Tumbling

As this place has become a ghost town, I would like to point people towards my Tumblr: drawthetoy.tumblr.com

I've been posting pictures of my collection there along with the occasional drawing. I hope to again begin posting here as well, but time will tell. 

Sharing with Others

One of they joys of playing RPGs is the collaboration. Sitting with other creating a story, or world or even just creating the characters can be such fun. As I said I didn't play until  college and in the years since I haven't gotten to play too much. A few years back I listened to the Penny Arcade, PVP, Wil Wheaton podcasts. Those lead me to the Major Spoilers Critical Hit podcasts.

Critical Hit is really good as they keep it clean and I was able to let my son listen. He then became intersted in play D&D too. I'm not much of a DM but I was able to do a few simple campaigns with him and his less interested sister. My wife even played once with us.

So below is my son's first character, Heskan, the dragonborn warrior.

First Characters

Well D&D month is coming to a close and I'm only getting around to my second post. Maybe this blogging thing isn't for me. Well if there is anyone still reading, hello internet peoples.

I dug up an old sketch book to show the first few characters I made. These drawing would have  been from 1994 or 95. As any artist will tell you it's a bit rough looking back at old art, but all these pieces lead me to the artist I am now.

First up is Kauch, elven thief. As I mentioned in the previous post the first setting I played in was Dark Sun. Elf in the Dark Sun world were very tall and tended to have dreadlocks. They were desert people. The beginning of the game had all the player characters being transported on a slave ship. They then attempted to take over the ship until they were captured again. The most notable part was that my character attempted to hold on to a weapon by clenching it between his but cheeks. It was a cross bow bolt and of no use. Even when the team eventually found a crossbow, no one wanted the bolt.

Next was Tal Jepel, human cleric of lightening. I spent a lot more time working on the back story for this character. The DM and even developed the version of religion he followed. It was primarily based on speed and Tal had an exceptionally high dexterity. His main focus was to have thought and action be one. Sadly after all that work I only got to play him once. 
Back when I drew this picture and the one above I did all of my inking with a tech pen with a tiny point. Tech pens are in my opinion the worst thing to ink with. They give you a dead line with no weight or feeling. You also spend much of your time unclogging them. Thank goodness I eventually discovered brushes.

Finally we Taruk Jepel, human ranger. I thought it was a fun idea to have my characters be related. Taruk was the character that I got to play the longest. By then end his group had slayed a dragon and the decision was made to turn in into a paladin an specifically a dragon slayer. We only played one more game with him in that roll, before the group fell apart. We did play several other one shots, but nothing was as grand or epic as the adventures as Taruk, Reefe and Posius.

To end this post here is a recent drawing of Taruk, Reefe, and Posius. Hopefully you can see that I've improved over the years.

Real men can calculate Thac0

My first set of dice.  Any gamer will tell you picking out your dice is as important as picking your character class.

And now for something completely different. Instead of the usual action figure, I am going to talk about another sort of toy, the polyhedral dice. Specifically those used in the playing of Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs.

The mighty d20

Now like most kids I was aware of D&D, but had never played it. I knew some kids in high school who played and my school even had a gamers club. Being a shy fellow, I never asked if I could play too. I secretly wanted to though. It wasn't until college, specifically my sophomore year, that I began hanging out with a group of like minded nerds and one proposed a gaming session.

d6s

We went through two sessions with a large group of people. Each had a different DM and a different setting. The first was Dark Sun, in which I played an elven thief, and the second was Ravenloft, in which I played a human cleric. The group eventually whittled down to four and a new game was begun, one that would last most of the year.

Do they even make percentile dice anymore?

The new game was set in just the generic D&D realm. I played a human ranger name Taruk. The co-other of this blog played Reefe, a halfling fight thief. (Yes D&D is how Kir and I became friends The 3rd player was a Minotaur mage. Finally there was our DM, who  to this day is still one of the best DMs I have played with. He was good and both planing things out and playing off the cuff.

So in honor of the good times I had and the friendships I have made, I am kicking off D&D month. I'll be posting pictures of the various characters I've played and the various groups I played in. I may even see if I can scrounge up old drawings from when the characters were first made.

d4 friend of daggers and lower mage spells

M.A.S.K. Condor

Battle of the Helm..er..M.A.S.K.

Awhile back I mentioned my love of figures with helmets. Take a cool figure and put a helmet on them and they became awesome. Imagine my joy when a toy line and cartoon came along with this exact same premise, M.A.S.K.

