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Thanks for the nice comments. 🙂
I revisited Trillian’s picture using Herr D’s suggestions for the sleeves, and also tweaked the cup so I could size down the hand holding it. I think/hope it works better now.
I guess I’ll toss up the quickie I did for the One Part, Many Characters thread:
Ensign McRedshirt was regretting wandering away from his away team a few weeks earlier, but at least the space warrior babe was also an ace pilot.
Ember – human fiend/tome warlock
This one sat in limbo as a head and torso for weeks because I could not for the life of me come up with a pose idea that I was happy with. It’s still pretty simplistic, but I think it gives an idea of the kind of person she is (namely the kind of person you should not mess with). I made my own feudal city streets and I think that came out okay. Actually considering the amount of time I spent angsting over what to do with it, the actual image didn’t take that much work to put together. 😀 It’s always kind of a challenge wondering if I should add more distinctive details to something, like should I include the weaponry she’d be carrying around with her? Does her black leather outfit need more straps or something? But then after determining that sticking shivs in her boots looks kind of doofy, I end up going with the simple look and calling it good.
Once there was a little girl who had to leave her home with her family. They found a new home, living in tents outside the walls of a city. There was a certain tension in the air, but her mommy and daddy loved her very much and did their best to keep her happy.
And then the world burned down in one night.
Amid the screaming and the flames, as the refugees from her village fell around her, for the first time in her young life she discovered true hatred. She can still see the face of a man laughing at her, and feel the jagged blade slicing through her throat.
As she slipped toward darkness, a voice came to her. “Do you want to survive?” it asked. She whispered… “Yes…” and so she did.
Years would pass before she realized the true import of that question. But when she did, she readily accepted the pact that she had unwittingly forged with her dark patron. Accustomed as she is to living in the shadows, caring only for her own well-being, she intends to put her patron’s powers to good use. For herself, and for no one else.
Tarkelby Wiggins – gnome conjuration wizard
Here’s another one where I came up with (or in this case solidified) a character concept and then immediately had to run and start a picture. Had to do a decent amount of cut-and-finagle with the robe, but I feel like this might have been the quickest a portait has come together (especially after dragging my feet so long on the previous one). I particularly like how his expression came out and I think this is one of my favorite illustrations of a character so far.
At first glance, Tarkelby Wiggins might appear to be a doddering old gnome wearing a wizard costume that seems to primarily consist of an oversized pointy hat, a bathrobe, and a conspicuously fake beard. But he will be quick to assure you that he is in fact a great wizard, renowned throughout the great society of wizarddom, and he would still be off somewhere casting his great high-level spells if only he hadn’t misplaced his spellbook. He is currently on a quest to locate and retrieve this tome of his life’s work, and in the meantime he must make do with a spellbook containing a much more modest array of low-level spells. At least, you would have to assume that they’re spells, since the only person who can read Tarkelby’s handwriting is Tarkelby, and even that’s not always a given.
Lest you be inclined to suspect that Tarkelby is any kind of a scam artist, let it be said that he is indeed old, and doddering, and he does have some amount of wizardly talent. His youth was largely squandered on various frivolous pursuits and grand plans that never quite went anywhere, and as he began to recognize that his time in this world was growing ever more limited, he came to want more than anything to accomplish something truly great before he bids this life farewell. The magic he had only tinkered with throughout his life became his focus, and while the hoitier and toitier of wizards largely regard him as a laughingstock, he is determined to prove himself useful to his adventuring companions and make for himself a name that he can be proud of. Now if only he could remember where he last saw that dratted book…
Rando Calpurnian – gnome shadow monk
This character came about because I thought it would be fun to randomly roll for everything (race, class, background, gender, alignment…) and then come up with a character concept and backstory that made it all work. It ended up being an entirely non-optimized character (especially once you factor in his entirely mediocre stat rolls) that I think would be super fun to play. Building the image itself mostly revolved around trying to angle his body one way while his head looks the other way. The head part came out very well (especially once I traded in the standard male heads for the bottom half of the dual-conehead alien head), but I wish the chest didn’t look so flat. Super simple background and some shading and we’re calling it good.
Rando is a devoted but largely inept minion of an evil and powerful mage who would totally take over the world if he weren’t so focused on outdoing the rival evil powerful mage on the neighboring cliff. Rando wants nothing more than to be a super badass ninja and serve his master well, but since he’s not good at much of anything, he’s pretty much only survived this long because he relies on his fellow minions to bail him out or just straight up hides until danger passes (and then congratulates himself on his stealthiness).
