[Art & Warcraft Stuff] May 2023 Doodles

[jordangreywolf]

The Wonder of New (Gryphon) Life
A Wildhammer Dwarf marvels at the birth of a new gryphon hatchling.



Wrestling with an Alchemical Abomination
In the RP sessions, I think some of the players were giving the GMs fits. There are so many "murder hobos" among the regulars, but it seemed like we had a bit of a streak where the PCs (at least some of them) were trying to take prisoners. In this case, some Sundered Flame draconids were at odds with the PCs, but a dracthyr hero was sympathetic to their plight -- just not to their methods -- and tried to find nonlethal ways of subduing them. At one point, one of the enemy dracthyr took a dubious concoction that was supposed to let him (more-or-less) "hulk out," but it didn't quite work as intended. Here, the dracthyr hero tries to wrestle the abomination down. Afterward, there was a nasty argument among the PCs about what to do with the defeated foes, but this time the "take prisoners" side prevailed, as the unconscious abomination was taken to Valdrakken for treatment, to try to undo this alchemical mishap.



Unleashing the Light
I am told that this is a paladin. Anyway, to try to get a spellcasting effect, I played around with the "polar coordinates" feature in Adobe Photoshop, which let me create a linear set of "runes" and then spin them around in a circle (though the process is a bit "guess, filter, CTRL-Z to undo, shuffle things around, try again, repeat" because it's not quite clear WHERE I should have the "band" in the original image, or how to adjust the proportions to get the desired effect).



Worgen Warrior
A picture of, as you might suspect from the title, a worgen warrior. For the RP "articles," I tried to lean toward getting an illustration in of members of the group who hadn't gotten a portrait before. As in this case, this sometimes resulted in having a picture of someone who shows up for a while, disappears, and left such a small impression that I honestly can't remember a thing about this character by now.



Water Jet Attack!
A Dragon Isles duckling sidekick unleashes a water jet attack at the enemy. (In an RP scenario, the duckling's owner just finished unleashing a mega combo attack, but then the duckling ended up doing the "kill-steal" by following up with a little micro-hit that got the enemy just under 0 HP. So technically the duckling vanquished the enemy. Huzzah!)



The Great Underground Empire
(That's an obscure Zork reference, there.) A draenei explorer looks out over the vast subterranean landscape of the Zaralek Caverns underneath the Dragon Isles.

A while back, I had a brief discussion with the player of the character in question, positing where World of Warcraft might possibly go next for expansion material. Said player had predicted that there might be something underground, since some of the lore of the djaradin seemed to hint at some sort of underground empire origin, and it seemed like a natural place to expand vs. trying to cram yet another huge "island" into the crowded ocean, or mutate the shape of the coastline to add another peninsula. It wasn't too long later that it proved to be borne out on the small scale -- but now, as of this writing, much later it seems even more prescient. (Good call!)

Me, I would have voted for a whole underwater expansion, adding naga, murlocs, etc., as playable aquatic races. I felt like Nazjatar had some missed opportunities, but there's a whole lot of underwater "fatigue zone" space that could be home to some new and interesting stuff, I'm sure. Oh well.



Just a Little Bit Off the Top
A lightforged dwarf (no, that isn't normally a thing in WoW, but that's what the PC's profile said) clobbers a giant shale spider with a "death-from-above" attack with a pickaxe. Afterward, the hero took the shale spider's head (such as it is, basically a rock with a few crystal "eyes" of irregular shape and placing) as a trophy.



Fiction Chips

Fish 'n' chips, served on a copy of the fictitious "Stormwind Daily" newspaper (RP "newspaper" for events on Moon Guard server). Drawn for a weekly recipe article. "Lady Rose" was quite happy with this one, wondering how I'd managed to make the newspaper so detailed. Really, I just took a screenshot of the "paper," and chopped it up, using it as a starting point to "paint" the crumpled newsprint.



Rangari Sniper
A draenei rangari with hunting rifle and scope, sighting prey in Zaralek Cavern. This was a bit of a rush job, and I couldn't find a suitable pose reference for the life of me; it ended up fairly cartoony as a result.



Just Set It Up Over There
A goblin overseer and her mecha-duckling companion direct the crew to set up power pylons at an underground forward base in Zaralek Cavern.



Baker Elf
No, she doesn't live in a tree. (At least, I don't think so.) She's decorating a turtle cheesecake for a posh Stormwind restaurant.



Beatrix the Witch Queen
"Beatrix the Witch Queen," painted up for Digital_Rampage's custom Super Dungeon Explore board (which he built from Hirst Arts Castlemolds blocks -- I just helped with the painting). This particular "graveyard" piece is a combination card holder -- the mausoleum -- and token tracker -- the sidewalk around the graveyard. "Beatrix" rides a jack-o-lantern coach driven by two black cats. (Since they're cats, I suppose it must be very, very hard to get them to go anywhere in particular....)



Super Graveyard Explore
The ghostly minions from the "Beatrix the Witch Queen" boxed set for Super Dungeon Explore, painted up and displayed on the same "graveyard board." The "sidewalk" tiles serve as a counter track for the game, and the "bronze plates" serve as interval indicators. (The board wouldn't actually be playable in an actual game of Super Dungeon Explore.)

Digital_Rampage has proposed the idea that I should run a fantasy game (Pathfinder, or whatever) using his Super Dungeon Explore minis. I did that once with Savage Worlds for a one-shot scenario. I suppose he ought to have enough that I could run some sort of mini-campaign. The trick would just be to find pre-written adventures that just call for the monsters he actually has the minis for. (I mean, yeah, I could write something, but I get a lot more buy-in when I run a "proper" module for games like this.)



Squeak!
A purple mouse with huge ears and glowing markings shows up during a subterranean photo-safari in Zaralek Cavern. Some of the new denizens to be found in Zaralek Cavern are adorable.

Comments

[tuftears]

Great stuff as always! Though remember, May flowers bring *pilgrims*. ^.^

The spellcasting effect worked well!

I definitely know that dragon-head-tower. Aberrus, hone of Neltharion's evil experiments!

Awwww, Beatrix's cute widdle kittens! ^.^