# Jabrosky's Crimes Against Fantasy Art



## Jabrosky (Jul 30, 2012)

All of these come from my DeviantArt page which I link to in my sig. I'll start with three of my most recent submissions, all colored with Prismacolor pencils.






Portrait of a Nordic/Celtic guy






Portrait of an African queen






This structure is meant to be a facade for a religious building and combines architectural elements from ancient Egyptian pylons and sub-Saharan African huts






This female character has a roughly Egyptian cultural inspiration


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## Ireth (Jul 30, 2012)

Crimes, say you? Lies, say I. I love all of these. Great stuff!


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## Jabrosky (Jul 30, 2012)

Ireth said:


> Crimes, say you? Lies, say I. I love all of these. Great stuff!


Thank you, though the title's meant to be facetious.






The architecture here has a West African, especially Malian, inspiration






Tyrannosaurus rex






Velociraptor






Woman from the "legendary" lost continent of Lemuria. Her design drew from Indian, New Guinean, and Australian aboriginal sources.

BTW, the last three pics were colored in GIMP.


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## Black Dragon (Jul 30, 2012)

The verdict is in...

Jabrosky has been tried and found guilty of being very, very talented.

Off to the gallows!


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## Ireth (Jul 30, 2012)

Black Dragon said:


> Off to the gallows!



Don't you mean the galleries? XD


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## Reaver (Jul 31, 2012)

Very, very nice artwork.


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## Zero Angel (Jul 31, 2012)

I really liked the first "African queen" image and I think that all of your architecture has a very crisp, clean look that looks great for concept art or design work.


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## Philip Overby (Jul 31, 2012)

Very good stuff.  How do you make them? Some look hand drawn and others look possibly digital? Either way, they all look cool.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 31, 2012)

Zero Angel said:


> I really liked the first "African queen" image and I think that all of your architecture has a very crisp, clean look that looks great for concept art or design work.


As a matter of act, a lot of my art functions to illustrate character, creature, or setting concepts.


Phil the Drill said:


> Very good stuff.  How do you make them? Some look hand drawn and others look possibly digital? Either way, they all look cool.


Actually all of them are hand-drawn, though I colored some digitally in GIMP after scanning them in. Honestly, I find drawing with a mouse or tablet awkward.


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## SlimShady (Jul 31, 2012)

These are all fantastic.  I especially like the characters.


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## Clhellums (Aug 3, 2012)

Very nice work!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 3, 2012)

Nzinga the Jungle Girl

                         Originally created for  roleplaying on a message board a few years back, Nzinga has been an  on-and-off character for me. Her basic archetype is that of the  dinosaur-fighting jungle woman in the tradition of Marvel's Shanna the  She-Devil. I would really like to write a story for her someday so that  she may have a life beyond my artwork.

The funky bronze object  Nzinga holds in her left hand is a throwing knife with a design  influenced by those used in Central Africa.


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## SlimShady (Aug 7, 2012)

Looking good.  Although the green bra kind of looks out of place next to the leopard skin ones.  Other than she looks pretty sweet.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 10, 2012)

Leaders from three fantasy cultures I have designed:






*
The Northfolk (left):* They are a blond-haired, blue-eyed, stockily built    white race of hunter-gatherers who live in the world's cold northerly  forests   and tundras. They have an animistic religion which reveres  nature   (thunder is their most important deity), beautiful cave art,  and   democratically elected chieftains. Although the Northfolk  frequently   fight each other, their wars are small in scale and  function essentially   as young men's sports, with women and children  rarely being molested.   Swords and axes are their favorite combat  weapons even though bows are   preferred for hunting; no horses or other  mountable animals are used. Northmen customarily decorate their faces  with blue woad paint when preparing for battle.

*The Valerian Empire (middle):* The olive-skinned, dark-haired Valerians  build most of their cities  along rivers or  the coast as their homeland  is dry and rocky, and their  economy depends  heavily on commerce and  slavery. These stringent  monotheists believe  they are their god Deus's  chosen people, giving them  racial and  cultural superiority over the  rest of the world.  Consequently the  Valerians are very aggressive and  expansionist, and  they have few  qualms about exterminating any people  who resist their  imperialism.  They even amuse themselves by watching  slaves fight each  other and wild  beasts in the arena! In theory the  Valerian Senate keeps  the monarchic  Emperor's power in check, but  since the Senators are  almost invariably  land-hungry patricians, their  interests often coincide  with the  Emperor's anyway. The Valerian  military legions are dominated  by  heavily armored infantry; archers  and other ranged fighters are  spurned  as cowardly. On a more positive  note, the Valerian Empire is  renown  for its grand marble architecture  and aqueduct system.

*The Kingdom of Kametu (right):* These black-skinned, woolly-haired people  plant their farms and herd their  domesticated buffaloes on  fertile  riverside floodplains bisecting a  savanna. Other facets of the   Kametian economy include mining gold and  gems (they liberally decorate   themselves with jewelry), quarrying  stone, and hunting wild animals  for  skins, ivory, feathers, and  delicacies. Most Kametian buildings  are  mudbrick, but they are famous  for their colorfully emblazoned  limestone  temples and royal tombs. The  Kametians believe their rulers,  who can be  either male or female, are  descended from the Supreme  Being whom they  associate with the Sun.  Rulers are expected to govern  benevolently and  summon the rains every  year in exchange for grand  burials and their  people's piety. Most  Kametian soldiers wear little  armor other than hide  shields, as  mobility is more important to their  battle tactics than  brute strength,  but the Kametian army boasts of  its zebra chariots and  war elephants.


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## SlimShady (Aug 11, 2012)

Very good.  I particularly like the Northfolk leader and the Kametu one.  Although, the Valerian leader seems rather thin and frail.  Was the thin and frail look intentional?  If not, it kind of makes the Valerian look more womanly.  His proportions are rather close to the Kametu leader.  Although, maybe you were just making the Kametu woman more masculine?  Regardless, I do like all three of them.  Especially the smug look on the Valerian one.  

  I also like the background you have given us on all three civilizations, it really gives you a feel for the artwork.  Good work!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 11, 2012)

SlimShady said:


> Very good.  I particularly like the Northfolk leader and the Kametu one.  Although, the Valerian leader seems rather thin and frail.  Was the thin and frail look intentional?  If not, it kind of makes the Valerian look more womanly.  His proportions are rather close to the Kametu leader.  Although, maybe you were just making the Kametu woman more masculine?


The Valerians have a shorter stature than the other two races (with the Northfolk being big and stocky and the Kametu tall and lean), so yes, the frail look is intentional.


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## SlimShady (Aug 11, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> The Valerians have a shorter stature than the other two races (with the Northfolk being big and stocky and the Kametu tall and lean), so yes, the frail look is intentional.



  I thought so.  Your artwork definitely matches your descriptions.  Looking forward to more updates.


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## Endymion (Aug 12, 2012)

The Northfolk leader is especially cool. Nice work!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 20, 2012)

Pharaoh Sekhmethotep (not a real Egyptian Pharaoh, but she was the heroine of a story I started writing but ended up scrapping a couple of years ago)


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## SlimShady (Aug 20, 2012)

Very nice.  Probably one of your best so far.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 22, 2012)

Uncolored Line art for a redesign of my dinosaur-fighting jungle girl character Nzinga

                         With a Malian  anthropologist for a father and an African-American physicist for a  mother, Nzinga Keita always had an interest in the sciences, with her favorite  discipline by far being paleontology. Her academic aspirations were  permanently shattered at age 16 when testing out her mother's recently  invented time travel device, which malfunctioned and accidentally sent  her back to the Cretaceous Period---the time of dinosaurs much more  lively than she expected to study. In the ten years that have passed  since then, Nzinga has successfully adapted to life in the jungle, even  taming a Dromaeosaurus whom she named Ochosi as a hunting aide (he's not  shown here, but Dromaeosaurus is a more heavily built cousin of  Velociraptor). However, her solitary existence may near its end when  colonists from the distant future decide to settle her new home...

I  originally conceived of Nzinga as being a pseudo-African tribeswoman  native to a fantasy jungle land, but I ended up liking the idea of her  as a modern-day African-American woman stranded in our Mesozoic Era a  lot more. Think of her now as a black female equivalent to Tarzan or  Shanna the She-Devil. However, the story I'm plotting for her has  elements of the recently aired but short-lived and somewhat  disappointing sci-fi drama _Terra Nova_ insofar as it may feature futuristic colonists settling in prehistoric times.

In case you're curious, that knife Nzinga's holding was made from a T. Rex tooth.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 30, 2012)

Pharaoh Sekhmethotep as a concubine for a Persian prince

Sekhmethotep was once the proud Pharaoh of Egypt, but once she lost the  battle to save her kingdom from a Persian invasion, the Persian Shah  gave her to one of his sons as a concubine. Now she must fight her way  back to freedom and win her country back from the clutches of the mighty  Persian Empire...

The outfit Sekhmethotep wears here is obviously _not_  authentic ancient Egyptian dress but rather a Persian imposition on her  when they turn her into a concubine. In my story, the Persians regard  Egypt more or less as we Westerners tend to regard the Congo today,  namely as the epitome of Darkest Africa.  The Persians thus stereotype the Egyptians as exotic savages who  worship animals and live in a dark and misty marshland. Additionally the  Persian men tend to fetishize a certain aspect of Sekhmethotep's  anatomy that you can't see in this perspective, but suffice to say they  notice it when looking at her from behind...

Although  the Persians really did concur Egypt a couple of times, Sekhmethotep  and everyone else in her story are completely fictional. Furthermore,  the story itself lies more in the realm of fantasy (or possibly  alternative history) than proper historical fiction. With this in mind  I'm not fanatically devoted to historical accuracy as I write the first  draft; I can always edit it in later.


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## squishybug87 (Aug 31, 2012)

You're very talented. All of these are very good.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 6, 2012)

At first this looks like  yet another African queen concept, but this time I've put more thought  into her culture and design than her predecessors. She is the theocratic  matriarch of a civilization which worships the Sun as their singular  deity. As her title "Daughter of the Sun" implies, she is considered the  Sun's earthly descendent who will reunite with her "Mother" after she  passes away. Among the Daughter of the Sun's most important  responsibilities is to summon the rains season every year, but in  addition to her spiritual and political role she also leads the warriors  into battle. For this reason every future Daughter of the Sun must  undergo rigorous training in the martial arts from a young age. Ideally  the Daughter of the Sun rules her people with compassion and upholds  justice for all her subjects.

Since the Sun People have always  conceived of their deity as female, the Daughter of the Sun has  traditionally been a woman's role, with her husband simply a consort who  helps produce and raise her children. Although theoretically any man  the Daughter fancies can marry her, in practice consorts have tended to  come from the nobility or administrative bureaucracy (e.g. scribes,  viziers, and high priests).


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## Jabrosky (Sep 8, 2012)

This is my visual representation of evil. If you're Christian, you could call this a depiction of Satan.

