Laughter of Dragons

I completely missed the fact The One Ring: Laughter of Dragons was out already!
I did a LOT of art for it, and here it is:

© 2019 Sophisticated Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment 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 respective licensees.

Wondrous Women With Swords

Just a quick one today. Yesterday we got a trailer for the Wonder Woman movie:

I've never read any WW comics, I'm not a fan, but it looks surprisingly entertaining.
One thing that caught my eye was the sword she wields.

Now, during her first movie appearance in Batman vs. Superman, WW had a different sword, which I didn't like a lot:

It looks vaguely late-medieval or early renaissance, maybe inspired by the cinquedea:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquedea
Why would Wonder Woman have a sword like that, what historical sense does it make? Of course, the handle is WAY too long and looks pretty stupid.

Her new sword looks like this:

Now, by itself it's not mindblowing, but a few things about it intrigue me. Firstly, the shape of the guard reminds me of this sword from grave Delta in Grave Circle B at Mycenae: 

The handle and pommel are more reminiscent of (mostly fantasy invented) twisted "celtic" hilts, but the general shape isn't too far from some Scytho-Siberian swords. 

Now, Wonder Woman is an Amazon, so some Scythian influence would be appropriate. 

Looking closer at the guard's dragon heads, they really do remind me quite a bit of these Scythian dragons from Central Asia:

 

Here's a close comparison:

If that's intentional, that's quite neat. Good to see Holywood designers take inspiration from historical designs. (Honestly, I wish someone did WW entirely dressed in this style, not the comicbook nonsensical "armour". But I fully understand why they went with the established style.)

Swords and Orcs

It's been a while! Months even. I'm still working on Six Ages, so I don't have anything not under the death spell of an NDA I could show.
That said, two supplements for The One Ring RPG have been released fairly recently (Horse Lords of Rohan and Erebor) and I did a few pieces for them:

 

 

(goblin man and half-orc)

(Angrenithil - "Moon Iron", a sword made by both dwarven and elven smiths)

(a dwarven masked helmet)

(a war horn made of a drake's skull)

© 2016 Sophisticated Games and Cubicle 7 Entertainment 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 respective licensees.

"Oak and Thunder" part 1 - What is it?

(In this first post I talk a bit about the comic I'm making and how the idea developed over the years.)

TL;DR: I'm making a comicbook about a female Yuezhi warrior living in western China in 1st century AD.

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Some five years ago I wrote down an idea for a short comic. The working title was "Dragonslayer" (later "Its Breath is Fire") and the short story was supposed to "realistically" interpret the archetypal dragonslayer heroic myth. (perhaps in a similar way Mary Renault did with Théseus) 

Its setting was an unspecified part of the Eurasian steppe, some time in prehistory - the age of proto-Scythian heroes and Amazons.

I've been interested in steppe nomadic cultures since I started university in 2005. 

Funny things, memories - I'm pretty sure it all started with the short scene in Conan the Barbarian where Conan and Subotai run. I was quite little, watching the film with my dad and he'd tell me when to cover my eyes, or when I should be paying attention. This particular scene he'd always liked, the image of two guys running to get where they wanted to go in the vast open steppe, stopping only to eat, sleep and chat about theology. The music by Basil Poledouris works perfectly to underscore the scene, its light mood and the feeling of freedom.

Steppe Nomads

Much later, I stumbled upon a book on Scythians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians) and from then on I started researching them and other nomadic people of the Eurasian steppe. (at this time it was just for fun and out of curiosity)

The Eurasian steppe is a fascinating piece of the world in history! I had no idea how influential and important it was to me - a modern European. The way we were taught history in grammar school, I had some idea of blocks of history - separated by (artificial) era borders and by geographical distance. "Europe went through history mostly by itself and so did Asia and so did America"..etc. 

When I became interested in Alexander the Great and later in the steppe nations, I had to rethink what I knew, unlearn a lot and set up my idea of history from scratch.

If you look into this, sooner or later you'll end up at the Silk Road and linguistics. The steppe is where the West and East meet, connected by the various trade routes and links of language evolution. 

There are so many controversial topics and unanswered questions! Where did the Indo-Europeans come from? What role have domesticated horses played in human history and for how long? What about the invention of the wheel?

We've learnt quite a bit about Mesopotamia and the agrarian cultures in school, but almost nothing about pastoralic nomads. There's this idea they didn't contribute anything of value to us, that people only become civilized and worth learning about if they settle down and start planting crops next to big rivers.

