TOR: Rivendell

No title puns today. The Rivendell book for The One Ring RPG is out in PDF and in preorders for the physical copies!

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/132859/Rivendell?affiliate_id=169435
http://shop.cubicle7store.com/Rivendell

I've painted and drawn a few pieces for the book. And they were great scenes and objects - battles, armies, swords and helmets, but I can't help but think the resulting illustrations could've been better.
I don't mean to blame the circumstances in which they were made (the last few months my mum was still with us), but it's true my mind was not focused on the work as it should've been.

"Armies of Arnor and Lindon are coming down from the Misty Mountains."

(This one was a struggle. I drew this at my parents' house, so I had to do it on paper instead of the usual "digital pencil". And by accident, I used a piece of watercolour paper, which is very bumpy and hard to draw on. At least for me.)

The only original piece of the bunch, I already gave away as a thank you to a fan who bought several other paintings of mine.

"Witch King flees from lord Glorfindel after the battle of Fornost" 

This one's alright. Glorfindel came out fine, but I wish I spent more time fiddling with Witch King's design. The colour scheme is odd, but works, more or less. I originally wanted to show more of the battle in the background, but ended up focusing on the front figures.

"Glorfindel in Rivendell"

Glorfindel is one of those characters almost impossible to depict as you imagine them. (primarily because I don't have a concrete singular image of them in my mind. So I pretended to be Victor Ambrus and also started experimenting with the tools in ArtRage in the middle of the drawing. Came out sort of ok. 

"And so, the game of golf was invented..."

Golfimbul's death at the hands of Bullroarer Took was a super fun scene to do. Unfortunately, I drew it at my absolute physical and psychological low at the time. Still, I think both comedy and action of the scene came through.

"Helmet and sword from the times of old"

Yeah, this was the safest one. I just switched my brain off and painted what I knew. Now I wish I did the helmet even more like Tolkien's karma, but it might've been too weird. The sword is an odd mix of elements, really! Quasi-Migration/early medieval period fittings and handle, Tibetan/Chinese influence on the hilt decorations and a pommel that's half yataghan and half ancient bronze Persian dagger.

That's all! Jon and I were joined by Jeremy McHugh for this one. And trust me, he's done a great job. So go now, go buy the PDF and/or preorder the book!
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"The One Ring, Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their licensees."

Two Stood Against Many

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important!"  
- Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Scenes depicting a battle of a few brave heroes against a horde of enemies continue to be used in fiction, being drawn to such stories seems to be in human nature. The pathos, sympathy for the underdog, admiration of skill and bravery, all add to the appeal.

Doing such a scene in film is difficult for various reasons, most related to the fact we as viewers recognize certain aspects going against what we perceive as "realistic". 

Film makers get away with some of them - in massive battles there always seems to be a space around the hero, a few metres of air to allow for fancy moves and to give him time to recover while enemies approach one by one.
Still, there are different approaches and layers to such a scene and watching several of my favourites, I thought about them and why they do or don't work.

1) Intent and confidence 

This is such a subtle thing, but fairly important in my opinion. Holywood movies sometimes suffer for this, because stuntmen playing the bad guys are simply much more skilled than the hero played by a famous actor. The years of training and muscle memory show in their movements - the hero supposedly slaughtering multiple enemies with ease has to be carefully photographed from specific angles and helped by frequent cutting between shots, to hide flaws and enhance the way his moves look and feel. At the same time, the baddies move much better and have to visibly restrain themselves to not rush all in at the same time, they have to telegraph their moves to a ridiculous degree etc. They're also very determined to run at the hero and die, no matter how many of their comrades were butchered before their eyes.

Watching Japanese chambara movies recently, I noticed this aspect of them to be rather different. 

Watch this clip of Toshiro Mifune's samurai roles. Mifune being the protagonist is extremely good at being confident, the ultimate badass. He changes between cocky, goofy and serious, but look at the way he moves - low centre of gravity, upright body, look of disgust on his face. Now watch the baddies - lowly gangsters and stoic samurai, they notice their comrades being cut down, they waver, flail their arms and shuffle and fall back in fear. This is how you put many enemies around the hero and not get him swarmed instantly!

2) Movement

Nothing looks more fake than the hero standing in one spot and having the enemies run into his sword one by one. Most successful one-against-many scenes have the protagonist move around a lot. 
- you need to minimize the amount of enemies able to strike you at once. Move to make them get in each other's way, move to a place where they can only reach you one by one etc.
- if you strike them first, you win. This is related to intent - it takes experience and training to get over the fear of being hurt. Most people will not rush in on you. This is a very interesting part of group dynamics and psychology. Watch videos of riots or police training for riots and you'll see what I mean. Or, if you've ever participated in fighting games/sports like SCA, you know what I mean. Even if it's not your real life at stake, you move without thinking - stay closer to a friendly group, don't get surrounded, have someone else to take a hit for you etc.

