Just saw the picture of the week with the ferret worker. Don't know why, but I kept getting the image of a master seargent yelling at this guy to "suck it in." If he ever exhales, that belt will do some serious injury.
Maybe he's a new conscript for the ferret militia. ;)
As with the other topic, this one has also been somehow deleted from the site. Until the powers that be can either restore what was lost or the membership can remember what they said, I'll start the art segment again.
My first comment is to encourage members to check out the character page. It seems that the site has added the newest characters as they are introduced. Some very nicely done cameos.
As I commented in "the story to date", the forum pages here have become seriously sick. Joe, who's in charge of making things run right, has been out of town but is due back today. As far as I can tell, forum history is being wiped out every night. I suspect that some toggle got set wrong or something, telling the forum program to get rid of older messages. Joe will know. I hope.
Fashions change. Just as bell bottoms and afros have come and gone and come again, Ferret utility belts have undergone changes over the years. As for comfort, I am s-o-o-o glad girdles are no longer required for women like myself. :ph34r:
That "creature" from the dungeon maze was quite fearsome. Reminded me of some wolf or heavy set dog, such as a husky or rottweilder. Just on a sidenote, since the strip missed a week, will there be two to catch-up? (hedgehog on knees hoping the answer is yes.)
Nope, only one strip this week.
Have seen our guest artist work on her website, (thanks for the link), and am most impressed. Do think she follows a different style with her characters as their feet are more "human" than those in the strip. Too bad she doesn't do commissions.
Okay, I have an official request that for ITE2, you use the concept art for the forest king's hall. That would look incredible with today's graphics (heck, even graphics from one of the older Myst games would've done it good).
Just got a look at the "Harem Girl" artwork. Now that is what I call an exotic attire. I do notice that the feet seemed more anatomically human. The swirling dress must be hiding the tail, or the old hedgehog's eyes cannot spot it in this picture. Think the lady having the long and floppy style for her ears gives this a stronger other world feeling. A very good picture.
I am curious about the character sketches. Was wondering if you intend updating this page whenever another character is introduced, such as the harem lady, Annabelle. Also thought that the cameo of Sandy should be redone. It seems too washed out colorwise and ill-defined in that it looks moldy. Of the ones given, his is one I would think should be better since he appears to be a major character.
Am sure somebody is going to comment about this being the third successive posting, but nobody else is commenting.
The drawing of Annabelle must be an old one and one submitted by fax. It is quite poor in quality, though it is detailed enough that had anyone wanted to expand on this character they could do so easily thanks to this concept picture.
Noticed some definite improvements between the concept drawing and the one used in the strip. The concept drawing has her butt thrown behind her, based on the drawing. Reminds me of the style of the antibellum southern lady, who looked like they too were not standing erect. The cottonball tail is downplayed in the current strip and the hairstyle is neater, both improvements over the concept drawing.
My first impression of the concept drawing was "dumb dog" and "dumb blond bimbo." The comic has elevated her to regal lady and intelligent. A little snooty, but expected with royalty.
Sorry about the silence. Trying to catch up on my work backlog after taking several out of town trips in a row.
Yes, Annabelle is one sharp cookie. In my opinion, all three harem dogs are smarter than you'd think just by looking at them. The dog tribe is highly political, and getting the plum positions requires a little savvy.
I tend to think of Zsa Zsa Gabor when I draw Annabelle. Exotic, graceful, snooty.
>>Also thought that the cameo of Sandy should be redone. It seems too washed out colorwise and ill-defined in that it looks moldy.
I have been planning to re-do Sandy's cameo for a long time, though for different reasons. (On my computer he doesn't look washed out). I did the cameo at the same time as his first appearance, and by his 3rd appearance his color pattern had changed. My old computer had died at that point, and I lost the original Sandy studies.
At some point I will have caught up with my other things and will be able to update the oldest cameos. Thanks for the input!
Yes, Heidi's Annabelle sketch is a scan from a fax.
Allison, I do have a copy of the PDF with Sandy's portrait. I will email it to you.