Most  artists have tended to represent evil as monstrous or seductive, but I  for one believe that the scariest and most effective villains are the  ones who _don't_ give off any such ostensible signs of their  evilness but instead masquerade as good. They're the people who trick  you into sympathizing with their cause and so can accomplish more than  villains who flaunt their wickedness for everyone to see. To name only  one example, they may be power-hungry politicians who give lip service  to ideals like liberty, equality, or law and order. For this reason I  decided to represent evil as a cute, chibi-looking purple fairy.  Although the purple skin color and lack of facial features was intended  to make her ethnically nondescript, I made evil feminine to play with  the chivalric stereotype of women as naturally nurturing and innocent (a  stereotype which has ironically served to justify patriarchy that kept  women in the home with the kids).


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## SlimShady (Sep 8, 2012)

Haven't checked this thread out in a while.  Lots of awesome work on here!  Although, I'm not sure about the evil purple fairy.  It just doesn't look all that unique to be honest, although I do like your idea of making them evil.


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## Ireth (Sep 8, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> I made evil feminine to play with  the chivalric stereotype of women as naturally nurturing and innocent (a  stereotype which has ironically served to justify patriarchy that kept  women in the home with the kids).



Evil has been depicted as feminine for a long, long time. Eve in the Garden is the archetypal example, of course. Also there's Delilah (as in Samson and Delilah), Jezebel, Lilith... etc.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 8, 2012)

SlimShady said:


> Haven't checked this thread out in a while.  Lots of awesome work on here!  Although, I'm not sure about the evil purple fairy.  It just doesn't look all that unique to be honest, although I do like your idea of making them evil.


Honestly, in retrospect she does have a bland design, doesn't she?


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## Jabrosky (Sep 18, 2012)

Grayscale ref sheet for Garbhan (originally named Gareth), the leading man from an old story I've decided to rewrite.

Garbhan's  people, the Daoine, are a race of red-haired white people who live as  hunter-gatherers in the frigid land they call Daoinetir. As the glaciers  of the Far North continue to submerge their homeland, the Daoine must  migrate southward to warmer, more hospitable climes. Garbhan himself is a  strong and brave man who aspires to become his clan's best hunter and  warrior, but his social aloofness and impulsive personality have  alienated him from his peers. He desires more than anything else in the  world to win his clan's acceptance.

If you're curious, Garbhan is an Irish name, and "Daoine" is Gaelic for human beings.


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## Ireth (Sep 21, 2012)

I like the Gaelic flavor of these guys, but then again I'm biased, being of Scottish descent myself. ^^



> "Daoine" is Gaelic for human beings.



Have to disagree with you there. Daoine simply means "people" of any particular kind, not "humans". Daoine Sidhe = People of the Hills, a name for the Fae.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 21, 2012)

Ireth said:


> Have to disagree with you there. Daoine simply means "people" of any particular kind, not "humans". Daoine Sidhe = People of the Hills, a name for the Fae.


Sorry, my memory failed me. Thanks for the correction!


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## Holland (Oct 7, 2012)

Awesome! African Fantasy Project! Hope to read more about your world as your development.

cheers


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## Jabrosky (Oct 16, 2012)

Pharaoh Asethotep of Kametu, a possible protagonist for my NaNoWriMo 2012 project:






Asethotep with her crown:


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## Jabrosky (Oct 17, 2012)

A Romanesque warrior attempts to go all Antony over my Pharaoh character, but she is not amused.


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## Gurkhal (Oct 17, 2012)

I must say that this is some very nice work. I hope we'll be able to see even more of it in the near future.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 18, 2012)

More Asethotep:





Here she kneels in prayer, holding a bowl of offerings for her divine ancestors.  In Kametian culture, the role of Pharaoh is every bit as religious as  it is political, for Pharaohs are regarded as descendents of the Sun  Herself. Whenever a Pharaoh dies, her spirit ascends to the heavens as a  fully fledged deity whom her descendents venerate the way most lay  Kametians venerate their own ancestors' spirits. Of all the numerous  spiritual entities populating the Kametian pantheon, few have more  personal significance for Asethotep than her mother and predecessor  Woserit, from whom she regularly seeks consolation.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 18, 2012)

This character's name is Dyese, and her idea of a delicacy is BBQ'd Velociraptor


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## Jabrosky (Oct 19, 2012)

Sexy Asethotep is sexy


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## Jabrosky (Oct 19, 2012)

Dyese colored






Pyramids are copyrighted


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## Zero Angel (Oct 20, 2012)

Jabrosky said:


> Pyramids are copyrighted



I think it would be patents in this case, but this was amusing anyway.


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## Gurkhal (Oct 21, 2012)

Good stuff, and I particular like the copyright strip - brillient!


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## Jabrosky (Oct 24, 2012)

Machete design that draws on Central African designs (especially the hilt). Inspired by Anders' sword design thread.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 24, 2012)

Mukondi (formerly Dyese) hunts in the jungle. It looks like she'll bring home some big drumsticks tonight!

I'm  relatively proud of how her pose came out here, though in hindsight I  could have cluttered up the jungle with more vegetation. I probably  spent much more time on this drawing than usual, since I had to  experiment with a new pose _and_ a background.

For you  paleontologically inclined viewers out there, the dinosaur Mukondi's  preparing to shoot is an Ornithomimus. Ornithomimus was a smaller  relative of Gallimimus, the ostrich-like dinosaurs which stampeded in _Jurassic Park_.

To be colored


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## Zero Angel (Oct 24, 2012)

I like your ornithomimus the best of everything I've seen from you so far (that I can remember). Cool!


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## Jabrosky (Oct 25, 2012)

Thank you, but truthfully I rather rushed the Ornithomimus.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 25, 2012)

Shaded version of Mukondi's hunting the Ornithomimus


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## Jabrosky (Oct 25, 2012)

Poolside Chillin'

                         Her Majesty the Pharaoh  dips her legs into her backyard pool, ready to cool off from the hot  desert sun. Obviously ancient Egypt inspired the big temple pylon in the  far background, but the wall behind our heroine actually draws from  Malian architecture in West Africa. Also, this is probably the first  time I've drawn someone dipping into water.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 26, 2012)

Poolside Chillin' Shaded


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## Jabrosky (Oct 26, 2012)

Conan in Kush

                         Conan the Cimmerian admires a scenic view of the desert from atop an ancient Kushite colossus.

A  lot of Hyborian-themed media featuring the Kushites (e.g. the recent  Conan video game) depicts them as stereotypical African tribespeople  living in grass huts in a savanna. I wanted to present a contrary,  civilized vision of Hyborian Kush that more closely resembled its  historical Nubian inspiration. The statue he's standing on is based on  the Egyptian Abu Simbel whereas the pyramids in the background are  derived from the steep-sided ones in Nubia.

Conan's dress here  differs from the brown loincloth he usually dons in fan art, but in the  original Howard stories he generally adopts the local outfits and  weaponry in the various countries he visits. In hindsight I probably  should have given him _more_ clothes to protect his fair skin from the burning southern sun.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 1, 2012)

This is more historical than strictly fantasy, but since some of us at Mythic Scribes specialize in ancient history, this might interest them:






Julius Caesar with Cleopatra VII. I rather like how Cleopatra's...uh, assets came out here.


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## imsc (Nov 19, 2012)

good work.  very inspirational.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 19, 2012)

This concept art illustrates Asehotep, Pharaoh of Kametu and protagonist of my fantasy novel _Lakes of the Moon_.  Trained in the martial arts and archery from a young age, Asehotep will  do everything she can for her people. However, the same belief in her  own divinity that compels her to nurture her kingdom has inflated her  sense of self-worth. When her half-brother has her dethroned and  kidnapped by raiders from the far north, she must lead these raiders to  another source of treasure and find her way back to her kingdom and throne.


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## imsc (Dec 29, 2012)

i like her.  she looks strong and heroic.


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## saellys (Jan 3, 2013)

I love her muscles and facial expression, but that pose just makes me think of Escher Girls.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 4, 2013)

Yeah, I was wondering if that pose was possible to be honest.






This is my OC Mukondi, a black jungle lady who hunts dinosaurs. This time, I’ve  actually gotten around to writing her story. Living in a tropical jungle  populated by nomadic foragers, Mukondi belongs to a religious cult of  huntresses who worship a Tyrannosaurus goddess personifying the hunt. As  the fangs and claws on her necklaces show, she is among the society’s  most experienced huntresses, but this has swollen her pride at the  expense of her common sense. Early in the story, she gets her band in  trouble with a territorial clan of Velociraptors, which ends with tragic  consequences.

Her spear’s head and machete are hewn from obsidian, a glassy volcanic rock with a sharpness rivaling metal blades.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 4, 2013)

Scar-Lip, the matriarchal leader of a Velociraptor clan, acts as an  antagonist for my dinosaur huntress Mukondi. In the story’s world,  Velociraptors and humans share a competitive enmity comparable to  spotted hyenas and lions in our world’s African savanna. Early in the  story, Scar-Lip and her clan confront Mukondi’s band for trespassing  into their territory, and violence ensues.

The Velociraptors in  my story are a fictional species that combine the anatomy and plumage of  real dromaeosaurids with the intelligence and malevolence of Jurassic  Park’s iconic villains. They have a much more territorial and violent  culture than the nomadic humans. Their society has matriarchal  tendencies resembling those of spotted hyenas, with females living in  large clans while males tend towards more solitary lives.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 4, 2013)

Couple of quasi-historical Egyptian pin-ups:






Queen Nefertari, famous as the highest-ranking wife of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Ramses II






Nitocris, a female Egyptian Pharaoh who, according to the historian  Manetho, was the last ruler of Egypt's Sixth Dynasty. Legend claimed  that she once avenged her brother's murder by inviting the killers to a  banquet and then drowning them with a flood drawn from the Nile.  However, most scholars doubt that she actually existed, noting that she  does not appear in any native Egyptian inscriptions predating Manetho.


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## Nihal (Feb 5, 2013)

I really liked the one from the #52 post. The pose is really appealing, it has balance and speaks about the culture you're portraying. Good job!

I'll keep an eye on your topic. Not only it's a fresh take on fantasy art but you like to draw tribal characters. "Barbarians", indigenous people and cultures deeply linked with their homelands are one of my weaknesses.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 10, 2013)

@ Nihal

I like barbarians too!






*Australoid Desert Assassin
*
Although my character's costume may have a vaguely "Arabian Nights"  aesthetic, her physiognomy actually draws from Aboriginal Australians,  whom for me represent the quintessential "desert people" even more than  the stereotypical Arabs. I really think there ought to be more  Australoid OCs in the fantasy fandom.

Although now I look at her  again, she also has a bit of a South Indian vibe to her, especially  since I've made her face paint red.






                         Two common soldiers from  ancient Egypt, an archer and a spearman. Based on painted wooden  models found in the tomb of Mesehti, which dates to the Egyptian Middle  Kingdom (2055-1650 BC).


