Recent Art aka Wizards and Barbarians and Troll Slayers Oh My

I have been a little lax posting art, so here goes a “dump” of some recent work. Mainly squeezed in when I had the time between other projects, but these are quite a bit of fun so I thought I’d share. Before I do, though, I wanted to add this: the world is obviously very dark right now, but there is one really great piece of news: Prabir Purkayastha, founder of NewsClick, was recently released from a prison! As Peoples Dispatch noted last month, “The Indian Supreme Court ordered the immediate release of author and journalist Prabir Purkayastha on Wednesday, May 15 terming his arrest by the Delhi Police in October last year, illegal.” While Purkayastha is not out of the woods yet, this is a significant positive step. I, for one, am very pleased. I’ve learned a lot from Purkayastha and NewsClick. Here are some recent comments from him, too.

Onwards to art!

Modern Wizard

I have long had a love affair of wizards and magic users. Dr. Strange, Gandalf, and whatnot. Long beards and pointy hats are preferred, but are not required. Hell, Bill from WIZARDS FOR HIRE — CHEAP! certainly fits that description, but his wizardly companion Butch sure as hell does not.

Speaking of wizards, if you want to read my hands down favourite version, read THE FACE IN THE FROST by John Bellairs. I’ve even read (and own!) his sadly incomplete sequel titled THE DOLPHIN CROSS that was included in the New England Science Fiction Association’s anthology MAGIC MIRRORS. John Bellairs died far far too young and I suspect many people know him mainly due to his young adult oriented series’ featuring characters like Lewis Barnavelt (and Rose Rita Pottinger!), Anthony Monday, and Johnny Dixon, but THE FACE IN THE FROST and THE DOLPHIN CROSS are amazing. That is not meant to take anything away from Bellairs’ other writing; I really love his prose and his YA books are really great with a dark gothic creepy vibe that runs through them.

Of course, for comics you can’t beat Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s early Doctor Strange stories serialized in STRANGE TALES. I have a few of those in print but mostly in reprint form (like DOCTOR STRANGE CLASSICS and ESSENTIAL DOCTOR STRANGE).

Modern Barbarian

Barbarians are a character type I’ve not had much of an opportunity to draw. Which is a shame because barbarians are such a blast to draw. One of the great things about them is how they “cut through” the crap. There is no angst, no melodrama, no feelings, no nothing. Just violence and often murder, usually in the most over the top way possible. The great (and sadly missing) “Joesky” once built a great reaction table for when you want to know what a barbarian is thinking: roll percentile dice. There is a 1% chance that the barbarian will be “okay for now.” The other 99%? HATE. Yup! And if you want a modern version, look up the Cartoon Network’s pilot for KORGOTH OF BARBARIA (here's one on DailyMotion). Korgoth is pitch perfect, voiced by Diedrich Bader.

Modern Barbarian
lifting boulder with final inks and colours by Von Allan

Dwarf Troll Slayer

As some of you know, I love fantasy dwarfs. Hell, I love sci-fi dwarfs. I just love dwarfs. I tend to like my dwarfs a little more crazy than so called “vanilla” dwarfs in a lot of high fantasy. This guy is a great example. He’s technically a Troll Slayer, a more crazy than normal type of dwarf. As Chris Hogan once noted in his terrific gaming supplement SMALL BUT VICIOUS DOG, a Troll Slayer is “a kamikaze no pants dwarf with a big orange mohawk, prison tats, a two handed axe and a burning desire to ragequit life as violently as possible.” Yes. Yes! YES!

Given the “no pants” status of this fella, I put a censored version up for all to see. For those who want to see the uncensored versions, simply click on the image below and it will open up the (glorious?) uncensored version!

Nude Troll Slayer with final inks and colours by Von Allan

Process Work

I also decided to include some “process” work, mainly because I don’t often do that and I kinda thought, “well, why not?” So here are pencils and inks of the various pieces. As always, you can click on most of these to make them bigger (and, with the Troll Slayer, see the uncensored versions, too). You’ll see some subtle differences, especially between the inks and colours; even when I ink “by hand,” I’ll still do a little bit of digital work to finish the piece off. You’ll spot that if you look!

I really had a lot of fun doing these! I hope you enjoy them, too!