't feel he's beneath helping them if they need it. Chance does care about his friends (even if he won't admit it), but he yells at them often when they argue or act silly. His best friend is Sesa Markino, even though Chance is often disgusted by Sesa's laid-back, goal-free outlook on life. He used to hate mountaindevils because a band of them attacked his hometown Phoresta when he was a child, and one of them (Bazil Kyradius) killed his father, so it took awhile for him to learn to trust Nucleo. Chance runs an ancient dragon palace that was converted into a library/dojo/inn. Having a background in both the Nispatia military and martial arts, Chance believes in strong discipline, although he sees most other forms of education as "dangerous".

Because Chance spent most of his life growing up alone, having never known his mother and his father always being away on heroic missions around the world, he became very multi-talented. He learned to fight, cook, run the palace inn, garden, and even repair mechanical objects (such as the Bluejay, a downed airship that had been lying behind the palace garden for years).

Although Chance currently owns the Sword of Skiva, he doesn't use it often because he finds it difficult to control. He instead either uses the Drago Sword (a slim, samurai-style sword that has an emblem of a sun shooting a single ray of light down the length of the blade), or his large metal bo-staff that can be used as a one-piece weapon, or split into two (Chance is ambidexterous). He is about 19 years old, but is more mature than some characters who are older than him.

Character Design Notes: Chance was a very old character concept that I had when I was at least 8 years old. I had come up with an idea for a comic strip about two brothers who lived in a karate dojo and one was an absolute goof-off while the other was strict and serious. These two characters became Sesa and Chance, although they changed a lot from the original concept. First of all, I had them just be childhood friends instead of brothers. Chance was supposed to be the goofy one and Sesa the serious "leader" type, but instead what happened is that Chance ended up being the more serious one and Sesa became more "nerdy". Part of this was because I began to realize that I didn't like leader-type personalities in cartoons in which the only trait they have is that they are the leader. Although Chance did become a leader-type, he's more like a straight man in a comedy of errors. His arrogant and somewhat-pompous nature often causes others to not take him as seriously as he'd like. Despite this, he is a nice guy, once you get to know him. Several changes and inconsistencies in earlier versions of the character include:

1. I've had difficulty drawing people for years, so my oldest drawings of Chance we're pretty damn terrible. Basically, he was just about as generic a guy as possible. I don't think I've posted any of these in here, but the oldest versions are basically unrecognizable. Also, it was difficult to tell Chance and Sesa apart in the oldest drawings unless they were colored in and you could see that Chance had black hair and Sesa had brown hair.

2. Chance's overall face and body structure changes dramatically throughout the years as I became more influenced by the artwork in Japanese shows like Voltron and Speed Racer. I think once I started playing NES games years later, I started evolving Chance's look even more.

3. Length of Chance's hair varies. The standard version has hair that goes just below shoulder-length, but some older versions and The Minerva Project version have much longer hair. The placement of his bangs tends to change, too.

4. Chance has worn many different outfits over the years. The standard two that he uses now are a black-and-gold karate gi and a green-and-red military suit. Some older versions and The Minerva Project version wear a t-shirt and sweatpants and another older version has an indescribable costume with a blue cape (that version also seems to have a wooden instead of metal bo staff).

Chance's standard attire is a Nispatian military uniform, which is mostly green, but has a red vest and red boots. He also wears a black-and-white polkadotted bandana around his forehead and his neck (this was based on a real bandana I used to own years ago). He wears a parachute on his back for undetermined reasons. Chance also has a black-and-gold karate gi that he sometimes wears.

Chance in the RAU GAllery: I've had to fudge Chance's existence in the current series a little. Logically speaking, once the wars were over, Chance should have returned to running the Dragon Palace Inn in Nispatia, but I needed all the characters under one roof for the sketch comedy to work. Thus, he became employed as a librarian and martial arts teacher in Grimmora University, and he's also a part-time student there, too. Chance has direct supervision over Talon Kyradius, the son of, yes, the very same mountaindevil warlock that killed his father. He adopted Talon upon seeing how horribly neglected and abused he was. Although Chance's friends initially questioned his ability to look after a mountaindevil due to his past animosity towards the species, he claims he's gotten over it, and Robin has said he's been doing "an admirable job".

First RAU Gallery Appearance: Adventures in Site Tracking #1: Of Hypocrites and Fire Eyes

Chance Tomasaro head and sprite. The head picture shows him wearing his usual "military" outfit and the sprite shows him wearing his favorite karate gi. The head is a little strange with the way I drew his mouth. I must've been pretty young when I did that.

Picture of Chance in his karate gi channeling ki energy. His face is drawn MUCH differently here than the way I draw it now. He looked very similar to the older versions of Sesa in these early designs.

Sprite of a rather psychotic-looking Chance.

Another Chance sprite, this one much happier-looking.

Sprite of Chance wearing a really ugly costume.

Chance with an eyepatch. This was The Minerva Project version of the character.

A sprite of The Minerva Project version. Thank goodness I retconned that, huh?

Nice sprite of the modern version of Chance, except that it's missing ears.

My Chance Tomasaro pog is actually one of my better older drawings of his face, I think.