Welcome to the final Other Guy! (Other Guys? Others? Hell with it.)

I was really, really looking forward to this one, and not just because it’s the last. A color palette I like, a species I like (with spots!) and I get to play with glow-y effects? Oh hell yeah.

The water doesn’t so much look like water, but there’s a limit to what you can do when it’s supposed to look flat, muddy, and purple. The little green mushrooms could use more definition (aka darker shadows… again. I swear, I’ll learn one of these days.) and the balloon-tree thingies in the far background have neither treelike or ballonlike qualities. I am however happy with the misty effect. Given that the balloon-trees came out a bit weak, I sort of wish I’d made the mist more impenetrable.

But this is one of those times where the figure came out much better than the background. I gave him deep enough shadows, the skin color variation all makes sense, and his little whiskers are pretty freaking adorable. I had to re-do his toes and hands about three times. They aren’t great, but they don’t stand out as bad anymore, which I’ll take.

And I’m happy to report that on the very last illustration in this series I grokked a new technique. I can reliably make things glow. Now all I have to do is resist the urge to come up with excuses to use my new skill for no reason.

…

Radioactive special! All commissions with a glowing element 10% off!

Now then, were where we?

Ah yes. Quillboar.

I tried something a little different here to try to save myself time on the background, and pretty much robo-failed. It took longer than it would have to just draw it from scratch, and it wound up looking like I ran a simple filter over a screenshot. Dammit.

Strangely enough, the thing I was most worried about turned out just fine. I’m talking about the quills of course. With simple color change along the length of the quill I was able to take care of the ‘depth’ problem without spending lots of time drawing the shade and shadows of each individual spike.

And once again my subtlety rises up to bite me. The difference between the well-lit portions and the dark bits on the figures is about half what it should be. The shadows just aren’t deep enough. I could justify it by saying they’re in a poorly lit space, but in the interest of learning I really shouldn’t. Justifying after the fact is not the same as doing it on purpose in the first place.

Despite them being, well, nasty little creatures, I enjoy Kobolds. They have simple priorities, and all the little things about their character design are consistent with the singleminded pursuit of those priorities. The backpack for holding various shiny objects they might find, (which is overfull, don’t want to spend time going back to the surface until you just can’t carry any more) badly patched clothes, the barely functional pickaxe, and the candle on the head, necessary for underground work when you can’t possibly occupy a hand (vital for grabbing loot) with carrying a torch.

As usual, I started with the figure. But I ran into a problem when I tried to make a background. I tried several different mineshaft settings, but nothing seemed to really be working. I wanted it to be dim, both because pre-industrial mines are dim, and also to keep the figure at the forefront. But then I tried to put normal shadows on the figure, and everything started to look very confused.

As usual, the solution is simplicity. Murder your darlings. (Of couse, as you may have noticed, in explaining this principle I managed to show you the full, unshadowed figure anyway.)

I’m also trying to figure out how glowing works. I’ve got a good handle on coloring with a directional lightsource, but the flame itself looks…solid. It would be fine if it were a lantern, but it’s a shame that one of the natural focal points of the drawing came out a little awkward.

Harpies. Why did it have to be harpies.

World of Warcraft harpies are considered humanoids, (meaning you can’t skin them for profit. A comforting definition, no?) but otherwise they seem to be only marginally above animals: they lay eggs in nests, don’t keep houses as such, and don’t talk. And yet they wear metal bikinis. The resolution of this is left as an exercise for the reader.

I really, really like how this came out. Conceptually I was worried about the feathers, as detail work has a tendency to trip me up. But I managed not to focus too much on edges while giving a good amount of color variation. The placement of the feathers on the wing is only loosely related to reality, but I’m okay with that.

And this is a big step up in the background department. I wasn’t sure how to integrate a character study with a full background, (and if I’m honest, I wasn’t totally sure I could do a full background) so I simplified matters by using a limited and out of focus background with a border.

And yes, I’m doing the orange/blue thing. So sue me, but goddamn it, that contrast works.

The colors are kinda gnarly in this one… like the Cenarians were egged with radioactive easter eggs. Cenarians do come in other colorschemes, but I liked the naturally colored fur in this palette so I was willing to put up with the pink and green.

