The Barbarian's Office

[Anid Maro]

This just started out as me messing around in my sketchbook, but then I kept getting ideas so I kept developing it.

The idea is that this is the personal office/tent/whatever of some Germanic Chieftain during Late Antiquity, towards the end of the Roman Empire. This is his work table, and you can see some of the essential items a Germanic Chieftain would need, like some parchment and a writing pen/feather to the right, a candle to see with, a dinner plate (at the lower left, nothing more than part of an ellipse at the moment) and of course the skull of an enemy that has been converted to a beer mug.

A something I already see is that the beer in the skullmug needs to be redrawn to account for the fact that the skull doesn't quite sit level with the table.

Obviously I have a long ways to go, but I'm trying to come up with ideas for a design on the dinner plate and I haven't been getting much in the way of Google searches for "Late Antiquity Roman ceramic design" so far. As such, I figured I'd post what I've got while I'm searching and see if you guys can notice anything my somewhat trained eye has missed.

Edit: I'm glad I made this thread if for no other reason than it forced me to look at my own drawing a bit more. Usually I hunch over and work work work at it. But now that I've taken a step back from it, I notice that the candle, quill, and plate are far too small in comparison to the skull. So much so that I feel like an idiot for not catching it earlier, like when I drew them in!

[Anid Maro]

Been working on this on and off today. I dunno if I'll finish tonight, probably will simply because if I go to bed with an unfinished piece it bugs me and I get no sleep. :)

This scan turned out a lot messier, and no amount of messing with the levels seems to make it look as clean as the first scan, but I suppose that comes with the territory of erasing, penciling, erasing some more, getting some grease from my hands on it, etc.

I made the candle, quill, and plate all larger as I mentioned in my edit and I am much happier with them now. I've also started adding some details here and there, particularly the beer in the skullmug and the rim of the plate. I also took out one of the back teeth because it was one tooth too many.

Speaking of which, I found far more results when I started looking for silverware rather than ceramics. I guess I'm just smart like that today.

At this point I'm figuring out shading patterns and working on little details. I think I'll knock out a few teeth from the skull, after all if the guy went down without a fight his skull probably wouldn't be worthy of being made into a beer mug, right? Also I'm going to add some sort of writing looking scribbles to the parchment, and maybe a few rips or tears here and there (but not too many, the parchment isn't ancient yet).

I'm also thinking about making the table wooden, although I'm not quite sure on how to go about it yet. Maybe planks of wood going from left to right? I don't know how they made their tables back then, but I figure this would be a common method. Besides, this is more of a temporary office than his home office, like in a tent on the battlefield.

Now that I look at it, the table seems to end too abruptly when I end it at the candlestick, I think I'm adding an extra plank behind the stick. (Yeah, I know I just said I wasn't sure if it was going to be planks of wood, but I'm thinking as I type and now I'm pretty sure it is).

[fantasyartist]

The second sketch looks way better. The skull itself could use some more work though. The face looks flat because everything seems to be on the same plane. Other than that I like the way this piece is going, specially because you took time to think about a story.
One question: How do you add a signature to your posts?? I looked everywhere including the FAQ en my personal settings butt still couldn't figure it out.

[Anid Maro]

Hey, thanks for the complement and critique. I think the skull looks flat mostly because when I was first constructing it I treated the face part like a flat plane, and that probably carried over to the current sketch. I've got to remember to fix that tomorrow (well, technically today), I'm currently distracted by the newest Daily Sketch Group thread. :)

Oh, and to add a signature (and an avatar, and other stuff), in the upper left, just above the "Post Reply" button, there should be a link labeled "User CP" (if not, you might not be logged in). Click on it and it will take you to a new page with a toolbar to the left titled "Control Panel". From there, click on "Edit Signature" under the "Settings & Options" header.

It seems kinda obvious when you figure it out, but I was searching for days before I found it.

[fantasyartist]

Hey thanks man I figured it out a couple of minutes after asking you. I was searching for days too:). Anyways looking forward to your next version of this piece.

