Thunder Beard Watercolor

For a while now I've wanted to create a watercolor piece from 'The Iron Halls' a fictional world of a dwarf kingdom in the high mountains with glaciers and snow. A while back I posted the drawing of Lord Thunder Beard and did some digital work on it. This time around is all traditionally done with ink, watercolor, and gouache. There was experimentation done creating texture for the background as well as switching inked lines out for lines created with saturated watercolors.

In the past I haven't written to much about the characters and worlds I've created. So I decided that I should share those thoughts too.

The Thunder Beards are one of three clans that rule the Iron Halls. Thunder Beards are known for their strength in battle with mighty war hammers. There culture centers around the warrior figure in architecture, clothing, and thought. The Thunder Beard clan is always the first line of defense with the Ice Giants attempt to break into the mountain and exterminate the dwarves. They also tend to be the ones who hastily  makes decisions in council meetings. 

The current leader of the Thunder Beards is Olaf 'Giant's bane' of the Thunder Beard Clan. The middle name is a feat name that a dwarf can receive after doing a feat that helps the Iron Halls.

Elf Knight

I have many paintings lined up for the next few weeks and wanted to get some of the pieces that are close to done finished. Here is a little practice piece I started a few weeks back at school. Elf armor found it's way into my sketch book after I created a ink drawing for my friend Ginette's birthday. As I have stated before, I don't draw elves often, so it was a nice change. The elf knight was great practice for the larger pieces that I have planned to be working on in the next few weeks. I have a goblin assassin piece and I need to finish The Green Man as well. Plenty to keep busy as I continue the search for a part time summer job.

Creating Lord Thunder Beard

Lord Thunder Beard started out as a drawing I did at work to pass the time. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to finish it.

Here is the drawing I started at work. It was based off a sketch created in my sketchbook that I posted a while back. I spent a while on the drawing because I didn't know I was going to end up finishing it.

Here is the inked sketch that I scanned and cleaned up in photoshop. After I decided that I wanted to add some textures to the image to make it look more like a page from an old book. I used a textured filed and used color burn to change the color of the line art. 

Then the image is finished. I added a little text on the top of the characters name, Lord Thunder Beard.