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## Jabrosky (Feb 10, 2013)

And now for something completely different...






*Nondo the Dragon*

Getting back into my good old dinosaur mood, here's my take on those other popular giant carnivorous reptiles, the dragons.

Actually, in my own little world, dragons are dinosaurs. However, while they belong to the saurischian branch of the clade Dinosauria, their ancestors branched off from the rest early in their evolution, so you can't really sort them into any of the major dinosaur groups. If I were to draw a phylogenetic tree of the Dinosauria with dragons included, the dragons would branch off just before the sauropod/theropod split.

Anyway, I picture these guys hunting elephants and other larger prey in savannas and jungles. They are very much the apex predators of their native ecosystems. As juveniles, dragons may spew venom, but they lose this ability upon maturation into adulthood.

"Nondo", the other major name for my dragons, is of East African Swahili origin as I recall.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 10, 2013)

Some world-building notes which have pissed off some people on Tumblr:






This chart, drawn for another one of my fantasy projects, shows both the  three major races of my temporarily named "Fantasyland" and the  physical variation (or sub-races, if you will) within each race.

*Elves:*  Sedentary, agricultural vegetarians in the western lands who tend to  have the most technologically "advanced" civilizations in the world.  Although they have the greatest magical proficiency of the races, they  tend towards greater competitiveness and individualism (think of them as  being the modern Americans of Fantasyland). The elves' sub-races are  the Flame Elves of the temperate forests, the Gold Elves who prefer  alpine and boreal forests, and the chaparral- and desert-dwelling Dark  Elves.

*Orcs:* In sharp contrast to the elves, the orcs of  the eastern lands are nomadic carnivores whose economies depend on  hunting and herding. They are the physically strongest race, but while  they can be warlike and ferocious, they abide by a strict honor code  that forbids killing the innocent or unarmed as much as possible. The  orcs' divisions are the Wood Orcs, the Plains Orcs (who may also venture  into desert), and the Bog (or Swamp) Orcs.

*Humans:*  Residing in the tropical southern lands, these adaptable and intelligent  omnivores show the greatest cultural variation of the races. Some human  societies may have complex urban cultures whereas others prefer nomadic  pastoralism or foraging. The human sub-races include the Forest (or  Jungle) People, the Savanna People, and the Sand (or Desert) People.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 28, 2013)

Left Tumblr for reasons I'd rather not get into here, but I'm still drawing as always...






[FONT=Verdana, Arial]Another queen from ancient Egypt,  but not really meant to represent any particular historical personage  this time. However, the crown did draw its influence from Nefertiti's  famous bust. The dark marks around her face are supposed to be scars  deliberately inflicted for beautification as seen in some Central  African societies today. The chains running to the scarab from under her  eyes have an East African inspiration, but I forgot the name of the  exact ethnic group.[/FONT]


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## Jabrosky (Mar 2, 2013)

This scholarly  character, who's lugging around a codex with papyrus pages, works as a  librarian for some learning institution similar to the Egyptian Per  Ankhs or Timbuktu's Sankore University. I don't have any plans for her  yet, but I had a blast when designing her look. It's supposed to combine  elements of different African societies from all over the continent;  for example, her headdress draws from both ancient Egyptian crowns and  West African women's head-wraps. People like to stress that Africa is a  vast continent rather than one monolithic country, but somehow there's a  certain appeal to the idea that all the different African civilizations  are distantly related in some way.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 10, 2013)

Experiment with a more cartoon-like drawing style than I usually do


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## Jabrosky (Mar 18, 2013)

*Civilization 3 Leaderheads*

Anyone here familiar with Sid Meier's _Civilization_ games?






This series of portraits owes its inspiration to the animated leader heads from the strategy game _Civilization III. _Each of the game's playable civilizations had one historical leader's portrait representing it, but the really neat thing about them is that they would change costume as your civilization's technology advanced. I wanted to do something similar for the female Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut, portraying her as she might have looked in different time periods.

​From top left to bottom right, we have prehistoric, classical, medieval-like, and modern-day versions of Hatshepsut. I will color all these in the near future and may offer it as a download for Civ III players!


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## Jabrosky (Mar 19, 2013)

Colored versions of my Hatshepsut Through the Ages portraits


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## Jabrosky (Mar 19, 2013)

Hatshepsut (or Sobekneferu, or any other female Pharaoh in Egyptian history) shows off her leopard-skin mantle. Leopard skins are usually associated with the Egyptian priesthood, but some Pharaohs such as Seti I have been depicted wearing them on occasion. Besides, leopard print looks good on black women in my opinion.






And now for something completely different, a mother T. Rex with her son


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## Jabrosky (Mar 20, 2013)

*Lara Croft*
I remember wanting to play the very first _Tomb Raider_ game when I was a kid, albeit mainly for the dinosaurs (back then I was too young to have, uh, strong feelings for Lara herself). I actually did get to play the Anniversary edition, but could not get past the T. Rex (pistols are a lousy weapon against a large theropod). Apparently the _Tomb Raider_ franchise is undergoing another reboot now, which inspired me to draw this redesign for everyone's favorite video game heroine. I rather like how her necklace came out here, but I suck at drawing modern firearms due to a lack of practice.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 28, 2013)

*Nthanda of Azenya
*Nthanda of Azenya is the leading lady of a new short story that will keep me busy over the course of this Spring Break. Living in the 19th century, she hails from a rural village on the borders of a longstanding African kingdom named Azenya (known to the classical Greco-Romans as Azania). However, when her village gets sacked by invading British imperialists, she must team up with the vagrant Texan sheriff Michael Hancock to save what remains of her country (or something along those lines---honestly, I am still revising the plot).

This started out as another Egyptian princess portrait, but after I came up with my story I changed it to a portrait of my character. Her civilization owes its inspiration to southern African Bantu kingdoms such as Great Zimbabwe, although I didn't have a photo reference handy when I drew this.


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## Meyer (Mar 28, 2013)

You capture the facial structure very well.  It is very good concept art.  A few of the pieces of African queens reminded me of the facial characterestics of actual African American ladies around the campus.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 28, 2013)

_Tyrannosaurus rex_


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## Jabrosky (Apr 21, 2013)

WIP which I will color sometime in the near future:





                 This is a hypothetical book  cover illustration for a historical fantasy story I have started to  write. The two heroines centered here, Kiya and Sekhmethotep from left  to right, are loving half-sisters who grew up together in the royal  family of Kemet. However, once their kingdom fell on hard times, the  newly crowned Pharaoh Sekhmethotep found herself reluctantly marrying  Kiya out to the Mansa of Mali as part of a difficult diplomatic  maneuver. While Kiya struggles to cope with her spoiled tyrant of a new  husband, Sekhmethotep must confront a nascent religion that promises  prosperity and security...for a price.

And two colored drawings showing Kiya and Sekhmethotep from top to bottom:


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## Jabrosky (Apr 21, 2013)

Colored version of my Half-Sisters cover.


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## Lunaairis (Apr 22, 2013)

I really like the picture of Kiya? I think its Kiya sitting in a chair. There is a lot of nice weight to it.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 22, 2013)

Lunaairis said:


> I really like the picture of Kiya? I think its Kiya sitting in a chair. There is a lot of nice weight to it.


Yes, the sitting woman with the West African head-wrap is Kiya.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 25, 2013)

Mukondi, my dinosaur huntress  OC, poses for a trophy shot with this young Allosaurus she has slain for  dinner. I wonder if theropods taste like chicken?


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## Jabrosky (May 2, 2013)

*Neith the Nubian Archer*
This started out as practice with drawing from a photo reference. As an  artist, I have found that using references when creating art can do  wonders for your characters' anatomy. This character, an archer from  ancient Nubia, is named for an Egyptian goddess of hunting and warfare. Colored with Prismacolor pencils.


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## Jabrosky (May 5, 2013)

And here's an antagonist for Neith:





*Tabua the Sea Dragon*
Tabua is the draconian avatar of a Melanesian sorceress who works for a  gang of pirates, and she uses her dragon form to help them break into  towns for plunder and terrorize the locals. Tabua may use her colossal  head as a battering ram and shoot scalding water from her blowhole,  among other powers. Tabua's name translates to "whale's tooth" in the  Fijian language, and her design incorporates components of a sperm  whale, great white shark, and a crocodile. She is around twelve to  fifteen meters (or forty to fifty feet) long in dragon form, but her  human form is said to be incongruously beautiful.


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## Jabrosky (May 6, 2013)

*Neith Dresses Up*
My Nubian OC Neith dresses up for a special occasion, perhaps a fancy  banquety or other elite social gathering. I originally conceived of this  character as another pseudo-Amazon warrior chick, but this time I  wanted to experiment with a classier, less martially inclined heroine.  In addition I also wanted to portray a person from ancient Nubia in more  "civilized" attire than the tribal get-up some artists give them.

She's  not a natural redhead by the way, for she has dyed her Afro with red  ochre. Both ancient Egyptians and Nubians would sometimes dye their hair  red, and the practice still continues among modern African peoples such  as the Maasai and Himba.


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## Lunaairis (May 7, 2013)

OOooh I like Neith.


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## Jabrosky (May 11, 2013)

My Nubian heroine Neith comes  close to consummating her love with some as-yet unnamed Mediterranean  (possibly Greco-Roman) dude. Don't worry, they're not actually doing it  yet, but unfortunately you can't see the guy's underwear here.

As a matter of fact, Nubians, whom the Greeks called Aethiopians  ("burnt faces"), do appear in Greek mythology from time to time, with  notable examples being King Memnon in the Iliad and Perseus's lover  Andromeda.


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## Jabrosky (May 12, 2013)

*King Jarha of Yam*
Ancient Egypt and Nubia were not the only kingdoms along the ancient  Nile. Egyptian texts dating to the Old Kingdom mention a country called  Yam which exported sub-Saharan goods such as ivory and tropical woods.  Exactly where Yam was located remains unknown to us, but apparently it  lay to the far south upriver of Nubia. For my story's purposes I will  place it somewhere in the archaeologically under-explored savanna region  we now call South Sudan.

Anyway, my character Jarha here rules  Yam as a hegemonic rival to Nubia, and he may act as an antagonist for  my Nubian heroine Neith (see earlier posts). The circles on his face are supposed to  represent ritually inflicted scars such as those still seen among South  Sudanese peoples today.


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## Jabrosky (May 14, 2013)

*Black Athena*
Some scholars of ancient history, most notably Martin Bernal, have put  forward the hypothesis that the prominent Greek goddess Athena evolved  from the Egyptian Neith. Not only did both goddesses patronize warfare,  weaving, wisdom, and justice in their respective cultures, but some  Greek traditions actually do place Athena's place of birth somewhere in  Africa (or "Libya" as the Greeks called it), so I can see why they would  make the connection. Anyway, I thought a Black African Athena would  make a cool subject for a quick portrait.

Her hair isn't supposed  to be naturally red here, for ancient Egyptians and Nubians would  sometimes stain their hair red with henna or ocher.


