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.

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]