An Undetermined Ogre

And still don't sure if it's an ogre or a troll...

The Harlequinoid

Just a quick sketch of the famous (and still mysterious)  mercenary and hitman known as "The Harlequinoid"...

Sun Wukong, the monkey king

Done in a couple of drawing sessions, here it is, our personal interpretation of the hero character of the popular chinese (and universal) tale "Journey to the West" and others: Sun Wukong, self-proclaimed "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven". Like the trickster he is, Sun Wukong faces and revolutionized consecutively the four Dragon Kings of the sea, the infernal powers (where he erased his name and the name of all the monkeys from the "Book of Life and Death"), and the Jade Emperor of Heaven and the celestial spirits; finally, the Buddha himself intervened and imprisoned the unruly monkey until that Xuanzang, the buddhist monk, claimed for Sun Wukong to help him in the quest for the buddhist sutras (the final target for the journey to the west)...

Generic Eastern Fantasy Warrior Woman

A too long name for an unfinished and unplanned doodle...

Lü Bu

Here we leave a personal rendition of Lü Bu, who still remains the most feared warrior of the Three Kingdoms and has a tragic fate... He is also remembered for being the Wei faction enemy character  more difficult to defeat in the famous videogame series "Dynasty Warriors"...

Zhang Fei

Here is the second of the three participants in the Oath of the Peach Garden: this time, the notorious general Zhang Fei, the drunken skillful warrior...

Gog, from the land of Magog (or vice versa)

Unfortunately, we can not make the large explanation that this entry deserve, because of lack of time; only a few words, no more.

The legendary land of Magog and his king, Gog, are mentioned in the Bible (Old Testament), also in the Quran and in islamic tales, and (the most important) in the Alexander the Great legendarium. 

It is said that Gog was son of Japhet, one of the Noah´s sons whose descendants repopulated the earth after the Deluge; for ancient people, this dark kingdom, Magog (that is, literaly, land of Gog)), was inhabited by all sorts of barbarians who don´t follow the God´s Law - you know: they don´t respect hospitality, practicing canibalism, etc. -, and, for example, Flavius Josephus and other authorities interpreted that the offspring of Magog as the scythian people (nomads, id est, barbarians). Also, the historian Jordanes and the scholar Isidore of Seville connected the people of Magog to the goth people origins - and others found another connections to their own people´s origins...

By the passing of time, the perception of the legendary people of Magog as barbarians changed and saw them like cruel monsters; or saw the land of Magog as the last refuge to the pagan world who gradually dissapeared. In this manner, all the mythological creatures like fauns, cyclops, cynocephaly, blemmies or manticores, for example, could was found in the land of Magog.

The arabian tales narrated that Alexander the Great (or Dhul Qarnayn in other tales), during his years of conquest, arrived to the Magog land frontier, and horrified, he commanded the building of a great wall, in order to contain the monsters inside. It said that the wall will only fall with the coming of the Apocalypse...

Guan Yu

A quick sketch of a historic and literary character: Guan Yu, the wise general of Liu Bei; only a poor excuse to improve new technics...

(as usually, click the image to see with more detail)

The Ringwraith known as the Witch-King of Angmar

Just an improvisation, followed by a little ornamental work (I spent more time on it than the rest of the work)...

Black Númenórean Ranger

About the tragic fate of the Kingdom of Númenor, also called Atalantë and Akallabêth, that Tolkien narrated in the fourth part of his Quenta Silmarillion; it says that the númenóreans (known by the elves as "high men", because they descend from the Edain, the firsts men that appeared in Middle Earth) was tricked by Sauron to abandon the (true) faith of Eru Ilúvatar and the Valar, and reject the Ilúvatar "Gift of Men" (that is, short lifes and mortality); thus, his last kings (influenced by Sauron lie) started a selfdestructive race to reach immortality that finally ends with the downfall of Númenor island by Ilúvatar himself, then removed Aman and the Hall of Mandos forever from the world, and, at last, He spherized the earth, that previously was flat...

From the survivors númenoreans families that stay loyal to the Valar and Elves, starts the lineage of the Dúnedain, the founders of Gondor; and from the few infidels númenoreans that survive, a festering resentment of Elves and Valar drives them to serve Sauron in the distant Mordor. For example, the infamous herald called "Mouth of Sauron" belonged to the númenoreans.

In the illustration, a re-imagined character who I like to think that he was not fall because of hate of Ilúvatar or Sauron lies, rather, he fall because of his strong sense of loyalty and honor; and now, he roams the Ithilien forest like a brown and silver living-shadow, not serving Sauron, not serving the Free Peoples of Middle Earth, and without any possibility of redemption...

Strange Crew

A sample of the space pirate crew...

(as usually, click the image to see with more detail)

By the way, the second character from the left is the same of this entry ...

The Orc Shaman and his Merry Altar Boys

... spreading his chaotic creed everywhere they go!

(as usually, click the image to see with more detail)

Space Pirate Crew (I)

This drawings are thematically related to this entry...