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## rhd (May 18, 2013)

I drew a dark Andromeda once and got asked why she's dark. Lols.


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## Jabrosky (May 18, 2013)

rhd said:


> I drew a dark Andromeda once and got asked why she's dark. Lols.


So have I, as a matter of fact. I drew this portrait of her a little less than a year ago:


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## rhd (May 19, 2013)

I'm wondering, do you want to improve your skills, or are you already working on them? You already have some basic values down but your structure could use some improvement. I can see you're drawing freehand without any structure underneath, which is just another way to draw, you don't have to change that, but of you work on improving your skills it's just going to make you feel better about your concepts. It did for me, plus I can see you love visualizing your characters.


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## Jabrosky (May 20, 2013)

rhd said:


> I'm wondering, do you want to improve your skills, or are you already working on them? You already have some basic values down but your structure could use some improvement. I can see you're drawing freehand without any structure underneath, which is just another way to draw, you don't have to change that, but of you work on improving your skills it's just going to make you feel better about your concepts. It did for me, plus I can see you love visualizing your characters.


I don't really have any professional ambitions with regards to visual arts right now, so I probably don't have much incentive to improve beyond growing a fan-base of watchers on DeviantArt. That said, I do plan to incorporate more references into my human characters' anatomy and poses so that they look better.

As a matter of fact, I do draw crude little stick figures (or skeletons, gesture drawings, construction frameworks, or whatever) as a preliminary step before putting the finished characters on top. I'm surprised it doesn't show through for you.


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## Tevaras (May 20, 2013)

Good morning Jabrosky, very nice . Some lovely pieces, with good variety. Wish I could draw that well. I like you method of faintly drawing stick figures, and filling in the 'flesh' once you have the pose right. Keep at it


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## rhd (May 21, 2013)

Very well, but if you want to explore, I'd recommend conceptart.org. Some of the artists' skills are intimidating, however they are open to varied skill sets and give some excellent (though sometimes harsh) feedback, plus they have weekly challenges and the varied ethnicity of your work could use more exposure.


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## Jabrosky (May 23, 2013)

*Egyptian Dancer's Bust*
                 Portrait of an ancient Egyptian  dancing girl who would perform naked at banquets. Fortunately the  Egyptians, like other Africans, did not mind nudity that much, which  makes sense considering the hot climate they lived in. The rows of  dot-shaped beautification scars around her eyes actually owe their  inspiration to the Datoga people of Tanzania, but we actually have found  female Egyptian mummies with similar tattoos or scars in their skin.






*Tyrannosaurus rex Roars

*





*A Huntress's Trophy Shot, colored in Photoshop Elements*


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## Tom (May 29, 2013)

Great artwork, Jabrosky! I love the individuality you give to your subjects' faces. One suggestion though: to cut down on the rough texture of Prismacolor pencils, consider purchasing a colorless fluid blender marker. It breaks down the pigments in the pencils to produce a smoother texture. I also use Prismacolors and do a one-over with the blender when I'm done to smooth it. I really love my blender.

Prismacolor makes these as part of their individual art markers line and in their colored pencil starter's kit. They probably have them online at Prismacolor's website and at the art store of your choice.


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## Jabrosky (May 29, 2013)

I think I actually do have a pencil blender, though it never occurred to me to use it for colored pencil work. Maybe that's why my colored pencil stuff looks rougher than other people's.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 30, 2013)

*Hatshepsut and Cleopatra VII*
Not the first time I've drawn these two most famous Egyptian Queens  together, and it may not be the last, but I wanted to retry the subject  out of dissatisfaction with my earlier depictions of the pairing.

As  you should know by now, Hatshepsut is the dark-skinned Pharaoh on the  left while Cleopatra VII is the lighter-skinned Queen on the right.  Cleopatra is supposed to resemble the actress Zoe Saldana whereas  Hatshepsut's look was based off the model Oluchi Onweagba.






*Roman Soldiers*
Here's a couple of common legionaries, one with a gladius and another  with a javelin, from the ancient Roman Empire. The Roman legionaries'  armor actually underwent many revisions in design over the centuries,  but I've chosen the most familiar costume, the _lorica segmentata_,  to represent them. These characters' olive skin tones were actually  sampled from authentic paintings of Roman people recovered from Fayyum  in northern Egypt.






*Sobek Unmasked*
                 This is my artistic  interpretation of Sobek, the crocodile god in Egyptian mythology. Sobek  is probably my favorite male deity in the whole Egyptian tradition,  undoubtedly because it's hard to go wrong with big carnivorous reptiles.  However, for my interpretation I drew Sobek not as a crocodile himself,  as most artists do, but as a man with a crocodile mask. I like the idea  that the Egyptian gods' "animal heads" were really masks homologous to  those worn by traditional African religious leaders. The red disks in  this character's ear lobes are meant to represent the sun, but they were  inspired by the ear discs worn by certain Ethiopian tribal groups.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 1, 2013)

*Helen the Nubian Princess*
My depiction of Helen, the legendary beauty whose face launched a  thousand ships and started the Trojan War, has now been colored in  Photoshop. Earlier I planned on writing a whole novelized adaptation of  the myth, tweaking Helen's heritage so that she became the daughter of  the Nubian king Memnon, but now I feel discouraged about bastardizing  Greek mythology to such an extent. Maybe I'll recycle what I had  outlined for a fully original story with original characters.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 6, 2013)

This line art depicts a prehistoric Nordic warrior named Beohart, the protagonist from a novel I'm in the process of outlining at the moment. Once I get back from vacation, I should be able to scan in the whole drawing and color it in Photoshop Elements.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 31, 2013)

Unfortunately Beohart's novel never came to pass, but I do have some more characters from another story to share!






*Pharaoh Sekhotep of Kemet*
The heroine of my new story, a female Pharaoh from an alternate-timeline version of ancient Egypt. She’s a headstrong and athletic type who prefers hunting, swimming, and  martial arts practice to the nuts and bolts of running a kingdom,  although she aims to rule her people as benevolently as she can. Among her biggest pet peeves is putting up with lusty male wannabe-suitors who  covet her wealth and beauty.






*Olufemi the Nok Mage*
This is another original character I created for Sekhotep’s story. I  picture Olufemi as a supporting character with mystical powers (i.e. a  healer or mage) who joins Sekhotep on some kind of quest across Africa.  He is supposed to hail from the Nok culture of ancient West Africa, a  culture that may have been ancestral to today’s Nigerian Yoruba.






*Ishtar the Babylonian Empress*
And last but not least, the villain! Named after a  Mesopotamian war goddess, Empress Ishtar of Babylonia is a power-hungry  and racist young lady who covets Kemet's wealth and land, and she  commands one of the most powerful military forces in the ancient Near  East. Can Sekhotep stop her before she can conquer and enslave the  Kemetian people?

More art can be found on my Tumblr.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 31, 2013)

*The Key to Heaven*
The Key to Heaven is a three-part wheel that, once fully assembled,  allows the carrier to travel between the earthly realm of mortals and  the heavenly realm of gods and ancestor spirits. However, all of the  Key's thirds rest in African kingdoms very far away from each other. The  upper left component is kept in Mali, the upper right in Kemet, and the  bottom one in Zimbabwe.

In my story, the Kemetian Pharaoh  Sekhotep must gather all three fragments of the Key so she can access  the heavens and find the means to end the drought which plagues her  country. But there is a greedy Babylonian Empress who will go out of her  way to stop her...


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## Gurkhal (Aug 1, 2013)

Beautiful work! I wished that I could paint as well. Keep it coming!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 1, 2013)

*Hildago the Hispanian Vagabond*
                 Hildago is another supporting  character I created for _Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven_. He’s a  fast-talking, wise-cracking vagabond hailing from the land of Hispania  (now known as Spain), and he starts out filling the cast’s comic relief  niche. Sekhotep and Olufemi first bump into him when visiting in the  West African kingdom of Mali, where he’s searching for gold and, uh,  “los culos de las negras". He quite fancies Sekhotep the moment he sets  eyes on her, but will she reciprocate? And just why does he live a  wanderer’s life anyway?


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## Jabrosky (Aug 2, 2013)

*Maahes the Carcharodontosaurus
*Named after one of Kemet's warrior gods, Maahes is a _Carcharodontosaurus saharicus_  whom Kemetian priests have magically brouht back of life for Pharaoh  Sekhotep to ride on her quest to recover the fragmented Key to Heaven.  The enchanted gold bands over his ankles boost his speed up to match  that of a modern automobile. Although an imposing and lethal fighter,  Maahes does have an ornery personality as might be expected for an  undomesticated dinosaur.

I came up with this concept for a steed  while writing the second chapter of Sekhotep's novel. Originally I  planned her to ride a much smaller, flying dragon, but then I decided a  larger and more powerful theropod would work better for her quest  (especially since she has more than one person joining her on her  quest). Besides, dragons are tried and true in the fantasy genre, but  you don't get so many fantasy novels with dinosaurs instead.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 2, 2013)

Some more images of my heroine Sekhotep:







Viewed from behind






Dressed for war






Casual/recreational outfit (yes, that is a primitive basketball she's twirling on her finger)






Sekhotep hanging around her palace


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## Gurkhal (Aug 4, 2013)

I see some more goodies. I have to say that I find the first one the nicest, very sexy although I don't know if that was what you intended. 

In the second one I don't know why, but I think that adding a weapon or so to it would probably have benefited to make her look more warlike. Just my thoughts, of course.


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## imsc (Aug 4, 2013)

like the work on sekhotep.  she definitely looks athletic.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 6, 2013)

*Yeshua of Nazareth (aka Jesus Christ)*
I’m  not Christian or any other type of religious person, but occasionally I  do like to draw Biblical characters like Jesus. I guess it’s because I  like going against the artistic orthodoxy of making them look European  and instead color them as olive-skinned Middle Easterners like Arabs,  which I believe is how they actually looked.






*Pharaoh of the Sun*
Another  Sekhotep portrait, albeit one with a lot more shine than usual. The  multiple earrings have a East African Turkana inspiration (In case you haven't noticed, I love mixing  ancient Egyptian and sub-Saharan African cultures in my art).






*West African Jungle Huntress*
                 I've chosen to take a break from  my Sekhotep project to work on another original character and story. I  don't have a name for this particular heroine yet, but she is another  variant of the "dinosaur-hunting jungle girl" archetype that I love  almost as much as I do my Egyptian and Nubian matriarchs. However, this  time she's not a generic Stone Age chick in animal-skin garb, but  instead comes from a culture with a coastal West African flavor (think  along the lines of Dahomey, Yoruba, or Ashanti). In fact her weapons'  blades were designed using ancient Beninese swords as an influence. I  have a lot of characters who are either Egyptian, Nubian, or generically  tribal, so I wanted to try a West African heroine for once. West Africa  is the origin of most Afro-Diaspora people like African-Americans after  all.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 6, 2013)

*Dino-Proof Wall*
                 If you're going to build a city  in a prehistoric jungle, it should go without saying that you need  preventive measures against hungry tyrannosaurs and raptors. I haven't  decided whether this wall is entirely made out of dried mud-brick or if  it has a stony core, but either way its architecture has a vague West  African inspiration. Of course I did pick the color scheme from _Jurassic Park_'s  visitor center though. The skull mounted above the gateway belongs to a  Pentaceratops, a chasmosaurine ceratopsian like the more famous  Triceratops.