The picture today of the dog castle does intrigue me. If it is approachable from two directions, doesn't that make the place too vulnerable to attack? Could see the castle overlooking the only road, but as described, the castle appears to be a fortified tollbooth.
The original plan was for the castle to guard one side of a natural land bridge over a deep gorge or valley. Later this was changed to a castle guarding a pass through the mountains. Maybe when the castle was changed to be mostly stone additions to a human ruin, the "castle near a gorge" idea didn't quite make sense.
I know these pictures of the dog castle are "conceptual," but did anyone notice the variences between the second and third frames?
The second frame has several characters depicted, one with a very snooty attitude that would rival the one in the story. Second, the floor is unpolished as there is no reflective quality. Third, the doors along the side are solid, and finally, there is no framing on the windows behind the throne.
In the third frame, the "doors" are now fabric, there are no characters, the flooring is marble and the windows have detailed frames. And least I forget it, there are no characters in that frame.
One reason I noted this is because we are given the perception of the room on the ruler's left paw. Wonder whatever happened to the decor on the right side.
Don't get me wrong. I thought the pictures great conceptuals.
After seeing the artwork for Friday, October 20, 2006, I understand how a deer functions. If you remember, I asked how a hoof could become as dexterious as fingers. Now I know. The "feet" remain cloven while the "hands" have been modified to match human norms.
Saw the picture for Novemberr 3, 2006. I thougth your caption and comparison to the Reverand Mother of the Dune series almost comical. My own thought was more as a cross between "Kung Fu" and "Xena." Take a closer look at the artwork. That is no happy expression and those paws, (hands), are held in a martial arts defensive position. In this concept picture, I think villan rather than spiritual leader. Glad the final version softened the perception.
Elara the Reverend Mother is probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life! Why wasn't it posted for Halloween? XD
A few artists always drew the characters like they were just about to beat you with a stick.
Considering Elara's situation in the game, maybe she was to that point. If no answers are forthcoming, beat them out of something.
Just got to see the "cave art" for December 22, 2006. Think I died laughing at that picture. It looks like it came right out of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galexy." Unless the old hedgehog has a poor memory, that book had the dolphins "rescued" by flying saucers and when they left, they were quoted as saying "and thanks for all the fish."
The storyboard of the wildcat village may have had the cats "treed" for a specific purpose. From that vantage point, they could see everyone within the village and everyone who approaches. Can you say "sentries?" I knew you could. (Sorry about that Mister Roger.)
It does seem illogical for the wildcats to band together. By nature, cats are solitary. Think the only cat that isn't would be the African Lion. Even families don't stay in the same proximity. Must be an effect of the morphing.
Hedgehog will now try not examining the logic and remind self this is a comic.
Many cat species are solitary, some are social. They run the whole gamut. I saw a documentary once on semi-wild barn cats, and was surprised to discover they had a well developed social heirarchy without any help from humans. I wonder if we would have been able to domesticate the ancestors of house-cats at all if they didn't already have a bit of a social gene. Seems to me the more solitary the type, the less "tamable" they are.
My spin on the story would be that any animal morphed by the hand of man would have had a social gene inserted so that they would be easier to manage in the lab. Or for some other mysterious purpose that humans took with them when they dissappeared.
The cats on the limbs may have have been there for scene scale purposes. A mundane alternative, I know.
Okay, what gives? In the strip for the week of 6/11, Sandy has been changed. In earlier shots, he is bulkier. He looks powerful. In this strip where he argues with Rif, he looks more like a child, puny and weak.
That's how the artist feels. Puny and weak. She has a reeally bad cold.
Today's picture of the Boar King's home isn't exactly the most inviting exterior. How many noticed the piked skulls scattered about the exterior. As for the middle frame and its mud pool, it's in character, but those gargoyales are horrors. Somehow, I would think the king would have carvings of some lower servant pouring the water, not what could be interprited as a fierce warrior's expression.