The rogue and scoundrel captain of the pirate crew... 

A member of the crew... betwen the space pirate don´t exist such things like genre or species differences...

Another member of the crew... One of the particularities of this crew is the capacity to attract the most marginal people of the Seven Constellations and the External Galaxies...

To be continued...

Ming the Merciless

His Supreme Intelligence, Ming the Merciless, Emperor of Mongo

A relatively quick sketch of a personal interpretation of the character created in 1934 by Alex Raymond, for his comic strip Flash Gordon... By the way, the inspiration for the pose and composition come from a certain frame of the 1944 Eisenstein´s film, Ivan the Terrible.

The Perils of the Space Pirate

The fearsome space pirate "Spike-Beard", terror of the Seven Constellations!

(as usually, click the image to see with more detail)

The Tentacled Criature Lurks

Not exactly an illithid, but it could pass for an inhabitant of the Plateau of Leng...

(as usually, click the image to see with more detail)

Ambush (and others)

We continue with the historic and baroque themes, and also, we tread tenebrism paths...

(Click the images to see with more detail)

Characters that History will not remember (I):the assassin

(Click the image to see with more detail)

I would like to broadly develop the reasons that make interesting Seville, during the Baroque era, as a posible historical setting for a hypothetical Assassins Creed Saga videogame... In this way, we would point out the importance of the port of Seville, known as "Puerto de Indias", thanks to the seaway as alternative to trade with the most exotic and valuable products, from both America and Asia; therefore, Seville was the focus of all interests, mercantile, monetary, political and even to the poorest and most disadvantaged: everyone could find in Seville his chance - even if it was the "picaro" style: that is, cheating and stealing...

It was no wonder, because it is recognized Seville in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the "economic capital" of the very Catholic Kingdom of Spain (however, these riches were lost, first, because English and Dutch piracy, and secondly, due to wastage invested by the Spanish kings in their wars in old Europe - for his own personal glory, not for the good of his Spanish vassals, lest we forget)... 

In any case, the Counter-reformist Seville was the perfect breeding ground for bringing together all walks of life, and all kinds of adventures can germinate: We could find in the city an important headquarter for the oppressive and dangerous Inquisition or "Holy Office"; sailors of all nationalities swarmed the harbor taverns, accompanied by local payroll prostitutes, pimps and gamblers; the noble houses (such as Guzman and Ponce de León families) daily competed with each other for supremacy in the city, clashing forces in the streets, under the helpless gaze of the officers of the King; old licensed soldiers of the "Tercios de Flandes", impoverished and unemployed noblemen, looking rent their sword, if not embroiling in duels, seeking to safeguard his honor; how not to mention the brotherhood of organized criminals, known as "Germania" (mentioned by Cervantes himself) with its complex hierarchy, their secret jargon and their shady business; of course, we could find in Seville one of the professed houses of the intriguing Society of Jesus, not to mention  the Jail Pirates of the House of Trade (Casa de Contratación) and, finally, all sorts of characters as priests, monks, scholars, painters, poets, artisans and merchants of all kinds, attracted by the riches that the city promised...

As regards the secular and secret race for power between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Order of the Temple, Seville else can not provide an ideal scenario for her quarrels and intrigues, plus a wide range of historical monuments to climb and do parkour ..

(to be continued)

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto or Rōnin Robot

Back to the ideas through which we travelled, again. This time, another motifs which are very dear to us: Robots and samurai! Yeah!

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Planning the Climb or the Brotherhood in Seville (II)

Always returning to old motifs; this time, back to baroquian Seville, in a quick sketch...

By the way, the watchtower at the bottom pretend to be the relatively known "Torre del Oro", a military defense at the entrance of the city by the Guadalquivir river. It seems a logical place to be climbed by a member of the Assassins Brotherhood...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Indian elephant warrior

Between intention and execution there is an immense distance; similarly, between outcome and expectation... no more comments, ha ha ha

(Click the image to see with more detail, as ever)

The rabbi, the golem and the lilim

Honoring our blog´s name, here we bring an expanded version of an illustration that we upload a few days ago...

By the way, don´t you think that myths and beliefs of judaism have many patriarchal and heteronormative elements?

(Click the image to see with more detail)

The Mark of Fishbone!

Yep, another quick sketch with our friend cat as protagonist...

(As ever, click the image to see with more detail)

Rabbi Eliezer ben Shlomo HaLevi and his Golem

Here, the result of another couple of graphic tablet sessions...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Undersea

Done in a couple of sessions of digital painting...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

The Yeti-thing from Outer Space

He is not angry; he is hurt: he has a splinter in his foot...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Arabic Lich Wizard (again)

Yes, and yes: we like liches and the symbolism of his quest to reach inmortality and the high cost that they must to pay...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Vengeance! (from Ghost Rider comic)

I. Have. No. Time. For. Everythig.

And here it is Vengeance, from Marvel comics...

(Click the image to see with more detail)

Mummy (colored)

Just a quick color for an old ink drawing...