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## CupofJoe (Aug 6, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> ... I haven't  decided whether this wall is entirely made out of dried mud-brick or if  it has a stony core, but either way its architecture has a vague West  African inspiration. ...


You may have already seen these but it really shows what can be done with adobe/mudbrick.
10 Amazing Mud Brick Buildings


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## Jabrosky (Aug 6, 2013)

*Triceratops Ivory*
                 My unnamed pseudo-West African  dinosaur huntress lugs around an ivory horn harvested from a Triceratops  she killed. Ceratopsian ivory is an expensive luxury due both to laws  regulating hunting and the inherent danger of procuring these dinosaurs’  horns, but it can make for a beautiful and durable carving material.

(I  actually don’t know if ceratopsian horns had ivory sheaths. We do know  the horns had bony cores (those are what you see on fossil skulls), but  whether these horns were ever covered with ivory, keratin, or whatever  may remain a subject of speculation for some time.)


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## Jabrosky (Aug 7, 2013)

*Dinosaur Jungle*
                 And this is where my black  dinosaur huntresses do most of their grocery-shopping. Since it's  verdant, tropical, and receives frequent rainfall throughout the year,  I'm calling it a jungle for the time being, but I am not sure if it  could be properly called a rainforest. The problem is that the trees  here don't really form a high, closed canopy like most true rainforests,  instead being widely spaced out among a rolling sea of undergrowth.  Nonetheless such an environment should prove ideal for large dinosaurs  who need both space to move around and lots of foliage to munch on.


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## Scribble (Aug 8, 2013)

Jabrosky! Wow! I love the expression in the eyes of your heroine figure! In her eyes you capture a very... hard to define look that somewhere between pride, worry, defensiveness, disdain... that brings her alive. Well done.

Your dinos and plants also kick ass.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 8, 2013)

And now for something silly and cartoonish...






*Sea World Does Dinosaurs*
In the unlikely event that we ever bring back the Mesozoic dinosaurs, I  bet you good money that Sea World is going to set up a T. Rex show.  Forcing bloodthirsty, big-game-hunting apex predators that weigh  multiple tons to perform tricks before a live audience sounds totally  like their thing.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 8, 2013)

*Robin Hood Reimagined*
_In the depths of antiquity,  the Romans have invaded the Germanic country of Angeln. After they  slaughter his father Chief Locksley and their village, young Robin  escapes to the Sudanese kingdom of Kush where he trains to become a  warrior alongside the wise and beautiful Meritamun. With the help of a  wise-cracking priest and a band of redeemed rogues, Robin and Meritamun  must liberate the Anglic people from Roman oppression. But first he must  face his fears and ask himself whether vengeance is always the right  path._

The protagonist of our story, Robin is an Anglic  warrior whose special affinity for archery goes back to his childhood.  After his father Chief Locksley dies at the hands of Roman general  Gaius, Robin travels to Kush to train and prepare himself for revenge.  For all his proficiency with the bow and arrow, Robin struggles with  hand-to-hand combat and fears getting to close to his enemies. Though he  suffers from a short temper and vindictive personality, Robin does have  strong empathy for the less fortunate.

*Author's Note:*  This is my re-imagining of the mythical character of Robin Hood. I admit  this is a tentative redesign for him, as he looks a bit much like a  blond Conan with a green skirt here, but I am proud of the pose.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 8, 2013)

*Meritamun or Maid Marian*
Robin’s faithful companion and love interest, Meritamun is a Kushite  martial artist whose beauty belies her lethal agility and skill with the  spear. Smarter and more even-tempered than Robin, she resents having to  help him get out of his own trouble all the time, but nonetheless  believes she can steer him back onto the right path. Later generations  will remember her as Maid Marian.

*Author’s Note:* Another  Robin Hood reimagining, this time for his love interest Maid Marian. Of  course I had to make her a warrior who fights alongside Robin instead of  the traditional damsel in distress (an archetype I don’t care for  anyway). Choosing a distinctive color for her clothes was a challenge,  but I went with the purple scheme used for the Maid Marian in Disney’s  old Robin Hood cartoon.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 9, 2013)

*Meritamun the Spear Mistress*
                 When I first created the Kushite  warrior lady Meritamun, I intended her to function mainly as a love  interest and fighting companion for one of my male leads. Since then I  have grown interested in her as a character in her own right and wish to  give her more depth than your standard female love interest.

Meritamun  belongs to a quasi-religious, autonomous order of highly skilled  martial artists analogous to the Shaolin Monks of our world’s China. She  joined this order after losing her family to the predations of a feudal  lord, but she is motivated less by a hunger for revenge than an  idealistic desire to make the world a safer and more orderly place. Her  bad experiences with feudal authorities have made her a staunch advocate  for politically re-unifying the land, which she believes will bring  about peace once and for all. This attitude contrasts with many of her  fellow warriors who fear that a powerful singular government will take  control of their order and use it as an arm to suppress the people.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 16, 2013)

Re-designed my dinosaur-hunting chick to give her a more Stone Age hunter-gatherer vibe. Her name's Yejide and she hunts with two friends named Nkiru and Chinwe (neither shown here). Her story will have something to do with hunter-gatherers confronting civilization.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 17, 2013)

*Yejide Don't Trust You*
My original heroine Yejide, a Stone Age huntress who lives in a  prehistoric jungle, gives off an expression of suspicion. At least it  looks like suspicion to me. Either way I think she looks especially  beautiful here.

If you’re curious, the green strips of cloth she’s wearing are supposed to be dinosaur hide.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 17, 2013)

Couple of dinosaur ones for the morning:






*Brachiosaurus Takes a Drink*
A thirsty brachiosaur spreads his forelegs apart to take a drink at a muddy  Jurassic waterhole. I don’t know if brachiosaurs could really move their  arms outward like this, but since they occupied a similar ecological  niche as giraffes do today, it would make sense if they drank the same  way too.

*





Why You Little...*
                 This foolhardy young  Velociraptor will have to learn not to mess with fully grown Triceratops  without backup the hard way. In real life dinosaurs, as sauropsids,  probably didn't have the facial muscles that would allow expressive eyes  like these characters, but that's the beauty of this semi-cartoon-like  style. In any event it feels like ages since I last drew a Triceratops  or any other ceratopsian.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 18, 2013)

Very nice work you have got going. . If I am to say something however is that Yejide looks more curious than suspicious to me. but that could just be me.


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## Nibbler (Aug 19, 2013)

*Dinos would have had horns not ivory*



Jabrosky said:


> (I  actually don’t know if ceratopsian horns had ivory sheaths. We do know  the horns had bony cores (those are what you see on fossil skulls), but  whether these horns were ever covered with ivory, keratin, or whatever  may remain a subject of speculation for some time.)



Jabrosky, Ivory actually comes from the teeth of the animal.  Ivory comes from the tusks of elephants, walruses, and narwhales.  The tusks of these animals are actually just specialized teeth.  Elephants use there tusks in gathering food (tearing down trees) and defense, walruses use there tusks to chip at the ice to keep holes open in the ice they live on and to pull themselves out of the water.  Narwhale tusks are a sexual characteristic like a male peacock's tale or lion's mane.  Triceratops would most likely have had horns similar to those of rhinos: a bony core with a covering of keratin (think of your fingernails). But don't despair. 

Horn was widely sought after by people of all eras for many uses.  Horns were used as drinking vessels, storage vessels.  Medieval Europeans thought that a drinking vessel made from a unicorn's horn would neutralize all poisons. Polished horns can be very beautiful and serve various decorative uses.  Horn is also a vital component of ancient composite bows.  A composite bow is made of layers of wood and horn, glued together and tightly bound with sinew.  A superb source of horn could be a primitive or medieval nations secret to military might. Today, rhino horn is believed to cure all manor of ailments in traditional Chinese medicine.


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## Ireth (Aug 19, 2013)

I'm curious about the color scheme you've chosen for your dinosaurs. Why all the bright colors, rather than something that would blend easier with a jungle-ish environment? To my knowledge, the only animals that brightly-colored (who aren't birds, insects or, say, mantis shrimp) are things like venomous snakes and poisonous frogs, especially the latter. They're colored like that to warn other animals not to eat them, specifically because they're so toxic. But to something like a plant-eating dinosaur, unless they too are toxic, it seems like a neon sign saying "HEY, CARNIVORES! HUNT ME!"

Just my two cents, of course. ^^


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## Jabrosky (Aug 19, 2013)

Ireth said:


> I'm curious about the color scheme you've chosen for your dinosaurs. Why all the bright colors, rather than something that would blend easier with a jungle-ish environment? To my knowledge, the only animals that brightly-colored (who aren't birds, insects or, say, mantis shrimp) are things like venomous snakes and poisonous frogs, especially the latter. They're colored like that to warn other animals not to eat them, specifically because they're so toxic. But to something like a plant-eating dinosaur, unless they too are toxic, it seems like a neon sign saying "HEY, CARNIVORES! HUNT ME!"
> 
> Just my two cents, of course. ^^


Birds are dinosaurs, yet I've never heard that brightly colored birds are less edible than others. Furthermore, big tough herbivores like Triceratops and Brachiosaurus probably didn't need to hide when they had other defenses.


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## Ireth (Aug 19, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> Birds are dinosaurs, yet I've never heard that brightly colored birds are less edible than others.



Hence why I cited them among the exception to the "bright colors = toxic" rule. ^^; Sorry, I guess I should have only mentioned amphibians and the like.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 20, 2013)

*Cleo Has Her Makeup On*
                 Cleopatra VII, the last of  Egypt's Ptolemaic rulers, wears Egyptian-style kohl eyeliner and  eyeshadow. Unlike her dynastic predecessors, Cleopatra actually took the  trouble to learn the native Egyptian language in addition to Greek.  Exactly why remains unknown, but I like to think it gives credence to  the argument that Cleopatra VII had partial Egyptian ancestry as I've  portrayed here. I wanted her to have a Zoe Saldana-type of look but  don't know if it came out right.






*The Matriarch's Melancholy*
The Queen of Nubia (or Kush) wears a doleful expression as she gazes  down from her balcony. Exactly what’s eating at her, I will leave to  your imagination.

The bowl holding the palm tree in the  background gets its color scheme from actual ancient Nubian pottery,  which really did have reddish bases grading to black at the top.