The boars like to think of themselves as fierce, hardened warriors to be feared. Perhaps of late they have grown a little soft.
Saw the picture of the female wildcat for August 24, 2007. If it were allowed, I would dress that cat in a uniform and have her picture labled "Purrnella." She was one very cruel and sadistic wildcat in a fan fiction story I did on another site. Hedgehog is so green with envy of the talented artist.
It has been a while since I posted, so the doubling is allowed. (I hope)
Must be at your end, but I'm not seeing any horizontal line that interrupts the picture posted on December 21. The Roswell style is interesting, yet realistic for an animal culture. As to what everyone is doing, I have a feeling it was a training class and whatever command was given, all the Morphs gave a proper response, which caused great joy. As to the turtle, I like to think of him as already trained and his duty was delivering mail. (Note the object in his paw.) Yeah, I'm seeing too much in a simple cartoon.
Heheh. "Carrier Turtle."
Mmmmm....I'm not so sure... I don't like the Gray-ness of the Humans, seeing as the Grays are real occultic figures. I wouldn't like my race to be associated to them in that way.
As I mentioned on the page (http://www.inherittheearth.net/illus/gprice-instruction.html), I think the turtle was afterthought. The artist noticed that it looked like all the characters were holding their hands up like they were being robbed, so he added a turtle holding a gun. -_-
:lol:
I never even noticed that...
This week has had some big changes in the art work. The first was the classic picture. That was a most helpful board for those wishing to do any drawing or fan fiction as it gives the relationship of size with the known morph species. Though slight variences can be made in those, it is a helpful guide.
The second big art item was the revamping of the character page. Am now convinced it must be my monitor, but Sandy's fur coloration still appears to be a moldy greenish tone. Still, a nice improvement over the earlier page, though that is no slight to whomever did those. I just found their shading too dark.
Sandy was standing under fluorescent lights when he had his picture taken.
A little mistake in the description of the classic sketch of the week, isn'it ?
Top row : the third character is not Shiala the she-wolf, but seems to be an huntress of the wildcats tribe.
Anyway, it's a very interesting picture.
Whoops. Fixed.
Just curious as to why no classic since the first of the month. Always looking forward to those.
Just got a look at the updated classic page. Think it is an improvement over the long line of thumbprints (I think that's the term) earlier. Indexing them by subject matter and by artist will make searching through them a lot easier. May I also suggest an index by date as some might want to know which ones were added since their last visit. (Just an idea for the old suggestion box.)
The last 5 added sketches are shown at the top. Is that not sufficient?
Quote from: WyrmMaster on Apr 11, 2008, 11:08 AM
The last 5 added sketches are shown at the top. Is that not sufficient?
Bad me; didn't notice that.
Just saw the artwork for June 13, 2008. Just one comment: Hey Allester, I think I found your character a new mate.
Serious though, the picture shows a female who is sure of herself. Would make an interesting character for the current story. Can you imagine what would happen to Rif if she say Sandy and her maternal instincts kicked into high gear? Think Xenia as she is kicking butt.
If this is a character from the game, could somebody give a quick bio?
Urgh...
http://www.inherittheearth.net/illus/illus.php?id=elacabanne-pals (http://www.inherittheearth.net/illus/illus.php?id=elacabanne-pals)
Eish. I can almost smell Kylas' breath, there. Looks like Rif ain't enjoying it much... or is he just bored to tears? -_-
Also, how come the Mouse is larger than the Fox? :huh: ^_^
This Kylas/Rif sketch was before the final relative sizes of the characters had been finalized.
OK, ja... figures...
(extremely mild pun... :rolleyes: )
(https://wyrmkeep.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inherittheearth.net%2Fillus%2Felacabanne-storyboard17-480.jpg&hash=29611db4afa10da4b8a33c8d0ee46687ff62c95d)
Okay, so... the bottom two look highly familiar, sans a rock here and there. But the top one: was that going to be the stream with the catnip? The flower is pretty conspicuous, in fact to me looks like it was intended to be an active object - I may be wrong though.
