All of the drawings for this year Goblin Week
Goblin Week 2015-Day 7
Last day of Goblin Week and I'm happy with the results of the drawings that will be added to Goblin Guild. Today's goblin is apart of the bombers. These goblins have to be brave since they are a walking explosive. They carry huge barrels full of gun powder to place near walls or buildings to collapse the structures. They also have an array of small bombs to lob into battalions or through windows. Bombers are targets of the battle fields for their enemies hoping to cause chaos on the goblins side instead of there own. Many have exploded from flaming arrows piercing the barrel leaving the goblins in a bad place.
Goblin Week 2015- Day 6
Todays goblin is an alchemist. The alchemists work in labs creating new explosives. They contain the explosive potions in glass bottles that will shatter when hitting a target. Some of the potions are acidic to cause damage to people while others are meant to light buildings on fire. The alchemists fill barrels with gun powder and roll them towards enemy lines and blow them up. Most cases it back fires on their own ranks, but the alchemists are determined to make it work.
Goblin Week 2015- Day 5
Rus Dread-gouger returns, renowned assassin of the goblin guild. When a job needs to get done they call on Rus. He's so skilled that even outside of the guild he is hired for hits, but won't go after his own. He spends most of his time in the capital city, hiding in the shadows and knife on his hip, ready to strike in the night when your back is turned.
Goblin Week 2015- Day 4
Today's goblin is a hobgoblin archer. One of the main cities goblin cities, Gnashgor, is located in a cavern under a mountain in the Dragon Spine Range. Since the location is rocky and their is an easily seen mouth to the cave system, the guild sets up archers to protect intruders from entering. These goblins are specially trained in archery, having a good aim is not a common skill for goblins. With there elite training, they scout the areas to warn of oncoming intruders who pose a threat to the city but most of the time they sit in the ridges and eat.
Goblin Week 2015- Day 3
Today for Goblin Week I drew a portrait of a goblin scholar. I haven't thought of who this character is yet but with more sketching to explore his personality I'm sure he will reveal himself. One thing is certain, he doesn't seem to be the friendly sort.
Monster Monday- January 26, 2015
Second day of Goblin Week.
Goblins aren’t known for their education, but there are members of the guild who work as scholars in different areas such as war tactics, engineering, and literature. The scholars are also in charge of the library holding all the guilds documents and were the guild scribes work.
Goblin Week 2015
Its that time of the year again, were lots of people all over the internet contribute to Goblin Week created by Evan Dahm. This year I will be creating more goblins for the Goblin Guild that will be added to the project I am working on that will include a brief history of the guild, the classes of members, and 2 short stories. So for the first day of goblin week I give you a line up of the goblin races.
Process Post- Goblin Climber
During Goblin Week I drew a mining goblin repelling in a crystal cavern. It was my favorite drawing I created that week and decided to take it to a finished piece and documented the creation of the illustration while working.
The theme I added to Goblin Week was to create a mining company. In the beginning it's all little drawings of poses and ideas. It helps to layout the shapes before deciding details. Sketchbooks aren't meant to be pretty so I scribble down any idea that comes to mind even if it doesn't end up working because it might be useful later on. After sketching the repelling idea on the left page, I took the idea and scaled it up to a larger sketch. Then I took that sketch and cleaned up the idea on a piece of bristol to prepare to ink.
Having a solid drawing makes inking much easier. I don't leave anything blank to 'fix later'. It always ends with taking more time to fix later then just doing it right the first time. I get out my lining brush and ink bottle and get to work. After doing the first ink pass, I let it dry then tackle detailing. When the piece is completely dry, I scan it and clean up any mistakes or random ink blobs to prepare it for digital flats.
The cleaned up ink drawing becomes the lines for the digital piece. In photoshop the base colors are laid down on multiple layers, this is the time I experiment with different palettes. I want to nail down the palette before I end up adding shadows and highlights. But that doesn't always happen so I adjust some colors. For this piece, the character came together easily but the rocks and crystals had a lot of experimenting.
The final step in to add the highlights and shadows. Those are also done on their own layers in a new folder. Labeling layers and folders makes it much easier to keep track of things for me. After adding shadows, the highlights come next. Since the back of the crystals are black, I added a strong purplish white highlight to add punch.