*Queen of the Prairie*
I drew this female chief as a response to all the photos I've seen on  DeviantArt of white female models wearing traditional Native American  headdresses like the warbonnet. Sticky cultural appropriation issues  aside, I always felt those portraits were self-defeating because they  used Europeans models to promote Native American culture. If you want to  portray the beauty of Native women in your art or photography, why not  use actual (as in more than 1/16th) Native women?

This lady isn't  supposed to represent a particular real tribe that exists today. I'll  just say she's from some prehistoric group that only recently  assimilated into one of the larger nations.


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## druidofwinter (Aug 20, 2013)

Great artwork Jabrosky! I only just started looking through this thread yesterday, and thought all the pictures were wonderful. These ^ are no exception  Keep them coming!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 20, 2013)

Here's a quick one I doodled:





*Lady Liberty*
                 This is my interpretation (or  redesign) of the American icon represented by the Statue of Liberty in  New York. I wanted to give this version of the character a West African  racial and cultural flavor in honor of the African-American population,  whose longstanding struggle for liberation has helped make our country a  freer and more equitable society. The shield she’s carrying draws on a Central African Azande design for inspiration.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 21, 2013)

Very nice pictures. You deliver good stuff as always, Jabrosky.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 21, 2013)

*Styracosaurus the Color Shifter*
                 What if there existed a dinosaur  species that could change its color to blend into different habitats  much like a chameleon? I picked the iconic centrosaurine Styracosaurus  since it’s a dinosaur I have seldom if ever drawn before and because  chameleons already resemble ceratopsians to my eyes.

*





Nubian Palace Guard*
                 I got the idea for this from old  “Orientalist” paintings depicting black soldiers chilling inside Middle  Eastern palaces. However, while those characters were presumably meant  to be slaves or mercenaries hailing from afar, I imagine this guy as a  freeman serving the Queen of Nubia herself. Of course the architecture  may look Egyptian, but then the Nubian and Egyptian cultures were always  related despite their mutual enmity.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2013)

*African Aphrodite*
After reading an article recording the presence of African people in ancient Greece and Rome (which was significantly more prominent than you think),  I felt motivated to draw an African lady dressed in Greek attire. I'm  naming her "Aphrodite" after the goddess of love, in large part because  Aphro- sounds a lot like Afro to my ears.

Mind you, I don't think  most ancient Greeks or Romans were black people. I believe most would  have had a Mediterranean appearance rather like Antonio Banderas or  Penelope Cruz. However, they did trade with a lot of different people  around the world, so it makes sense for their civilizations to have  polyglot populations with notable black minorities.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 26, 2013)

*Geoffrey the White Knight*
                 Geoffrey the White Knight is a  landless warrior whose original fiefdom has fallen on hard economic  times, so he travels down to the wealthier kingdoms of the south in  search of a new and better life. In the short story I have started  writing for him, he will confront a dragon and meet this beautiful  southern maiden. At least those are the must-keep plot points I have at  the moment, but trust me, I’ll find a way to make the story less cliched  than it sounds.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 27, 2013)

Geoffrey the White Knight's World

This is the main landmass where my original hero Geoffrey the White Knight,  protagonist of a short story I am writing, has all his adventures. At  the moment I only have vague macro-regional labels down as I don’t want  to over-define the world too early on and distract myself from the  actual writing. Nonetheless I think the terrain textures here (made in  Photoshop using texturizing filters on colors) look better here than on  my earlier maps.

 The major regions of the world are the chilly North, the temperate  East, the tropical South, and the arid Heart. These are roughly  equivalent to our world’s Europe, Asia, Africa, and the  Mediterranean/Middle East area respectively. Generally speaking the  Southern civilizations tend to be the wealthiest and the Eastern ones  the most technologically advanced whereas the North is more impoverished  and the Heart a treacherous backwater teeming with squabbling bandits.

 Geoffrey the White Knight of course hails from the North, but he got  dismissed by his feudal lord and so travels to the South seeking a new  living. In the story I am writing for him, he confronts a dragon and  carries out an errand for a Southern priest, but that’s all I will spoil  for the moment.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 27, 2013)

*Omolara the Dragon Princess*
This is the dragon my hero Geoffrey the White Knight  bumps into at the story’s beginning. She used to be a beautiful African  princess named Omolara, but the love goddess Oshun turned her into a  dragon to punish her father for hubris. However Oshun had enough mercy  to make the spell breakable on one condition: that a man kiss her _without_  any selfish motivations. Can Geoffrey summon the courage to break this  spell without even considering that he’ll end up with a hot princess  afterward?


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## Jabrosky (Aug 29, 2013)

*Princess Omolara in Human Form*
Omolara is the princess and heir apparent of Mobta, a small but wealthy  kingdom with a West African cultural inspiration. She will become the  love interest of my hero Geoffrey the White Knight.

When her  father the King boasted of her beauty, the goddess of love Oshun took  offense and turned her into a fearsome dragon to punish him for hubris.  However, this spell can be broken as long as a man kisses her for  unselfish reasons (that is, he can’t kiss her hoping to marry her  afterward).

I should add that although Omolara is unarmed here  and functions as the archetypical damsel-in-distress in the story I am  writing for her, she is not totally defenseless. She’s actually pretty  skilled at archery and ranged combat in general. What can I say, I like  female characters who can take care of themselves!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 29, 2013)

*Caesar X Cleopatra*
Julius Caesar, the great Roman statesman and general, helps himself to his paramour Cleopatra VII's fine half-Egyptian rear end.






*Pharaoh's Blasphemous Booty*
As you should know, it is extremely tactless if not outright blasphemous  to watch your Pharaoh take a dip in her royal swimming pool. No  excuses, it doesn’t matter if Her Majesty’s fine example of a Kemetic  female backside mesmerized you. Though come to think of it, I can’t  really blame you either. Yum…booty.

This is the first time I’ve  ever drawn a wet human character, so I had to guess at the right  highlighting method to render in her sheen. The black dots on her head  are supposed to be tufts of peppercorn hair that have just started to  grow back after a recent shaving job.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 30, 2013)

Crude, messy, and  incomplete compositional sketch for a planned drawing in which a Roman  legion attacks a West African city and suffers heavy missile fire from  archers on the walls. The Roman formation here is supposed to be in  testudo mode, with shields covering all the soldiers in imitation of a  tortoise shell. I’m actually drawing this at the request of some buddies  on the official _Total War: Rome II_ message board. So far I’m enjoying the challenge.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 31, 2013)

Revamping of one of my earlier Pharaoh drawings:





Pity her kilt obscures the best part of her anatomy.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 31, 2013)

One more Cleopatra drawing before I go to bed:





*Caesar and Antony's Vixen*
If Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were a hip-hop duo, it should be no  mystery whom they would hire to grace their videos with her  Greco-Egyptian beauty. Or would that be booty?

I admit that  drawings like this are a guilty pleasure for me. Some might consider it  disrespectful to Cleopatra VII's memory to portray her in such a  sexualized manner, but then popular culture has always cast her as this  object of romantic or sexual desire, and Greco-Roman writers did  describe her as beautiful. Besides, booty drawings like this are fun to  draw and manage to grab people's attention.

Now that I think  about it, Cleopatra could probably shake it much better than a certain  other female celebrity who has sunk to infamy in recent days...


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## Jabrosky (Aug 31, 2013)

*Alexander the Great Conqueror*
This is my vision of the great warrior king Alexander III of Macedon, better remembered by history as Alexander the Great. Traditionally Alexander and his Macedonians have been portrayed as Greeks who unified all Hellenic-speakers into one cohesive nation after centuries of internecine squabbling. However, some scholars have argued that on the contrary the Macedonians were not proper Greeks but rather “barbarians” who spoke a different, heretofore undocumented language. Whichever side has stronger evidence to support its case, I thought a “barbarian” Alexander would look cool as a design, so I’ve given my depiction of him Celtic-like warpaint and a bear-skin cape.






*Warrior Pharaoh*
Although women in Pharaonic Egypt and other African civilizations enjoyed more privileges than their counterparts elsewhere in the ancient world, only a handful of their many Pharaohs were female. Of course the most famous native Egyptian matriarch is Hatshepsut of the New Kingdom, but other examples included Sobekneferu of the Middle Kingdom and possibly even Merneith of the 1st dynasty.

The spear my female Pharaoh is holding owes its design to the barbed tong achokwe used by the Dinka people of South Sudan. Her blue crown on the other hand draws from the khepresh worn by Pharaohs in battle time. Some scholars, most notably Cheikh Anta Diop, have hypothesized that this crown was actually a specially combed Afro based on similar coiffures seen among Rwandan Tutsi, but this is not widely accepted yet.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 1, 2013)

*Alexander the Great's Steed*
Alexander III of Macedon, or Alexander the Great, takes a ride on his  trusty horse. The horse’s cow-skull headdress is my own invention, but  the Greeks did name it “ox head”, so I wanted to pay tribute to that. It  also fits in with the barbarian theme I’m going for here, since some  scholars have argued that Alexander and his Macedonian people weren’t  really Greek by ethnicity but rather “barbarians” (non-Greeks) who spoke  a different language.


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## Gurkhal (Sep 1, 2013)

Very nice pictures with black beauties although I'm not sure what I think about your version of the great Alexandros. To me the Macedonians would seem to have been mostly Hellenized by the time of Alexandros, although they were not ethnically Greeks.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 1, 2013)

Gurkhal said:


> Very nice pictures with black beauties although I'm not sure what I think about your version of the great Alexandros. To me the Macedonians would seem to have been mostly Hellenized by the time of Alexandros, although they were not ethnically Greeks.


So are you saying the Macedonians started out non-Greek but later adopted a Greek identity by Alexander's time?


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## Jabrosky (Sep 2, 2013)

*Sekhotep's Sojourn*
Pharaoh Sekhotep of Kemet, my original character, goes on vacation (or  possibly a diplomatic errand) somewhere in West Africa. Obviously the  head-tie she’s wearing is not native to her Egyptian culture, but when  in Timbuktu, do as the Timbuktans do. In other words, she dresses  according to whatever culture she’s visiting. Lucky for her that she’s  not in the Middle East this time, what with their itchy burqas and  hijabs.

Traditional West African architecture, especially the  variation seen along the Niger River, is so fun to draw. It has a vague  resemblance to the ancient Egyptian style insofar as both rely heavily  on mud-brick as a building material, but the West African version has a  pointy aesthetic that gives it an even more “exotic” quality.


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## Gurkhal (Sep 2, 2013)

Jabrosky said:


> So are you saying the Macedonians started out non-Greek but later adopted a Greek identity by Alexander's time?



That is my understanding of it, yes.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 3, 2013)

iceman said:


> Your painting is good, some how.... but i really can't understand...what u want to say...


What do you mean by this?







                         Two of the most famous warrior kings in ancient Aegean history, Alexander the Great and Leonidas of Sparta (the hero of _300_),  clash in an anachronistic battle between Macedon and Greece. The  Macedonians actually did conquer the Greeks under Alexander’s father  Philip, but Leonidas had died at Thermopylae a long time before then.

