I Drawed D&D Characturs

[mathey]

After a long drought I'm trying to get back in the habit of drawing and painting and so on, so I chose as a subject for the next week or two the characters in my D&D campaign. I'm working with fancy Prismacolor colored pencils at the moment, which is a bit of a change since I usually do black and white ink stuff. While I'm familiar with the wonders of programs like Photoshop, the truth is I prefer more tactile processes, at least for the initial work.

So. In a desperate bid for the approval of strangers, I'm going to try and post what I come up with here and over on my RPG.net Actual Play thread. Feedback is welcome, but bear in mind my self-esteem is brittle to the point of being girly.

First up, my initial attempt at a party portrait. If the characters look unfocused and moody, its because they're deep and thoughtful because that's just the kind of DM I am:



I went back and tried to up the contrast and detail in this version:

[Tadanori Oyama]

This stranger approves. As is often the case, I like the dwarf best.

Do you play in the game or GM it?

[Boyos]

I too, liked them.

[mathey]

This stranger approves. As is often the case, I like the dwarf best.

Do you play in the game or GM it?

Thanks!

I'm GMing. We only manage to get together about once every two months, but we've managed to keep it going for 25 sessions thus far. 

[Tadanori Oyama]

4 years is pretty damn impressive. Still playing the same campaign through all that time?

[mathey]

4 years is pretty damn impressive. Still playing the same campaign through all that time?

Well, its more like 2 years (getting together more often than once bimonthly a couple of times - mainly before two of my players had one of them baby things), but - yeah, we've been playing around as long as 4th Edition has been out. Its strange for me, personally, because I was traditionally one of those short attention span GMs who switched settings and systems on his players about every three or five games. Our idea of a long running campaign was anything that lasted 10 sessions.

One downside of the infrequency + length equation is that I have to refresh my players' memories about a fairly ridiculous amount of narrative info each session. Last session, for instance, one of my players was convinced the party had an airship. I have no fucking idea where he got that from.

[Boyos]

How meny of your players have you killed?

[mathey]

How meny of your players have you killed?

I haven't killed my players. I have tried to kill their characters a few times, but without success. The closest we got were assorted "one more death save or you bite it" situations. The fact we have two leaders (Cleric and Warlord) in a 4 person party may have helped them not corpse - but the Fighter sure ends up using a TON of Healing Surges.   

[mathey]

This is Afaras, Far-Reaching Pain, Emissary of Graz'zt. He's a villain.

[Kroack]

groovy

[Boyos]

mmmm. Nice and dark. I like the smile haha!

[mathey]

This is a group portrait of the Gilded Lions, the army unit the PCs belonged to before things went to Hell:

[iceemaker]

My only issue is with the Emissary of Graz'zt - he should probably have six fingers. It's that creepy little detail that distinguishes the conniving demon lord and its followers.

[mathey]

I tried squeezing in a sixth digit in there, but as I already had some issues with making the hand look right it didn't work out.

Maybe his sixth finger is on the back of his hand! Yeah! And its invisible!

[mathey]

Here's General Clerk, commander of Aurum's military - the Dick Cheney of my setting. I used Alan Dale as my photo reference.