I decided to make up for the gaps in my knowledge of steppe history, bought a bunch of books and started reading.

Mummies of the Tarim Basin

I like mummies. It's an odd passion, I know. There's just something really cool about well preserved bodies of ancient people!

In 2011 National Geographic and NOVA made documentaries about a group of mummies found in the Tarim basin, in Xinjiang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

You can watch the NOVA piece on Youtube:

Mummies of Europoid-looking people in clothing very similar to Celtic style weaving found in western China?! I was immediately hooked!

Of course, many people tried to claim the mummies for various causes. Nationalists, crazy ancient alien theorists, you name it. The thing I found so interesting was the variety - both in physical features and in their DNA, the mummies show a lot of diversity. There's no point in arguing whether they as a whole were European, Chinese, Mongoloid or Caucasoid - these people lived on an important crossroads of the Silk Road. It only made sense so many different places and nations mixed in Tarim.

 

Learning more and more about the Tarim basin and its history, I remembered the short comic idea I wrote, about an Amazon and a dragon. It'd have to be heavily reworked, but it could very well be set a few centuries later, in Xinjiang. 

An overarching story could be woven around the conflict between the Chinese Han dynasty, proto-Hunnic Xiongnu and the Indo-European speaking, Caucasian looking Yuezhi.

The Yuezhi were a good choice for the main protagonist's origin - very little is known about them. So I can fill in gaps and have some room to maneuver in.

And that is what I've been doing this past summer, through weekends and lunch breaks. 

The Comic

I have several outlines for stories written, with the same protagonist, with one main story going through them. I have a mostly finished script for the ending (which is odd, but it was the first story I wrote), so I know how it all ends. Now I just need to figure out how to get there.

There's always more research to be done, I have tons and tons of material to sift through, make more notes and put them to use where needed.

The next blog post will probably be about research, sources, where I draw inspiration from and how I want to approach the story in this very specific setting.

To finish this off, here's one of the early sketches of the main protagonist. I'll keep playing with her facial features more, this drawing was done to have at least something to show. (her costume mostly, based on the few depictions of Yuezhi and Kushans we have)

(I imagine she's in her early teens, around the time she went into battle for the first time)

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

Oh the Banter, Lord!

If you haven't noticed by now, I adore the Mount&Blade series of games. And joy oh joy, yesterday the sequel to MnB was announced - Mount&Blade: Bannerlord

http://www.taleworlds.com/

I was so happy I decided to spend a Friday evening by painting a bit of fanart. We have no idea what the setting of the game will be like, but I took it in a general mix of migration-era way, slightly Germanic/Arthurian and viking vibe. It was also a good exercise for trying to get faster and more efficient at painting.

3 points on pauldrons in fantasy illustration

I'm sorry about the unimaginative title!

My armour posts seem to be among the most popular ones and I just got an idea for another one today.

Pauldrons are difficult, I won't lie. Armour in general is very hard to understand and to draw. And an illustrator usually needs to come up with acceptable yet innovative designs on a regular basis.

I won't even talk about massive Warhammer marine/Warcraft pauldrons, or pauldrons with giant spikes, those are a bit obvious and I'll leave them for an even less inspired post in the future.

There are three things I want to address. Let's look at the amazing drawing I put together five minutes ago:

(click to enlarge if you wish)

1) Single pauldrons held by body straps

This is all for the sake of coolness and asymetrical design. Single pieces of pair equipment probably were used here and there, but more because of the lack of the other piece rather than any deliberate purpose. It's also much easier to strap and set up a pair of pauldrons. As we've no doubt seen many times, these pauldrons are magically held on the body by (often really crazy) webs of straps and belts. Often they'd make it very difficult for the person to move.

Everytime I see this, I have to question the sanity of people who'd choose to wear only pauldrons and no other armour, for whatever reason. Is it ideology or bravery like with the berserks? Well then a pauldron is just as armour as any other piece.
Is he supposed to be a "light" build? Some kind of a rogue? Why on earth a pauldron then? It's not like the shoulder is the first place anyone would attack, or a bodypart one needs to protect above all others. I'd wear a cuirass, or a padded jack in that case.

To me this is the equivalent of a chainmail bikini - a dinosaur of fantasy illustration we should forget.

2) Pauldrons on hinges

I wonder who came up with the idea. Some unfortunately placed rivets on an original armour might have deceived him. Or maybe he just thought this was how it worked.

Pauldrons are not riveted to the cuirass. No.

