A trip to the Moon

Well, this is the third time I've tried to write this post, the first two attempts spiraled into the political domain, but I'm not sure that anything can be written on Burroughs Moon trilogy without at least touching the political realm as all three books in the trilogy deal heavily with communism and religion. To avoid voicing my personal opinions on politics I will try to avoid the second and third books in the trilogy, The Moon Men and The Red Hawk, and focus on the first book in the series, The Moon Maid.

The Moon Maid deals heavily with religion and reincarnation, and the story begins with “Julian” relating the story of his ancestor, the hero of the tale, Julian the 5th of the International Peace Fleet and his accidental voyage to the moon. To quickly sum up the beginning of the story, the earth launches a ship, the Barsoom, in the hopes of visiting mars, however, before they can pass the moon a rival of Julian the 5th, one Lieutenant Commander Orthis, sabotages the ship forcing the crew to make an emergency landing on the moon. In the process of landing the ship is caught in a “lunar whirlpool” and sucked into a crater and find that the interior of the moon is hollow and capable of supporting life. On investigating the crew encounters the first of the Lunar races, the Va-gas.

The Va-gas are interesting, they are semi quadrupedal carnivorous “horse” men. Burroughs describes them as four limbed with long thick necks and travailing on four legs but fighting while standing bipedally. The description that Burroughs gives is very difficult for most artists to render, most of them depicting them much like centaurs. J Allen St. John was the first artist to depict the Va-gas, even he shows them as centaur like beings; the inaccurate artistic depiction of the Va-gas may in fact be due to the way J Allen St. John originally painted them. I decided to try and depict them a bit closer to Burroughs description.

While this is closer to Burroughs description it's still not accurate, it is exceedingly difficult to depict the Va-gas the way Burroughs describes them. When I draw a primitive or exotic race I prefer to do a lot of research to establish an overall look for the race. Barring access to research material I tend to fall back on what I know, for the Va-gas I used the eastern woodland Indians as a starting point and added a bit of fantasy to spice it up.

This one is a bit closer to the description, I tried to follow Burroughs anatomical description as closely as possible on this sketch, but in all honesty his description doesn't work. I found that if Burroughs description is followed to the letter what you wind up with is a creature that looses it's edge of fear, or intimidation, and winds up just being ridiculous.

I posted some small Kalkar head sketches recently, but as I was digging through some old sketchbooks I found this guy

This version of the Kalkar is more appropriate for the second book in the series, The Moon Men, but it seems to be the only Kalkar drawing I've done that is more than a simple head sketch.

Julian the 5th, the hero of The Moon Maid, is a standard Burroughs hero, young and strong with a solid code of ethics and a lack of fear that edges on suicidal ideation. Near the middle of the book Julian is captured by the Kalkars and taken to Kalkar City No. 337 and imprisoned within. Julian is a Burroughs hero, so no prison can hold him. He escapes from the Kalkars and makes his way to the city of Laythe where he becomes Ju-lan-fit'

I had some symmetry issues with this picture, all around it was a bitch to draw, which is probably the reason I didn't finish it, but it came out pretty well; it did remind me of why I don't do more backgrounds though.

The Moon Maid doesn't really have an ending, it just kind of stops. This was a technique that Burroughs used many times and in most cases it's obvious that the story/book was written either as a prologue or with the intent of continuing the story as a series. There are some cases however, like in A Princess of Mars, where it just seems like he couldn't figure out how to end the book. The Moon Maid was intentionally written as a prologue to The Moon Men. The Moon Men was originally a written as a piece of political fiction titled Under the Red Flag, it was written in 1919 shortly before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. It was Burroughs outcry against the communism that the west was allowing, and in some cases encouraging, to take hold in Russia. Burroughs publisher refused to publish Under the Red Flag, this was apparently due to the publisher not liking some of the statements that Burroughs made in the book, but Burroughs intended to have the book published one way or the other and made the decision to rewrite it. He turned it into a Sci-Fi novel by changing the Bolshevik antagonists into the Kalkars and moving the setting from Russia to the U.S. It seems that the changes to the story required a more in depth lead in than could be accomplished by simply adding a chapter, so The Moon Maid was born.

