Swords of Central Genertela

[M Helsdon]

Latest.

[Brootse]

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Latest.

Where are they from?

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Brootse said:

Where are they from?

Southern Fronela. Not sure specifically where.

[M Helsdon]

7 hours ago, Brootse said:

Where are they from?

The southern fringes of Fronela, in the forests and foothills of the mountains. This hunter-warrior is wearing winter garb. His throwing spears have flaked stone heads; his other spear is bronze, either obtained in trade, or more likely as plunder.

Edited June 4, 2020 by M Helsdon

[M Helsdon]

Latest.

Second attempt and I am not satisfied with it. A comment that has appeared several times on Armies & Enemies is that the art isn't up to Chaosium's standard, but I'm an amateur, and if I don't draw the sketches, there won't be any illustrations; this is making me very conscious of flaws.

[Gallowglass]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Second attempt and I am not satisfied with it. A comment that has appeared several times on Armies & Enemies is that the art isn't up to Chaosium's standard, but I'm an amateur, and if I don't draw the sketches, there won't be any illustrations; this is making me very conscious of flaws

I’m not an art expert, but I really appreciate your illustrations, not to mention the research you’re doing, and the willingness to explore parts of the setting that Chaosium won’t get to for years. Also, it’s kind of ridiculous that anyone would criticize the art in a Jonstown Compendium work, in my opinion. 

[Brootse]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Latest.

Second attempt and I am not satisfied with it. A comment that has appeared several times on Armies & Enemies is that the art isn't up to Chaosium's standard, but I'm an amateur, and if I don't draw the sketches, there won't be any illustrations; this is making me very conscious of flaws.

I'm a big fan! I gather that you used the Roman era Egyptian Crocodile armor as a model?

[Thaz]

1 hour ago, Gallowglass said:

 it’s kind of ridiculous that anyone would criticize the art in a Jonstown Compendium work, in my opinion. 

Seconded. The scale and scope of what your doing is amazing. Screw the critics, listen to the fans. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

For what it's worth, I think it looks great.

[M Helsdon]

5 hours ago, Brootse said:

I'm a big fan! I gather that you used the Roman era Egyptian Crocodile armor as a model?

Yes, though there are indications it was only used as parade armor.

4 hours ago, Thaz said:

Seconded. The scale and scope of what your doing is amazing. Screw the critics, listen to the fans. 

I gather that a number of JC contributors have received similar comments.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

For what it's worth, I think it looks great.

Thanks.

5 hours ago, Gallowglass said:

I’m not an art expert, but I really appreciate your illustrations, not to mention the research you’re doing, and the willingness to explore parts of the setting that Chaosium won’t get to for years. Also, it’s kind of ridiculous that anyone would criticize the art in a Jonstown Compendium work, in my opinion. 

It happens - comments on layout, artwork etc. 

I have made some changes to the Snake horali, adding more shading to the face and evening out some of the other shading.

This afternoon have roughed out a Safelstran mercenary cataphract (though the horse is only partially armored).

[soltakss]

8 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Latest.

Second attempt and I am not satisfied with it. A comment that has appeared several times on Armies & Enemies is that the art isn't up to Chaosium's standard, but I'm an amateur, and if I don't draw the sketches, there won't be any illustrations; this is making me very conscious of flaws.

Two Questions, Martin:

• Q1: Do you work for Chaosium?
• Q2: Is Arms and Enemies published by Chaosium?

If the answer to either of those is yes, then they might have a point.

However, if the answer to both those is No and Chaosium have not bankrolled you to source art from other people then their comments are not relevant. By the way, even if you did bankroll other artists, I doubt if they would come up with better artwork.

[M Helsdon]

13 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Two Questions, Martin:

• Q1: Do you work for Chaosium?
• Q2: Is Arms and Enemies published by Chaosium?

No.

No.

What these comments highlight, and I am not the only person receiving them, if that the expectations of fantasy artwork are now very high. If you look at games back in the 70s and 80s even professional games often had very different art in both quality and quantity to what is the norm today. 

[JanPospisil]

Your art is fine. As someone who WAS published by Chaosium, and as someone who did very similar drawings for one of their books - they're fine, some are even quite lovely.

I genuinely envy your productivity and output volume too.

[M Helsdon]

2 hours ago, JanPospisil said:

Your art is fine. As someone who WAS published by Chaosium, and as someone who did very similar drawings for one of their books - they're fine, some are even quite lovely.

I genuinely envy your productivity and output volume too.

Thank you - but I'm more a mechanic - you are an artist.

