Paladins are so OP

The motivation

I've been thinking about companies I could approach while looking for work. Paizo came up naturally - their main product, Pathfinder, seems to be very popular with players and all the good artists work for them. (gosh, what shallow reasons, right?)
And I thought they may be easier to approach than let's say Wizards of the Coast.

So a few months ago I started going through their art, trying to pick out something I could do, to show I can do their IP and do it with my own twist.

I'll admit, I've never cared that much for paladins. I never had Keldorn in my party in Baldur's Gate II, I never played one in tabletop roleplaying games. Playing a paladin felt almost as a cheat, they were great fighters who could also heal, turn undead and bless. (Yeah, clerics also, I know.)

Still, I really liked the design of Seelah by Wayne Reynolds. Seelah is one of the iconic characters in Pathfinder and I chose her for my portfolio illustration.
I liked the whole backstory with the paladin helmet, I liked her hairstyle, the fact she used a sword and shield and most of all - the confidence the artist painted in her face and posture. This paladin will smite evil and chew bubble gum. She just happens to be out of gum at the moment.

It's quite interesting to go through the Paizo blog and see all the different interpretations of this character by various artists:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/seelah

The painting process

I began by doodling Seelah's angry face while gaming with friends. (note - drawing just a head and then trying to use it in the final drawing = bad idea)
Then I struggled with the pose. I wanted her to be cutting up some undead, in that Japanese style where they're already falling into pieces as she's finishing her swing.
The pose I am not too happy with. For one, an overswing this huge (that it tips you out of balance) is a no no in swordfighting. I should've probably gone for something with legs spread wide, stable, heavy and powerful looking.
But I also wanted motion and the destabilizing power of holy wrath to show through in the composition. So I went with this one. (in the end, as it often happens with my battle poses, I found out I've been ripping off Frazetta big time)

The next step was a drawing of the whole scene (in ArtRage) and a rough color study (in PS).

Mmm, yeah. Ghouls swarming behind her, ghouls being cut up into pieces in the foreground. So far so good, although in hindsight this was way too loose. (which I came to curse later)

I dove right in. You can see I rendered Seelah's face completely, while other parts of the image are almost blank. Yep, that's not a good thing to do either.

For some reason I decided to add knives to the ghouls. I don't remember why exactly, maybe I thougth the left arm was almost hitting a tangent with the cape and instead of changing that one thing, I added many other. Yeah, strange idea, not sure it worked very well. (I lost that implied circle in the composition, got a sort of a teardrop shape though. That's not too bad.)

Next step is a big jump, I didn't save the progress in between. I rendered a lot of the ghouls in both foreground and background, Seelah's armour and FINALLY decided to do something about that lazy looking cloudy background. (yay for ruins)
The armour I ground my teeth over. I adjusted the arm pieces a bit, because  I couldn't quite see how it would all hold together and move properly. The legs I couldn't do for a long time, the exposed knee is just not right (in my very humble opinion). I don't remember why I didn't put in some kind of inner knee bowl, or a piece of mail sewn to her pants, maybe to stay true to the design.
Anyway, lots of little bits and pieces of equipment to be painted on Seelah, that's for sure.

Then it was a matter of rendering more ghouls and dealing with the shiny flame path of her swing.
Right. If I planned this right, the sword would've been nearly white and the brightest point of the painting, the trail being sort of faintly visible. This way I had a very red hot iron looking sword and a blindingly bright path. What now?
Color Burn layer to the rescue! (in ArtRage! I very rarely use fancy layer modes in AR, but this time was a necessary exception.)
You may also notice there was a weird face thing under the shiny path in the previous version. I only noticed that near the end and almost by accident changed it to Seelah's tower shield. I quite like the idea she swung so hard her shield straps got torn and the shield flew from her arm. (win by accident? \o/)

Then I exported it into Photoshop, tightened up a few places, fixed values where needed, added a bit of glow, pushed contrast and hightlights. Voila! It's done and I need to not look at it for a few days. ;)

This painting hasn't taken longer than usual, but I painted it in bits and pieces when I had the time, mostly during weekends. This is a bad approach for me and it only made it more complicated. By the end I wasn't pleased with it at all and simply wanted to have it over with. I realized the many mistakes I've done and that fixing them would simply be a waste of time. So I bit my forearm and pushed through.

A good lesson it was, I have to plan better before I actually start painting. It didn't end up as horrible as I feared though. Especially the Color Burn layer at the very end made it jump from "what the hell am I doing with this?" to "Oh. I kind of meant for it to be like that in my mind.".

We'll see if it helps me get some work for Paizo!

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! :)

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.