Doodling D&D

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TristramEvans

The Right Hand of Doom
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Way back in the mists of time, before The Pub, I started a thread on our former haunt entitled "Doodling D&D", in which I spent roughly 15 minutes a day (typically during my lunch break at work at the time) sketching one creature, in order, from the AD&D 2e Mostrous Manual. I got pretty far along (well into the "M"s) before circumstances in my life changed, I got a different job, and I got distracted by other things. It was always something I meant to go back and finish, but the situation in my life wasn't really condusive for the longest time, and I started devoting much of my free time to other things,.

Regardless, it remained at the back of my mind, and when I spontaneously decided to participate in Inktober 2019, I found that sketching in class at University was a fun way to spend my time and give my creative muscles some relief while math overtook the rest of my life.

So I've decided to go back and finish the Doodling D&D project, so many years later.

However, there were several issues with this. First, I don't still have all of those original pictures, not even online scans (or maybe I do somewhere, but they are so buried in my files that I cannot find them, and the previous thread on the other forum is full of dead links at this point.

Moreover, many of the doodles I did back then I really can't stand looking at them now. I have a tendency to gradually dislike every piece of art I do, with rare exceptions, and this is generally within a 48-72 hour time period. Years of distance only exacerbates the effect. Regardless of the caveat that these were done in 15 minutes or under, there is a point that all I can see, frustratingly, are the flaws. This is not a bad thing, as one of my art teachers once said "the minute you are satisfied with your own work is the minute you stop improving as an artist", advice I took to heart early on and the reason to this day I tend to look at everything I draw as simply practice for the next drawing.

But what that means is that, excepting a few older pieces from the last project I've held onto because they turned out better than expected, I've decided to restart from the beginning. That doesn't necessarily mean the new ones will be better, but they will be newer (shrug)

Anyways, without further ado, let's begin with the very first entry in the Monstrous Manual...

Aarakocra

Here is the picture from the Monstrous Manual
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This is the original pencil sketch I did for the first D D&D thread...

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And here's the new one...
 
Obviously I'm taking creative liberties and doing reinterpretations as I see fit, but nowhere is that more so than the next guy..

Arcane

The premise of these creatures is that they are weird and mysterious strangers who show up occassionally to collect magic items. They got a bit of play in Planescape to that effect, but really these seemed like their intention was mainly just to remind players how strange and vast the lifeforms in the multiverse are. However, I never got that impression from the oriiginal picture...

Capture.JPG

Who is just sort of a blue giant, in a 70s scifi series outfit.

I just figure that if the entire point of something is to be WEIRD and MYSTERIOUS, misewell take that all the way...
 
Baatezu

Unlike most other creatures, I like the idea of a class of being representing the "Classic" image of demons, after a lifetime of reinventions. I must have felt the same way years ago because this is the Baatezu from the original Doodling D&D post...

975770_orig.jpg

This one ended up a bit more Mignola-esque...
 
Why aren't you working on a game based on an older version of D&D?? These are very good!


Pursuing my third degree at university eats up most my time...and is hopefully leading to a career a couple times magnitude better pay than freelance artwork.

I've had some interest in the past, but it wass either a matter of "we'll contact you later..." (and don't or haven't yet) or "I can't afford to pay but it' will give you exposure", And besides that I've never pursued it aggressively since I ceased doing graphic design as a career about ten years ago.
 
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Love Deathmaster Snitch!

And a chaos dwarf giving a piggy-back to a chaos knight is the cavalry unit we never knew we needed! :tongue:

I jest - lovely work!
 
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