Mokkan Portrait

While re-reading Marlfox I somehow got this impression that the Marlfoxes were like White Tigers and ancient royal families, terribly inbred all for the vain sake of beauty and purity. Maybe its just my perverse mind, but would you really put it beyond Silth to breed with her brother/father/son to create this brood of ‘beautiful’ children. Coincidence that her mate is never mention and was killed off before the book (there’s a conspiracy I tells ya!) Added to that the fact that the Marlfox brood would probably have to breed with each other to create more Marlfoxes, lucky for us that situation never arose (phew! These are after all still children’s books, its just my sick mind is reading between the lines, haha!).

Anyway, the design for Mokkan is based on a white tiger, albino and other white morphs of the red fox and the books description of the fur being mottled with black and blue-grey patches.
I was also nice to play around with trying to convey the eyes reflecting the moonlight. I used various photo’s of cats eyes and foxes at night for reference.
His Redwall Wiki Page:
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Character from Brian Jacques’ book Marlfox
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Damug Warfang Portrait

He’s so badass he don’t care that he is cutting up his fingers on that blade.

Jez’, after three attempts, generally being busy with other things and my brain just melting after doing all these portraits here is Damug’s ‘mug’ (yes, I will hammer in that pun until I kill someone).
I like how the armour turned out and I had fun painting that. Also a chance of play around with some custom brushes for the chain mail and chain.

Out of the characters in this project he is the one that probably sticks the closest to how I have imagined him years ago when I first did these portraits, with the blue/grey fur and facial structure, he even has the same long leather coat. I know that in the book he is never described with a leather coat, but that’s how I picture him. Besides, a coat is a tough handy thing for both land and sea, much more convenient than a cloak when you’re just roaming around, surely?

As to the book itself, the Long Patrol, it felt very much like those classic war stories, like Bernard Cornwell’s “Sharpe” books, and it feels like the odd one out in the Redwall series…don’t know, maybe its just me. It was nice to see the ancient abbey actually showing its age and collapsing so those pesky heroes can’t take it too much for granted and just hide inside and snipe from the walls. They actually had to get out there to defend themselves, which is a welcome change. Ups the threat value.

To the left are the tribal marks that I used on the flags and for his tattoos. It was fun playing around with the designs.

His Redwall Wiki Page
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Custom brushes: “Tanathe’s Lazy Brush set”
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Character from Brian Jacques’ book The Long Patrol
Character Design by Myself.
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Ublaz Mad Eyes Portrait

“Golden guardian of my wealth,

Hear me now, be still,
Deathly fang and coiling stealth
Bend unto my will…”
…Now pose in this silly portrait with me.

Blimey! Ublaz has so many costumes in his book! I wonder how big his wardrobe is? In the end I went with the one he was first described with. The crown is meant to have a wave-like pattern, with the waves holding in the six pearls (or at least they would have if Ublaz ever got his hands on those damn things.)

Speaking of which, Ublaz is one of the few Redwall villains who causes the most destruction over the most little goal, to acquire six rose coloured pearls. Being separated from the slaughter, on his tropical island castle miles and miles away, he could not grasp the consequences of his greed. Then again, he was too busy pissing off the local population upon his island…

Ublaz gave me some grief as I had to repaint this fellow, but this time with a smaller snake. The larger serpent was just too distracting and attention-whoring.

I don’t really have much to say about this painting. I’m not as pleased with it as I am about the previous two, but I like the fabrics.

His Redwall Wiki Page

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Character from Brian Jacques’ book Pearls of Lutra
Character Design by Myself.

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Slagar the Cruel Portrait

Every breath you take

Every move you make
Every step you take
Slagar will be watching you...

Here is scraggy Chickenhound - *has a knife thrown at* -yaa! I mean, here is the marvellous, the almighty, Slagar the Cruel! Lord of Double-Dealing! The magical Luna Stellaris! Lord of Light and Dark! Master of Life and -
Monty Python crew: Get on with it!

Okay okay!
Lord almighty he took a while… I never want to deal with a harlequin pattern again!
As you can probably tell I’ve chosen to go with the same pose as the old painting, as I love that pose! I’ve also kept the hand and scarf. Slagar certainly is creepier than before. As I was rereading Mattimeo for some reason I got this sickly perverted personality to him stuck in my mind, not sure why, maybe because his voice is described as rasping.

His design has changed a bit, his eye is creepier and based on the drooping eyelids of Bloodhounds, for those types of dogs have always looked rather sickly to me. The clothing has received a much needed improvement and I’ve tried to make it look a bit raggedy.
Don’t ask me what’s going on in the background, all I know its windy, there is a fire going and there are some raven feathers floating around… hmmm, Kentucky Fried Crow anyone?