Rando’s master appreciates his loyalty and determination, but as the HR complaints begin stacking up, he decides that it might be a good time to send the gnome out on a solo mission of great importance. He gives Rando a list of different targets and instructs him to collect a button from each one, to be used as ingredients in an incredibly powerful and diabolical spell. There’s a lot about this that Rando doesn’t understand, but he will do his absolute best to follow his master’s wishes to the letter. And if this entire thing is just a pointless fetch quest designed to get him out of the castle for a while, it never even crosses his mind.
Genevra – half-elf archfey/chain warlock
Someday I’ll do a picture where the proportions all just work out and I don’t have to do a bunch of second-guessing and resizing and wondering if the arms still look janky or not. I did have fun on this one going through categories and pulling out stuff to put in her collection of critter parts. Not having to deal with legs is also nice. When in doubt, add more trees. I don’t feel like doing shading on this one and I’m okay with that.
Genevra has spent most of her life enduring suspicious glances and derision from those around her, first as the child of an interracial couple, and later as the ward and apprentice of the old crone who saved her life when she and her parents were stricken with a horrible illness. The girl and the crone, similarly pockmarked as survivors of the sickness and choosing to live as outlanders, were labeled as witches and weathered years of abuse before the local folk finally turned on them out of fear and ignorance. In the ensuing confrontation, the feeble old woman was killed while Genevra managed to escape.
As Genevra subsequently wandered in search of a new home, her appearance and eccentricities drew attention and epithets of “witch” and “hag” wherever she went. She eventually took up residence in an abandoned hut near a coastal village, where as always she was regarded with suspicion by the superstitious locals.
One evening, amid the first gales of an oncoming storm, a mysterious stranger came to the hut seeking shelter. Genevra took the old man in and offered what comfort she could. A few hours later a pounding at the door broke through the sounds of the raging storm. A group of panicked and irate townspeople confronted Genevra, accusing the “hag” of calling down the storm upon them. As Genevra angrily struggled against them, the mysterious visitor revealed himself as an archfey lord and offered her the chance to actually control the storm. As the years of repressed frustration finally found their outlet, Genevra accepted the powers he bestowed on her and used them to bring the fury of the storm down on her attackers.
In the aftermath, Genevra had to come to terms with both the sudden rush of power and the shock of intentionally taking lives for the first time. Her new patron, having recognized both her innate benevolence and the bottled-up desire to lash out at the world, was quite interested to see what she would do with the powers he had granted. As she moves onward, becoming accustomed to actually being the witch others had always imagined her to be, it remains to be seen which side of her nature will prevail.
Rosia Krava – minotaur battle master fighter
I’ve had a cow fighter in the works for a while, and this week’s minotaur CDC gave me the impetus to finish putting together the character concept and design a picture. I didn’t really like any of the available bull heads (plus she’s a cow), so I went and made my own. Dinosaur companion head comes through again. It does help that I grew up on a dairy farm and have plenty of cow references to work with. I don’t know if D&D minotaurs are allowed to be Holsteins but I’m going with it. She’s pretty beefy (lolololol). I wonder if people will be able to tell that she’s female. I actually looked up minotaur boobs while researching what this character should look like. There’s been quite a bit of discourse on the subject. If anybody’s wondering, I’m going with chest boobs because of the human-type torso. I’m also assuming she doesn’t have four stomach compartments. I can’t decide if I like this chest armor or not. Now I’m taking a break to look up “cow” in every language on Google translate because I can’t think of a name for her. I think I’ll stick with this armor. It doesn’t look too bad with this nice skirt thing we’ve got going on. The proportions are actually working out nicely on this one. Coming up with spots without going crazy is a bit challenging, but when you blow up the splotchy insignia they don’t look so much like someone threw a bucket of paint at her. If anybody’s wondering, “krava” means cow in a number of eastern European languages. I think she can be hanging out in a rocky mountain setting. Oh she needs an eartag too. And here we go with a bit of shading and she’s done.
In a society that values strength and combat prowess above all, being smaller than one’s contemporaries is often equated with weakness. Rosia has always sought to defy that expectation and assert her place in the pecking order, developing an aggressive personality, a strategic approach to combat, and an aversion to being pushed around.
