AslanCross

It's been over a year since my last journal entry---mostly because I've been in the worst creative slump I've ever been in.

I guess it's really difficult to maintain art as merely a hobby. I'm way too busy (and not good enough) to make it a professional thing, so it's just something I do to get my brain continuously working.

Right now I've been trying to do a decent drawing of Azarr Kul, the last boss of my current D&D Red Hand of Doom campaign. Unfortunately, this past year has almost completely sapped me. Ugh.

So the end of a rather interesting summer vacation is at hand once more.
I was able to go out of the country and accomplish some art, so that makes it one of the better vacations.

There are some reasons why this vacation was nasty, but eh, you don't want to hear that.

My laptop is mostly fixed. It still BSODs, but I've been able to narrow down the culprits, and its overheating problem has been fixed. To those with laptops---VACUUM your air intakes and exhaust vents. Thank God for a dad who knows how to fix things the easy way.

Anyway, I've been running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign over the summer. Needless to say it's been a lot more rewarding to have 6-hour sessions compared to the pathetic 1.5 hour sessions I used to have during the school year. At this rate, I don't suffer from withdrawal when I go for a week or two without it.

Anyway, as I've been drawing female humans a lot lately, I've decided to try my hand at illustrating the hobgoblins that figure so prominently in the Red Hand of Doom adventure I'm running.

D&D hobgoblins are typically slightly taller and more muscular than humans, have skin ranging from a deep yellow tan to red, have flat, dark noses (think dog noses but without the long snout), and wide mouths. They also have mobile, canine ears. Most of the depictions thus make them look like people with bulldog-like heads.
www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM3…

Their bigger cousins, the bugbears, are 7.5-8 feet tall, with massive, burly frames, large, stiffer ears, and black noses that add up to an overall ursine appearace.
www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM3…

Finally, the classic D&D goblins. They're half the height of humans, have almost no noses, and are small and skinny.
www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM3…

Of the five Wyrmlords of the Red Hand Horde, three are hobgoblins, one is a goblin, and one is a bugbear. All of them except the goblin have charisma higher than the average human's (the goblin has Charisma equal to that of a human). This might mean that they at least have the ability to make themselves look presentable, and that they shouldn't be hideous by any stretch of the imagination.

As such, I made the following embellishments to the designs when I drew them:
Hobgoblins:
-Taller and burlier than humans, and prone to have more body hair. They have thick, flaring eyebrows in both genders.
-While they have wide mouths, sharp teeth and protruding tusks, their jaws are not underslung (that's an orc trait). They have prominent cheekbones and high foreheads, because they're at least as smart as humans.  
-They like braids and dreadlocks, or at least tie their long hair in one way or another.
-Clothing is functional, protective, and almost always incorporates armor plates in one way or another.
-As omnivores who lean toward meat, they slaughter a lot of animals for food. This leaves them a lot of leather. Which they like wearing.
-There's a lot of variety in weaponry. Grunts typically hold curved, bladed weapons similar to the Japanese wakizashi, katana and nodachi, but generals sometimes wield enormous straight greatswords with jagged edges and notched tips. Those who prefer blunt weapons avoid the stereotypically dwarf warhammer and go for large, two-handed flails.

Goblins:
-For creatures that spend a lot of time in subterranean areas, I'd think noses are at least important. Having giant holes on your face seems to me like a very unsafe physical trait for goblins. As such, I draw them now with the same black nose that hobgoblins and bugbears have.
-They like wearing their hair long and loose, unlike their larger cousins. At most they're going to tie them into ponytails, but dreadlocks and braids are too time-consuming for them.
-Their heads look a bit squashed and flat and have large, triangular ears. The overall look is slightly short of a gremlin.
-Flaring eyebrows too.
-They typically move in a hunched posture and tend to walk on the balls of their feet instead of their heels. While hobgoblins like being completely covered, goblins at the very least keep their feet bare. This is representative of their natural stealth ability.
-Since they're usually not front-line warriors, goblins use their natural riding ability and their natural bond with the wolflike Worgs to quickly skirmish with composite bows.

