art – dragonbones

Sketchy Stuff from December 2022

A sketch of Beaker the Barbarian. This is Beaker of the Muppets with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s physique.

I was thinking it might be a fun thing to post all the sketches here that I did for various things each month. I often can’t post the finished stuff for my Patreon page (as an example) but the sketch work should be fine. And that give you fine folks a little more info on what I’ve been up to.

Additionally, I’ve been spending a bit more time sketching lately without taking the images through to completed work. So there’s more for you to see.

So let’s get started! (Click on individual images to embiggen.)

Sketch for the Gust Goblin - a goblin with its arms crossed in front of itself as though it where spinning. — The Gust Goblin

First up, we have the Gust Goblin. I’ve been working on a set of variant goblin types for folks to use in their TTRPG sessions. This one has an air theme, and the others will (of course) be earth, fire, and water. There will also be a fifth associated with The Void – which is something I’m wholly making up.

I’m hoping to develop a whole series of variant creatures with these 5 types eventually, but one thing at a time, so I’ll work on getting this set done and go from there.

It’s taking me a bit of time to build out the stats / crunch for each of the variants because I’m a bit new to all that.

I’ll post each of the individual variants to my Patreon page first, but then I’ll bundle them together and make them a Pay What You Want title on both my Gumroad and DriveThruRPG.

The Goblin’s Notebook character sketch. A bespectacled little goblin studiously writing with a quill on a long scroll. — The Goblin’s Notebook

I believe I actually did the sketch work for this one a while back but I’m including it because I did the inks and colors in December. Plus, I like the little guy.

I created the character as a way to say thanks to my Twitter Pal The Goblin’s Notebook. He’s created a web app that is his namesake. A simple, elegant, and powerful tool for tracking all of your TTRPG campaign notes online in an intuitive way.

If you find yourself struggling to find the thing you’re looking for in your old spiral bound notepad, I strongly suggest checking it out!

A fierce mul female warrior catching a whip with her right forearm. — A Fierce Mul Warrior Woman

This one was a bit of an experiment. I was trying to figure out how to stream live on YouTube using only my iPad since that’s often all I have available to me when I’m on the road.

I was… marginally successful.

Anyway, while doing that, I asked folks on the fediverse (via my profile on mastodon.art) what they would like to see. One person mentioned a mul character. Muls being a fantasy race I’d never come across before, I liked the idea. I did a little digging and found very little in the way of artwork for female muls, so here we are! There’s a lot of potentially triggering content involving muls, so I wanted to hint at it without doing anything that would be overt and clearly triggering. That’s how we came to this moment where she’s clearly standing up / rebelling / starting a revolution.

The first of my holiday themed images for the year. I was thinking about doing postcards. Then, after I procrastinated for a while, I thought about e-cards. Then I just said “Maybe next year.”

Sigh. Distractions, man.

Anyway, I like this little bugger. Goblins have been a bit of a theme for me of late.

I’m okay with this.

A goblin hides behind a snowman while he reloads for his snowball fight.

Another holiday themed goblin sketch. I was really just playing around with different ideas for holiday / wintery images. The goblin in this one is a bit too angry looking, but this was just the sketch stage.

Also, goblin.

A Santa themed orc and his two dire wolf friends.

Still playing around with winter / holiday themes, but a little less ‘funny’ or ‘cute’. I really liked giving this orc a pair of dire wolf companions as a parallel to Santa’s reindeer. Not a huge stretch, but I liked it.

This is a weird sort of amalgam character from my childhood. Back when I was in high school (and the dinosaurs still roamed the planet) I created this guy as a small rebellion in my introductory chemistry class.

Even back then, I enjoyed drawing high fantasy stuff, and I thought that sticking Beaker’s head onto Arnold Schwarzenegger’s physique was just hilarious.

He would continue to make appearances on occasion throughout the rest of my life, and yet, I think this may be the first time I’ve referenced him here on dragonbones.net!

That does it for this month!

All of the images above plus their inked (simple black and white line only) and color versions are available to all of my Patreon patrons for $2.

In addition, you’ll find bonus content, and I’m always looking for recommendations from my patrons.

Patreon News!

A rough sketch of the artist welcoming you to view some of their patreon artwork for free.

I have some news regarding my Patreon Page that I think may make some of you very happy.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how the vast majority of what I draw / paint gets locked behind the gates at Patreon, only to be seen by my patrons.

In one sense, that’s a good thing. I want it to never be a question whether or not the money my patrons are spending is ‘worth it’. I want the answer to forever be “OMG, hellz yes!”

But…

What about those folks who can’t or won’t spend the (currently) $2/month to support me? Don’t they deserve to see at least some of that artwork? Wouldn’t they enjoy seeing that stuff?

My recent experience selling my new and improved coloring book really kinda answered that question for me. Clearly, people want other ways to see (and even support) the kind of work that I do.

The problem is that keeping up with all the various ways that others use the internet is both exhausting and would draw energy away from what I should be doing most – making the art.

Well, apparently Patreon has been doing something about this issue and I was unaware (no real shock there).

Starting today, I’ll begin to make some of my posts time-delayed public. That is to say that my patrons will see it right when they get posted and then two weeks later, that same post will automatically become public!

So what does this mean for you?

Well, if you join Patreon (for free), you can ‘follow’ me there for free. Then, when those posts become public, Patreon will let you know via email as long as you don’t turn that off.

