D&D and Priestesses.

Today I show you a painting I did for my friend Jason Thompson's custom D&D class for the Dungeon Masters Guild. If you, dear reader, happen to be a huge D&D nerd like me and him, you might appreciate the rule-inventing stylings of this project.

The idea was to create a custom class evoking some of the ancient World mystic traditions; a class of characterer that negotiates with the Gods through sacrifices and rituals, in order to tap into that sweet Divine power!

To start with I figured I wanted a symmetrical composition with rigid elements and clear geometry. I tried to come up with elements that seemed to have some specific symbolism for whatever fictional cult is being represented. Here is the initial sketching with the color and value ideas layed in.

I was going for a vaguely Mesopotamian-looking setting and character. The research of that age/location does not yield quite so many results as, say, Greek or Roman classical antiquity so it harder to figure out the decorative style. On the other hand, you have a bit more leeway designing before things start looking wrong and cheesy: with a less common setting people won't notice as easily when you get something wrong ;)

I proceeded directly to full color opaque painting, but here is when I started running into problems and flailing around a little bit. There is a lot of negative space to fill in, and I struggled with those legs like crazy! It wasn't easy for me to draw and paint the figure standing perfectly square like that: it is a somewhat unnatural pose, imitating ancient sculpture, but it is also one of the reasons ancient sculpture looks stiff and iconic. I am not used to drawing symmetry in the figure, because it is much easier to make the figure look natural with an asymmetrical pose like a contrapposto or at least a drop of the shoulder: people were figuring this out later in the development of classical art.

Then I procceeded to mess with the wardrobe for a while, eventually settling for a simpler outfit than I had initially envisioned. I came to the conclusion that the Mycenean-inspired dress I was trying to go for was crowding the design too much, but you may have a different opinion.

There was a veil... but even that was removed.

Here is the finished picture. Or at least as it was used in the final product.