Orks - 10

Back to orks after Fight On #9 illustrations done.  Photoshop about 45 minutes on top of a sketch.

Strange thing inked

Using "Fantasy Genesis" again for this one.  Test using the hot press paper and Series 7 brush my wife bought me for my birthday.  The brush is tough to get used to!

Patches for Wildlings

Fight On - Disco Mage

Illo for Fight On! 9.
Description: An evil high priest in a mirror-covered disco robe (wide sleeves, high collar) with a disintegration pistol and a magic mace

Sketchbook Page

Random faces.

Fantasy Genesis 2

More sketches from FG.

Fantasy Genesis

There is this cool book called "Fantasy Genesis".  These 2 are working from it.

Orks - 9 - Secksy

This guy draws beautiful girls:  http://idrawgirls.com/
I do not.
Was really just testing using darker lead for my sketches (2b in a lead holder).  

Orks - 8 - Funky...

I don't know what the hell this is.  I could keep working on it and make it a little better, but prolly should just leave well enough alone.

Fight On 2 - Redux

Back to this one...trying to refine.

Orks - 7 - Painty thingy

Very loooong night...

Orks - 6 - Photoshop Process

Long night at work on an outage call...

Orks - 5 - Sketches

Using colored pencils (red and one blue) for construction lines, then going over with pencils.

Fight On! 3rd Pic

Description was a metal giant hanging from chains. 

Fight On 2

Research for illustration with this description:

• On a mountain slope: beehive huts surround an ancient, half-ruined monastery still in use and a giant sculpture of the god Thek being carved out of the mountainside, “200m high from the visible eyebrow down to the tip of the nose, and consists of the right eye, right cheekbone and the right side of the nose. Much work is being done on the left eye, hollowing out the socket. The pupil is already made and serves as a shelter for the priests working on the project. It certainly looms very impressively, and there is a permanent frost on the top of the cheekbone and on the contours above the nostril.”

 

 

 

Fight On 1

Inked.  Still looks like shit.  Added some pencil shading just to try to salvage somewhat.

Put in a ink wash.  Looks like crap now.

Sketch for final.  Trying to make it look like his inking is bringing the map to life, difficult idea.

Roughs for Fight On! illo.  Description is: "• a picture of someone drawing a map of a fantasy world"

Orks - 4 - Weight distribution

Playing around with masses and distributing the weight in different parts of the body. 

Orks - 3

Orks - 2- D&D to WOW

Orks have been portrayed a number of ways in RPGs and other games since the first days of D&D.  The pictures collected below show some interesting similarities and differences.  Some of the things that seem to run throughout all of the pictures are pig-like snouts, large pointy ears and green or brownish-green skin.  Sometimes they seem to be ordered, sometimes disorganized.  Savage versus more tribe-like.  They seem to like axes, and if armored it has a hastily put together from scraps feel.

Orks - 1 - History

Orks have been around for a while and have been rendered in many different ways.  As the start of the project, I want to go back and publicly research the history of Orks from a literal and artistic perspective.  Let's challenge what we know about these fantasy creatures.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc) (the supreme source of all knowledge...and yes, since this is a fantasy creature, I can surely use it as a reputable source to quote) defines orks as:  "various races of tough and warlike humanoid creatures in various fantasy settings."  That's pretty generic.  They credit Tolkein with the first modern usage of the word "Orc".  There are a bunch of older references to Orc in the article and you can peruse those on your own time.  Pulling out interesting things:

- Origins of the word are "demon", "hell" (orcus), "corpse" (orcné), and "giant", "ogre", "hell-devil" 

- Description from 1632 fairytales of "orco":  "large, speaking, mannish beast (hairy and tusked) that lived away in a dark forest or garden, and that might be evil (capturing/eating humans), indifferent or even benevolent"

- 1656: "Orke, begotten by an Incubus"

- "Tyrolean ork which may be either a house gnome or a mountain spirit that acts as protector of wildlife"

- "In Tolkien's writings, Orcs are of human shape, of varying size but always smaller than Men, ugly, filthy, with a taste for human flesh. They are fanged, bow-legged and long-armed, and some have dark skin as if burned. In a private letter, Tolkien describes them as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes ... degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types".^[11] They are portrayed as miserable, crafty and vicious beings."

So, there's some interesting stuff right there.  I'm especially honing in on the last description quoted about them being derivative of Mongols.

So, things I want to consider in future posts:

- Orks in D&D, both from description and from Art

- Orks in Warhammer and how they differ

- Realistic versus fantastical views on orcs

- Comparing orcs to animals and other groups

- Orc costume, armor, etc

- Orc habitats