I  hope the yellow highlights, which are supposed to reflect the sunset,  don’t come across too weird here. However, I am happy that I could get  these two characters into action poses on the same piece of paper.







A prehistoric African huntress stands proud in the jungle while a  Brachiosaurus moseys in the background. As you should know by now,  nothing is more fun for me than drawing black jungle girls coexisting  with dinosaurs. Well, except drawing said black jungle girls fighting  those dinosaurs, but that's more challenging.

That spear she's  holding has a point carved out of bone in case you're curious about the  off-white color. The facial scars are ritually inflicted and owe their  inspiration to Sudanese African cultures like the Nuba and Dinka.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 10, 2013)

*Elven Gentleman*
This well-to-do male elven proprietor is one of few citizens of the  Aelvanian Republic who has the privilege of voting for his country’s  leadership. As such, he and his fellow land-owning compatriots exert a  hugely disproportionate share of political influence on the Republic’s  governance despite all its rhetoric on representing “Freedom for the  People”. Then again, said propaganda is accurate as long as you  interpret “the People” to mean well-to-do male elven proprietors.

Originally  I conceived of my elves as having the standard pseudo-medieval flavor  typical for fantasy races, but now I feel they would stand out a lot  more if I based their culture more on the late 18th- through early  19th-century United States of America. After all I want my elves to  function as the bad guys of my setting, and you can’t get much more  deliciously despicable than greedy slave-holding capitalists who would  wipe out or displace anyone who got in the way of their “Manifest  Destiny” ambitions all while waxing poetic about liberty and equality.  Frankly we Americans paint ourselves far too often as the good guys in  our retelling of history and current events, so I say it’s high time we  got to be the villains for once.

Map of this character's world here


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## Jabrosky (Sep 12, 2013)

Experiment with photo-manipulation using King Tut's famous sarcophagus and the beautiful Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o (_12 Years a Slave_):


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## Jabrosky (Sep 20, 2013)

_Torosaurus latus_,  a close relative of the Triceratops, enjoys a relaxing sunbath on the  Cretaceous savanna. His hide has more shades of brown and gray, the  so-called drab colors, than I usually put on my dinosaurs. As much as I  prefer brighter colors on dinosaurs, I think drabber ones can also work  if they’re arranged in inventive patterns.








                                                          Conceptual portraits for  two fantasy races of my own creation, the avian Kukaws and the  reptilian Caaneks. Both of these races share the same jungle-covered  continent and human-like intelligence, but they have very different  diets and developed fundamentally different cultures. The Kukaws are  vegetarian agriculturalists with warlike tendencies whereas the Caaneks  are peaceful, nomadic hunter-gatherers with a primarily carnivorous  diet.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 13, 2013)

Long time no post!

I'm going through an ancient Carthaginian phase right now, and today I want to share some recent drawings with that theme:






Sketch of a Carthaginian shrine to the goddess Tanit






"I shall use fire and steel to arrest the destiny of Rome!" Hannibal  Barca announces as he brandishes his battle-ax atop the Italian Alps.






Another drawing of Hannibal Barca, this time standing on the ramparts of his palace or bastion in Carthage.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 13, 2013)

Leonidas I of Sparta






Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic Kingdom


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## Jabrosky (Nov 13, 2013)

Hatshepsut of Egypt


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## Jabrosky (Nov 23, 2013)

*





Memnon the Ally of Troy*

In Greek mythology, Memnon was a king of “Aethiopia” (ancient Kush or  Nubia in what is now Sudan) who allied with the Trojans in their  Homeric conflict against the Greeks. Although a skilled warrior whom the  Trojans hoped would be their savior, Memnon was characterized by a  nobility which won him the favor of the Greek gods. In one episode an  elderly Greek king named Nestor challenged Memnon to a fight to avenge  his son, but Memnon turned him down out of respect for his age.  Ironically this strength of character would lead to Memnon’s undoing,  for the demigod Achilles ultimately slew him on Nestor’s behalf.

I based Memnon’s look here on a real king of Nubia named Nedjeh, who ruled between 1650 and 1550 BC. Artistic sources depict him as an archer with a bowling pin-shaped _hedjet_ crown related to those worn by early Egyptian Pharaohs.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 30, 2013)

*Hatshepsut on the Warpath*
                                                          Although the female  Pharaoh Hatshepsut is best known for her peacetime accomplishments, like  most New Kingdom Pharaohs she was not a pacifist. Early in her career  she did lead a number of successful military campaigns in Nubia and the  Middle East, and she would have rode and loosed her arrows from a  chariot like this. The Egyptians did not invent chariots, but once they  acquired them from Middle Eastern invaders in the Second Intermediate  Period, they improved on the design to better fit their desert habitat.  For one, the Egyptian chariot was smaller than lighter than others, for  example the bulky chariots used by the Hittites in Anatolia.

It  should be needless to say that the zebras are my creative license. I  chose them over horses in part to enhance the African flavor and in part  because I thought the idea of a zebra chariot sounded novel.

Unfortunately I think I messed up Hatshepsut's nose.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 1, 2013)

*Achilles vs Memnon*
The Greek demigod Achilles charges and prepares to clash with King  Memnon of Kush (or "Aethiopia" as the Greeks called it). Most artwork  that I've seen featuring Achilles in a one-on-one duel pit him against  the Trojan Hector, so I felt his earlier confrontation with Memnon  deserved some artistic attention for once. A common theme uniting the  two fights is that Achilles slew both of his opponents out of vindictive  rage for his fallen comrades (Antilochus in the case of Memnon and  Patroclus in the case of Hector). Apparently revenge was a big thing for  the warrior cultures of the ancient Near East.

I was actually  stumped with a choice of weapon for Achilles given his pose. I was  originally going to choose a sword, but his helmet would have obscured  most of the blade, so ultimately I went for a spear. Unfortunately it  looks shorter than it should since most of the shaft is hidden by his  head and shield.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 2, 2013)

*Tshomba the Bakongo Healer*
Time for a new original character!

It is the late 17th century.  Tshomba is a healer and mage from the kingdom of Kongo on the Central  African coast, but she has joined the dashing English pirate  privateer James Swann for a life of overseas adventure. Their various  escapades have attracted the unwelcome attention of the ruthless bounty  hunter Don Gallego, so Swann and Tshomba escape to a remote island deep  in the equatorial Atlantic. Not only must they brave the island's  indigenous dinosaur population, but Gallego has under his command an  ancient Egyptian sorcerer whose most potent powers are not magical.

Tshomba's story actually came to mind after a recent dream that juxtaposed the characters from _Pirates of the Caribbean_  with dinosaurs. At first I wanted to use Captain Jack Sparrow himself  for the male lead, but I switched to a wholly original story since I  have more creative freedom that way (and honestly Captain Jack, while  funny, is too morally confusing for my taste).

This isn't a finalized design for Tshomba. I actually want her gown and head-wrap to look a _lot_  more polychromatic as that's how I describe them in her story, but  somehow I didn't feel ready to apply intricate Central African patterns  to larger sheets of fabric.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 3, 2013)

*James Swann the Privateer*
His enemies may call him a pirate, but the Englishman James Swann  prefers to think of himself as a privateer in service of the British  Crown. Practically speaking all that means is that he has _legal_  permission to plunder on the high seas as long as he only targets his  home country's wartime opponents, for example the Spanish. Swann's  harassment of Spain's colonial empire in the Caribbean has inevitably  provoked them to put a heavy bounty on his head, so he has retreated to a  remote and uncharted island in the Atlantic's equatorial heart. Which  would be a great means of evading the bounty hunters if the island  didn't have a native dinosaur population...


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## Gurkhal (Dec 5, 2013)

Top-notch as always.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 5, 2013)

Today I'm going on a fan art kick!






*Hyborian Age Dragon*
_Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy.  Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning  mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a  thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans  clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and  dripped from the huge mouth. The head, bigger than that of a crocodile,  was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of  serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings,  waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on  absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while  the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on  tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed  out behind
---_Robert E. Howard, _Red Nails_

In the Hyborian Age mythos, dragons like this terrorized the southern jungles of the Black Kingdoms. In the story _Red Nails_,  Conan the Cimmerian and his companion Valeria encounter one of them  eating their horses near the ancient city of Xuchotl. Many illustators  have interpreted the passage quoted above as describing some kind of  carnivorous stegosaur, but that's not quite what I envisioned when  reading it. However, since Howard does say that necromancers brought the  dragons back to life using old bones in the jungle, I can see dinosaur  fossils having inspired his portrayal of these monsters.

In  retrospect I should have made the legs much shorter in keeping with  Howard's description, but it was fun paying my respects to one of my  literary heroes.






*Amra's New Queen*
With Belit of the _Tigress_ fallen, a new pirate queen has arisen  to haunt the Black Coast. She is not irredeemably pitiless however, for  here she supplies sympathy to a still-mournful Amra the Lion (known  elsewhere as Conan the Cimmerian).

Conan the Cimmerian (c) Robert E. Howard, but the black lady on the left is my own character.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 5, 2013)

*Nyarlathotep*_
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none  could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a  Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He  said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries,  and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the  lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister,  always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them  into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences of  electricity and psychology and gave exhibitions of power which sent his  spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding  magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered.  And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were  rent with the screams of nightmare._
---H.P. Lovecraft, _Nyarlathotep

_I have to thank fellow DeviantArt artist vonmeer for the inspiration behind this piece of fan art. I'm very much a  newcomer to the whole Lovecraft mythos despite its Internet popularity,  but Lovecraft was a close buddy of Robert E. Howard whom I do like very  much as a fantasy writer. In fact many of Howard's stories that I've  read incorporate Lovecraft-like creatures, character names, and ideas of  cosmic abominations. When designing Nyarlathotep's costume here, I  decided to incorporate some Howardian influences by giving him a  Stygian-style serpent motif. The snake-like object he's holding is not  supposed to be a living creature but rather a scepter of green metal.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 11, 2013)

*Tshomba Therapies a Triceratops*
My original heroine Tshomba, an African lady mage, uses her healing magic to soothe an ornery Triceratops.

When  I initially created Tshomba, I didn't really have a clear idea of her  personality or back-story. All I knew is that she came from the Central  African country of Kongo (now Congo) and joined a dashing 17th-century  English privateer named James Swann in his adventures. However, the more  I mulled over the scene I had written for her and Swann, the less  satisfied I felt about how the whole story would turn out. In large part  this was because I didn't develop their characters well to begin with,  leaving large and critical hols in the plot I had developed.