This sketch includes a cheat, only used a few times... Couldn't get the face to work until I used a photograph, tweaked, to get the mouth and nose right (read an article by a professional digital artist a while ago, where they described merging photographs into their work). Only resorted to that three or four times before...

These sketches each take a day to three days of spare time: drawn with a fine pen on shiny paper (discovered it was possible to rub out the 'permanent' ink on the surface), then scanned, contrast and brightness adjusted using the facilities in Word, and then digitally modified and flesh tones added using Microsoft Paint. With this one I have had to do another set of edits tonight, as the image resolution on my laptop, which I usually work on, isn't as good as on my desktop, so the shading had to be smoothed out, and some pixels altered.

Earlier today I reworked the Rinkoni as the face is too pale - extracted the face in Paint, pasted into Word, brightness reduced, contrast adjusted, and then edited back into the image using Paint. Engineering, not art.

Edited June 6, 2020 by M Helsdon

[Sir_Godspeed]

1 hour ago, M Helsdon said:

Couldn't get the face to work until I used a photograph

Ah, yeah, I think I recognized an actress. Can't recall the name though. Turned out great.

[M Helsdon]

19 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Ah, yeah, I think I recognized an actress. Can't recall the name though. Turned out great.

I don't believe the photograph was of an actress - and I have altered the nose and lips... and the shape of the face reflects what I drew, not the face I took the nose and lips from.

Today: mount inked, scanned, and shaded. More shading done this this was posted, as my desktop screen gives better resolution than the laptop so I am able to smooth the shading.

Edited June 7, 2020 by M Helsdon

[Brootse]

3 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I don't believe the photograph was of an actress - and I have altered the nose and lips... and the shape of the face reflects what I drew, not the face I took the nose and lips from.

Today: mount inked, scanned, and shaded. More shading done this this was posted, as my desktop screen gives better resolution than the laptop so I am able to smooth the shading.

What's that bit of barding called?

[M Helsdon]

3 minutes ago, Brootse said:

What's that bit of barding called?

The Middle Ages term would be peytral, though those were usually of metal plate or thick leather or felt. Equine chest armor was very much older, also made of scale or lamellar.

Peytral is probably the best descriptive term, if anachronistic.

[JanPospisil]

Art is just problem solving, to be honest. If you draw this, you're an artist. 

(and imo it's a meaningless distinction)

[M Helsdon]

10 hours ago, JanPospisil said:

Art is just problem solving, to be honest. If you draw this, you're an artist. 

Thank you.

Latest.

[The horse should be wearing more armor, but I decided to do something different for variety.]

Hmm. I think the horse's face needs more shading.

Had a run in with a band of non-Uz trolls in a Glorantha Facebook group today.

Edited June 9, 2020 by M Helsdon

[Puckohue]

What colour would the standard of Tarsh be?

 

Edit: found it (with help) on p. 169 of the Guide to Glorantha.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Puckohue
Found the answer

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Puckohue said:

What colour would the standard of Tarsh be?

 

Edit: found it (with help) on p. 169 of the Guide to Glorantha.

The picture is also in Armies & Enemies of Dragon Pass, with the kind permission of Chaosium.

[Dissolv]

The art is fine.  I refer to Armies and Enemies of Glorantha while trying to paint and purchase figures for Gloranthan gaming.  My main complaint is lack of PoD, as I find that:

1) Google Drive frequently fails to load multiple pages, typically ones that I am interested in referencing.

2) Some words are repeated so frequently that they essentially defeat a search, especially on a smaller device. 

 

This isn't anything to do with the work itself, just my desire to have a real dead tree option, like I now have with Guide to Glamor.  As a frequent user, I use the art as much as the descriptions, particularly while trying to match figure purchases with potential units.

[M Helsdon]

1 hour ago, Dissolv said:

The art is fine.  I refer to Armies and Enemies of Glorantha while trying to paint and purchase figures for Gloranthan gaming.  My main complaint is lack of PoD

Hopefully, if the gods are kind, a POD is coming.

1 hour ago, Dissolv said:

Some words are repeated so frequently that they essentially defeat a search, especially on a smaller device. 

Hmm, that's probably down to my vocabulary... 8-(

The index is fairly extensive.

[M Helsdon]

Regret there may not be many sketches in the next few weeks.

My arthritis has gone active, possibly due to the change in the weather here, and spending so much time sitting and writing and drawing in the last few months.

The current project I am working on will take longer to finish. I need about fourteen more sketches to illustrate it - one is partially done.