Bugbears:
-Pretty much the same. They're the most barbaric of the three major goblinoid races and have naturally tough hides, so they tend to dispense with armor.
-Typically being unskilled in the finer points of metalwork, bugbears tend to dispense with swords and use giant crushing weapons--either the two-handed flail or a large, iron-bound hardwood cudgel. If they do use slashing weapons, they will prefer the weight of an axe over the sharpness of a sword any day.

All three races like piercings.

Yeah, anyway.
So far I've finished sketching the female hobgoblin bard Wyrmlord Ulwai. It was quite a challenge to draw her, since the book says she's very attractive for a hobgoblin, so much so that others sometimes accuse her of having human or elven blood. It's rather difficult to draw a character who wouldn't be outright hideous to humans without losing the feel of the race. The lupine features made her border on furry territory, but thankfully the small, protruding tusks dampen the "OMG ASLAN YOU DRAW FURRIES NOW?!" shock. (And NO, I do not draw anthro art. I find a great deal of it disturbing.) She definitely looks better than she did in that scrap I posted with the other wyrmlords, though. I might upload this within the next week.

I've put together a crude, preliminary sketch of Saarvith, the goblin ranger. I borrowed a bit from Wayne Reynolds' goblins from Pathfinder: paizo.com/image/product/second… and made his head a bit flat, but I retained the more expressive human-like eyes and long, stringy hair that RHoD's art depicts him as having.

I also have a work-in-progress drawing of the formidable unholy knight-general of the horde, Wyrmlord Kharn, but I ended up detailing the greatsword he uses instead of finishing his armor. Let's face it---it's hard to come up with original armor that doesn't look like it's a mass of fused, unusable steel.

I hope to finish these before the school year starts.

I've been having mysterious problems with my laptop for a while now. I've no idea why it does this, but no matter what I do it only seems to get worse.

My problems are detailed here. aslancross.wordpress.com/2009/…

So yeah, it crashed once (taskbar problem), and then after that it began to hang regularly. I just don't know what to do about it so that I can at least have a harmonious relationship with this machine before it bites the dust. <_<

The PSHS fair is coming up at the end of this month, and since the fair council is planning a cosplay, I decided to join.

My original plan was Cthulhu for President, which is technically easy--all I have to make is the head. I would recruit a female student or teacher to cosplay as Sarah Palin with me. However, since the US election fever is over and Philippine politics is boring, Cthulhu really wouldn't run for office here.

I quickly searched for something else, and I found none other than Ryoma Nagare. (Shin Getter Armageddon version)
spikewible.deviantart.com/art/…
He's the guy in the lower left, in the tattered trench coat.
The other choice was Zengar Zombolt (same picture, red coat, white hair, katana), but I figured the costume would utterly fail without hair dye and a decent katana, so I decided against it.

Besides, I can more accurately cosplay Ryoma due to my resemblance to him.

My costume is almost complete. Here are the costs so far:
-Trench coat: Php 500
-faded jeans: Php 400
-chains: Php 200
-gauze bandages: Php 22
-hair: growing it out. (+ P 150, since that's the cost of a haircut)
-eyebrows: natural. Php 0.00
-Maniacal grin: working on it. Natural. Php 0.00

All I need now is the tattered scarf.

I've got a mountain of stuff to check. I've got an application form to fill up and send ASAP. I've got emotional problems and I feel lonelier than ever.

Obviously now is not a good time for me to draw, but I've been doing it anyway. I've actually successfully (and neatly) inked my drawing of Alioth, my D&D group's paladin. He looks quite impressive so far---well, from the waist up.

I want to color him now, but I think a scan is in order first. I want to xerox so that my markers won't destroy the original. Argh, so paranoid when it comes to color.