Still, fantasy armours repeat this design over and over.
You even see it in movies (and boy oh boy, does it show how uncomfortable and awkward it is!)
 - I'm looking at you, Dungeon Siege!

also games like Dragon Age:

And man, does it NOT work when you make it into a costume!

(that poor actor had to pretend he could lift his arms comfortably)

So how were these things attached to the person? They were usually tied onto the cuirass/gorget/padded jack at the shoulder/neck. No, it doesn't flop around wildly, you can always put a strap going under the arm to hold it in place.
Putting the weight on the shoulder is a good for mass distribution and it doesn't get in the way of any movement.

3) Pauldrons wide enough to make you stuck in the door

Pauldrons are not just any massive bowls you stick on your shoulders. There are many different types and shapes, all very specifically shaped to fit the body very tightly and closely. You want to be a small target, not a huge one. You don't want it to change your balance.

I get it, wide shoulders make the silhouette seem powerful. I beg you, do it with the actual shoulders and then put pauldrons on those, don't put massively wide protruding pauldrons on narrow shoulders.

Illustrations like that remind me of American "football" players stuck in that harness of theirs. They have padded shoulders, because they want to tackle people.

There's no shortage of large "shoulder pads" in historical armours, but they're designed in a way that makes them cover a large area while remaining fairly close fitting:

I've posted mainly medieval plate armour as examples of how it "should" look. For a good reason - most fantasy is still based on our limited view and understanding of medieval Europe. Sure, it's changing, we're adding Asian and other influences. But the majority of knights, paladins and other armoured characters still wear "knight armor".

We could speak about more "primitive" shapes and designs like the tube-and-yoke armour, or the lorica segmentata. But we won't, not today. :)

I'd like to stress this is not a hate post, meant to tell all illustrators how dumb they are. Far from it!
The portrayal of fantasy armour IS getting better and better all the time.

These are just my personal pet peeves with pauldrons, that's all. Now you know how to do it LESS WRONG! ;P

A BONUS POINT! - Redundant besagues

Have you seen stuff like this before? I'm sure you have.

Those funny looking discs around the shoulders, or the armpits. Preferably painted on amazon warriors clad in mail bikini.

How? How do those make ANY sense at all? These things are called "besagues" and they're meant to protect the wearer from blows or blades slipping between the pauldrons and the cuirass - into the armpits where dem arteries are.

I only wish the artists hadn't forgotten to pain the cuirass and the pauldrons on in most cases.

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As always, if you have anything to say - SAY IT in the comments! :) I want to hear it.

The Singing Sword cover

What sorcery is this?! A post with art? In colour? Your eyes do not decieve you. I have indeed picked up the virtual brush and put more than just black and white on my virtual palette.

This painting is a cover for a book called "The Singing Sword - Tea Dragon and Cat Demon". (written by Zbyněk Holub)

It's a fantasy novel about tea faeries. I don't know much more than that. Tea is important and so are the dragon and the panther - they're characters in the book and good friends.

(ArtRage as always)

(only now I realized I painted the foliage a bit like the leaves of green tea I've been drinking lately. Well, it fits. :))

Which singing sword do you like better? The one in the knightly Bugs Bunny episode? Or maybe Lilarcor in Baldur's Gate? :)

Looking back - OMG a dragon!

When I was little, my parents bought me a book. It was about dragons.
At the time dragons were just monsters from stories, but suddenly, they weren't. This book made them real.

I suspected even then that it may be a clever make belief and that there aren't in fact any dragons around. But the book was so good it made me want to believe there could be dragons.

That book was The Book of the Dragon illustrated by Ciruelo Cabral.

Before I knew Todd Lockwood existed (DnD never really got to Czech Republic, only in English and not many people played it), I suddenly saw dragons and they were there, real and stuff.

Looking back at them, many of them aren't as amazing, now that I've seen a ton of other dragon art.

But the Water Dragon is still just as gentle and beautiful as when I saw it for the first time:

(I thought "Goodness, what a wonderful idea! It makes so much sense!" back then. And yeah, it still does. ;))

And an image I didn't care for much then, I find quite amazing now. The Dragon Prince is small room full of thunder and concealed dragon nature. So dynamic and narrative.

I'm not sure if it's the same book, but it probably is. So if you want to, you can buy it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-Dragon-Gustavo-Ciruelo-Cabral/dp/1402728115

Ciruelo Cabral's website is here:  http://www.ciruelo.info/