PS. Sheesh I haven't posted here in ages, and my message is still the most recent? How many people know of this place, anyway? Maybe once I have my gift-art queue out of the way, I should make/draw ItE fan art and put it on dA, try and get a few people interested and so forth. It won't help anyone if only like 3 people would know of/want the sequel to the game, things will never get anywhere at this rate
I think the flower was just the fancy of the artist.
By all means, post some art! We encourage artistic input from fans. Always have. When we created the original game we went looking for interested fan artists to contribute sketch ideas, and we're still doing so.
The sequel has run into some technical difficulties at the moment, and since we have a shoestring budget, they will take some time to iron out. There is interest out there, though. More interest when we get the thing rolling, I'm sure.
The most recent picture, the fox family, has some interesting things to note.
Starting with the female, notice how her feet are more "human." There is a flatness to them other morphs haven't displayed. There are no fasteners for the footware, which reminds me of slippers. Nice pierced earings. The tail pulled to the front seems unnatural, but might have been done because of picture spacing rather than any show of subserviance.
Though the male doesn't display a tail in this picture, it can be assumed to be behind him. (Yeah, bad joke possible, but I'll avoid.) If the object in the lower middle, (male's right foot), is a shoe, it has to be the clunkiest shoe I have seen. It also seems out of proportions with the character itself. I also found the hat comical and at the same time morph specific. Comical because it reminded me of something one would find in the 1920's or 1930's, and morph specific as it seems to be fashioned to fit between the ears and not over them. Practical for a species relying on its sense of hearing and can swivil its ears as a way of focusing on sounds.
As for the young pup, the thing I found the most interesting is his lack of footwear. Like other morphs pictured, this one balances on the balls of his feet. I also noted the more basic look to his attire, pants only with a drawstring belting system. He fits the times of the comic strip best of the three pictured.
Overall, this is a nice picture and possibly one of the best I have seen to date.
Quote from: cairn destop on Jan 31, 2009, 08:13 AM
Though the male doesn't display a tail in this picture, it can be assumed to be behind him. (Yeah, bad joke possible, but I'll avoid.) If the object in the lower middle, (male's right foot), is a shoe, it has to be the clunkiest shoe I have seen. It also seems out of proportions with the character itself.
What you have tentatively identified as the male's foot is actually his tail His feet aren't shown at all.
Ed Lacabanne was one of the earliest, regular concept artists on the project. As such, he drew a lot of pictures on a variety of subjects as inspiration to the designers.
The latest picture of Scorry has me thinking the concept artist preferred the "human" look. Note how the feet are flat. The expression is excellent. You can almost see a smug attitude. Though I liked the pictures of Scorry in the strip, I do believe this artist captured his personality a lot better.
If it were not for the tail, I could almost picture this guy as a beaver. Even the pencil behind the ear lends that intelligencia air.
And it just hit me. With all morphs walking on the balls of their feet, either the shoes cover only half the foot, or they would be like high heels. I can here the female readers yelling vengence on all the male characters forced to wear them.
The notes on today's picture had me laughing. So the character had a sex change between the time of the concept art and the final product. Reminded me of my NaNoWriMo effort from 2003. In that story I kept changing the characters species as well as their sexual orientation.
Glad to see a new picture up there. Can see the artist made a great effort at retaining as much of the base animal characteristics as possible in the concept art. Which has me asking a not so simple question: If there are several characters of one species, how did you differentiate between them without making the variences too stark?
Differentiating characters of the same species can be tricky. The most obvious way to differentiate them is by clothing. Another way is to boost some secondary characteristics, like a broader shoulders, shorter legs, a fuller ruff. Coloration can help too, in a subtle way. Notice that besides Rif and Rhene having gender differences, Rhene has more extended dark points. Rif has a broader head and smaller eyes.
Today's pictures are interesting, but I found two of them would not be viable weapons. The one on the lower left (as viewed by the reader) has a spike at the top of the handle. That weapon might be useable, but would require a grip that is designed for whichever hand/paw is dominant. The weapon on the right is more a danger to its user with that one spike in the middle of the grip. It wouldn't allow much room for dexterity.
