It’s been 4 months since I released any kind of paper miniature, of course christmas, mmorpg’s and work haven’t helped the situation any. I was also feeling quiet a bit burned out and a little bummed out. I suspect this was how the MMORPG managed to grab me and suck me back in like some form of evil sucubbus. I did over Xmas and through some of Jan manage to get some drawing done. I’ve latched onto Ben Caldwells line of books, the two I’ve managed to find are Action Cartooning and Fantasy Cartooning. I’m firmly wedged into the fantasy mindset at the moment so I’m finding the Fantasy Cartooning a better guide/read.
First up I tried drawing some heads as they tend to be one of the things I find harder to draw. Here’s a small selection of the heads I drew, these ones I outlined with a thick black marker, but I drew them on plain notepad paper:
I was pretty happy with how the above came out so I tried my hand at goblin/monkey. In the book he’s a monkey but I changed him around a little so he gained more of a goblin look. I didn’t bother to outline him just the rough pencil drawing:
I was pretty happy with how they were turning out so I decided to try my hand at drawing a couple of NPC hero’s that I could submit to January’s Cardboard warriors forum hoard.
First up I tried a peasant hero, he hopefully has that slightly young but heroic look to him, I contemplated making him barefoot but stuck with boots in the end. The below shows him traced and ready for colouring in Inkscape:
Next up I tried a more grizzled veteran/Sargent, I wanted this guy to look tougher and older someone who’s seen to many battles and someone would think twice before crossing swords…well axes with him:
Next stage was to draw the reverse sides of the above two and give them some colour. I decided to give the grizzled veteran a scar across one eye, but the remaining colouring was pretty standard and I managed to pull it all off in Inkscape although with some difficulty:
I’m very happy with how they look coloured even if they are fairly simple equipment wise. I gave the peasant hero the heraldric device for one of my kingdoms on Etena, but I’ll probably re-draw the unicorn into a more cartoon form. The above two will be available in January’s forum hoard and then once thats released I’ll do a special page of gift mimics and the above two for my paper miniature page here sometime in the near future.
They remind me a little of Disney cartoon characters but I like the look. I’m going to try drawing some more over the next few months and maybe a few monsters. Thoughts and comments on the style are more than welcome.
Sirrob01 