At the Earth's Core

Of all of the worlds created by Edgar Rice Burroughs my favorite by far is Barsoom, his version of mars, a close contender however is Pellucidar, the world at the earth's core. I enjoy Burrough's Barsoom stories because I find them visually interesting, they're filled with multi limbed animals, rainbow hued martians and naked people. It's this visual interest that also draws me to Pellucidar.

Pellucidar is inverted, the land masses and oceans are reversed from the surface, our land masses are their oceans and their land masses are our oceans. The World of Pellucidar is perpetually lit by a small glowing orb that floats, without moving, at the center of the world. Burroughs' Pellucidar is a caveman wonderland, he created a world where humans on several different planes of evolution interact with each other and coexist with prehistoric mega-fauna and dinosaurs. A rough summary of the first Pellucidar novel, At the Earth's Core, consists of David Innes, a mining heir, and his inventor friend Abner Perry accidentally traveling to the earth's core in a giant drilling machine and becoming trapped there.

The first two or three books in the series take place in an area of Pellucidar that is controlled by the Mahar, a group of evolved pterosaurs with psychic powers.

It's interesting how precise Burroughs was when describing the Mahar, specifying that they appeared to have evolved from the ramphorhynchus.

The Mahar use a group of gorilla-like men called the Sagoth as slave drivers to control and capture the humans. I find the Sagoth to be a bit confusing and difficult to portray. While Burroughs describes them as gorilla like in appearance, he also suggests that they evolved from the same race of ape, the Mangani, that raised Tarzan. Burroughs gave the apes that raised Tarzan a language, not an ape language of grunts and hoots, but a spoken language. Tarzan's ape mother was named Kala in their language, and she gave Tarzan his name. On a side note, in his fictional biography, Tarzan Alive, Phillip Jose Farmer suggests that the Mangani might be a surviving group of Australopithecus. Due to their apparent evolution from the Mangani I have a tendency, much like Frazetta, to draw them more like Homo habilis.

Homo habilis however, doesn't say gorilla man to me, it says ape-like human. Oh well, sometimes you need to take some artistic license.

One of the first human inhabitants that David Innes meets is Dian the beautiful of Amoz. Dian differs from most of Burroughs' women, although she is kidnapped several times in the series, she is far more capable than most of the females he wrote. In this way she is reminiscent of Jane Porter from his Tarzan novels, they are both willing to get their hands dirty and, if need be, fight.

This is obviously unfinished, I like the way it was coming along but it was causing me some problems that I couldn't work out at the time. Looking at it now, I think I would be able to salvage it if I set my mind to it.

I wish that I had found the Pellucidar novels when I was younger, I would have loved them when I was 8 or 9. Dinosaurs, cave bears, psychic pterodactyls, ape men, pirates, hey, I love them now. Who wouldn't?

Mars

In 2004, I decided to embark on an artistic mission that has yet to be completed. I declared an intent to draw a literary history of Mars, in other words, I intended to draw the main creatures, or characters, from all of the classic Sci-Fi novels about mars. I have managed to finish exactly one drawing. I have stacks of unfinished drawings that I stopped for one reason or another, and I have stacks of concept sketches, but for all of that I have completed one drawing. I have no idea if I will ever fulfill this mission I have set forth for myself, but I will continue to trudge along and perhaps 7 years down the road I will find myself with another completed drawing.

For the meantime, here's the one drawing I have completed.

This is Tars Tarkus, Jeddak of Thark.

I have more unfinished drawings and concept sketches of characters from Burrough's Barsoom than any other version of mars. Oh well.


Just for fun, here's a mostly complete list, in chronological order, of the classic Sci-Fi novels that take place on, or revolve around mars.