Harder to deal with than the colors is that these forms are partially human. (Humans being really good at seeing the slightest mistake in the depiction of other humans.) Given these issues I’m really quite pleased that this came out as well as it did.

Favorite part: The female’s legs. The hooves look dainty and pointy while still being weight-bearing, and the leg bracer-thingies have nice definition without looking pasted on.

Worst part: Ladies’ torso. Ick. I’m really quite good at lady torsos in silhouette, but I clearly haven’t figured out how light falls on them. It has to hit the ribcage and the curve of the tummy under the bellybutton, but knowing that and making it look right are apparently different things.

It’s all right. You can say it.

Nerubians are icky.

They have several different equally icky body plans. So many in fact that getting them all in one illustration was a little awkward logistically, so I’m only showing two of the more common types that the average adventurer may run into.

Again, there are things I like about this one, and things that make me sigh. (I’m getting better. Sighing is a big step up from disquieting giggling.) In trying to relax about my color transitions, some things are fuzzier than they should be, which gives the whole picture a sort of dreamlike quality. Which would be cool, if I that was in any way what I meant to do.

And my color choice is too close in contrast. Again. The leg red, body brown, and purple wrappings have basically the same brightness, which makes them difficult to differentiate at a distance.

But I like the spiderlings.  They’re alternately cute and horrifying, with good contrast and color. They’re adorable. Just, um, keep ‘em away from me.

One of the great things (and painful things) about having a slight backlog is that when you go to post something, you immediately see everything that is horribly wrong with it. While this is good for learning purposes, it isn’t terribly comfortable if you’re slightly insecure. Which all artists are, trust me.

I’ve clearly improved in some ways, but I’m also making some of the same mistakes. I’m happy with my color choices and shading, but it just isn’t vibrant enough. In trying to make the skintones natural-ish, I undersaturated them. The contrast is fine, but the lighter skin and the metal bits are washed out and anemic. Annnd the overly precious monster is back. The ogre’s faces are actually really cool… but you can’t see them, because all that neat detail is on a tiny part of the picture. Oops.

From the WoWiki:
Ogres are large, brutish humanoids originally from Draenor. They were one of the last races of Draenor’s giants.

Ogre culture, such as it is, tend to revolve a great deal around warfare, violence, and acts of strength. Elimination of competitors is an accepted (in fact, it is the only) way to move up in the ogre ranks. The ogres have great admiration to those that can best them in strength or in combat, an admiration that far transcends anything else, including their hatred for other mortal races, specifically orcs and humans. There are rare but known cases of ogres bowing to the Horde when those have defeated them (such as the Stonemaul tribes) and even rarely the Alliance.

Regular ogres and two-headed ogres are not spellcasters; the ogre magi make up the smarter, spellcasting versions of ogres.

You know who I mean. All those other non-playable, yet clearly intelligent species in World of Warcraft.

That’s right, it’s series time.

Before we get started, let me define some terms: I’m not doing demons, elementals, or anything that could be described as a critter. I’m also limiting this to things that you can speak with in game, and which seem to have a distinct culture. Plus they have to amuse me. Most likely, this means I will not be doing Quillboar. (Frickkin Quillboar. With their stupid death squeal. And you never have to kill just a couple of them, oh no, you have to listen to that squeal eleventy-twelve times.) I have not however compiled my final list, so if there’s any species you’re dying to see me draw, just ask.

On the subject of artistic relevance, this series will serve as rapid-fire, low pressure sketching practice. See, I’m gradually transferring my years of hard-won pencil skills to my digital tablet. Unfortunately, that transfer is not automatic. Something about not being able to see the marks on the same surface as I’m making them, plus the different biofeedback from the digital pen is enough to impede my sketching ability. So I’ll do no physical sketching in this series. Additionally, all these very similar pictures will help solidify my painting process, and the unreality of the subjects will help keep me from getting too precious and narfy about it.