M.A.S.K. or Mobile Armored Strike Command, came along towards the end of the transforming toy craze of the 80s. Instead of vehicles transforming, converting or go-botting into robots, the cars and motorcycles of M.A.S.K. transformed into... slightly  different cars and motorcycles and things.  The best part of the line was that each vehicle came with a driver who had, you guessed it, a helmet which you could remove.

Now my family were a bit on the poorer side and I really didn't have many vehicles for my action figures. An action figure only cost a couple bucks back then but vehicles and play sets could be in the double digits. I really didn't think I would be able to get anything from the line. Luckily some of the M.A.S.K line were relatively small and cheap. In fact one of the best toys was one of the cheapest, the Condor.

Condor was a green motorcycle which converted into a helicopter. It was sleek and a really well designed toy. Condor was piloted by Brad Turner, who was some sort of rock star in the show. Aside from his mask the figure had glasses molded on his face. As a young nerd, it was exciting to see a figure with glasses. Sure they were meant to be sunglasses, but still I could pretend he had trouble seeing the black board in school just like me.

I ended up with 3 M.A.S.K. vehicles during my childhood. Some of my friends had more, but everyone had the Condor. Even though he was common, none of us thought he was lame. The fact that we had all put the same toy on our Christmas lists can attest to his awesomeness.

Making amends

Yes, we've been gone. So here's some toy catalog pages from the 80s. All better?

This is the first toy I remember ever having. The best part was the hand drill.

Yes there are Star Wars toys on this page, but I also had the crayola set in the bottom right hand corner. Do they still make sets like that? I'd highly recommend them for any aspiring artists.

Prototype Man-E-Faces.

I had the Battlestar Galactica Viper. It was one of my favorite toys, but unfortunately it didn't survive. 

MORK!

Yes, we've been gone. So here's some toy catalog pages from the 80s. All better? 

A bit of the process

So I love sketch blogs that show a bit of people's process. I think it's rather... well brave isn't the right work, but maybe honest when artists let you behind the curtain. So with that in mind I decided to post some of the preliminary sketches for the work I have created here. I hope you enjoy them.

freakie sketches along with some paint smudges

my original Mister Miracle didn't feel quite right

some thumbs for my second attempt at MM

Zuckuss tumbs

uh... what do you know

So I did my drawing of Slave 1 and after I scanned it in I accidentally inverted the image. And I liked it. So here it is inverted.

We're Back - Slave 1

Slave 1
The coolest ship in the star wars universe? I might argue against that now, maybe. But as a kid, no, there was no ship more awesome, more iconic or more badass. Did it help that Boba Fett flew it? YES.



I mean LOOK at that thing. How fucked up is that?

From Wookieepedia -
"Some people mistakenly believe the Slave I's design was inspired by a lamp post outside the ILM building. But Nilo Rodis-Jamero, an art director on The Empire Strikes Back, said that his design for the Slave I was actually based on a radar dish. It was later on when the ship was being constructed at ILM that someone pointed out that it resembled a street lamp, and from then on people just assumed that that had been the original source of the design."



I think it looks like a horses head. And how awesome was it that he flew it vertically?




The Challenge: Draw Slave 1. Examples: in flight, in combat, on the landing pad in Cloud City, delivering Han to Jabba, etc

Finally caught up.

Okay so I was able to find some time today to finally finish the Battle of the Planets challenge. I tried something a little different this time. I was inspired by various fake retro posters I've been seeing pop up on the art blogs I like to follow.

Also after making a joke in my initial post about Keyop, I decided to illustrate him. I gotta admit that his dune buggy tank was pretty cool.

That was just a week right?

Okay, so lots has been happening in my life that has kept me away from this blog. I started things here after I was laid off from my job as a way to keep myself creating. Well I have since found a job. One that is awesome and fun but takes me away from my home for the time being. All of this is good but leaves little time for me to create stuff for myself and your viewing pleasure. I wish to keep this blog going especially since Kir and I seem to be having fun and we've gotten a good response from it.

So basically I need to get better at managing my time now and to begin with I need to play a little catch up.  So here is my completed Evil Lynn. I could have kept working and changes certain things but there is a point all artists reach where we have to walk away.

Cheers.

a week off

Hello all, Bill and I are taking this week off.

So until next week, enjoy this great Grimlock from Joel Carroll!



GAH! So awesome. When I told Joel what we were doing here, he jumped on the chance to draw Grimlock. I love it. Thanks, Dude.

You can find Joel on twitter, tumblr and deviantart as well.

Gatchaman - Jun the Swan

It's not hard to guess which character I like the best from BOTP.



Not hard at all.

Battle of the Helmets

Okay this challenge will delve deep into my childhood and pull out two of my most favorite things: Battle of the Planets and helmets.