Across the Zodiac: the Story of a Wrecked Record, Percy Greg
Uranie, Camille Flammarion
Plunge Into Space, Robert Cromie
Unveiling a Parallel ( also called, A Parallel Unveiled): A Romance, Alice Ilgenfrizt and Ella Merchant
Journey to Mars, Gustavus Pope
Daybreak: a Romance of an Old World, James Cowan
On Two Planets, Kurd Lasswitz
War of the Worlds, H.G Wells
Edison's Conquest of Mars, Garrett Serviss
Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, Edwin Arnold
Under the Moons of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Out of the Silent Planet, C.S Lewis
A Martian Odyssey, Stanley G. Weinbaum
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein

The Swords of Lankhmar

My first introduction to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser came in 1991 via the Epic comics adaptation written by Howard Chaykin and penciled by Mike Mignola. I was 13 at the time and I didn't appreciate the series the way I should have, I guess I was expecting something like Conan, I gave the miniseries two issues and dropped it. My second run in with the Lankhmarian duo came at around the age of 21, my future father in-law gave me an old paperback copy of “The Swords of Lankhmar”. At 21 I was old enough to appreciate not only the characters, but also the humor involved in the series.

Many people try and depict Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser very seriously, like the two are dour, humorless epic fantasy characters. I can't do that, I can't help but picture them as the young, cocky, rogues that they are. Sure, there are many serious scenes in the series, but for the most part Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are just overgrown kids.

The two drawings above were done three years ago, they were a character designs for a larger piece I was thinking of doing. I have yet to do that piece, so I decided that the least I could do is ink these two rogues and see how they came out.

Well, I think they came out quite well. A little bit more cartoony than I wanted, but they'll do.

Tarzan

Well, it's been a couple of days since I posted anything. It seems that when I start typing I tend to get carried away, due to that I've got three unfinished posts that went wild and turned into six-thousand word essays. I'll try to keep this one shorter.

The name Tarzan inspires images of Johnny Weissmuller, Gordon Scott or Lex Barker grunting “Me Tarzan you Jane”, and brings to mind one of the most recognizable calls/yells ever recorded on film. While these images may be the archetypal representation of Tarzan they aren't much like Burroughs original ape-man. The closest any film has gotten to Burroughs original depiction of Tarzan was Christopher Lambert's performance in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, while Lambert's depiction of Tarzan is closer to Burrough's vision the writers of the film took some liberties with the original story. It's been quite a few years since I saw Greystoke, but from what I remember a rather large portion of the film deals with Tarzan/Lord Greystoke attempting to acclimate to living outside of the jungle. I believe he fails to adjust to “modern” society and returns to the jungle. Like I said, it's been awhile since I saw the movie, close to ten years, so this is probably not quite what happens. Regardless of the inaccuracies in the Legend of Greystoke, the writers managed to depict a Tarzan that could speak in more than broken, cavemanesque, pidgin-English. By depicting Tarzan as an intelligent man, capable of learning and adapting, the writers of Greystoke presented a Tarzan that was closer to Burroughs vision than most have managed. This is also the Tarzan that imprinted on me the hardest.

I was exposed to Tarzan at an early age, mainly through the children's books of the 60s/70s and Johnny Weissmuller films of the 30s and Lex Barker and Gordon Scott films of the 50s. This was the Tarzan that I knew until, at around the age of 8, I saw Christopher Lambert's performance in Greystoke. There was something about Lambert's version of Tarzan that just seemed right, something about the violent, animalistic Tarzan that called to my 8 year old psyche and screamed “this is Tarzan, this is the real Tarzan”. Greystoke is the reason that I depict Tarzan the way I do, scarred, grizzled and always on the edge of violence; to me this is the real Tarzan.

About four years ago I picked up a copy of Tarzan of the Apes, I'm a huge Burroughs fan, but it had been years since I had owned, or read, any Tarzan books and I thought it was time I fixed that. The version of Tarzan presented above was inspired by Burroughs description, my insane need to research even the tiniest piece of clothing and the vision of Tarzan that I had developed from Greystoke. The majority of Tarzan of the Apes is set in the Congo and has Tarzan wearing clothing, and using weapons, stolen from the local tribes. The loincloth and jewelry that I have depicted here are copied after pieces from a mix of tribes from the Congo region. I've done other versions of Tarzan, this one however, comes closest to the picture in my head. This piece has yet to be finished, it's odd for me to want to add color to one of my drawings, but I felt that this one deserved some deep red to better portray the blood dripping from his hand. This may get finished, or it may get redone, I'm not sure, I like it but the more I look at it the more I want to change.

