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Krag Horncarver – goliath berserker barbarian
Here we have my first request to do a portrait of someone else’s character. I was given a reference picture (a fairly standard Kratos/Grog-style big-guy-in-furs affair), a character sheet, and a general description of his gauntlet and boots, and away I went. Since it was basically just something I was doing for someone else to be nice, I didn’t plan on spending a whole lot of time on it, and I didn’t quibble about details the way I do on my own pictures. But the guy thought it looked amazing, so if he’s happy I’m happy. And he does look pretty badass.
As the strongest warrior in a tribe of mountain goliaths that was conquered by an ancient blue dragon, Krag took it upon himself to escape from his bonds and embark on a personal quest to become stronger so that one day he might return to free his people from their oppressor.
Hunter “Haunter” Nightshade – human grave cleric
Another portrait request for a fellow player. Working with this particular male head was interesting, as was trying to make him look like a dude who’s been through hell without going too far into gross gaunt zombie territory. I guess there aren’t any actual glove hands (aside from a few gauntlet type things), so I colored an actual hand to match the glove and used ovals to cover up the obvious fingernails. The whole color palette is pretty dark and spooky, so I had to try a little harder to make things not all blend into each other. Yay for finding an actual Anubis jackal head so I didn’t have to make one. My friend’s response was a text stating “I LOVE IT SO MUCH” so score another one there.
While his current partymates don’t know a whole lot about his troubled history, it’s pretty certain that this devotee of Anubis is a man who has seen – and probably done – some pretty dark things. He can’t even introduce himself without people mishearing his name as “Haunter” instead of Hunter. It’s an apt moniker, considering his tormented memories of a cursed land in another demiplane and the wife and daughter he lost. As he assists his new companions in their efforts to oppose a dragon cult, his faith guides him to bring death to those whose time has come and peace to those whom death has claimed.
Noriel – fire genasi nomad mystic (again)
I actually started playing Noriel in a new campaign, and since her original portrait was the first HeroMachine picture I ever did, I figured I could do a little better for her and give her a more carefully considered outfit. There are several details that are particular to the campaign setting and reflect all of the traveling she’s done. Probably the trickiest part of this picture was deciding I wanted to make it look like we were viewing her from the other side of some kind of space-time portal and trying to make it look like a tunnel and not just some egg-shaped blobs. It could probably be more refined but I’m generally happy with it.
As a side note, kids, save your text files. Something got corrupted during a save while working on this piece, and for reasons unknown to me the HM site decided to overwrite my heromachine3.swf folder and its contents the next time I loaded the site. Which meant that my very large hmcharacters.sol file was overwritten, and even after I managed to salvage a recovered version of the file, the site still kept overwriting it so the code is essentially gone. Not a devastating loss since I have all of my exported final pictures, but I’ll definitely be saving text code from now on.
Having fallen in with a very interesting group of people quite by chance, Noriel has decided to continue traveling with them to see what other interesting things might happen. Thus far the adventures have revolved around investigating a drug-running operation and trying to find a remedy for a companion who seems to have contracted a strange form of lycanthropy. More recently there have been echoes of some ancient mystical secret that Noriel has felt compelled to pursue, and it remains to be seen where this will lead her and her new friends.
Mira Shortvall – half-elf gunslinger fighter
Another portrait of a friend’s character. He wanted a “devil-may-care” pose, and of course a picture of a gunslinger needs to feature the gun, so I had some work to do with the arms and hands. The face was also an interesting challenge, getting the components properly mapped onto the tilted head. I like how that came out a lot. Not necessarily my first choice of color palette, but she’s got red dragonhide armor and the rest is per instructions. Kept it simple on the background and shading to save time. Friend liked it so we’re all good.
Mira is the daughter of a human father and a drow mother, and that’s about all she knows about her origins – so far. She took up her current vocation when a stranger used an unusual weapon to protect her, and when the battle claimed his life she took up his gun and continued on adventuring in his stead. With her new band of friends, she’s putting her firearms (and other assorted weaponry) to use against an evil dragon cult.
Scout Reynolds – human battle master fighter/rogue/ranger
Why do I keep doing angled poses to myself? The body torso I started with was perfect, but then I had to go and add those pesky clothes. The halfsies technique worked okay on the shirt, but it still looks like she’s opening up her right side more than I was going for. I guess it’s tolerable. The legs came out quite well after I decided to complicate things with a crossed-legs pose. Is there a food item category somewhere I’m not seeing? I wish I could have given her some half-eaten snacks, but I wasn’t quite up to building apple cores from scratch. I actually did some shading and contouring details on this one. Hey she’s got pretty nice legs.
The daughter of a woodworker and his flower-loving wife, young Scout received her lifelong nickname when she turned out to be too much of a tomboy to be a “Posey.” Her simple but pleasant world was turned on its head when powerful outsiders invaded the area and quickly set up a new regime. Their regulations and outright oppression of the local population created innumerable hardships for the simple townsfolk, who had to either capitulate to their new “superiors” or face harsh punishment.
As Scout grew old enough to begin to understand the injustices around her, her resentment grew – especially after her mother died from an illness that could have been treated if they had been allowed access to healers or proper medicine. Every indignity, every instance of mistreatment she witnessed, just reinforced her bitterness toward the outsiders who kept her people under their boots. But at the same time, her father maintained an almost superhuman positive disposition, offering encouragement to neighbors and shrugging off abuse from their oppressors.
Scout couldn’t understand how her father could sacrifice his pride or just accept the way things were and go on as if nothing was wrong. But over time, especially after seeing the destruction in a nearby town where people had tried standing up to the regime, she realized how much good her father was doing for the people in their town. He knew that the simple townsfolk couldn’t force the invaders out, but they could do small things to help each other and get through their troubled times the best they could. Choosing happiness in the face of misery was in itself a form of defiance, and it was the best way to maintain hope until the time was right for the world to change again.
Taking her father’s example to heart, Scout grew into an easygoing, friendly woman who is easy to like and easy to underestimate. While her affability is genuine, it masks a tactical mind that’s good at assessing surroundings and using social situations to size up potential allies and adversaries. She’d certainly rather be enjoying a few rounds of cards over drinks, but when the time comes to put her bow to use, she’ll be in the background hoping you don’t notice her subtly manipulating the battlefield so her friends can come out victorious. And when the time comes for her people to reclaim their way of life, she’ll be even more prepared to help them do it.
Kenshira Charlotte – human totem barbarian
A portrait designed for a friend, while he was literally sitting on the couch next to me deciding what he liked (and getting a bit of a crash course on using HM). Fortunately his lack of pre-established specific ideas was balanced out by his receptiveness to my suggestions, and the whole process only took a couple of hours. I especially like how the hairstyle turned out, and we managed to come up with a pose that both looks cool and gets the entirety of her ginormous weapon in the frame.
Court clerk by day, vigilante by night, Kenshira manages to balance staying fashionable with doing what she can to right some of the wrongs that slip through her city’s judicial system. Or at least she did, until she was swept away by a mysterious mist into a land of darkness where devils don’t trifle with lurking in back alleys.
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