Hey! So here I am, finally, with my first choice for Redux Month on Dungeons & Drawings. The Spirit Naga! You can see the old (rubbish) version here.
Something I've learned over the last couple of years is to (as a friend put it) "own my mistakes". I'd like to think I'm fairly critical of my art (like 70% of the time, anyway), and I think it's a good ability to be able to look at the things you do and dispassionately asses what you've done well or badly, and how you can improve. A big part of this that I have to really work at is the acknowledgement of the fact that sometimes I'm going to do things that fall short of my expectations! You have to be able to get over that stuff without freaking out. I used to quite often upload an image here, and then tweak bits of it and reupload it, sometimes for days on end. Nowadays I do feel more confident with my work, and I'm more content to draw a line and say "it's finished" and leave it on the blog and to hell with it.
However!
From time to time it's fun to indulge in some exercises like Redux Month, when we can look back at our past art with a collected, critical mind and see how we might do it differently now! The old Spirit Naga was a panic-upload that I didn't work on for very long - snake bodies are always hard for me to make interesting, so I just knocked it out. Here I've tried to make the design more interesting (and colourful!) whilst also invigorating the pose a bit. Hope you like it!
- Joe
PS If you're wondering, the green bracelet things are what I thought might pass for Naga jewelry. The little dangly bits are supposed to be like earrings, although as I was drawing them I thought it might be cool if they contained bells, or something that would create a disturbing jangly sound as the creature moves around.
Very nice! A huge step up from the original.
ReplyDeleteNagas are fun, I always thought they made for interesting foes.
In one campaign, I made a naga villain who had a gnome lover. He build her an item called 'Arms of the Naga' as a gift. Arms of the Naga was an item from the Savage Species handbook, which was basically a pair of construct limbs attached to a corset-type thing. When worn by a naga creature, they're able to control the limbs with mental commands, thus giving them a working pair of arms, so they could wield weapons and such.
Though for my naga it was mostly a point of vanity. With it, it meant she could wear things like robes, bangles and rings, which she did in an abundance.
That sounds awesome! sort of sweet, too. the idea of a cheerful little gnome doting on his evil snake lady wife and inventing her gifts.
DeleteDude, that's creepy! And yet... totally awesome.
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