Of the female characters in the Tarzan stories, I believe La of Opar is probably my favorite. She allows a certain amount of artistic freedom that I enjoy. La was from an ancient race similar to the Atlantis, so it allowed me to mix some various styles to achieve the level of opulence and degradation that I felt was appropriate for the Oparians.

This, like the Tarzan pics above, is not finished. I am considering finishing this piece, but I think I'll have to spend more time looking at it before I decide.

After reading Tarzan of the Apes a few years back, I got into a Tarzan kick and wanted to read more. I wound up scouring Amazon until I found The Great Book of Tarzan. I have mixed feelings about this book, while it contains every Tarzan story written by Burroughs and was amazingly cheap, it was like $15. I don't suggest this book to anyone, the binding is the worst I've ever seen, the editing is bad and the layout is so bad that it's difficult to tell where the chapters or books end. I got about halfway through the book before I gave it up, the book was just too difficult to read. If you're interested in reading the Tarzan novels I suggest downloading them for free from Project Gutenberg , they don't seem to have all of the books, but they have most of them and they're well edited and easy to read.

Women

Well I started a post about drawing women this morning, but somehow it went haywire and took on a life of its own. Now, I start again.

I absolutely love drawing women, clothed, unclothed, it doesn't mater, I just like drawing them. I love taking a blank sheet of paper and giving it sex appeal.

Although there's things I don't like about this drawing, the way the lighting on the back came out saves this picture for me. I do little studies like this from time to time, I'll come across a photo that has good lighting or something and just decide, screw it, I'm drawing a naked chick.


I came across a photo of Sasha Gray a couple of years ago and had to draw it.

I had to draw that hair, that was the main thing for me in the photo and it was my reason for doing this drawing. I wish I had put more work into the rest of the drawing, mainly her face, it vaguely looks like Sasha Gray, but I could have done better.


Sometimes I like to combine my two favorite things to draw, monsters and women, but I always try to keep up the sex appeal.

If you stick around here long enough you will quickly find that I have issues with pretty much every drawing I turn out, so, just like most of them, I see some problems with this drawing. Thankfully, my wife has finally convinced me that most people can't see the defects that I see and to stop pointing them out, so I may say that I see issues with a pic but I'm not going to point them out.

I like this drawing, I had fun drawing it and I think it's cute.

My wife hates it, she thinks it's boring. It's simple, bit I like it.


Obviously I like coupling women with tentacles, eh, that's what you get from someone who reads too much Lovecraft.

This looks a lot better in its original size. Reducing the size really blurs out the details, especially on the tentacles, but that's the curse of the internet.


I think we'll wrap things up with a demon girl, or, as they've come to be called in my house, a naked demon chick.

This is my wife, well, I used a photo of my wife as the reference for this piece. My wife doesn't think it looks like her. I disagree, I think it's a very good likeness. I'll admit it's not perfect, admittedly the eyes are probably too large, but besides that, it looks just like her.

Some monstrous entities

There are two things that I love drawing, women and monsters. Of the two, women and monsters, I definitely draw more monsters, mostly small little sketches averaging around 6” square. Sometimes I get carried away and the little doodle turns into a full blown drawing but that is very rare, and I usually never quite finish the drawing when the happens.
A lot of the monsters that I draw have been heavily influenced by the original members of the Lovecraft circle, and other authors, such as Brian Lumley, who were either inspired by or attempted to emulate Lovecraft.


Of all the stories written by Lovecraft, there are two which I can read over and over again, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Lurking Fear, of those two, my favorite has to be The Lurking Fear. I know there are people out there who think I'm crazy for preferring any other Lovecraft story over The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but, in all honesty, even though I find gills creepy, I don't find fish all that scary. Human de-evolution and incest are far creepier to me. Yes I suppose that The Shadow Over Innsmouth is technically a story about de-evolution, but human de-evolution into a monkey like creature, such as takes place in The Lurking Fear is far more believable than a man turning into a fish.


Lovecraft was never very descriptive when attempting to describe one of his creatures, in The Lurking Fear however, he did a pretty good job. In essence the Martense family, due mainly to inbreeding, had de-evolved into small monkey like creatures with long claws designed for digging. On first reading Lovecraft's description of the Martense's I had to sketch out the creature that popped into my head.

