story sketch: without fail [update: 07-27-2011]

[meeks]

This is a sketch of warsailor Brelig's encounter with a deathfin sea monster, from Without Fail, a new Torn World story by ysabetwordsmith:

Brelig swiped his sickle toward the bleeding eyelid again -- and the deathfin grabbed him by that arm, lifting him high above the ship. The sudden shock of pain frayed his concentration. Brelig swung in the air, blood raining everywhere. Then he pulled himself upward to swing the axe into the deathfin's eye.

cleaned-up sketch:


rough sketch:

This picture is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, and may be freely used under the terms of that license with a link back to mikaspace.net Please see terms of use for details.

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linkbacks: 15

Comments

SQUEE!!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love the perspective on this! That is one evil looking sea monster.

[ariestess]

Is it wrong that I find the deathfin sea monster cute for some reason? I can't explain why I do, I just do...

If this gets to the next stage...

[(Anonymous)]

...here are a few aspects you might consider for refinement:

1)Currently, the people on deck aren't tall enough to see over the rails of the ship. I realize that many of the crew aren't "giants", but since this is one of *their* ships, the structure should account for their reduced height;

2)Also in terms of proportion, that's an awfully wide deck for a sail-powered ship. Either narrow the deck, broaden the sails (and possibly add some evidence of rigging), or some combination of the two for a more plausible wind-powered craft.

3)This last one may be something I need to take up with Elizabeth rather than you, but here goes -- my sense of what happened in reading the scene was that Brelig repeatedly struck at the same eye. If that's a correct interpretation, his position in the deathfin's mouth needs to be shifted somewhat to the left to make the already-injured eye a viable target. OTOH, Elizabeth could simply add a word or two to indicate that Brelig's last blow was directed toward the "other" or "uninjured" eye of the monster.

Other than all of that , *love* the overall composition and use of perspective. You've done a great job of capturing Brelig's dwarvish proportions!

[From Elizabeth's "my_partner_doug" on LJ, who has no Dreamwidth account]

Yay Deathfin!

[wyld_dandelyon]

I have to agree that the people on the deck are too small. Given the angle, which shows very little of the boat, fixing that could well be all you need to do to change the apparent size of the boat.

It might be cool to show one "giant" person along with the "normal sized" dwarves, assuming, of course, that there's at least one giant member of the crew in this story.

I think the main thing that I'd like to see in the finished drawing is a sense of the shininess of water, both the water in the ocean and the drops falling from the critter.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Awesome!!! Great sense of height and danger! (I wouldn't want to mess with EITHER of them.)

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

I know others have commented on the perspective. Sorry to be a repeat but it really is striking. I've been meaning to come and say something. It is exciting to see how this is unfolding. I really hope you will be submitting it.

Linked!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I posted links (to the LJ and DW pages) for this sketch on Torn World's "Works in Progress" forum, in hopes of getting more comments so it can be refined and submitted.

Superb!

[haunted-blood.livejournal.com]

I love the dimensions, the depth you get of how high the monster is. It is truly frightening! I especially like the teeth!

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

The updated sketch looks so exciting. The ship is much more detailed and so is Brelig. The deathfin has an amazing malevolent glare in its remaining eye!

[ariestess]

Oooooers... Definitely not so cute this time around. LOL! Very nicely done!

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith]

My story "Without Fail" is now up on Torn World, along with its illustration. Thanks everso for the terrific art!
http://www.tornworld.net/storypageview.php?id=284

[kelkyag]

Ooooh, looking good! The harpoon in flight and the damaged eye, especially.

[aldersprig]

That EYE! Wow, that really pops out now!

O_O

[ysabetwordsmith]

That nose-wrinkling looks amazing. Also the one good eye almost seems to glow against the shading now. You should post this update over on Torn World.

Question

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm uploading your sketches into a scrapbook on my LiveJournal, so that I'll have them all in one place for people to browse conveniently. I've got the before-and-after and detail images of "Unfolding Wings." But I realized that I forgot to save the early version of "Without Fail" -- and now I can only find the thumbnail, not the full-size of the original sketch. It would be nice to have the larger version of the sketch available from the thumbnail, because I like being able to flip back and forth to compare what changed. It's one of the cool things about your project.