Gazer

Those legs. Like bloated noodles. I don't like them. They're only a hair's breadth below my "too shitty to go ahead with" threshold. But just saying, I know they're crappy. The guy as a whole seems cute enough though.

I took this one the colour stage a little prematurely - the "real" linework has a little devil-tail, which makes the pose more balanced-looking.

This fella's a lot blobbier than most of my stick figures, and the shading slightly more involved. Detail-creep is everywhere it seems.

No variations again. Pondered swapping the ears out for horns, or even pathetic little wings, but that's not enough. Different styled eyeballs I guess? I'm just not feeling enthusiastic about that.

Ok, time to be positive again:
While the shaded areas are detail-creep, I'm happy with how they define his shape and make him seem properly plump - without doing too much violence to the idea of a consistent light source. And the shine of his eyeball - the way it crosses multiple delineated areas. That's nice.

Bile toad and soldier bug

Once again I've produced monsters with no variants. Oh I'm history's greatest monster.


Both of these are old line work tarted up a little. I've been going through old WiP sketch pages and trying to rescue abandoned bits with potential. It's nifty that there's a decent stock to be plundered there. It makes me happy that I'm actually producing this volume of stuff. There's some saying about how it's impossible to do the same thing three-hundred times and not get better at it. It's cool to go back to failures now I'm better less crap.

The amphibious thing is a bile toad. I know it's not a toad, but I like the name. I don't think it's diseased - the "bile" is natural toxin that's expelled through the skin and drool. I am very pleased with the milky eyes. I wonder whether I could do a worthy variant with exactly the same linework, but losing the warts.

The soldier bug was briefly a bug soldier. But bug soldier sounds like a description, while a soldier bug is a name. I used the detail here to add depth and definition to shapes, sticking my middle finger up at a consistent light source. Also to make the pointy bits look sharp. Colours suffered some twiddling when I realised that the pale face and colourful horns/carapace made him look like a clown. I couldn't unsee it. I can live with the current incarnation.

Geode

A crystal guy. Possibly some kind of golem or elemental. I wasn't sure how well I could create a crystalline texture in this detail-sparse style. I had to use hover-limbs to get it in the end, but I think it worked. I've a major soft spot for crystal-people thanks to the Shard from Vor. This is blockier (necessarily) and more like a "traditional" crystal golem than the sophisticated look of the Shard, but I did borrow shamelessly steal the head design.

What didn't work is the pose. So boring. So very, very boring. I was hoping I could get "forceful dignity" but it's really just... boring. The floating limbs are easy to repose at least if I decide he merits importance or expanding into a theme.

And the hands. Couldn't get any kind of fingers/claws going so I went with the abstracted hands. Irregular diamonds rather than circles because they worked better with the crystal theme. Surprised I've gotten away with it. I tried to put more detail on the feet too before deciding that they looked better as simply blank polys. The colouring might help here too, since the dark extremities suggest there may be invisible detail.

Ok, on a positive note I like how the spherical face/eye is embedded into the head with a minimum of fuss. And the faceted chest/shoulder - that's the only part that really looks crystaline, but its existence makes you interpret the other angular parts in a similar way. Sells the whole thing.

Colouring was a bitch. I planned to do something shiny or glittery, with detail shines, but it wasn't coming out right. The graduated colouring was a good plan. I'm not sure this is the best implementation of it, but it worked well enough for now. If I took another whack at it I might make the mid-tones more saturated and bring the lighter two shades closer to white.

I don't anticipate him being expanded into a theme. He might be a relation to the earthen Cyclops. Especially if I did one or two Cyclops with specifically crystal parts rather than just rocks. Crystals also mean wanky ancient science-magic so it could be a lost-city thing, or just a random weird thing. Oozing with possibilities. Veritably suppurating.

Wow, where'd that negativity come from? To counteract it I'll actually mock up a transition Cyclops. That last one I did was pretty spiky after all.

There. Not perfect but it shows that it's not a terrible idea. Also managed to almost re-layer the drawing in the process. So that's nice.

Tempted to re-hue to body to blue or green, but I wanted the crystals to contrast rather than blend in.

Cragspine

I am annoyed right now. In making those hue-shifts, I managed to save and close the .psd file after I'd flattened most of it.Meaning I lost my layer distinctions.

Annoying.

Still, if I ever came back to that step I'd probably want to redo it from scratch, so no call for getting hot and bothered.

Obviously this is another Cyclops. Original colour scheme is ruddy and earthen like the others, but the blue and green versions look so nice and vivid. Also more obviously creatures with rocky bits rather than earth elementals. Damnit I don't want to abuse hue shifts for variants but sometimes it's unfair to make me choose between them.

His designated features are the stony crown and back. Hence the name Cragspine (oh hey look, I've given up on annoying novelty titles for my posts). His feet are earthen rather than rocky and serve to connect him (visually) with his environment. I've already used the word crag for another Cyclops so I'll probably biddle one or the other. Placeholder name. I can cope.

I did a few things differently here: I'm relying on colouring to add detail rather than the linework, most visible on the feet. I'm happier with the light patches of hide too. I feel that I could go back to the other Cyclops and use a few of these tricks to really improve their look.

Criticisms: The rocky back is probably over-detailed (colour not linework). Those fists are anatomically questionable. I think the head might be in the wrong place relative to the pecs and shoulders. That jaw looks like a 3/4 view of a straight jaw, rather than an uneven jawline.

Fire elementals wear top hats now

Another fire-themed guy. He's probably an elemental of some kind. Initially he didn't have a top hat or even a head, just a plume of fire. He was going to be called something flue or a flue something.