This is an OLD drawing, it's from around 2001 I believe, it's also one of the few things from that time that I let anyone see. A lot of the art I did until around 2003 is frankly embarrassing, one of the best things I ever did was to marry a woman who was willing to point out the bad things and errors in my art that I couldn't see.


About four years ago I decided to re read Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories. I've never really enjoyed The Dream Cycle stories, they never quite hit my buttons the way Lovecraft's other stories did and I honestly found them to be a bit boring. There were a few scenes from them that stuck in my head, specifically the scene from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath where Randolph Carter stumbles across the ghoul, who if I remember right is Richard Pickman, setting on top of a grave stone. After re reading that passage I set the book down and sketched this little thing.

This is a very small sketch, less than 4” tall, and it was done on one of my guard sheets. Ah, the guard sheets, gatherers of doodles and refinement sketches. As any artist that works heavily in pencil will tell you, graphite loves sticking to the side of your hand and it smears. Most artists that work in pencil use something to rest their hand on while drawing so that they don't smear graphite all over the picture they're working on, I call this a guard sheet. In my case I use a sheet of paper, folded in half, from the pad that I'm using. If something isn't working out right in the piece I'm working on, I'll sketch out some alterations on the guard sheet to see if I can get whatever the problem is worked out. Also, if inspiration strikes while I'm working on something else, I can sketch it out on the guard sheet and get my mind back to what I was working on. So, my guard sheets tend to gather a lot of small sketches and doodles.


This is Robert Slight

Robert was originally some random thing that popped into my head and never got finished, he received his name after I decided to try and play him as a Freak Legion character in a mixed genera White Wolf game that we were playing. I have a picture of him clothed somewhere, but it seems that I never scanned it, so instead, you get him naked. I initially had fun playing this character, unfortunately, he was a hyperactive, paranoid character, whose high pitched, raspy voice and constant screeches of “MINION” were a bit to difficult to keep up and I had to drop him. I'll see if I can't find a picture of him clothed and get it scanned.

Well, there's three little monsters for you, tomorrow I might post some ladies.

Two Otzi style quivers

Otzi (also called the Ice Man, Similaun man and the man from Hauslabjoch) was found near Hauslabjoch, in the Otzal valley of the Alps in the summer of 1991. He was stumbled upon by two German tourists, Helmut and Erika Simon, who seemed to assume, due to his state of preservation, that he had recently died of exposure. When the Austrian authorities arrived on the scene they were confronted with a body that was partially encased in glacial ice, at which point they produced ice axes and a small jackhammer and attempted to extricate him from his icy tomb. In the process of extracting Otzi from the ice, the authorities managed to severely mangle his pelvic region, going so far as to sever his genitals. During the extraction several artifacts were unearthed, some of which it seems were tossed close to the area where onlookers had gathered, resulting in them being taken as souvenirs. After his extraction, Otzi was taken to the morgue at Innsbruck, it was at this time that the authorities began to realize his true age, 5,300 years old.

When Otzi's age and importance were discovered, the area where his body was found was excavated in more detailed and gentile ways. Several artifacts and pieces of clothing were found around and under the body. There are many papers and books written that focus on the “flashy” artifacts, namely his copper ax and his supposedly unfinished bow, and on the confusing portions of his clothing like his shoes/moccasins and grass “cape”. Often his quiver is either simply mentioned as a side item or overlooked completely. On the few occasions that the quiver is mentioned the authors can't seem to quite grasp how it was intended to be used/worn.

Few archaeologists replicate or experiment their finds, of the few who do, the majority of them don't seem to be able to get beyond a certain mindset. When it comes to the items found with Otzi, the common thinking of “those in the know” is that due to his bow not having string knocks cut into it that it was unfinished, I have much to say on this and will touch on it later. The other piece of conventional thinking is that his quiver was worn on his back. This seems to have been influenced by several things, but namely it appears to be a holdover from the European archery resurgence/romantacization that occurred during the late Victorian era, and the Robin Hood films of the 30s and 40s.

