Fire Imp

Found this picture of fire in the local newspaper and I doodled over it. The fire imp was born. Scanned it and drew over it in PS:

Doodled over this fire too:D:

My imagination is going overboard again... I feel like a kid who sees shapes and patterns in everything.

WIP's/Finished/sketches

2006-2011

 

Or click here for even bigger file:
HERE - my dA account
download from there for a bigger view.

The Historian

I finished yesterday "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova, a huge book that took me awhile to read, not because it was boring but because it was very long.
The story is a mix of letters from several persons, postcard messages and stories within the main story of events that happened before the present day. However, what I liked best was that it wasn't an ordinary book, the letters and postcards and everything else being so well integrated into the story that I was always under the impression it was a single, uninterrupted event.
The characters are strong and well-defined, passionate and loyal.
History of Vlad Tepes and folklore of Dracula are blended in this book, creating a story that spans ages, from the time when Tepes ruled, after his death and to the present day when mysterious books, empty save for the dragon illustration in the middle, start appearing on the desks of promising historians. The mystery of the books is followed through the entire book by said people and information is gathered separately by all throughout the years. It takes a young man from Oxford in search of his mentor to put together the pieces and solve the puzzle.
I honestly first picked up the book because on the back cover it said something about Dracula. I love vampire books, movies, everything to do with them. And although in most cases I'm disappointed of the stories, this was not the case. The author herself, said at the end of the book that she didn't plan on having more than a cup of blood spilled in her book. I think she managed that. She created a plot that keeps the reader in suspense, gives him a love story, mystery and most of all, makes his imagination recreate the bloody scenes in the book (and here I mean the ones described as the crimes of  Tepes).
 I recommend this book not only to those who like vampire stories but to anyone who like stories!

Orcs

"An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.

These creatures have since become popular figures in other fantasy and science fiction literature as well as many types of fantasy games. They are variously portrayed as physically stronger or weaker than humans, but always high in numbers. They often ride boars, wolves and wargs. In many role-playing and computer games, orcs have green or greenish skin (earning the name 'Greenskins' in such games as Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000). Usually, and in contrast with other fantasy races such as Elves, orcs use shamanistic magic, or no magic at all. Their fighting skill is honed to maximum power and efficiency." - Wikipedia

 The first I heard of orcs was when I read Lord of the Rings. I think I was around 13 years old and it was a relatively new addition to the library in my neighborhood. I remember taking the three huge volumes of the shelf and reading the back cover on the first. It hooked me in an instant. I took them home and read them in that weekend. I don't think I did anything else during those three days beside reading, eating a bit and sleeping for a few hours. I was amazed by the brilliance of the story, the depth of the characters and the beautiful depictions of the environment. It became my favorite book. Years later, in 2007 I believe, I found the entire story in one book (huge, heavy and bright red with golden letters on the cover). It cost me a lot of money but it was worth it and now it sits proudly on my shelf next to a lot of other favorite books of mine.

Needless to say, I saw the movies and loved those as well.

Another time I encountered orcs in stories was when I started playing Warcraft III. A colleague from high school gave it to me and I played it non stop for a few days, redoing a lot of the campaigns in the beginning because, truth be told, I was a complete newbie at computer games back then. Warcraft III became one of my favorite games because of its Orc Campaign. I still play that campaign again and again, not because it's the easiest but because I get to play the orcs in the game. The depiction of the orcs was different here than it was in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Not better, not worse, just different, and that made me enjoy it all the more.

And now I come to the real subject of this very long and tiresome post. Still with me?

A few months ago some new books with the orcs as the main characters appeared in my country. They were written by Stan Nicholls and made up a trilogy. It is named Orcs: First Blood. It was originally published in the UK around 2000 and it has sold over a million copies worldwide since.

These books are among the first in which the main characters are orcs (from all the books I've read).

The books tell the story of a band of orcs that are sent into a mission by their Queen. When the mission fails they try and recover the artifact that their Queen needs in order to keep their jobs and heads. But since they don't come back from the mission on time, the Queen considers them traitors and sends other orcs, bounty hunters and dragons after them.

On the run, the orcs recover the artifact and find new ones as well which lead the story to an interesting conclusion. The entire three books are filled with battle scenes, dreams, spells and twists that stop you from putting the books down.

The descriptions of the battle scenes are amazing, you can feel as if you're watching them, being part of them. The entire orc society that is described in the books define the characters.

The ending seemed a little abrupt but then I read there will be another trilogy so I'm guessing the story isn't over just yet.

These are a few pictures I found on the author's website and mostly look like how I imagined the characters would be:

Strike

Jup

From what I found on Imdb.com, sadly there aren't any scheduled movies for this series, which seems a shame considering what great scenes there would be in them.

To conclude, I need to read more orc books because the ones I've read I liked. I like the fantasy genre so here's to more books like these!

Underwater Battle

Went with different lighting on this. I think I like the last better. There's actually more of it painted, it used to be even more but either the computer crashed or the power failed or Photoshop crashed. I'm starting to think this picture is cursed.
The second picture is just to see how it would look without the lineart. Not very good apparently.

Bitta

There's a contest at www.creativemonkeyz.com and this is my entry:

Bitta

This is the closest thing to drawing that I've done lately which is pretty sad, all things considered. I got promoted at work a couple of weeks ago and I'm still learning the ropes there so I haven't really gotten anything else resembling drawing and writing done since. Except this. Not one of my best pieces but whatever. :D I was supposed to draw a superhero for the Creative Monkeyz to judge and for Bitdefender (the company that sponsors the contest). I doubt I'll win, some other entries are really good, but it's worth a shot. At the very least, I've drawn something!:)
The schedule thing obviously isn't working. I'll just update when I have time this month, probably in the weekends. Here's to better drawings and more writing! Cheers!

*Bitta is a robot/ninja/poisonous weed head:)) Joking aside, she has mini daggers on her leg, rollers as her legs, a sword (because swords are cool), her hair is made in Jamaica and she has a fire-breathing doggie that hangs on a candy cane. Bitdefender is a company that makes antivirus programs so I made a little green stuff on the sword meant to be what remained of a virus:))*