The only one I found practicle is the top middle. It looks like a modified calvary saber, though I still wonder if those spikes would prove more an irritant.
Of course zap sticks have little value as a weapon unless there is a large surface area for its use. If only the tip is charged, it proves useless against a real weapon unless, like Sandy, it is used without the victim knowing or on an unarmed opponent.
A zap stick (or in our world, a stun gun) can be quite an effective weapon against unarmed civilians. Pain or incapacitation is a great motivator for obedience. Of course, in a war situation the effectiveness may be diminished by the motivation and numbers of the enemy, as well as presence of their own weapons.
Joe, do you remember if any of the morph have discovered ballistic weapons? I don't recall any. Once they come on the scene, the balance of power becomes skewed very quickly.
Do you mean bow and arrows? At least the Elks have bow and arrows (http://inherittheearth.net/illus/illus.php?id=aaustin-cover), although I should note that no Elk in the game has a bow!
Zap-sticks are human artifacts and were designed for non-lethal control of individuals and small crowds. Not necessarily other humans (hint, hint).
The bow and arrow would fit the period. There must be balistic weapons, otherwise a castle makes no sense. You cannot repel attackers until they actually scaled your walls.
Liked the hint referring to the zap sticks.
As I recall, medieval castles were effective *until* there were ballistic weapons. They worked fine against bows and arrows, and could (if well fortified) stand a good long time against catapults, but canon could be fired long distances, and could put holes in the walls.
I don't think any Morphs have re-invented catapults. The only Morphs with the information to make a catapult are the Rats and the Ferrets, neither of which have any incentive to do so -_-
I would agree. Based on what has been shown in the comic strip, this would be the early part of the feudal era. Remember the first strip referred to the fact that the morphs had just exited a dark age. This makes the castle a viable defense as there is no cannon. As to seige engines, those might be known to the rats. However, as MyrmMaster said, they have no incentive.
Of course the problem with comparing our exit from the dark age to that of the characters in this strip is the "human element." The discovery of human artifacts can affect the morph's development. Anyone recall my story regarding Sandy?
I noticed the note about drawing crowd scenes. Can understand your concern.
Maybe it wasn't intended, but having the pitchfork overlap the middle panel did cause me to laugh. Note where the one tine is pointed. (second from the left as you face the picture or the third from the right from the ram's POV)
Can you say "ouch" with a high enough pitch?
Good thing the rules of perspective puts the pitchfork many feet in front, safe from poking anything. ;)
As you can tell from how long this topic has remained dormant, it has been a long time since the classic artwork has been changed.
And now?
XD
I've mostly run out of classic artwork. I'm not likely to post anything new until the strip gets running again.
Ah, OK ^.^
Just y'all make sure to put ItE2 out soon. Because we can, yanno, buy it, and you can get, yanno, paid. :P
Yes, I know this topic has been dormant ,aka dead, for a long time. Seems only appropriate to bring it to the forefront now that more classic artwork is being released. Anyone care to comment on the latest works?
I like it.
There are 8 more pieces from the original manual left to post.
Quote from: WyrmMaster on Aug 10, 2017, 01:27 PM
There are 8 more pieces from the original manual left to post.
Sad to know that. So few pictures remaining.
I would love to be able to order a print of the Halloween 2020 strip to hang on my wall. That's just an awesome pic.
Let me look into that. How size print would you want?
Probably around 11x17 to preserve the rectangualr aspect ratio.
Quote from: WyrmMaster on Dec 16, 2020, 09:26 PM
Let me look into that. How size print would you want?
I know that ITE2 is in limbo due to a funds shortage. Selling prints like this might help bring in some funds since the artwork is already done. Anything over and above the cost of actually creating the print could be funneled into game development. A post on the Patreon account would likely get some initial attention and hopefully people will spread the word from their via their own social media accounts.
Another great holiday panel. :)