Pagemages and Boozehorns

These were me getting back in the saddle after a while away. They started with the pose, pulling something out of a book. The scarf was to add a little character beyond generic wizardliness. The robes are lazy I confess. I too often go with shapeless full-length robes, but I think the shading here gives them a bit more definition. I feel good about those creases. They're not great, but my first effort was so much worse. And I feel I've imrpvoed from recognising the problems and fixing them.

I'm sticking with doing vector colouring/shading, and I made the linework for these with that in mind. So I knew I'd be putting a coloured pattern on the scarves, and that I could demarcate #1 and #2's hair without needing to blackline it. Which is new. I used the "spare" lines left in the budget to put a little more expression on their faces. Not sure about that. I wonder if it would be better to do it on the shading layer. I think it's only a matter of time before I give up on the no-mouth line-eyes look. Style erosion.

The unlined spell effects are also new and I can see myself doing a lot more things along those lines. For these guys I deliberately avoided any sort of elemental theming. #1 has flames, yes, but they're blue so they're passable as a generic magical effect.

Next there's these satyr things. I had something else in mind while sketching, but the drunken faun is far more interesting to me. Very fond of the various boozes and goat-beards. The horns were an enormous pain in the arse. One of the downsides of vector colouring - that horn texture would have been much easier in photoshop.

I think these satyrs are knights who have gone questing into the woods and been cursed for their unchivalric vices. In this case, the knights were drunkards. I could easily conceive of gluttonous pig-monsters and maybe slothful bear-men?

These cursed knights would fill a good niche in the theoretical game these are never going to be used for. I didn't feel like the forest witches were actually evil. Cursed monsters gives you something you can feel good about fighting, also making the witches more of a credible menace without making them evil.