Warning, this is a very disturbing video of real people getting seriously hurt!!!
(violence starts around the 7th minute)

In this clip, a single man armed with a knife manages to stab several (!!) policemen carrying guns before they take him down. Even trained professionals don't always respond as we'd expect. How does he manage such a thing? It's odd, he just runs from one guy to the next real fast and stabs them. Same way Toshiro Mifune cuts down those gangsters.
In this video a supposed boxer takes on multiple opponents in a street fight. Notice the continuous movement and how he moves them as well, to always keep just one guy in front.

So what are some successful examples of a good use of movement/intent/confidence trinity? 

Conan and the battle of the mounds does it well. Both Conan and Subotai hit and run from incoming enemies and they use the complex battlefield to break line of sight, ambush and avoid getting mobbed.

The landing attack in Troy is also quite good. Brad Pitt is helped by camera angles and shot cuts a LOT though. He's an athletic guy, the choreography is very fine, but some time ago I've seen this fight being shot in a behind-the-scenes video and it looked much less impressive, almost silly. Notice he also moves all the time - running, turning and (famously) jumping.

You can see great emphasis on intent and fighter morale as well as a lot of hero movement in old samurai movies - Hideo Gosha's for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_eddPRh5eY   - Sword of the Beast
http://youtu.be/naZ5toWI2_M?t=1h19m50s  - Three Outlaw samurai

I've been thinking about the ways I could use this in illustrations, because last stand and one-against-many scenes are very common in fantasy art. Perhaps some of the enemies might be visibly wavering, shaken or terrified? It's easy to settle on a very static "none shall pass" pose for the protagonist, because it's simple to build a powerful composition around it. But perhaps I could try something more dynamic with a hero in the middle of a movement?

What are your favourite one-against-many scenes? Got any examples of really bad ones? Share in the comments! :)

Dračí Doupě II - Bestiary

What an imaginative title!
I was asked to paint the cover image for the new Bestiary for Dračí Doupě 2. (an RPG I've worked on before)

A bestiary is a book full of beasts. Oh, wait! It's like the Monster Manual. There. Now you know.

The scene was supposed to depict a battle of two ancient creatures - Kostěj the Immortal and the Spideress. Kostěj is a bit like a lich, only Slavic and with his own style. He maintains an illusion of a handsome knight, but if you touch him, or break his spell some other way, you see his true rotting form. He rides a magical steed.
The Spideress is an ancient spider demi-goddess, awoken from her Cthulhu-like slumber, possessing cultists and building a lair in an abandoned underground temple.

And they fight.

You can see the front in a larger version on my DeviantArt here:

http://merlkir.deviantart.com/art/Battle-of-the-Ancients-337716550

And this is what the wrap-around looks like.

As usual it's painted mainly in ArtRage, some bits were added in PS. The cave is inspired heavily by the Macocha chasm:

https://www.google.cz/search?hl=cs&safe=off&q=macocha&bpcl=38626820&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1680&bih=961&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=36ajUKbtD8TtsgbtkoAw

Pract Ical vs. S'Wag

Long time no post!

This one will be a (not so) short meditation on the practicalness of ancient and medieval armour.
(there's art at the end too)

Some time ago this Tumblr post was put together as a reaction to the "Women in Reasonable Armour" thing. I don't understand Tumblr, so I have no idea who actually wrote it, sorry.

http://unatheblade.tumblr.com/post/9549555644/just-for-the-sake-of-interest-heres-a

As the author states, this "counter-point" was meant to show that:


"... practicality isn’t the end-all and be-all of military costume. In some cases though, you have to wonder if it was given any thought at all."

Do the sample images support this wild hypothesis? Leeeeeeet's FIND OUT! Raise the gates!

1.) First image are the La Tene Gallic warriors masterfully illustrated by Angus McBride. What is the weird impractical element here?

• The eagle helmet?   - as much as I respect McBride, he made the helmet look much heavier than the original piece suggests. We have no idea if it was a real helmet meant for battle, or if it was a ceremonial object. If it was used in battle, it probably wasn't as obstructive as we may think.
• The naked guy?   - a more likely complaint. Did celts fight naked? Period sources suggest some of them might have. Why on Earth would anyone do that? There are many theories. It might've been a religious thing, for morale improvement, or it simply felt better for the warriors to fight without clothing constraining their manly bodies. There is a relevant anecdote by a Roman writer (whose name escapes me now) describing how units of naked warriors suffered considerably larger casualties in a missile skirmish than their clothed allies. A simple cloak apparently makes a difference. So why didn't they wear more armour? Mail was incredibly rare and expensive in this period, leather armour would've been much more common. It's not exactly clear how widespread and how commonly used armour was. Organic armour has the unfortunate tendency of disappearing completely without a trace. How common were these naked "barbarians"? We don't know. 