After doing her time in the gladiatorial arenas, and having no interest in sea raiding (at least partly because she gets seasick whenever she steps onto a boat), Rosia struck out to make her own fortune and prove her worth to the wider world. Even though she towers over most of her new companions, that drive to prove herself and demand respect has stayed with her. She rarely lets a challenge pass unanswered, and her favorite way to size up new acquaintances is through an arm-wrestling match. The one thing she loves more than fighting is food, and woe unto him who stands between her and something she wants to eat.
Tamrith – human paladin of the ancients (again)
As I am shockingly getting close to running out of D&D characters to depict (I only have around 20 of them), my thoughts turned to the campaigns I’m playing and contemplating what scenes from the game would make for good art if we had an army of fanartists like certain popular online games do. Sadly we are not blessed with actual artists who care about our game, so I’m the best we’ve got. But fortunately I find it enjoyable to think back through the various scenes that have been significant to my characters, and I can only try to do justice to some of them with my limited skills.
I was inspired to start with a more comical scene featuring my paladin, complete with an anime-esque style for the supporting characters. That was an interesting experiment, and posing is a whole lot easier when everything is in silhouette and you don’t have to care about matching up lines. I really like how the faces came out given the exaggerated style.
Putting Tamrith together was much more challenging, and a lot of that felt like the different elements just didn’t want to come together properly. I’d say the nuances of facial expression are an area where HeroMachine’s capabilities fall far short of what a traditional artist could do. If you want something beyond a fierce snarl or a goofy smile or maybe a smug smirk, you’re going to have a tough time. Or maybe I just need to study the minutiae of facial anatomy to know exactly what to do with the proportions and positioning of the different facial elements to create the expression I’m after. I did a bit of that with this shot, trying to replicate the actual beleaguered face I was making in character. I think it ended up okay, but dang did I spend a lot of time trying to get everything to not look derpy. The hair was also way more work than it needed to be for something that was just “Tam has her hair down.”
Anyway it’s done and I enjoy it and the goofy anime maids crack me up.
Our weary adventurers were given a post-battle respite in a swanky mansion owned by a new acquaintance, and while the cleric princess (who is actually a princess) enjoyed being luxuriously pampered in the next room, rough-and-tumble Tam endured being assaulted by the overzealous maids and their arsenal of bath-and-body implements. She did not find it an enjoyable experience, although the next morning she did admit to feeling “weirdly soft.”
Aneva Ashworthy – halfling open hand monk
The challenge for this project was putting Aneva in profile, since the picture in my head wanted her looking out to sea and I didn’t figure her backside would be very interesting. Considering how much repurposing and frankensteining usually needs to be done to produce a side view, it wasn’t all that tough. MVP goes to that half-tabard that has the perfect contour for a tucked-in shirt when you shrink it down. The biggest issue turned out to be the fact that there are no bare feet with the big toe on the side away from the viewer. So I made my own left foot out of a boot and some lines, and it only looks slightly derpy. I like how the setting came out quite a bit, and I’m glad I decided to go through with adding the random dude walking by for a sense of scale (and I think it kind of highlights how isolated Aneva is even in the midst of civilization).
Aneva was always fascinated by tales of lands abroad, and when she came of age she embarked on a sea journey to see as much of the world as she could before she returned home to settle down. While initially more of a passenger than a sailor, she gradually took a larger role in working on the ship and was eventually accepted as a member of the crew. She spent four years as a sailor before she was shipwrecked on a deserted island, the only survivor among her crew.
She did her practical best to survive on her own, but her lack of combat experience was a disadvantage when dealing with the wild animals that seemed to consider her a tasty morsel worthy of contant attention. Everything changed when she discovered the ruins of an old temple located in the deepest parts of the island. The deserted and dilapidated temple had clearly once been a thriving place of study and training for a group of monks, and fortunately they had left behind enough of their legacy for Aneva to begin studying and learning their vocation. As she gained a rudimentary understanding of their techniques, she found an inner resolve and physical strength that were more than a match for the island’s predators.
For nearly 12 years Aneva lived in solitude, making the best of her situation and taking solace in her meditation and training. When she was finally rescued, she returned to a society that was at once familiar and foreign. Although initially intending to return home, she found that she wasn’t quite ready to turn her back on the path that the previous 12 years had set her on. She missed the tranquility and feeling of mastery she had experienced at the temple, and she was sure that there was so much more that she could learn and become if she could find the right guidance. And so now she travels in search of clues that might lead her to a greater understanding, and uses her skills for good by helping whomever she can along the way.
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