HOME | DD

Description
In the real Victorian Era, it was surprisingly not an anachronism for the martial arts of the Far East to be learned by people on Western soil. Granted, it wasn't commonplace, but it wasn't the one-in-a-million-my-character-happened-to-have-been-raised-by-samurai-after-a-shipwreck chance that t.v., comics, video games, etc. would have led me to believe.

Okay, history lesson over.

I'm still wondering whether I should go ahead with my usual inking stage (thin black Uniball marker pen) or just leave this drawing in its present pencil-and-eraser sketch form?

Well, I figured that while I'm making up my mind, I should scan and post the pencil sketch version anyway. :-D

Mostly, I drew this because I just wanted to do the non-evil version of monologuing by telling (and now showing, too) something from the backstory of the GWSG setting. However, nobody likes reading a bunch of my long-winded text by itself when they know they should be seeing a drawing instead.

I like how this drawing communicates the GWSG backstory details at a glance, yet the drawing still rewards those who look even closer. ex. possible solutions to differences in height between an attacker and defender in WWI-style trenches. (I love the idea of using trench walls as a way to demonstrate the concept that it's rare to expect to face off against an opponent who is your own weight and height on a level ground.) Tangent: I'm taller and skinnier than most of the folks I practice aikido with, and the height differences cause several aikido moves to remain very, veeerrry frustrating for me.

Granted, yes antagonistics and Bartitsu (the literary Sherlock Holmes' Baritsu) are generally associated more with jujitsu or E.W. Barton-Wright, but I couldn't figure out a suitable way to put both karate's punch-kick-block visuals and jujitsu's unbalance-throw visuals into a single drawing while maintaining clarity of communication. So, I opted for the karate punch-kick-block visuals for this illustration rather than confuse the viewer needlessly.

Still, I got lucky that this particular composition with its design elements came to mind last night. It looks juuust Leonardo DaVinci enough to have an air of authority and steampunkishness to it, but it looks different enough to seem original. My biggest complaint is that I don't like how the little circles were supposed to be reminiscent of dashboard and pressure gauges, but instead they just look spikey and out-of-place in the overall piece.

IMO fight scenes are nearly impossible in unmoving visuals like a drawing but wondrous in motion pictures.

Still, I like how this drawing came out.

Description
In the real Victorian Era, it was surprisingly not an anachronism for the martial arts of the Far East to be learned by people on Western soil. Granted, it wasn't commonplace, but it wasn't the one-in-a-million-my-character-happened-to-have-been-raised-by-samurai-after-a-shipwreck chance that t.v., comics, video games, etc. would have led me to believe.

Okay, history lesson over.

I'm still wondering whether I should go ahead with my usual inking stage (thin black Uniball marker pen) or just leave this drawing in its present pencil-and-eraser sketch form?

Well, I figured that while I'm making up my mind, I should scan and post the pencil sketch version anyway. :-D

Mostly, I drew this because I just wanted to do the non-evil version of monologuing by telling (and now showing, too) something from the backstory of the GWSG setting. However, nobody likes reading a bunch of my long-winded text by itself when they know they should be seeing a drawing instead.

I like how this drawing communicates the GWSG backstory details at a glance, yet the drawing still rewards those who look even closer. ex. possible solutions to differences in height between an attacker and defender in WWI-style trenches. (I love the idea of using trench walls as a way to demonstrate the concept that it's rare to expect to face off against an opponent who is your own weight and height on a level ground.) Tangent: I'm taller and skinnier than most of the folks I practice aikido with, and the height differences cause several aikido moves to remain very, veeerrry frustrating for me.

Granted, yes antagonistics and Bartitsu (the literary Sherlock Holmes' Baritsu) are generally associated more with jujitsu or E.W. Barton-Wright, but I couldn't figure out a suitable way to put both karate's punch-kick-block visuals and jujitsu's unbalance-throw visuals into a single drawing while maintaining clarity of communication. So, I opted for the karate punch-kick-block visuals for this illustration rather than confuse the viewer needlessly.

Still, I got lucky that this particular composition with its design elements came to mind last night. It looks juuust Leonardo DaVinci enough to have an air of authority and steampunkishness to it, but it looks different enough to seem original. My biggest complaint is that I don't like how the little circles were supposed to be reminiscent of dashboard and pressure gauges, but instead they just look spikey and out-of-place in the overall piece.

IMO fight scenes are nearly impossible in unmoving visuals like a drawing but wondrous in motion pictures.

Still, I like how this drawing came out.