The majority of archers that have used, or carried, a quiver for a long period of time in a wooded area quickly find that a back quiver is not the proper choice for the terrain. The top portion of the quiver sticking up over your shoulder is almost uncontrollable, it seems to have a mind of it's own, reaching out to grab every twig and low hanging branch. Even if you don't have issues with the quiver getting hung up on branches, you will still, at some point, have to extract an approximately 30”-36” long arrow over your shoulder, from a flapped quiver. Imagine trying to remove something the length of a yardstick from a relatively inflexible container strapped to your back while trying to hide from the animal/person you are trying to shoot, it simply doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that Otzi carried his quiver more like the Plains Indians, slung over one shoulder, hanging horizontally. It is incredibly easy to control and maneuver a quiver hung horizontally. When in the way it can easily pushed,with little motion, to hang behind the body or at the side, and can quickly be shifted to the front of your body to easily remove an arrow without having to raise your arm above shoulder level.

I have made several quivers in the style of the one found with Otzi, the first one was poorly done, it was based off of a low quality photo that had been inverted. Basically, the quiver was backwards and opened the wrong way, thus making it difficult for a right handed archer to use. I still posses this quiver, however, I have no photos of it at this time and it is not readily accessible.

My second attempt at the quiver came out much better.

Having done more research and collected more photos of the original quiver I was able to construct a very useable quiver of the type that Otzi was carrying. This quiver is currently in my possession, out of the quivers that I currently own, this is the one I tend to grab. With it's double flaps it's not exactly convenient to use, but it's structurally stable and does a good job of protecting my arrows from the elements.

After making the quiver above, my father asked me to build one like it for my step-mother.

There are some differences between the two quivers, the quiver made for my step-mother has slightly straighter sides, and it was requested that I give it a bit more environmental protection by adding a third flap.

I have no idea where this quiver is at this time, my step-mother passed away a few years ago and the time has never seemed right to ask my father about it.

The mouths and interior flaps of both quivers are lined with rabbit fur, and both quivers have stabilizers made from privet (most people here say privet is a useless weed, I've found many uses for it including quiver stabilizers and arrows) and antler buttons that, if I remember correctly, I drilled with a pump drill.

It might be noted that I have referred to these quivers as being in the style of, or the type, that was found with Otzi, and not as replicas. These are not replicas, they were not made of the same leather and the stabilizers are not made from the same wood as was found on Otzi's quiver, dimension wise these quivers aren't aren't the same either. These two quivers look like the type of quiver that was found with Otzi. As far as I know no other quiver of this type has ever been found, considering Otzi's age, and the rarity of a find of this type, that is not unusual. However, I believe that it's safe to assume that, given the meticulous work involved in stitching together the small, odd shaped pieces of leather that make up Otzi's quiver, it was probably of a style familiar to the people in Otzi's area. This is the same reasoning used by the archaeologists when dealing with Otzi's coat and leggins and I see no reason not to assume the same about his quiver.

Loose sketches

I do a lot of loose sketches, a lot. I have a habit of sketching heads or busts of characters from stories that I'm reading, it helps me keep my mind on the story and it helps me to mentally solidify the characters. Most of these are less than 6"x6".

These first two are sketches done while reading R. E. Howard's Almuric.
Random male Yaga.

And the Yaga's black queen Yasmeena.

Next up some Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Very rough preliminary head sketch of a Kalkar.

A slightly cleaner head sketch of a Kalkar and some random woman.

And who can forget Tarzan. Here's a couple of head/bust sketches where I was trying to work out what my version of Tarzan would look like.

Sometimes I decide that one of my character head shots are too much fun to go to waste. Once I have an idea of what the character looks like (and I'm sure that I can replicate the look), I start doing fast preliminary composition sketches, this is what those sketches look like.

This picture however, never came to fruition.


This is a slightly more refined sketch, this was going to be La of Opar.

This is about the level I take a drawing to when I'm going to transfer it for inking. Like the sketch above this one was never finished, it just wasn't quite opulent enough for my tastes.


And lastly we have Deja Thoris.

I got about halfway through this before I decided that I didn't like what was going on with her ass, and no, you may not see her ass, I didn't like it so it got cropped out. This is part of the drawing is about half to two thirds finished. Who knows, in the future I might finish up this section and try and do some “artistic erasing" to see if I can crop it down into something useable.

