Home Soon. In the Meantime...

I head home tomorrow, which means I might actually be able to get decent scans of some of these illustrations. It also means I might do something with this guy (I don't want to ink he original, in this case)! The picture isn't current, but the differences are small, just some shading and a few lines here and there for depth.

Old Portfolio: Concepts

Here's the rest of those D&D concepts I mentioned earlier. The only one missing is the bow because I can't crop the image and there's crap in the background that just makes it super obvious how ghetto improvised my situation is right now. Anyway, pictures!

Here's the weapon concepts previously posted. That ax handle was a real pain, for some reason.

One thing I wanted to convey with elves in this setting was a very warlike and tribal nature, but keeping the usual nature ties from the stock D&D elves. Personal pride is also something I wanted to incorporate into their rewritten culture. So, I decided to incorporate feathers, the fancier the more important the individual, and other trophies on weapons and armor. The trophies being personal and the great deal of visual variety that comes from decorative feathers additionally demonstrates the personal pride in each elven warrior.

Here's a better view of the helmets partially visible in the previous snapshot. Another feel I wanted to give elves in this setting was something both sophisticated but with a primitive side. So, rather than resorting to the usual elaborate armor design seen in D&D for something more inspired by ancient Greece and Rome. Again the feathers come back in the helmets. One thing that, you can probably tell, gives me trouble is perspective on the feathers as they are placed further down the back side of the helmet when viewed from the front.

Here's a quick sketch of a very basic elven long bow. Again, the feathers come in.

Just a full view of the adjacent pages.

This was a brief look at an NPC concept that I had floating in my head. Here we have Jazeps, kenku wizard summoner and his little homonculus familiar.

Sharing Time!

Since I've hit a bit of a block with doing anything of my own, I figured I may as well share something I found a few days ago.

Faces have never been much of a strong point, certainly not the worst (fuck hands, for reference) it's something that I tend to avoid by doing things that, well, don't have faces or at least not human faces. Anyway, nothing profoundly amazing in this other than how the comparison is done between proportioning a male versus a female face.

This fellow has a number of pretty awesome visual tutorials, generally without any talking (which is kind of refreshing to me). That could be detrimental, at least for some people, but on the other hand being able to watch someone sketch something from blank space to colored is pretty excellent.

Also the music is pretty.

He Has a Diamond on His Head

Better image in a few days.

Sneak Peak of the Old Portfolio

Here's a sneak peak at some other things I've done previously, again around June or July 2010 and again for that D&D setting in the works. You'll probably notice that it's in a different notebook, which for me is significant. In this case, the previous pictures are from a notebook reserved for a look at the setting from the perspective of someone traveling through it. This notebook on the other hand, is just a sketchbook of random things, mostly concepts for various world settings. This is the first time, though, that I'd really done anything intentionally as flat, clean concept art. I'll get more up when I can, but for now here's a little bit.

Waddle, Waddle, Waddle

This is more what I was going for in that first drawing. Something that looked big and slow. Something that didn't care for what time it was. Of course, now I'm trying to make this sound more profound and artistic than perhaps it is. In truth, this came from shapes in the tile of my shower. Well, those shapes and My Neighbor Totoro, admittedly. My only regret is that I forgot the vegetables in his satchel. I have an image of the original in pencil, albeit a bad image, so maybe in the future I'll use that and make a digital copy.

But for now, that's that.

Here's some older drawings I did a few months ago, probably around June or July, for a home-brew D&D setting I was writing -- and am still writing here and there. There aren't that many all together, a random spear and riding beast, a sketch of an important landmark, a costume sketch, a map, and then these. These sketches are by far my favorite out of all of them.

Fun fact: The head on the bottom right was inspired by my pencil sharpener.

On the Drawing Board (get it?) for Dec. 2010

Not that long ago, aimlessly browsing Wikipedia -- as you do -- through the "Random Article" button, I came across... well I can't remember what the first article was, actually -- as you do. All I know is that I frantically wanted to remember the name of a bizarre variant of the Messershmitt Bf 109 that I found through IL-2 Sturmovik.

Bizarre how, you ask? It was a version built in the same vein as the American P-82 -- which was basically two P-51 Mustangs stuck together -- that was two Bf 109 airframes attached through one shared center wing. Naturally, this made me think of perhaps my favorite aircraft that came out of the 40s, the P-38 Lightning. While browsing the article for the P-38, having since abandoned the search for the Bf 109 variant, I came across an interesting designation that I'd never seen before: "Northrop P-61 Black Widow." Suffering from acute WikiADD, I of course followed the link and found a plane with an appearance that immediately gripped me, somehow.

I don't know what it is about it. The glass canopy in the aft, the twin booms not unlike those in the P-38, the double canopy in the fore, or the appearance of a remotely controlled turret on a plane so small, even just the shape of the main fuselage. Part of it must stem from my fascination with helicopters and that except for the elongated nose, the double canopy in the front reminds me of something you'd see in one (like in the Russian Hind).

Needless to say, I desperately want to emulate the plane's design, but in something not simply an aircraft. My first inclination is to morph it into something that would operate in space in some sci-fi setting. The challenge here comes from wanting to do it in such a way that it would appear to be a craft purpose-built for combat outside atmosphere -- meaning no airfoils, wings, or pointless control surfaces -- but without destroying it's original aesthetic. I'm not sure how I'll pull this off, but I'm looking forward to trying.

Rough snapshot of the most recent thing I’ve done (and the first full item to end up in these new notebooks!). It’s not quite what I wanted it to end up as, so I’m looking at it as a first draft or maybe just a first concept. It's inked mainly because I wanted to play with the pens I got for (early) Christmas.

Drawn and colored Dec 22, 2010.