Images of Immortals
by HåvardInspired by the Aleena rendering used in Maddog's avatar (made by Cthulhudrew), I thought I would have a go myself. The illustration is from WotI, (by Paul Abrams, I think), but colors and background are done by yours truly.
This is my first attempt at this and I learned a few tricks along the way so I think my next pieces will be better.
Now for the challenge: You can do this as well. Find a B/W Mystara character illustration from a sourcebook and add color and post it here (in a sepatate thread). I did mine in photoshop, but any program will do.
Here is how I did it:
1) Erased the parts of the illustration other than the character
2) Added a new layer for base colors, which was set to Multply Mode, so that the underlying ink would "bleed" through.
3) Added more laters for shadows.
4) Added background as a separate layer.
Basically, I never liked the idea of just sticking a humanoid head onto a beast. I will make an exception for Manticores, but in most cases it just looks silly. Also, Atzanteotl's body should be that of a Winged Wiper, not a Feathered Serpent (That's Ixion).
What do you think? Too much of a change to be called Mystaran?
Korotiku's head grafted in a Drider's body. Again, I decided to make some changes to the original. The main problem with it is that Korotiku looks fairly grim in this picture. He is more friendly in the other picture of him in WotI, which would make him seem more like the trickster he is.
I like how Alphaks looks like a kind of demonic jailor here.
The biggest challenge here was that some other immortal blocked parts of Asterius' body so I had to redraw it. There is plenty of room for improvement here I will admit. My biggest concern about this character is how cruel his grin looks. My opinion of Asterius is formed by how he was presented in Allen Varney's HWA trilogy where he was presented as a young and well meaning immortal. In WotI he seems very different, more of a trickster. He seems almost happy that the conflict between Rad and Ixion started. I prefer the HWA version, personally.
I have included the original image. As you can see I have used a different body, can anyone guess whose? This might be a bit too much cheesecake for Vanya's style, but at least she is combat oriented. I messed up the shading a bit, but oh well.
Heh, this one really got an overhaul. I moved his hands around and filled out the parts missing from his silouette.
Not too happy about Ilsundal, although I didnt really like the way he looked in the first place.
With Thanatos, I changed his posture, which I never liked in WotI. What do you think about the color scheme?
The Hel image also went through some manipulation. Hel's body below her chest, her left hand and her cloak were added by me. Her left hand is actually Djaea's hand which I flipped and moved. In the b/w image, the right side of her face is completely blank. I originally thought about making it a rotting corpse like feel, but ended up adding shadowy suggestions of facial features.
Pflarr looked a bit too "cute" in the WotI version, so I attempted to make him look a bit darker.
Here is another bold take by me. I have used 3 different images to expand on the small part of this immortal. I am not 100% happy, but it was fun to play around with. Obviously the idea that this face belongs to Loki is pure speculation
Thendara, the Forest Mother, Creator of the Elves, Protector of Haven.
Probably my least sucessful one so far, but I had to enlarge the pic quite a bit to make it work. Usamigaras: Halfling Patron of the Lost City.
This image is from Deities & Demigods (1e), but the character appears in WotI, so I'm keeping it in this thread.
Here is another one I modified from Deities and Demigods. Given the starting point, I am pretty happy with the end result!
Karaash, aka Ilneval, Patron of Orcs. I find it interesting that it is he that Mystaran Orcs follow and not Gruumsh, who does not exist on Mystara.
Jammudaru, aka Vaprak, patron of Ogres, Giants and Trolls. The original image appeared in Deities & Demigods for AD&D1E.