I'm still learning how to use photoshop more efficiently and am enjoying learning to use photoshop as a medium. Though I am experimenting with new ways to apply watercolor in a flat manner similar to my digital work. More pieces are in the work.
Goblin Week Day 7
It's the last day of Goblin Week and I've finished this drawing in the last hour. Goblin Week is a great challenge in world building a goblin society. I didn't let myself to create concepts until Goblin Week started, making each a day a new problem to solve in drawing and writing. It really helped me just throw down any ideas I had in my sketchbook and weed out the best. There are many pages of sketches (maybe I'll do a post of Goblin Week Concepts).
For the last image of The Goblin Mining Company is a sad, beat up Goblin taking a break. Working in the mines is not always an enjoyable time, its hard labor and it doesn't always pay off in finding crystals. Goblins can get defeated when weeks or months go by with out physically finding anything. And this Goblin is wishing to be at home with a bowl of rat stew in his favorite arm chair.
Goblin Week Day 6
The Goblin Mining Company owns many caves in a wide area of Orbis. Not all caves are active at the same time. To protect the cave from being mined before the company has a chance to, goblin guards are set up at the locations to protect the property. A watch tower is constructed at the mouth of the cave as well as a wooden gate; Two guards at the gate and three in the watch tower. The goblins that work at the sites are sword for hires, meaning they are trained in combat but don't owe allegiance to a person of power. The company pays the hires as well as provides them with food and a place to live with in the watch tower. Most of the time, there isn't anyone trying to enter the cave with out permission from the company. But there have been times of slaying thieves and competitor companies spies.
Goblin Week Day 4
With great wealth being carted out of the caves, some goblins want to get the riches with out having to do the labor. Thieves are fairly common sneaking around in the darkness of the caves. Though many of them don't have the knowledge or skill to navigate the system of tunnels. Many fall into trenches far away from where the miners are working and never make it out. A few have actually been able to steal a few crystals to pawn to jewelers. Other thieves have tried to force a cart worker to hand over the goods, but then they suffer the burden of pushing the heavy weight to the mouth of the cave. Most of the time, each goblin takes a few and runs, and get caught by the BugBear guards to hand over the stollen crystals.
Goblin Week Day 3
Goblin Week continues with a Goblin Climber to add to the Goblin Mining Company.
Some times mining crystals takes Goblins' to scale down water eroded holes to collect crystals. Often a Goblin will use rope and a harness to get down to the bottom with out breaking their necks. Though ropes have snapped in the past and goblins end up stuck at the bottom of the trench with no way out. Another rope line is scaled down to the goblin with a bucket to place the crystals in and raised continuously raised and lowered. A standard axe is used to remove the crystals in large junks and separated at the surface or brought out of the cave to be removed by a jeweler.
Goblin Week day 2/ Monster Monday- January 20, 2014
Next Goblin for the Goblin Mining Company is a crystal collector. Crystal collectors wander around the caves recently minded to pick up crystals to be transported to the carts to be brought out of the caves. These Goblins carry small pick axes to gently remove the crystals from the rocks and try to keep the crystals in the quality state. They place the crystals in their packs and walk back to the rails, where the carts are ready to transport the crystals out of the cave to the jewelers.
I started to flat the piece out in photoshop and have to make some adjustments to some of the colors, then render it. I plan on coloring all the pieces for Goblin Week, it just may not be possible with the other work I need to get done.
Goblin Week Day 1
Today is the first day of Goblin Week on Tumblr and Twitter. Started last year by comic artist Evan Dahm (Rice-boy.com) as a week to world build using goblins. The theme that links all of the goblins I'm going to draw is crystal mining.
The first goblin in the series is a basic miner. They are the ones chipping away at the cave walls to harvest the crystals. Crystals are the main source of trade income for goblins. They trade with other races since the crystals hold magical properties and are located in only a few known places, which happen to be mined by either goblins or dwarves. The goblins have pale skin since they spend a lot of time in the darkness. The hard hats and goggles are used to help protect their heads and eyes from falling rocks. Many goblins have been knocked out and even killed by falling rock. Sometimes they use their scarf to cover their mouth from dust so they don't breath it in. The clothing they wear is different to each goblin, though many prefer to wear overalls. Though goblins often get a bad reputation for being wild and crazy, many people consider the mining goblins to be hard working and easy to trade with.