Stubborn, Proud Warriors

Two daring goat warriors ready to leap into battle!

Edlings - Like Dwarves, But Not
Edlings! Creatures from my Star Bard story arc, Edlings are a mining race. They are specifically built for the purposes of mining ores from deep below the surfaces of planets and asteroids the universe over.

Edlings are a stocky, hardy race with a tough, pebbly skin akin to that of a rhino or elephant. This skin thickens and callouses with the rough environments the Edlings often find themselves working in. Their oversized ears are not particularly good at hearing - not much more than an average human - but instead are particularly well-suited for sweeping ore traces up to the edling's sensetive nose. Edlings are born with a highly-developed senes of smell that caters towards ores, stone and minerals of different kinds. In addition, this sense of smell allows Edlings to detect gasses of various kinds. Edlings need to breathe about half as much oxygen as human beings to survive in most places, making the deep cracks of the universe ideal for them to work in, as air is not plentiful.

Edlings are capable of seeing in little to no light but can be dazzled if they are exposed to light too easily. Edlings often wear goggles when going to and from mines, to keep their eyes from being damaged.

Edlings have a heavily build structure based on stability, and thanks to their digitigrade legs, they are able to push, pull and drag heavy loads easily. A stiff tail gives them great balance when traversing dangerous rockfalls and untested chasms. Edling males tend to shave their headquills short or off completely - females are encouraged to grow theirs long and keep them lustrous. Mining is a male-dominated field in Edling society.

The Edling homeworld of Ed is a heavily industrialized planet that is almost unsuitable for life. Thanks to robust pollution and overproduction of the planet's natural resources, most edlings now live in geodomes along the wastes. While these structures thrive, the wasteland of Ed is not a forgiving place.

About three percent of Edlings develop a rare disorder called Oreblight - the scent, touch or breathing of ore-touched air or surroundings causes violent allergic reactions, including the eventual shutdown of respiratory functions. Most infants that are dignosed with Oreblight do not survive unless they recieve proper medicine and training for use of respirators and hazard equipment, which is extremely expensive. One of the main protagonists of Star Bard, Ebbward, is living with Oreblight.

Truly, Truly, Truly Outrageous?

Here we see a rough of Arturo Dugalle, from my second comic story Star Bard. He is a Taldarian - a rare breed of alien that is very feline in appearance. Space and rocking out? Totally not a ripoff of Jem and the Holograms. :)

Particularly proud of his lil Luke Skywalker 'do there. Just looks good, it' solid without being very committal. :) But that is the love of sketches.

Home of the Fixer

One of the many things I need to work on is backgrounds. As I was writing the storyline for my comic I realized that, unless I started now, all my backgrounds would probably start looking like crap! So I cracked this out the other night at work. This is Arty's home and workshop - the main door is there in the hillside under the willow tree, and the stable lies a few yards off the main area.

Just a fun sketch that gave me some nice perspective.

Rocket Knight to the Rescue!
So this is considerably less 'sketchy' than most of my previous stuff, but it's still technically a sketch. This image is a vector outline of Sparkster from the cover of the Rocket Knight adventures game for the Sega Genesis. 1993 represent!

I always thought Sparkster was cool. He was really different than his counterparts of the time - back in those days a lot of companies were trying to get their iconic mascot in on the action, trying to capitulate on the Sonic and Mario mascot craze - Bubsy, Awesome Possum, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel - none of these really lasted. But Sparkster was really different.

He wasn't hardcore, he wasn't a bad-ass, he was just himself. There are several moments in the game where he gets suprised or shocked and actually shows a little emotion. It was kinda interesting coming from my background as a Sonic kid - after all, the only emotion Sonic ever really projected was a kind of mute disbelief once you smacked into a guy and lost all his rings. Sparkster gets mad, scared, and frustrated - this is something that was pretty rare in the early 90's.

He also has a freakin' sword and jetpack! How awesome is that, right? I mean it's enough that he jumps around and hangs by his little opossum tail, but he has a rocket strapped to his back and a big sword! C'mon!

Anyways, I just thought he was awesome.

Sparkster(C) 1993 Konami.

We're Back!

I need to create things. I don't know if I mentioned that before.

I am a creative personality and I absolutely love it when something comes together. For example, it doesn't take much more than a properly placed line to get me excited about a sketch starting to take shape, and a well-written page gets me psyched to continue pushing more story. A few good colors and smooth application make my brush lighter - a great transition makes a long night of video processing all worth it - on and on it goes. I create, and I get that creator's high.

The actual problem is that I have a hard time staying motivated. Once the pages stop coming, or once the sketch starts to deteriorate and spin off in odd directions, I get discouraged and quit. Why do I do this? I'm not sure.

I think in this particularly digital world, distractions are everywhere; podcasts, video games and general surfing are something I find myself falling into. I mean, countless times during this post alone I've found things that have driven me from my purpose.

What's the solution? I'm not sure. Since I work in a primarily digital medium and have ample amounts of free time during my shifts at work, I can't see much else besides some discipline getting me out of this particularly annoying little rut.

I'll be trying to post more regularly. Keep it real!

--Danno

Cameron Geer - Lute Hero!

A janky little pose of Cameron rocking out on his lute.  After all, when one feels the power of Rock, one must follow the call.  The craylings are in for a good old fashioned rock show - I'm sure somewhere Alquin is shouting for them to quiet down.  Pfeh.  Wizards.

Man, I love bards.  There's always this hint of rockstar in every one of them, even the mellow lame ones that are really more like a gnome version of Willie Nelson.  To have the power of music at your fingertips is a pretty attractive offer - I hope they have a place in D&D 4th edition.