Long before the lame Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and even before the well liked Voltron there was Battle of the Planets. G-Force was the original 5 person team with all the familiar archetypes : Leader Guy, Jerk Guy, Fat Guy, Hot Chick and Little Kid. I was really young when the show was on, but loved every minute of it. The best part was the fact they they dressed as bird people with... you guessed it Helmets!!!

I loved loved helmets as a kid. They were the ultimate accessory for any character to go from being okay to truly awesome. I'm fairly certain my love of helmets stems from G-Force. I wanted so bad to have a bird shaped visor. The closest I came was a C.H.I.P.S. motorcycle helmet.

The other problem with BotP was they didn't have any toys when I was young. My stand ins were a couple of Tonka Play People who were motorcycle guys. The other issue is that their helmets didn't come off. This was true of most toys at the time. It wasn't until GI Joe came along that toys finally got removable helmets.

So your probably asking yourself about now, if they didn't have toys for them when you were a kid, what is this weeks challenge going to be? Or you might just be saying to yourself, "Get to the point man!"

As I said the show was on when I was really young and as I grew up few people I encountered in Grade School or High School had ever heard of the show. Then the 90's came along and I went to art school and met tons of my fellow nerds. One such friend told me to look up Gatchaman on the new fangled world wide webs. Boom, all the memories came flooding back, plus I learned a great deal more about the show and it's popularity in it's home, Japan.

Then a mutual friend of both myself and Kir mentioned he was going to Japan for vacation and would we like him to pick anything up. Hells yeah! I told him anything Gatchaman that he could find. I had no idea what was available, but he certainly came through.

With Bird Boomerang

So Heroic

After years of pinning I finally had a Ken action figure. The little child in me beamed in happiness. Sadly the figures helmet doesn't come off, which I learned the hard way. He has a weird square shaped half head underneath. Other toy companies later came out with Battle of the Planets figures in the early 2000s, but the thrill of the hunt was over for me so I never purchased any of them.

So for this weeks challenge I'll expand it to include any of the characters because I know Kir's got a real soft spot for Keyop and 7 Zark 7.

Excuses excuses

Honest... I ran out of gas! I--I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR!!!
- Jake Blues

Okay so my excuses are quite as made up as the ones above but still ring a bit hollow. I have yet to finish this weeks challenge due to things like computer issues, financial issues and general work ethic issues. You don't want to hear about all that. You want art and toys! My Evil Lyn is in progress (I'm currently trying to learn Corell Painter after being a photoshop man for many years) but I thought I post some sketches to keep thing rolling.

Balcony Spellcasting

Screen capture from the latest episode of MOTU Houses. I need to get an offical transcript to be sure this is correct.
"This is the rear balcony. It has a lovely view of Snake Mountain, doesn't it? I come back here to relax and devise new spells. No, I don't allow HIM and his idiots here. Shall I show you what I'm working on?"

---------------------------

This was a great challenge. I refined the pose over five or so sketches, created the setting and worked through numerous thumbnails. I spent several hours drawing and inking on Tuesday and I colored it last night. It's been a long time since I enjoyed this illustration process.

This blog itself has been a great motivator for me to keep drawing and bring quality work every week. I've been more productive in general lately, so thanks go to Bill for the idea and the invite to participate.

Evil Lyn

A conniving tart, Evil Lyn is a sorceress and the most competent member of Skeletor's crew as well as an inspiration for Bad Girls everywhere.

A stunning update from 2010:

Photo: mwctoys.com

I always liked her character but the original figure from 1983 left a lot to be desired. Her jaundiced skin, collared leotard, belt, boots and helmet were interesting and made as much sense as the rest of the MOTU line, but I never liked the clunky figure.


Photo: offmybirdchest.blogspot.com

Yeah, not quite there.

Mattel thankfully rebooted the series in 2002 with a new cartoon and figures, designed by Four Horsemen The boys at 4HM redesigned her beautifully, adding a new sophisticated aura and style. This is gold.


Photo: toysheik.net

A different color scheme. (don't know if it's shopped or a real variant)

Photo: toynewsi.com

I love this version and considered it my favorite until Mattel released the Classics line in 2010, with 4HM reworking the original costumes. Here's another shot from a different angle:


Photo: poeghostal.com

It might be nostalgia or just the simplicity of it compared to the 2002 figure, but this one captures the essence of her snarky character perfectly. I'm such a sucker.

The Challenge
For Me: Make a complete illustration, well composed with a background.
For Bill: Well, he says girls aren't his strong point. So this will address that.