[Jason Rainville]

Sorry to say, this thing really isn't screaming 'germanic' right now, especially with the more latin-looking plate. Adding some interlace into the candle base or the plate might give it a more germanic edge. An axe stuck into the table might be nice.

Also, aren't there a lot of 'holes' on the bottom of a skull that would let the liquid spill out? (they're plugged aren't they?)

[Anid Maro]

So three days later, I'm finally able to get back to working on this. Haven't changed too much since the last update, just added a few things here and there.

I went ahead and jacked up the skull's teeth and added a nasty crack right over the left eye, probably the killing blow.

Added some more definition to the candlestick.

Put in a wood texture on the table and defined the gaps between planks of wood.

And I started to plot a bit of the shading, particularly on the parchment and on the table by the skull. I'm thinking the area to the left of the skull will likely get lost in the shade.

I'm considering that I might render this piece in ink once I'm done adding details and plotting shade and whatnot. I can only get three values though, black, white, and one shade of grey. Probably it will work out that highlights and very brightly colored stuff (like the quill) will get white, some shadows and the color value of most objects will be grey, and the deepest darkest shadows will get black. However, I'm concerned that I won't be able to get enough variety with just white/black/grey. I've still got a ways to go before I get to inking though, so I've got time to mull it over.

Oh, and Rhineville, you're sort of right. The "German" whose office this belongs to is going to be a higher ranking German in the Roman Army, so he's not the stereotypical fur wearing barbarian from Gaul that Caesar fought.

Towards the end of the Roman Empire, foriegn generals (i.e., German Chieftains) largely controlled the Roman army. They never declared themselves Imperator/Emperor, because they thought it might cause a ruckus and they didn't really want the job anyways, but they did choose who the Imperator was (and, if a certain Imperator wasn't cooperative, they found a way to get rid of him). So this German would be very Romanized as regards to culture, hence the Latin style plate.

As a result, you're right, it isn't exactly screaming Germanic.

Oh, and I presume there would be holes that the liquid would fall through. But legend has it that this sort of thing was done, so they must have had some method of plugging up those holes (probably clay or something).

[Galione]

I really like the progression from the first to the current it never hurts to go back and fix something you see later on, and from the way you draw and revamp and make it look better and better I believe that shows alot of potential.

I really like the setting the skull still needs a bit more shape, the left eye needs to curve around to give it a more realism to it. I really like the way you did the perspective and I can't wait to see when you do the values and shading perspective ^_^

[Jason Rainville]

Ah, I see. To heighten the reality of the piece, you should title it "Desk of Arminius" and explain that the skull is actually the skull of Varus (story of teutoberg forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutoburg_Forest) for your reading pleasure just in case :))

[Anid Maro]

Galione - Thanks for the compliments, and double thanks for the suggestion on the skull. Fantasyartist pointed out that the skull looked flat, and he was right, but I wasn't sure how to remedy that. Curving the eye is exactly what I need to do.

Rhineville - That's an excellent idea! Sure, it's a few centuries earlier than the time period I was thinking of, but it still works. Besides, when you think about it a high ranking Roman General probably wouldn't have a skull mug, Germanic heritage or not. :)

[Anid Maro]

Okay, this is what I've got now. I added a few details, put down some shading, and redid the eye sockets to try and get rid of that "flatness" that the skull had earlier.

The candlestick holder is gonna be a bit tricky. Since the primary lightsource is directly above it, most of the lighting is going to come from reflected light from the wood. So that means it will be defined primarially with black and grey.

I want to give the parchment a little more attention. Put some more wrinkles in it to give it a more clothlike texture and feel. Also I want to put in some sort of writing, although I dunno if it will be gibberish scribbles or actual Latin (through a translator, 'cause I dunno how to write in Latin!). Maybe the story of Teutoberg Forest would work good here, thanks Rhineville. :)

The skull needs more fleshing out, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. The quill needs extra details, but I'll get to that later.

Oh, and that thick liquid in the dinner plate is supposed to be blood, likely from whatever meat he ate for dinner.

[Anid Maro]

Just a small progress update. I plotted a few more shadows and of course the most obvious change is I've started applying some ink.