Of friends and RPG characters

When it comes to drawing I have many areas of inspiration, books and short stories being in the lead. Close on the tail of the books and stories come the RPG characters that my friends and I have created.
I have found that by creating visual representations of RPG characters they become more solid for me. By solidifying the character in my own mind I find it easier to stay in the game mentally and not get bored. Having a visual representation also gives me an in game reason to aid the character/player and maintain the group dynamics (my wife would disagree with this statement, saying that i don't maintain the group dynamic and in most cases try to destroy it. I guess it all comes down to your point of view.) Now, on to the characters.

First up are a couple of my characters, one from a D.C inspired Mutants & Masterminds game that was quite well run but never completed, and one from a very good, and slightly disturbing, 3rd edition Vampire campaign that my wife ran.

When our group decided to try out Mutants & Masterminds the majority of the players weren't looking forward to it. The player that wanted to run the game didn't have a good track record when it came to being the GM, he had a severe issue with being loud and obnoxious as a player and downright boring as a GM. This game turned out a bit different though, it wasn't anything great, the plot was passe and the villains were over the top, but it was a fun distraction from the uber violent campaigns we were used to. We all chose slightly stereotypical D.C type characters, with me settling on a Green Lantern named Asadi Kital. I had originally decided that his personality was going to be very much like Hal Jordan or Captain Kirk, a shoot from the hip, swaggering “cowboy” type, in actuality he turned out to be a bit of a bumbler, but, sometimes the game dictates the character's personality.

A few years ago my wife decided to try her hand at running a Vampire campaign, she had been playing Vampire for close to a decade at that point but had never run a game, it turned out to be one of the creepier vampire games that our group ever played. I chose to play a Nosferatu in this game, Sigurd VonWerther.

VonWerther was a spy, information dealer and a Shadow Soldier working for the True Black Hand, he was a fun character to play.

The next two up are from a 1930s era Lovecraft/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen inspired cross genera White Wolf game I ran for a few years. It's been years since I ran the game and can't quite remember the character's names, I know I've got copies of the character sheets but they're packed away I know not where.

This is Harry (last name forgotten), he started out as a mortal private eye played by a great guy named Leonard. Harry wound up getting ghouled and infected with a heavy dose of vicissitude, hence the claws, extra eyes and oddly placed fingers. He was a great character in the game as long as Leonard stayed focused and didn't get distracted with porn.

I can't for the life of me remember what this character's name is, I do know that he was a Demon/Hedge Mage (obviously this is his demon form) and that he was played by Eric. Eric was an old friend from high-school that I had fallen out of contact with over the years. He was a good player with a fast train of thought, unfortunately he's very hard to maintain contact with so he has yet again disappeared into the eather.

And for last, how about some D&D?

Yet another character who's name I can't remember. This character was from our last, and best, D&D game, a halfling rogue and “leader” of our party. He turned out to be a very ineffective leader due to no one paying attention to his “orders”.

Since we began with one of my characters we might as well end with one.

This is Atheas, wild elf ranger. I tend to draw from history when constructing D&D characters, for Atheas I decided on a mix of Scythian and Pains Indian. He was an okay character, not my best, but I get a bit bored with D&D after a few games and didn't want to invest a lot of time on the character.

I've got plenty more to come.

A new begining

I felt that it was time to start this blog over. My initial purpose for this blog was to have a place to vent my rants without stressing those around me, it didn't work. Not only did it not stop me from venting my frustration at others, it allowed me to construct my rants more thoroughly. Instead of running out of steam at a certain point, I had developed the ability to go on for hours about whatever topic (usually politics) I was angry over. There will be no more of that here.
This will now be a place to air the things that bring contentment to me, namely the items that I create. My artistic interests are broad, pencil, pen & ink drawing, woodworking, leather-working and costuming. My drawings range from pseudo realistic pencil work, to comic and cartoon style pen & ink. My leather-work generally covers historic replicas/representations, costuming and gun/knife related items. My woodworking consists of historic replicas/representations such as wooden bows, atlatls and rabbit-sticks, in other words, historic/prehistoric weapons.
Hopefully I will find it a bit easier to post more often, and if not, oh well.