RPG Character: Sally Kim

 My old high-school RPG group has been getting together for a new adventure. We are scattered across the country, but our old game master offered to try his hand at running a game again. He's making a loose system with a setting of early 2000's Las Vegas with some incorporated D&D fantasy elements/tropes turned on their ear.

The game master assigned all of our characters to us pre-made based on some questionnaires we all filled out. Sally is an acrobat for one of the major shows in Las Vegas, and adrenaline junkie who has bad impulse control and a habit of pickpocketing––she's the rogue/thief of the party.

I drew my character: Sally Kim... an art oddity for me—I drew a pleasant looking and thoroughly modern human. Below I'll walk through the process of creating the finished character portrait.

Now, as many of you know, I struggle with drawing attractive humans, and getting me to depict this 27 year old Korean athlete to not end up looking like a deformed goblin meant using lots of reference to draw over top of. Here you can see a collage of photos of a woman on a motorcycle, a woman's face (warped with the liquify tool to adjust her expression) my own arm, and a hand fanning throwing knives.

You'll also see here a mix of my drawings in pencil and digital overtop to get the overall layout and form closer to what I needed. Not seen here, but I redrew her face/head 6 times before just surrendering to using this photo to draw over.

The above digital assemblage was printed out and on my Huion lightpad I was able to re-pencil the composition on a clean sheet of paper. I drew the bike on one sheet of paper, figuring out what details to imply and which ones to try and get accurately. I also wanted to add some stylization with texture on the tires, windscreen, and by adding in all the paint chips and dings.

Sally herself was drawn on a different sheet of paper trying my best to follow the reference while still being truthful to my own sensibilities of line weight and contour decisions.

The two drawings were scanned and assembled in photoshop where I could make minor adjustments for alignment and cohesion. 

Those pencils were then printed onto copy paper and taped to the back of a sheet of Strthmore 300 series bristol where I could ink the piece on my trusty Huion lightpad. I used Copic Multiliner SP pens––mostly the 0.7 nib, but I used a 0.3 for her eyes and the tattoos.

Before I started inking I'd seriously considered just coloring the tight pencils...but opted to just trust in my normal process and that I could add something in the inks.

As usual I think I both added some qualities while also losing a little bit of the purity and lightness of the pencils.

With the inks scanned I started the color flatting process. This is where flat colors are painted in to block in what areas are what colors...like a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. The main color choice decision here was here bike and clothes. The cuttoff shirt is based on a real Nirvana tee, so I used those colors, but her leggings became rust to be a compliment of the dark blue bike (so her motorcycle is a bit more stealthy for a thief).

At this stage I also established color holds (areas where I want the linework to be a color other than black) for the circle/moon, the windshield lines, the headlight, tee printing, bike dings and dents, tattoos, the ground texture, and Sally's lips and eyes.

The last step was to render the colors using highlights, shadows, and texture to make the forms feel more dimensional. While I did use the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop for some of this, for the majority of the rendering I took a different approach and used a few textured brushes and the paintbrush tool. 

For this being out of my comfort zone and despite my early struggles with getting this piece started, I'm pretty happy with the final results.

Recent Commissions

 Here are some recent 8.5" x 11" brush pen commissions from Emerald City & FACTS. These are a new format for me, that I wanted to try out for FACTS since it was an overseas convention, and I enjoyed doing them enough, I think I'll offer these single figure no background pieces at other shows this year (Heroes, SDCC, Baltimore, & New York)

Celanawe with the Black Axe

A fan's cat as an adventurer

Saxon

Kenzie

A fan's cat character

A fan's witch-cat character

Donatello

Saxon in a graveyard

Man-Thing

Saxon in a briar

Mr. Toad

A Fan's Owl Paladin character

Porco Rosso

Bardrick with the Black Axe

Kenzie

Saxon

1149 Map

 As I work on the Weasel War of 1149 (no release date yet––sorry) I have created a new era appropriate map for my own reference. Making maps for Mouse Guard is an enjoyable task where I not only get to make subtle differences with the cities listed, little adjustments in their placements, and shifting borders––I also get to play with a new aesthetic style, making sure this map is unique enough to justify making it instead of just digitally editing an older version. For this post, I'm sharing the results of that cartographic effort, but also in letting you all see the process to create it and an opportunity to own a print of the map even before the book is finished: https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/map-of-the-mouse-territories-11x17-print

 The process starts with a digital version of a previous map where I then slightly alter the shoreline (an in-world factor of erosion and/or slight discrepancies with the survey or draftsmouseship of the cartographer). A new font is applied to all the city names as I also make adjustments to their placements (same reason as before). new pathways are digital drawn in and other aesthetics are considered, in this case the title treatment, scale key, and the compass rose. For the first time ever, I also mapped the waterways.

That digital layout version is then printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. In this case, it's a rather large piece: 24" x 12". On my Huion lightpad I inked the piece trying to be as accurate to the printout as I can be seeing it through the bristol while also adding in some nuance of imperfection, dings, and scratches. I inked this all with a Copic Multiliner SP pen (the 0.7 nib). It's also in this stage where I made the decision to add some texture to the water area with stippling around the shoreline. It added some depth and made it feel more complete and authentic.

When the inks were finished I scanned them and started the coloring process known as flatting. That's where you paint in the main color areas and establish where they are, like a professional version of coloring-in-the-lines. However, the larger part of color flatting this map was establishing color holds. Those are areas I want the inklines to be a color other than black...and every line on this thing qualifies. There are separate color holds for: the text, the shorelines, the stippled water, the pathways, the rivers borders, the dots and symbols and plaque on the map, and two for the compass. 

On a map, the rendering is less taxing of a task than on a full illustration. Rather than adding light and shadow to make a form feel three dimensional, this is more about adding subtle lights and darks with a textured brush to make it all feel more like an old hand printed and tinted map rather than a digital output.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, a version of this map is available as an 17" x 11" print in my online store: https://mouseguard.bigcartel.com/product/map-of-the-mouse-territories-11x17-print

Ildur Hall Model Video

The model of Ildur Hall made of cardboard, chip board, wood, and paper. 

In the video below, I show and talk about building it for The Black Axe and it's modularity, how it was used, and why having models like this are important for my design process as well as for the reference in drawing the same location over and over again. 

Come across the North Sea to the Isle of Ildur where Ferrets dwell...

Direct YouTube Link:

https://youtu.be/ROY0Zva7zDw