2.) Celtiberians! So what's so wacky about these guys?

• The helmet crests? Helmet crests seem to have been rather popular through human history. The exact purpose we can't be sure of, but it's probably something to do with recognizing your allies by the colours and shapes of their silhouette. That's very importand on the battlefield. Sure, the impractical reason would be to show off how much of a cock you are. (you know, how birds have these colourful crests)  Were they so obstructive that it became impractical? Maybe. Would they have been used if they were that impractical? No. Ancient people weren't stupid.
• The lack of metal armour? See answer above. Armour was rare, difficult to make. Hence the large shields. This type of attire also allowed for unrestricted mobility and no doubt allowed them to fight easier in warm climate. We also have to keep in mind that these are reconstructions mainly done from vase paintings. It's the artists job to make them look interesting, it's an illustration. A thing odd to our eye and sense of "normality" is not necessarily impractical.

3.)  A Libyan. He DOES look weird, right? RIGHT?

• Does he though? If you go through historical and archaeological sources, armour in general wasn't a big thing in 13th century BC. Just like any other human invention armour underwent an evolutionary process. We can't point fingers at Libyans who lived 3300 years ago and laugh at them for not wearing something more reasonable. Hey Libyans, why don't you just use machine guns?! I'm sure a cloak of thick hide was quite the shit 1300 BC.

4.) and 5.) Spartans.

• Not much to be added here. Crests - check. Half-naked with large shields - check. Metal breastplates and greaves though! Really, no impracticalness here. And they're not wearing pants? So what? Trousers were considered weak and womanly by the Greeks. Take that, feminism!

6.) The Maya. Oh yes, we're definitely getting into the wacky territory.

• I think the correctness of the reconstruction is the most crucial issue here. We're using rock carvings of mythical heroes and gods to reconstruct what real warriors used. Is it a wrong approach? Not necessarily. We can be quite sure that many things in these reconstructions are wrong though.
• I think the Maya and other American cultures' battle gear like them are a product of isolation and lack of metals. A ritual nature of battles probably also played a role. These Mayans aren't all that different to the half naked Libyan archer up there, except for all the jewelry and feather plumes. Were those really used in battle? I don't think we can say either way for sure.

 7.) IIRC this is an Aztec warrior.

• All of the above written about the Maya applies here as well.
• We can't underestimate the effect such gear had on the opponents visually. Similarly to the winged Polish hussars, it may have been quite intimidating for the people at that time. (which is certainly practical)

 8.) Persian soldiers.

• I don't see anything impractical here. Yes, they're colourful, but they're not guerilla warriors who need to hide. They're soldiers of the largest empire of its time, they're displaying the wealth and power of their faction. And they wear pants.

9.) Egyptians

• See the Libyan above, all that applies here as well. 

10.) Thracian peltast.

• I have no idea what the impractical parts of his gear were supposed to be. He's lightly armed and armoured, because he's supposed to be a light infantryman, a mobile skirmisher.

Conclusion:

I'm not a fan of generalizations. Quite obviously, saying that all battle gear was always practical is wrong. I don't think the Tumblr post tried to be controversial, but something about that "In some cases though, you have to wonder if it was given any thought at all." sentence rubbed me the wrong way.

Of course it was given thought. A lot of thought, no doubt. Ancient people weren't stupid. They didn't want to die. They protected themselves as well as they could.

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Not to be all boring and historical, here's a recent cover painting I did! \o/ Details are on my DeviantArt gallery.

Stop Motion Epicness

Old Czech Legends

It's been made in 1953 by Jiří Trnka, with whose work some of you may be familiar. He was a brilliant illustrator and a stop motion animator.

Wikipedia article about Trnka
IMDB entry on Old Czech Legends

I have a strong memory of this film. I especially remember this one scene which I put up on Youtube, for you to watch. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgZWSQ8EwEE

Read the description if you want to know what's going on. I'll just tell you it's epic and sad. Trnka made a battle scene with puppets, and it's not silly, it looks amazing. The warriors are wearing very plausible (yet stylized) gear - the battle is a legendary version of a real conflict from the early 10th century.
I clearly remember being confused and sad as a kid, watching Čestmír fall, struck with all the arrows. And I remember the eyes of the Lučan slave. The scary, freaky eyes. Watching it now though, the way he finds his fallen master in the end, that's another kind of sad. :(

What else? Watch the video, tell me what you think. If you feel like it. ;)