"A taker of slaves, and a thief;
I know not what master he served.
Cruel Slagar has come to grief;
T'was all that he deserved."
Slagar's Wiki Page


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Character from Brian Jacques’ book Mattimeo
Character Design by Myself.
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Cluny the Scourge Portrait

Fangburn whispered to Cheesetheif, “What use is a picture of a mouse to the Chief?”
Cluny heard. He came to the edge of the pulpit. Grasping the sides of the lectern he surveyed his small congregation like some satanic minister.
“Ah, Brother Fangburn, let me explain. I will tell you why it is that you and all your kind will forever remain servants, while I shall always be the master…”

Cluny’s Wiki page.

Well, here he is. My favourite Redwall Villain and favourite fictional character EVER, Cluny the Scourge.
My my my, how much my perception of this character has changed since I first saw him in episode 10 of the Redwall TV series when I was about 9/10 years of age and, to this day, I still have no idea why this character has stuck with me so tightly. If it wasn’t for this character I would have never gotten into Brian Jacques Redwall books and may have never felt that spark of inspiration, that “yes! This is what I want to do! I want to create, I want to imagine!”. I discovered Redwall in a time of my life when I was vulnerable and, when I look back on it, a quite frightened child, and I seemed to suckle from this book some courage and strength that pulled me through that dark time. Where would I be without this book, I shudder to think…the days before seemed like another life. Everything I am now I owe to this book and to this character, Cluny the Scourge. I cannot explain why, no more than a person can explain why they believe in a religion…it just happened, and I would not have changed it for anything.

Right, enough of that gushing girl, before you make everyone vomit!…

Being who this is I spent so much time trying to get things right and to transfer my mental image of him onto the canvas so this can deservingly be the best painting I have done to date, and I believe I have succeeded. I enjoyed painting this so much it was hard to stop.
This originally was going to be a big scene ( scene from chapter 12) with Fangburn, Darkclaw, Cheesetheif, Redtooth and Shadow at his feet. However, I thought that would make it stick out from the other portraits in the project so I cropped the sketch so I could focus on his facial features. Maybe another day I will get round to doing the whole scene (along with many others I have doodled in my sketch book), but for now it was best just to focus on the big guy himself.

*Lifts up a mug of tea* Here’s to you, Cluny, you maniac! Thanks for everything! And here’s to many paintings yet to come.

See also the full design on the stain glass.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO:

*Michael C Hayes and his painting “Miserere: An Autumn Tale” I learnt a lot of painting bricks and stone, my background would have looked very flat without me studying his gorgeous paintings.
*Todd Lockwood’s painting “Transition”. Again, I studied it for help on creating light shining around hair (or in this case fur)
* And, of course, to Brian Jacques! Your books -and this character- helped me escape from a dark period of my life and set me on my current path. You are my Tolkien and my inspiration!

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Character © Brian Jacques’ book Redwall
Character Design by myself.
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The Weasel and the Baryonyx

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while, Blogger would not let me upload images for some reason, but I all looks like its back to normal again.

Ferahgo the Assassin Portrait: Took longer than expected for I completely re-painted him near the beginning. I'm glad I did too as the previous painting/sketch was ugly and boring (see left). There was also more of him to paint than the other Villains, for they were mostly head shots whereas Ferahgo has most of his body there.
It was also a good anatomy test for me, with the hand and knee (which I hope I got right) and folds in clothing.

All in all, very pleased.

And it means - omg! Omg omg omg! - that Cluny the Scourge is next. *insert high pitched excited fan-girl squeal!* My favourite fictional character...ever!

*The Redwall WIKI page on this character.
Character from Brian Jacques book 'Salamandastron'

 

Baryonyx:

My first dinosaur / paleo’ painting of my favourite dinosaur, Baryonyx. I know my anatomy is a bit off (the neck and snout should be a lot longer) and I have probably taken artistic liberties.

Oh Baryonyx, how fond I’ve become of you! Your name is just so funky to say! Probably because their fossils have been found in Britain and theirs a bit of patriotism going on, but the family of Spinosaurids are a fascinating bunch. They have been compared to crocodiles in their features and behaviour and are completely different from other carnivorous dinosaurs.
 

Yggdrasil Withered

I had put off uploading this piece until Pheonix Rise published his new album.

He wanted something similar to the Iifa Tree, from Final Fantasy IX, in the theme and mood. Yggdrasil, the tree of life from Norse Mythology, for some reason came to mind.

The shape of the tree was taken from a photograph I had taken of a large tree in a nearby forest. I was also experimenting with photographs, and the textures within, to colour the black and white base I had and I learnt quite a bit.