Free, easy, and you don’t have to go someplace to find my newest stuff since Patreon sends you an email!

But what about Dragonbones.net?

I will continue to use my site for the really big stuff. I’ll even do some occasional smaller stuff and / or big announcements here. I just don’t want to make you ‘check back’ all the time. Who has time for that?!

So what sort of Stuff will be going up over at your Patreon Page?

Well, I do weekly characters and / or creatures over there. That’s a steady stream of figurative illustration work. Patrons get free (beyond their membership) use for their private (non profit) game tables / VTTs. Now, if you follow me there, you’ll get some of that too!

What if I DO want to support you on Patreon?

Wow – thanks! Well, you certainly may. It’s only $2/month and you’ll get access to everything I post there, which (as noted) includes stuff folks won’t see anywhere else.

You’re also able to up the monthly amount if you’re feeling exceedingly generous (though, seriously – please don’t feel like you need to – every penny sincerely helps!)

Any big plans for anything else on your Patreon Page?

I’ve been thinking about doing narrated time lapse videos of the stuff I do. The problem is that this would require a whole new process beyond the work I’m already doing, and since this isn’t my fully time job…

Perhaps I should make that a ‘stretch goal’?

I don’t know – what do you think?

Please – consider sharing this post with any friends or family who you think might appreciate my art or enjoy using it in their game sessions!

And now, as a treat for you, since you made it all the way down here to the bottom of the post, here are some of the characters I’ve created for my Patreon Page which haven’t been visible elsewhere until now!

A custom blue demon with four horns and metal plates bolted onto it as a form of armor.

My take on the classic lion / humanoid centaur like creatures called wemics.

A white haired elvish ship captain looking off into the distance through their spy glass

Moar Gerblins!

A sketch of a goblin with what appear to be cracks on the surface of its skin. The rough concept for the forthcoming ‘magma goblin’ which will be released on my Patreon Page.

This is the rough sketch / concept for something that’s been knocking around in my brain meats – the Magma Goblin. It’s a homebrew idea for ttrpg GMs to use at their tables for a bit of variety.

I want to keep them relatively low challenge rating with possible ‘power ups’ for folks who would like that. With that said, they will have some fire related abilities that traditional goblins don’t.

More coming soon!

Goblin Sketch

A simple digital sketch of a single goblin as he stands defiant with two wooden spikes for weapons.

The latest sketch work for character ideas that I’ll be doing for my Patreon Page. I like the worm’s eye view even though it’s a little goblin character.

Self Portrait Experiment

I love getting feedback while I’m working. Like, a lot.

So I thought I would try another experiment on my Twitter feed. The first one went pretty well, and people seem engaged by the fact that I was changing the work based on their feedback.

I also figured this would make for a great process post to show folks who are curious how I go about my work.

I’ve had a number of different ideas for representative self portraits over the years, so I thought why not use my most recent idea as a basis for this experiment?

The Self Portrait Idea

For this self portrait, I wanted to surround myself with alien / demonic / fantastic creatures, and make it clear that I’m doing battle with them. My only weapon? My Apple Pencil.

The surrounding creatures would be laid out in such a way as to create visual draws to me and (more specifically) to my Pencil.

The Pencil will be giving off a magical glow, illuminating myself and the creatures around me. A bit like this recent self portrait:

A self portrait of 'mrlich'. Taken a bit literally. — mrlich – literally

Thumbnails

The first tweet in this process was something I don’t always do – thumbnails. I do these whenever I’m doing work for a client in order to make sure we’re both on the same page. Sometimes, when doing an image for myself, that’s not really necessary.

I posted this page of thumbnails and asked folks for their feedback:

A collection of thumbnails for folks to choose from.

So far, 10 & 15 are tied for first place, and 11 and 16 are tied for second place. I’m going to give it a little more time before I take the final tally and refine these thumbs a bit more for folks to pick from.

If I was working with a client, I would likely also do one or more combination of elements if they liked multiple thumbnails in order to continue to refine what they’re looking for into one (or two at most) thumbnails before proceeding. Changes at this stage are significantly easier than they are down the road.

Stay tuned to this post, as I’ll update it throughout the process!

Book Rough Sample

It’s probably way too early to be posting samples of my planned book, but I thought ”What the Hell? Why not?”

Thought y’all might like to see what I’m working on.

Whole Figure Proportions

There are essentially three different types of proportions for human bodies: Sex, Type, and Height.

Sex

As seen above, and for the simplicity of a starting point, we’re going to use sex as a spectrum from masculine to feminine with androgyny somewhere in the middle.

Type

For our purposes, type is broken down into 3 separate. There are, of course, infinite variations on these three types, but for now, we’re going to stick with these three for simplicity.

Ectomorph

Skinny, lanky, or lean. Low levels of body fat, but they also don’t have a whole lot of muscle mass.

When designing characters, ectomorphs can be used to build a sense of speed or fragility into characters.

Mesomorph

Middle of the road. They don’t have a lot of body fat (though they’re not bereft of it either) and the do have some muscle mass. In fact, I may have gone a bit too ‘superhero’ with my examples here, but you get the idea.

When designing characters, mesomorphs often feel ‘vanilla’ because of a lack of innate traits that audiences will assume of the character.

Endomorph

Thick, big boned, or stocky. High levels of body fat. They also tend to have more muscle mass, but it’s not as clearly visible as on the mesomorphs.

Characters designed with endomorphic body types will often be assumed to be slow, but powerful.