Linden, take two

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Feeling a bit silly about posting everything to the sketch thread, so here goes, starting to split things up.... Wounded Land Linden, how my mind saw her reacting to the Sun of Fertility. Decidedly quite surreal, more akin to how she'd sense the whole insane growth, rather than an actual scene.

Fathomed about two thirds through that should've selected a different angle for moar pomp and drama, but didn't have the inspiration to begin again from scratch after a couple of days of work. So not entirely happy but meh. Comments still most welcome.

[Ananda]

That's great, Zorm!

[wayfriend]

A wonderful work, Z. I think the way that you have captured how Linden is tormented by the sun of fertility works very well. I do have one gripe in that Linden's face here is less beautiful (for lack of a better word, which I wish I had) than I imagined and that I think it needs to be. "Hard work and clenched emotions had not [...] harmed the structural beauty of her face." However, I have seen enough of your other sketches to wonder if this was a conscious choice, and if so, would you care to discuss?

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Thanks everyone!

I do have one gripe in that Linden's face here is less beautiful (for lack of a better word, which I wish I had) than I imagined and that I think it needs to be. "Hard work and clenched emotions had not [...] harmed the structural beauty of her face." However, I have seen enough of your other sketches to wonder if this was a conscious choice, and if so, would you care to discuss?

I was kind of expecting someone to inquire about this, so here goes.

A very conscious choice--eyes slightly swollen from crying, the stress and marks of staying outside without proper equipment and tolerating crazy weather and the constant mental gibbering of the Sunbane--wanted to make her look appropriately haggard. Don't recall she had many chances for proper baths, makeup, and general rejuvenation before Starfare's Gem. Perhaps she could then loot The First's stash of lipstick and whatsits.

A different angle, different expression, less straggling, dirty hair--works wonders on anybody. (And no, didn't draw this as a demotivational poster for THOOLAH; I'm a big 2nd chrons Linden fan myself. )

[High Lord Tolkien]

I like her boobs.

[Vraith]

Not a criticism or insight/suggestion or anything...
Does anyone else think she looks a little like Drew Barrymore? Or is it just me?

[wayfriend]

Not a criticism or insight/suggestion or anything...
Does anyone else think she looks a little like Drew Barrymore? Or is it just me?

I think in Zorm's latest pic she looks like Maria Doyle Kennedy.



But she's supposed to look like Naomi Watts!!!

[Ur Dead]

Not what I had though Linden would look like. But your talent for drawing and rendering is so fantastic.


So where did you study at??


Can you do a Harchuai??

Would love to see your concept.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Forgetting to answer again...

I value the concern over her beauty, but do remember, guys, that each of us sees the characters differently in their minds. I've always imagined Linden with a longer, Scandinavian-ish face, and with Watts' features, she'd appear too much like the First again.

I dug out a few quotes from Wounded Land to back up my impression that she does appear "less beautiful" beneath the yoke of the Land's chaotic conditions:

Awkwardly, she reached out, wiped beads of useless sweat from his forehead. "You look awful."
He peered at her through his exhaustion. Dirt caked her lips and cheeks, collected in the lines on either side of her mouth. Sweat-trails streaked her face. Her eyes were glazed.
"So do you."

He awoke cramped and chilled beside a pile of dead embers. The stars had been effaced; and in the dawn, the rapid Mithil looked dark and cold, as fatal as sleet. He did not believe he could survive another day in the water.
But, as Sunder had said, they had no choice. Shivering in dire anticipation, he awakened his companions. Linden looked pale and haggard, and her eyes avoided the River as if she could not bear to think about it. Together, they ate a scant breakfast, then stood on a boulder to face the dawn. As they had expected, the sun rose in a glow of blue, and menacing clouds began to pile out of the east.

Code: Select all

From WordNet (r) 2.0 : 

  haggard
       adj 1: showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or
              suffering; "looking careworn as she bent over her
              mending"; "her face was drawn and haggard from
              sleeplessness"; "that raddled but still noble face";
              "shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young
              face"- Charles Dickens [syn: careworn, drawn, raddled,
               worn]
       2: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold;
          "emaciated bony hands"; "a nightmare population of gaunt
          men and skeletal boys"; "eyes were haggard and cavernous";
          "small pinched faces"; "kept life in his wasted frame only
          by grim concentration" [syn: bony, cadaverous, emaciated,
           gaunt, pinched, skeletal, wasted]

Around him, his companions dismounted. Almost at once, Linden went over to Hollian. The flesh of Linden's face was pale and taut, stretched tight over her skull. She accosted the eh-Brand purposefully, but then had to fumble for words.

Linden stayed with him. Hunger had abused her face, giving her a sunken aspect; and she carried her head as if the injury behind her ear still hurt. But her jaw was set, emphasizing the firm lines of her chin, and her lips were pale with severity.

