Farranger Bladebiter

[6-13-11]  ^ Yasia Bladebiter, Tiefling Adventurer

Name: Yasia Bladebiter
Race: Tiefling (Tanar'ri descent) __________ Role: PC
Alignment: Neutral Evil __________________ Gender: Female

Classes:  Ranger | Fighter | Horizon Walker | Duelist | (splash of campaign-specific class) 
Ability Scores: -v
 
Skills: Survival, Intimidate, Knowledge (the planes), Craft (weapons), Handle Animal OR Heal
Combat Skills: Spot, Escape Artist (escape grapples), Tumble (avoid AoOs)



 Relevant Feats:
Ranger: Two Weapon Fighting, Evasion (more effective Reflex saves), Animal Companion (underlevelled badger), Vermin Empathy
Fighter: Weapon Finesse (DEX to attack), Combat Expertise (attack to AC), ??? (needs +damage somehow)
Horizon Walker: Astral Plane Dominance (dimension door as SLA), Aligned Plane Dominance (bypass certain DR)
Duelist: Canny Defense (INT to AC), Grace (higher Reflex saves)

Armor & Weapons:
* accessorized blue-purple/brown/iron cloth or light armor, depending upon Duelist variant in use
* mainhand sickle, with damage enhancements
* offhand shortsword, with defensive enhancements

Other Equipment:
* 1x scabbard, since people probably don't make scabbards for sickles
* 1x goggles, not pictured, because dust in the eyes is unfun
* ?x bandages, to fix assorted mishaps with

Goals:
* Survive and if possible thrive, best accomplished by adapting oneself to the region in proper Ranger fashion.
* As a corollary, avoid attracting the interest of any powers that be in the region. On the Lower Planes at least, the powerful are fully expected to enslave the weak, take what they can, and smash rivals into dust. What else would they even do with power?

Thoughts About:
* "Nah, just a ranger won't do. You're in the Lower Planes! Gonna need a farranger to get through the wastes in one piece."
* "Bladebiter? That one's mostly human. Eugh. Keeps to herself, though - you'll probably find her just outside the walls."

General Notes:
So I just finished playing Dragon Age Origins, a City Elf version of Yasia here serving as my character. The combat was better than NWN2's, especially when foes were using neither Fireball nor Overwhelm, although half of the kinda small stable of armor designs were absurd. A pity the DLC did absolutely nothing to provide the story with closure.

After that, I ended up reading some 3.5e homebrew on the D&D Wiki, and that was outright inspiring. An Evil-aligned planar desert? Perfect place to put this character, or at least better than the mundane settings which I'd rather put other characters in.

I'm going to need more practice with these portmanteau profession names, though.

Technical Notes:
Prototyped using HeroMachine 3, which might've helped solidify the concept, but the visual output was... not good. Otherwise, just practicing established techniques and trying out backgrounds.

A Paragon of the Ja'Tazak Empire

 <- Cad'Ayern, Ja'Tazak Admiral
(normally he wears a uniform)

Cad'Mirin, Ja'Tazak Captain ->
(daughter of Cad'Ayern, also his secretary)

Title: Admiral Cad'Ayern
Species: Ja'Tazak
* Sand-blue humanoid raptors which sport dorsal fins and tripartite mandibles.
Homeworld: Neo Skezeek

Role: Antagonist
Gender: Male
Archetypes: Aging Naval Commander, Perfectionist
Themes: Satiation/Discontent, Knots

Is Awesome Because:
* Celebrated for successfully staging the takeover of a couple minor neighboring species' planets, and for forging an arms deal with the Skraz.
* Every bit the ruthless noble which promising individuals of his kind are brought up to be. Really does not care about the lives of enlisted pilots, most aliens, ect., and will sacrifice such readily for tangible benefit.

Equipment:
* 1x navy/black/red Admiral's uniform, customized
* 1x command sash, features prestigious decorations
* ?x digital interface eyewear, for enhanced consumption of information and also intimidation factor
* 1x rather comfortable bed, which dumps occupants who oversleep onto the floor

Resources:
* 1x spacecraft carrier, core component of a small personal fleet - usually operated in absentia by a Commodore
* 1x bunker suite on Neo Skezeek, standard issue for important government types
* 1x Captain/Commodore who would rather be an Agent, of familial relation

Goals:
* Success of the Empire, which means constant expansion; terraforming barren planets and other alternatives simply aren't as efficient as liberating existing infrastructure from inferior alien populations.

Enemies:
* The Coraxyon, who are kind of getting in the way of interstellar expansion.
* Certain Ja'Tazak military brass, eager for a rare opening in the fleet-commanding admiralty.

