Sudden Thought

A thought has occurred......

Is it possible to save the world through cute cat pictures?

Dust to Steam

Dust: An Elysium Tail is coming to Steam. Can't wait (Did I mention I love this game?).

Designing Zargooran

As a part of my on going challenge to bring many of my characters to a more permanent visual form, I've been trying to get rough sketches done of what they would look like. The first is from the same name which I have gone by on the internet, Zargooran. He's been one of my long time characters. Once a creature of flesh and blood of villainous intent, he was finally killed off only for the forces of darkness to restore his essence in the form of a Dark Entity. Despite his continuing battles, Zargooran felt something was not right. It was through one of his own creations that he learned the truth of his destiny and since then has worked hard to redeem himself, going from destroyer to savior (you know, that old story).

The only visual piece of this character is titled 'Zargooran Amongst Rage'. The description of Zargooran is that he is a form of black space, with stars and faint nebula's seen within him (note: No planets, as that would imply life within him, which there is not). The only thing standing out is his glowing red eyes, the only stability in a sea of madness.

 

 'Zargooran Amongst Rage'

The problem? How do you draw a creature who is a shape shifter with a body that looks like a universe that's trapped within it....with only two (or more) eyes to distinguish that it is a living thing? Each time I sketch a head shape or design, I get the feeling it's somehow a copy of some other character and that's a real pain. He's stance is best described as tall, dominating and menacing (not in an evil sense, but the way he is in comparison to the room around him)in appearance when standing over someone. He still has a dark, evil shape to him, despite no longer being evil and can have as many eyes as he wants, but simply chooses to have two so as to reduce his 'scare' factor when dealing with others. Started with some early sketches:

Felt like the designs was a copy of something else, but couldn't place my finger on what it was (dark energy creatures all tend to look somewhat similar). That said, I did decided on one which felt more appropriate for the character:

 

I'm still not sure if the four spike-like things protruding from his head are horns or ears, but they do give him that more menacing look. His body is also has a sort of organic/liquid like flow to it, with various ends to his 'robe' like body looking (and acting) like tentacles. This would give him a more floating look as he moves across surfaces (well, when he's not moving around like a mist cloud at least). While the eyes stand out from the rest of his body, features like arms only appear when he needs them. The shape of his head here....

....would not show up given the nature of his form (as stated earlier, 'Black space with stars and faint nebula's). Perhaps I can make an exception for the head and give a faint dark grey outline just to distinguish the head from a sort of side angle. As for any arms he might produce, it depends on the angle and how they look (e.g. if it looks terrible from a certain angle, then perhaps a similar faint dark grey outline may work - possibly blood red given his energy glows and acts 'blood-like' in nature).

He does summon energy (if you can call it that) and use energy based attacks, though they use the colour red and seem to look more organic like blood then actual energy (as I mentioned above). This represents his connections to the Bloodclaws as well as his own history of genetic manipulation and evolution. In combat he tends to lash out in rapid, fluid motion with incredible speed. His body tends to form sharp clawed hands, deadly sword/spear like tentacles and other claw/scythed armed appendages. Against a singular powerful foe he would focus on testing his opponents weaknesses up close,but against an army he would kill enough of the enemy to use their bio-matter to forge new monstrous creations from it to continue the fight. This would be through his power, allowing him to create all sorts of killer beasts within less then a minute (he possesses vast amounts of genetic knowledge, so he already knows what to create before he's even started).

Another thought occurred while coming up with his design, a sort of strange comic that I felt I had to draw (Why?):

How does he talk if he possesses no mouth? It isn't done telepathically and truth be told, I never thought about it until now.......he just does.

Thoughts on comics today

Have watched a lot of videos by Linkara recently and it's got me thinking about today's standard of comics.  

People pay to read these comics and given their current pricing, it ain't cheap. So if you pay for something, you expect it to be atleast on the level of good. My point? Why do we pay for comics that struggle to be good, when you can find so many better ones online for free (With decent stories or jokes that are actually funny)? That's right, web comics are proving to be both popular and better done then those that you spend $5 on. Not only that, but some of them are out more often then once a month. Go out and find some today.

.......just saying....

(when a bad fanfic is more entertaining then a paid comic, you know the industry has a problem)

Wizards WiP

An update on the wizards.

Jade here has finished being converted (robe gap will be done once other side is glued on) and has just been based painted so you can see how he'll look. I have an owl familiar which, when painted, will be placed on the top of his staff.

The grey wizard still has his misty smoke to be done (as you can slightly see thanks to the crap quality of this photo). Obviously, this one is still going to take some more time to finish.

Eggs and Arms

Got back from more Easter shopping (got to get them before the rush actually kicks in). Products just seem to get more and more expensive each year....despite the products never getting bigger. Anyway.....

Finally managed to get to my local GW store for more advice on the Inquisitor model. Two things came from this. The first is that it isn't so much blending, but actual scraping the green stuff off the model as some parts have already enough on it to simply scrape and file blend. The Second, is that he arms a set out to be larger then they already are...

Apparently, given the shape of the model, his arms are too far out, giving him a bulky look, which I never had intended. While the sword arm is fine (givin that the sword covers this up well enough), the gun arm is...well...obvious. This means I have to remove the arm and somehow try another way to keep a similar pose, but keep the arm more under and inline with the shoulder then it already is. Back to the surgeons table for this guy.

Missing Mist

The two Empire wizards are going well so far, with the Jade near finish converting (including base). My problem now lies with the Grey Wizard. I've sculpted his mask and hood, with his staff top still WiP. My problem is that I planned a sort of smokey mist effect to be coming off/moving behind him and despite much searching, there are very little (if any) models with this effect.

I now look for artworks with which show a similar effect as reference for when I begin sculpting, though so far I have only found one such picture. I will have to paint the interior of the robes before sculpting, given that I need to sculpt over the lower robes and that means he'd need to be glues together (he already looks as if he's covering up and it'd be difficult to paint him once he's been glued together).