First up: Naga

From WoWwiki: The naga are former Highborne night elves who mutated into vengeful humanoid sea serpents….Naga culture is complex. A clear delineation exists between the sexes. Male naga are larger and more muscular, reminiscent of dragons. Naga men serve as soldiers and guardians. Female naga are more slender, with smaller scales and finer, more human-seeming faces. Naga women are natural spellcasters and rely on magic and poison to defeat their enemies. Naga men are more numerous, but as naga consider their women to be magically and intellectually superior, their society is matriarchal. Women occupy most positions of leadership, and all naga pay homage to their queen, Azshara.

The sketch for this little guy was originally done for an EverQuest themed commission, but the client didn’t like him.

It’s okay, his self-esteem recovered. Eventually.

Because I still thought he was cute, I dug him out of my loose sketches for a little painting practice. I’m still learning the broad strokes of how to paint in Photoshop, but I am slowly getting faster, which is necessary for that brain-burning project I mentioned in my last post. (We’ll get to that soonish, I promise. Right after the website re-vamp is done. Which will also be, uh, soonish?)

And oh hey, I’ve learned a thing or two about digital painting.

1: Pick your color palette at the beginning. In this case, I needed a skin tone, a speckles tone, and two tones for the clothing. The thing is that each ‘tone’ should be made up of three-to-six slightly different colors. You can lay these out in little groupings to remember what’s for what. When painting, you can use these color differences to denote shadows or other minor variations.

2: Set the opacity on your brush to significantly less than 80% for everything but the finishing touches. I like around 80% for the under layer, and then around 50% for almost everything else. Also, use a bigger, softer-edged brush than you’d necessarily like to.

3: After you’ve put down your under layer and laid out the basic form, start using the color picker to grab from what you’ve already made. Because of the opacity on the brush you’re using, you’ll get a nice variation in color based on where your strokes overlap. This also makes it quite easy to smooth out harsh contrasts where you don’t want them.

Something a little different for you this week: A photo restoration.

This photo had a sad, sad life before it came to me. It was well loved however, as it must have been put in its frame fairly shortly after it was taken.  It was sandwiched into the frame with the frontpage of the newspaper Club Life, dated October 11th, 1890.

For those of you without a background in conservation, the operative word in the previous sentence is newspaper. Newspaper, particularly old newspaper, is full of all sorts of nasty reactive chemicals. By the time I got my hands on it, the newspaper had begun to dissolve under its own power.

As for the poor photo: At some point, the photo had become one with the glass. I’m not sure exactly what the chemical process was, but removing it was synonymous with destroying it. And that was the state of affairs when someone dropped it, and shattered the glass.

The owner brought it to me, and asked if there was anything I could do.  I blinked at her for a minute, and said I’d give it my best shot. The first order of business was to get it scanned, which was impossible in its current state. The photo had snapped along with the glass in some places, but was still intact in others.  The glass grated against itself every time I tried to move it, causing more damage to the glass and the photo. Flipping it over in order to scan it was out of the question. Also it was spitting glass slivers everywhere.

Painful as it was, I had to use a razor to finish the process of breaking the picture into pieces.  I scanned each piece separately, then I assembled them in Photoshop, which gave me this:

Thirty hours of work later, I gave this back to the client:

There are a few interesting things about this photo, beyond the reconstruction work.

First, it’s pretty clear that not everyone had the same idea about how to pose for a graduation photograph. The guys in the back are posed and proper, hats in hand, while others sit with either genuine or awkward informality. Most people look in the direction of the photographer, but others seem to deliberately stare somewhere else. Everybody agrees that smiling is bad, but that’s about the only consensus.

The Union College of Law later became the law school of Northwestern University.

Also, where the hell was this taken? A construction zone? An alley? Wherever it was, the guy lounging in the front felt obligated to put his handkerchief on the ground underneath him to protect his suit.

People knew how to put letters in their names in the 1890′s. Boy howdy. Here’s the best example, before and after.

Lastly, there are two women in the photo. One would have been unusual, and two is really something of a surprise.

The registry lists them as L. Blanche Fearing (to the left) and Mrs. Fearing.

That’s right. She has no first name, not for the likes of you, anyway. She is Mrs. Fearing. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.