Weaknesses:
* Blinding pride, is thoroughly convinced of Ja'Tazak Empire's overall superiority. May burn up a resource normally disposable, or waste the element of surprise.
* Aging physically, and finds the looming spectre of mental degradation frightening like nothing else.

Notes:
- www.behindthename.com/name/cadeyrn
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_knot
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/88/Grossmith_as_Gen_Stanley.jpg
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_absentia
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum

^- Not all Ja'Tazak are angry-looking military types!
(Just, those military types are found on a pretty high rung of the Empire's social ladder.)

Technical Notes:
* In Cartooning class this past semester, we learned to start drawing characters with an action line - which usually follows the spine, allowing for a sense of motion in the drawing, - and to design the underlying structure before the character's fancy clothes.

* In Painting class the previous semester, we learned to layer different colors instead of just swathing a single one onto a whole region. I probably talked about that before, but messing with colors continues to be really fun when it works out. I still have enough trouble getting the lineart to work out first, though.

* Whilst learning how to illustrate my characters, I also hope to learn how to make them more interesting fictional people. Hopefully I'll be able to tell when and by how much I've failed or succeeded.

Knight-Captain Bladebiter

Yasia Bladebiter, Tiefling Fighter/Ranger/Duelist/Neverwinter Nine
^ [Dated 11-5-10] | v [Dated 11-29-10]
So about a month back, being all hyped up about Dungeons & Dragons from Soulyst (see previous post; the campaign is since unfortunately deceased), I picked up Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) along with the first of its two expansion packs. Much fun was had at the expense of a good handful of often-long nights, primarily spent playing as the character who is the subject of the subjects of this post.

The portrait above I did similarly to those for Soulyst, using a pencil sketch as basis for easier-to-make-expressive calligraphic strokes using a tablet in Inkscape. I blocked in the shading with opaque color instead of transparent greyscale, though, which makes a slight difference perhaps.

But disposing of the lineart, once I realized I could do that with surprisingly little tweaking, makes much more of a difference, allowing for more dimensional pieces. I'm sure being able to do so more reliably, more expertly, would be a great next step for my art in this style. Or genre, rather, to think of cell shading sans lineart as a style unto itself - since focusing more on lineart seems a promising style as well. What might their relative merits be?

Practice is probably the best way to figure that out, and thus the figure on the left, done sans difficult-to-manipulate traditional media, straight on a blank digital canvas. Though I must credit the NWN2 Toolset (the included Duelist and Neverwinter Nine outfits especially) for the outfit design, which is so very much better than the stuff I'm liable to draw left to my own devices. Must work on that.

The colors, I did on a layer set to 50% opacity; the shading is actually the first and second draft of the figure, each faded to grey and left in a background layer. Still, the top layer of lineart was subject to plenty of tweaking in the process of refining hands, feet, and accuracy of outfit; the resizing handles offered by vectors are truly wonderful to have. And hopefully, I'm coming closer to having a good simplified-yet-recognizable style for faces whose heads happen to be on bodies.

End-of-May Update:

[Dated 4-8-11]

Soulyst Adventurers

From left to right: Pyrn the Halfling Barbarian, Red Cape the Human Rogue, and Rae the Half-Elf Bard
[Dated 10-14/20-10]

Characters are from Soulyst: a D&D 3.5 rp, an ongoing Sporum-based campaign.

I made the sketches in basic pencil, then took them into Inkscape and lineart'd/colored/shaded with the Calligraphy tool. Would be more painterly to use colors rather than .1 - .15 opacity black and white for the shading, so I should try that next time - and/or make the mostly-flat base coloring a bit more complex. These are among the first arts I've done using a tablet, the Bamboo Pen I got a couple weeks ago, rather than a mouse.

The very first thing I made with a tablet was a first take on Rae (the character who happens to be mine of course). Accordingly, it did not go as well - though I'm fond of the ears!, - especially because I got lazy on the hair shading. Have yet to properly figure that out.


[Dated 10-11-10]

Digitally Painting a Bird

Tools Used: computer, mouse, keyboard
sketch 1 - Alchemy - layered strokes; high line weight, low opacity, black + white only
smoothed 2 - GIMP - layers, blend tool; mid-sized regular brush, long strokes, then short strokes to clean up
feathered 3 - GIMP - more layers, blend tool; smaller regular brush, zigzaggy strokes. fiddled with layer opacity to reduce harshness of resulting texture
colored 4 - GIMP - more layers, blend tool, masks;

• one layer per color, solid fill with fully transparent mask. peel away the concealing mask using the blend tool, then reduce the entire layer's opacity so the color doesn't cover up the texture
• eye is an exception since it's from earlier in the process, just a regular stroke on a low layer colorized
• background is the layer between colors and the feathered texture, and so must be fine-tuned via the blend tool, its shade of grey finalized via brightness/contrast tool