I mainly posted this to see if I can get some feedback on my inking technique. I use a combination of an ink pen (for fine details) and paintbrushes dipped in a bottle of black ink (for larger areas). Typically, when I scan in an inked piece I play with the levels in Photoshop to get a nice contrast and get rid of the stupid paper wrinkles that you see in the lower and upper left (use a lot of ink and the paper warps, and of course the scanner picks it up, bleh). However, this also darkens all the large dark areas to the point where my brush strokes are no longer visible like they are in the original.

So this time, I went light on the levels (I only adjusted the far right, so that white was actually white instead of grey). Now my brush strokes are pretty obvious. Is this distracting? A glaring fault that comes from being self-taught? Or just something that happens, no matter how you apply the ink?

Edit: Just for laughs, I'm going to show you all the uber-pimpness of machine translation. Using these two websites (here (http://www.tranexp.com:2000/Translate/result.shtml) and here (http://www.sunsite.ubc.ca/LatinDictionary/)) I translated the following text:

"crushed the three legions accompyaning Governor Varus. I confirmed the death of Governor Varus. He killed himself in honorable Roman tradition."

And got the result of:

"frendo tres legio comitatus Satraps Varus. Ego arbitio nex Satraps Varus. Is quod sui in recolitus Romanorum institutio."

And then retranslated it into English to get:

"gnash the teeth three a selection train Viceroy Varus. I verified violent death Viceroy Varus. This and himself upon venerable Roman custom."

What's the lesson? Never use machine translators unless whatever you are translating won't ever be retranslated (or read by someone who knows the language).

Although to be fair, the second website (the dictionary java applet thingy) is actually pretty good for what it is. The first link (the translator) sucks terribly however.

[Anid Maro]

Okay, now I've finished the inking job. I decided to include two versions, one without any levels adjustment, and one with adjustments.

I'm still experimenting with inks, so I learn something new every time I work with them. One thing I learned, it would be much easier if I put down my greys first and then applied the blacks. I get greys by watering down the ink, and since the blacks are the same water soluble ink, when I start putting greys next to blacks, the black spots start to bleed into the grey areas. Who would've thunk it?

Also, something I'm curious about, I've heard of people using white-out to get white into their inked pieces. For any of you that know about it (or have tried it), how did that work out? As it is, I get my white spots by simply avoiding certain areas, which is pretty easy with pure ink but they greys, being mixed with water, are much harder to control.

If I could throw down a layer of grey, then follow up with pure black ink for the deep shadows and white-out for highlights/light areas, that would be much easier.

Later tonight (or maybe tomorrow morning), I'll post a higher res version into the Critique Center, that is of course barring any serious flaws anybody might notice before then. :)

Edit: The first image is with the adjusted levels. The second image I didn't touch the levels at all.

[Jason Rainville]

Not sure which version is which, but I like the first one better. Nice range of tonals, but the table is darkened aslo, which is not only easier on the eyes but lets the objects stand out better.

Lookin' good, no real crits except maybe the feeling that the table is somehow pulling to the left... can't see what's causeing it tho.

[Galione]

nice progress man, starting to looks like an illustration finished piece dude, little more and it will look f'n sweet

[Anid Maro]

Well, as it turns out, I won't be posting into the Critique Center tonight.

Just for the fun of it, I started coloring it in Photoshop, because I just recently got Photoshop CS and I wanted to play with my new toy.

I really like where this is headed so far, and I'll probably work on it a bit more tonight, and some more tomorrow.

Oh, and Rhineville, I forgot to mention the adjusted one was the first image. I'm going to edit that into the post now. Oops. :)

Edit: And about it pulling to the left. Uh, I don't quite see it, is it any different in the color version Rhineville?

[Jason Rainville]

It's still there to me, like the objects could slowly slide to the left and fall off the table. vey subtle, but something is making me think that.

[Anid Maro]

Hmm... I think I see it a bit too now.

I tried messing with the piece of table that sticks out to the left of the skull and I also cropped the image a bit (cut out a chunk of the bottom portion, which I was considering anyways).

Any better?