There's usually a firm-ish reason behind the way I portray something. Give that wreck a bath, clean clothing, a few stout Giantish meals aboard the dromond, plus some well-slept nights in a proper bed, and she'd look like a completely different person.

I like her boobs.

You'll need to add a BILHB* subclause to your THOOLAH declaration.
*But I Like Her Boobs.

Not what I had though Linden would look like. But your talent for drawing and rendering is so fantastic.
So where did you study at??
Can you do a Harchuai??

Thanks for the compliments. Well, I majored in Communication Systems and Hardware in a Finnish university, but that's probably not the answer you're looking for. I'm, for the most part, a self-taught artist; have studied human anatomy, perspective, and so forth from reference guides and learned a great del by drawing scenery, people, and objects from real life. I'd say talent pertains little to this; it's all the years of hard practice that count most.

When I get the inspiration to continue that Charade's End image again, I'm going to add a Haruchai somewhere to the foreground, perhaps to protect Linden (that was the original idea). I personally envision them with something like West Siberian facial features (Khanty?) added to a darker skin tone and curly hair.

[High Lord Tolkien]

There's another thread on the Watch about which female SRD character is the most beautiful.
SRD said that he considered Linden at the top of the list.
Which is weird because I would have thought Terisa.

But everyone knows that the Lady Alif is the hottest of the hot.
(and that's not a lightsaber if you know what I mean)

[wayfriend]

Zorm, perhaps in my haste I went awry trying to be sensitive. My comment was not meant to state that she looked like a beautiful woman who is at the moment haggard. (That would be fine with me.) My comment was meant to say that she looks like a non-beautiful woman who is always haggard looking. (And so perhaps "haggard" is the wrong word to use in retrospect.) I'm not saying downright uggers ... just not beautiful. She strikes me as some poor farmer's wife, of whom one might answer the question, "is she good looking?", with "well, she is a sturdy helpmeet".

[sindatur]

I don't know Wayfriend, she looks to me to be a dead ringer for Sharon Case (From Young and the Restless) doing a dramatic stressed out scene, and Sharon Case is very beautiful

[Frostheart Grueburn]

H'okay, now we have contradictory opinions here. Maybe beauty is in the eye of the beholder? In that vein, I unfortunately cannot please everyone at the same time. Sort of reminds me of my Grueburn, whom I deliberately drew all masculine-looking and half-crazy, and someone at DA just went head over heels for her in spite of this.

Oh well, back to the drawing board to sketch a more groomed version, once I get these damn ponies out of the way.

There's another thread on the Watch about which female SRD character is the most beautiful.
SRD said that he considered Linden at the top of the list.
Which is weird because I would have thought Terisa.
But everyone knows that the Lady Alif is the hottest of the hot.
(and that's not a lightsaber if you know what I mean)

*laughs bits of dinner up her nose*
Is this the thread where people are arguing over the First's cup size?

Terisa's from Mordant's Need, right? Haven't read it yet, so cannot really supply an opinion on the matter.

[Ananda]

If you are redrawing, I thought the breasts were a bit too big or maybe I'm just jealous.

[Frostheart Grueburn]

It'll be a different picture altogether. This one took well over 15 hours due to the heavy detail and texturing; the only thing I might do is to lighten the shading over her face. This actually might alter the looks a lot (And on the other hand lessen the impression of utter devastation I was after.)

The boobs seem to be drawing people's attention. However, wasn't she supposed to have a gratuitously womanly frame or something along those lines?

[wayfriend]

Hard work and clenched emotions had not hurt the gratuitous womanliness of her body, or dulled the essential luster of her shoulder-length wheaten hair, or harmed the structural beauty of her face. Her driven and self-contained life had not changed the way her eyes misted and ran almost without provocation. But lines had already marked her face, leaving her with a perpetual frown of concentration above the bridge of her straight, delicate nose, and gullies like the implications of pain on either side of her mouth - a mouth which had originally been formed for something more generous than the life which had befallen her. And her voice had become flat, so that it sounded more like a diagnostic tool, a way of eliciting pertinent data, than a vehicle for communication.

There're some other Linden threads in this forum. Comments made there may be useful.

[deer of the dawn]

Spot on, for me. Can you share your rendering technique? Is it ink and wash, or is that airbrush?

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Can you share your rendering technique? Is it ink and wash, or is that airbrush?

This is 100% digital; ceased scanning pencil sketches a few years back as I noticed I can work more effortlessly that way. I use a Wacom Intuos3 tablet.

I suppose the rendering is easiest understood by showing the various layers one after another. This isn't really one of my best illustrations, but does have more 'levels' than some others.

Bluelines + first cleaned-up inks (on two layers):



Background + shirt inked (again on two new layers):



Texture-shaded background layer (airbrush tool):



The same done to LA herself:



Foreground layer with psychedelic branches (got fed up with hours and hours of itty bitty jagged lines at this point and did some shameless mirroring):