This works much better. Fire elementals and top hats seem to have unexpected but excellent synergy, like werewolves and the colour green.I am fighting the urge to go back and pop a top-hat on my last fire elemental too.

I'm trying to dial back my fire effects a touch. While I like the look, it wildly outclasses non-fire areas in detail. I wasn't terribly successful at it here, but my goal is to simplify it while still keeping as much of the nice embery look as possible.

I have no strong creative direction for the "infernal" theme. Imps and fire elementals so far. A few sketches of ogres. I think I'm leaning towards "devilish" over "firey", since that means more variety - cute little imps and dapper suits - without excluding fire. For now I'm just making stuff and seeing what sticks. As always I can come back and fix things later.

These monstrosities were initially meant to be infernal too, but after working them they seem more "ancient biotech evil", especially if I go with the green versions. They may yet have a home in the infernals - a technological subtheme might be cool - but again there's no need to commit yet.

Obvious Phyrexian influence, but I'm not ashamed. I don't consider it close enough to be a ripoff. The thing on the left was originally meant to be an insect queen, but ended up like those funky things from Blame!.

I like the eyes. The circular lens with the weird track-line gives them a distinctive look I'm happy with. And it can easily be applied to a variety of critters. Zombies with prosthetic heads for example. Another good point are the bruiser's fingers. They were a happy accident. A weird combination of sausage-fingers and needle-fingers.

Lunacy

I didn't want a brown werewolf. So apparently they're green now. That works for me. The grey-blue has the actual colours I worked with, but I liked the hue shift to green so much that he's become the definitive one. I love hue-shifting. So useful. It brings out colours and combinations I never would have thought of using. And they usually look a good deal more natural than what I drag out of the palette on my own.

The green works well though. I imagine the werewolf being part of the forest witch theme. His name is Gordon for some reason. Perhaps he's a not-virtuous-enough knight "blessed" by the moon to protect the wilds.


When I was playing with the colours I tried colouring the hair as fire. It didn't work. But it was fantastic as an autumn scheme. I'm going to have to try that in the future, maybe as a subtheme. I bet it would look great on the green men. A summer lineup and an autumn lineup would be aces. Maybe a spring one too, or would that be pushing it?

Yesterday I gave up in frustration over the left hand. I couldn't get the linework right. This morning I resolved to fix it no matter what, and opened it up to find it perfectly ok. Maybe I was tired and over-thinking it, or maybe brownies fixed it in the night. Either-or. Ok admittedly the hands are pretty crappy, but better is the enemy of done and I've found it easier for me to improve if I just move on and do better next time.


I tried too long to give him a mouth, but eventually I resigned myself to the fact that he looks pretty damn cool without one. The lack of a cliché snarl also makes him seem more "noble savage" than "frenzied horror", which works for the theme. My remaining concern is the feet. It would make sense that you can't see all his toes on one foot if he's stalking sideways, but I'm not sure that reads right on the drawing.

I am particularly happy with the colouring. I dithered over particulars for ages, but I think I've ended up giving him character without too much unnecessary detail.

Incendiary

I named this fellow Pyrovile. I like this name. I started him and the imps below yonks ago, and just now got round to finishing them.

I dithered a lot over how to do his "skeleton". I think this is as close as I'm going to get to what I want without breaking the node-budget. He originally had arm bones, but this made the hands look more like random flames (odd), so I took them out.

Things I am pleased with:
The twisted flow of fire at his base.
The little bulge of fire around his skull
The way his left eye breaks the edge of the skull-shape.
The name, pyrovile. Pyrovile.

The colouring I have mixed feelings about. It's quite a bit messier than I want, but it's not terrible. I was going for the same effect as I used on the wicker man, but I think it worked a lot better there. I might need to get a new fire technique for the infernals. I don't think I want them as clean as the firefox, but this lots-of-dots method seems too embery. There's probably a nice middle ground, or maybe I'll just get better at executing this style.

A little less fierce-looking are these imps. Little arsonists trying to look innocent. They're based on a goblin/imp pattern I used with my very first primitive vector stick figures. The main changes are the cloven hoofs and the ears.

For the fire, see what I said about Pyrovile.

Trivia!

The ears were originally horns. Eventually decided to go for ears because I could do more varieties. And it's easier to make ears that evoke horns (as seen on the first two) than vice versa.

I agonised over whether the extra lines to make those cloven hooves were worth it. Agonised! I'm glad I did it though - it's a new kind of detail and it adds a lot.Besides, they're so simple they needed a little extra something.

I'm still not sure about the variety in their incendiary methods. Fireball is a little different conceptually to molotov or bomb in my mind. If I ever put them to work, I may need to revise them so that they're all obviously the same class. For now they're just shy of my "bothered to fix" threshold.

Tsq: God-eaters

"Tarrasque is not a monster, it is the god of hunger and the flesh. A pure existence unsullied by reason and unfettered by morality. Tarrasque is a deity whose nature is too base to find home in the heavens."

This is the creed of the god-eaters; a secretive cult that revere Tarrasque and the ideal it represents. They believe in the power of the strong over the weak, that hunger is the noblest impulse and that cannibalism is its purest expression.

They do not resent their god's imprisonment. They see it as proof that mankind is ready to take Tarrasque's place by following its example and ascending to a purer existence. Their rites revolve around gratuitous consumption and symbolically claiming the power of others as their own.

Their most sacred ritual is the consumption of Tarrasque in effigy. It begins with kidnapping some person of minor power - a rich merchant or gang leader for example. At the assembly the god-eaters ceremonially demonstrate their power over the victim, humiliating and brutalising them. At the climax of the ceremony the unfortunate is slaughtered and becomes a feast for the congregation. These vile events require much covert planning and take place rarely enough that the practice is only a rumour in the city at large.