Over  the course of drawing and coloring this illustration, it occurred to me  that Tshomba might work better as a nature mage who could communicate  with dinosaurs and other animals _a la_ Dr. Dolittle or Eliza  Thornberry. It would certainly provide a refreshing contrast to the  dinosaur-slaying huntresses I have created previously since her  relationship with the animals would be less antagonistic. I am not sure  if I want to keep the 17th-century setting or James Swann though.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 12, 2013)

*Pharaoh's Bodyguard*
                                                          Although I drew this  character with the intention that she would serve as a Pharaoh's royal  bodyguard, the idea behind her actually comes from the Dahomey "Amazons"  in West Africa who also served as bodyguards for their king. As of now  no evidence uncovered has shown that a similar contingent of female  warriors protected the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt, but absence of  evidence may not be evidence of absence. Even if it were, mixing  together ancient Egyptian and so-called "sub-Saharan" African influences  is one of my favorite artistic tricks.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 15, 2013)

*Nefrusobek on the Hunt*
Armed with her bow and arrow, Queen Nefrusobek of Kametu goes hunting  out in the savannas that stretch beyond her riparian kingdom. Sometimes  she will attack from her zebra chariot or war elephant, but today she's  in a more courageous mood and traveling on foot.

Although Kametu  is of course based off ancient Egypt, it enjoys a rainier climate and  thus has a grassy savanna rather than desert environment. Nonetheless  most of the Kametian population congregates along the Iteru River since  it has more fertile silt and a steady water supply. Fish and livestock  provide the majority of their dietary protein, but hunting wild game is  nonetheless a popular past-time with the nobility and royalty.






*Pharaoh Dislikes Chocolate*
As much as the Queen of Egypt didn't want to offend her Olmec hosts, she  just couldn't get into their most prized beverage. You couldn't really  blame her. The original Mesoamerican form of chocolate did have a bitter  taste before the Europeans came along to sweeten it.

I'm  actually skeptical of the belief that Egyptians or any other Africans  made it to the Americas during Olmec times, but I have to concede that I  actually do like the concept of pre-modern globalization.


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## JRFLynn (Dec 15, 2013)

> but I have to concede that I actually do like the concept of pre-modern globalization



So do I  Thank you sharing, I love the mix of magic, egyptian culture, and dinos.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 16, 2013)

*From Pharaoh to Slave*
                                                          Once she ruled the  ancient world's greatest and most ancient superpower. Since then she has  fallen into the cruelest and most destitute servitude. Formerly  renowned for her glamorous beauty, she now suffers the stigma forced  upon this same appearance. But someday, she vows, she will ascend back  to her former glory.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 16, 2013)

Update of the above picture that now features backgrounds. On the left is the Photoshop-rendered papyrus I've used for several of my Egyptian images while on the right is the text from an actual advertisement for slaves from 19th century Georgia.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 18, 2013)

*Nefrusobek's Daydreams*
My original heroine, Queen Nefrusobek of Kametu, is just lounging around  daydreaming or otherwise musing on something. Originally I wanted to  draw her as a bored teenage princess still undergoing her royal  education, but her proportions came out looking too adult-like like I  normally draw her. The headdress she's wearing at the moment is  definitely borrowed from the Egyptian Nefertiti, but I want to emphasize  that these are two separate characters despite similar headgear and  names.

I imagine Nefrusobek must have suffered a rather stressful  adolescence. She would have undergone a rigorous education in a variety  of subjects to prepare her for ascension to her father's throne. With  great power comes not only great responsibility, but a great preparation  too.






*Moshemud the Deliverer*
For most of their existence, the Yisraalim have wandered the Sands of  Shem as nomadic camel-herders without any common leadership. The various  tribes would supplement their pastoral economy by raiding each other  and merchants' caravans bound for the larger kingdoms beyond the desert.  It has been a bleak and volatile existence, but one Yisraali prophet  named Moshemud means to change all this. 

Believing himself  endorsed by the deity Ellahu, Moshemud's ambition is to unify the  scattered Yisraali tribes into one greater kingdom that would dominate  the whole of Shem at the very least. He also hopes to liberate those  Yisraalim who have been captured and enslaved by outside nations such as  the Kametians and Babelunyans. Obviously Moshemud's dreams of empire  pose a threat to the civilizations beyond the Sands, especially with the  divine power he claims to wield.

As you might infer from his  name, Moshemud is a conceptual combination of the Hebrew Moses and the  Muslim Muhammad. Originally he was going to serve as a minor character  in Nefrusobek's story, but now I think he would work even better as a  major antagonist for the Queen of Kametu. I should note though that even  though he hates the Kametians and other "infidels" with a fiery  passion, Moshemud may not necessarily be a total bad guy. He does care  for his own people's welfare after all.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 20, 2013)

*Olmoceratops the Mexican Chasmosaurine*
"Olmoceratops" is my (unofficial) name for an heretofore unidentified  taxon of ceratopsian dinosaur discovered in the Olmos Formation of  northern Mexico back in 2011. So far only one of its brow horns has been  uncovered, but at 95.2 cm in length, it likely belonged to a very large  dinosaur (for perspective, the horns of Triceratops run only around ~80  cm long). "Olmoceratops" was almost certainly from the chasmosaurine  branch of the ceratopsian family tree, but is not to be confused with  the earlier-found Coahuilaceratops. I've chosen to reconstruct its  appearance as similar to Triceratops's relative Ojoceratops.

Olmoceratops  lived during the Maastrichtian epoch near the end of the Cretaceous  Period. The Olmos formation from which it was uncovered has also yielded  the remains of the hadrosaur Kritosaurus and tyrannosaurid teeth (T.  Rex?). Analysis of fossil leaves from the area suggest a humid, tropical  rainforest-like habitat, hence the jungle plants I've drawn around my  Olmoceratops.

*References:*

Porras-MÃºzquiz,  H.G, Lehman, T.M, 2011. A ceratopsian horncore from the Olmos Formation  (early Maastrichtian) near MÃºzquiz, Mexico: Revista Mexicana de  Ciencias GeolÃ³gicas, v. 28, nÃºm. 2, p. 262-266.

Upchurch,  G.R., Estrada-Ruiz, E., Cevallos-Ferriz, S.S., 2008. Did tropical  rainforest vegetation exist during the Late Cretaceous? New data from  the late Campanian to early Maastrichtian Olmos Formation, Coahuila,  Mexico. Eos Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 89(53), Fall  Meeting Supplement Abstract PP11D-07.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 23, 2013)

*Father and Daughter*
Memnon, the legendary King of Kush who would fight at Troy, spends some  quality time with his beautiful daughter Helen. I think he is telling  her how proud he feels to have given the world a woman whose face could  send a thousand ships after her.






*Gaius Julius Caesar*
My portrait of one of the Roman Republic's last major statesman, Gaius  Julius Caesar. He is perhaps best known for his vicious power struggles  with other Roman politicians, his conquest of Gaul (a Celtic country  located in what is now France), and his illicit relationship with the  Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII. However, I'll always remember him as the  arch-villain from the good old _Asterix _comics.

I was  actually a little unsure on the skin tone I wanted to give Caesar here.  Roman sources do describe him as relatively fair in color, but then  "fair" is a vague and relative term. On the other hand I wanted to  convey that he and his Roman compatriots were predominantly of  Mediterranean or Southern European heritage and thus would have looked  darker than my Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ancestors. In the end I went with  what I would describe as a light olive complexion.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 28, 2013)

*Elf Man and Human Lady*
                                                          This is actually a  pretty old drawing which must have rested in my sketchbook for over a  month before I finally got around to scanning and coloring it. It seems  that the stereotypical fantasy inter-species couple combines a female  elf with a male human, so I decided to reverse this trend by pairing an  elf guy with a human lady. Furthermore, these particular characters come  from a setting where all the humans are black people native to the  world's tropical regions, whereas the elves live closer to the northern  polar regions. Fantasy is a lot more fun when you get to subvert the  cliches associated with the genre.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 31, 2013)

*The Melancholy of Andromeda*
This Greco-African lady is suffering a bout of pensive sadness on a  starry night. Maybe she's pining for her hubby who is away at war?

In Greek mythology, Andromeda was a beautiful princess of Aethiopia  (known today as Nubia or Sudan) whom the demigod Perseus married after  rescuing her from a sea monster. This isn't necessarily meant to  represent her in particular, but I do believe ancient Greece had a  minority of black people living there given its long history of trade  and intercourse with African countries.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 31, 2013)

*Come Back With Your Shield*
Queen Gorgo of Sparta bids her husband Leonidas farewell by telling him, "Come back with your shield or on it".

Of  course there's no evidence that Queen Gorgo was Black African or  otherwise different in appearance from the Mediterranean Greek norm, but  I do believe there was a black minority in ancient Greece and wanted to  portray that. Besides, it can't be any more egregious an historical  error than making half the Persian characters black people in certain  Hollywood films.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 31, 2013)

*They Shall Dine with Hades*
Spartan hoplites form a single-file line on the Laconic plain in  southern Greece, ready to do battle at Thermopylae. I wanted to make the  phalanx even bigger by adding more Spartans behind the front line, but  wasn't sure how to pull that off. Nonetheless I am proud that I managed  to draw a scene with multiple soldiers in it for once.


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## Gurkhal (Jan 1, 2014)

Good stuff as always. While I'm not sure that I agree that there might have been a black minority within Greece I totally agree that 300 was a horrible, horrible abomination of a movie. My favorite part is when the Spartans talking about opposing mysticism and standing for liberty - my teachers in Classical Archaeology at the Uni told me the Spartans were notoriously superstitious and petitioned this oracle and that for almost everything they did. And in regards to liberty I just laugh. The people who keeps the Helots in slavery should not speak about fighting for liberty.

And then we got all the other Greeks who were present and vastly outnumbered the Spartans, but that's a different story.

EDITED: To my untrained eye I would have to say that queen Gorgo came out very "living" to me on that picture.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 1, 2014)

Gurkhal said:


> Good stuff as always. While I'm not sure that I agree that there might have been a black minority within Greece I totally agree that 300 was a horrible, horrible abomination of a movie. My favorite part is when the Spartans talking about opposing mysticism and standing for liberty - my teachers in Classical Archaeology at the Uni told me the Spartans were notoriously superstitious and petitioned this oracle and that for almost everything they did. And in regards to liberty I just laugh. The people who keeps the Helots in slavery should not speak about fighting for liberty.
> 
> And then we got all the other Greeks who were present and vastly outnumbered the Spartans, but that's a different story.
> 
> EDITED: To my untrained eye I would have to say that queen Gorgo came out very "living" to me on that picture.


I should have cited a source for my statements about black Greeks.

Blacks in Ancient Greece and Rome


> When some people learn that the Greeks and Romans had a high regard for         black intelligence and morality they assume it was because they had little         contact with black people. Greeks and Romans not only had contact with         blacks from Africa, but they had         contact with their black neighbors. Frank Snowden discovered that,         "The exact number of Ethiopians who entered the Greco-Roman world         as a result of varied military, diplomatic, and commercial activity is         difficult to determine, but all the evidence suggests a sizable         Ethiopian element, especially in the population of the Roman world. The         black population in Greece and Italy was larger than has been generally         realized."



But yes, I agree that _300 _was horribly inaccurate.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 1, 2014)

*King Leonidas of Sparta*
My portrait of Leonidas, the valorous warrior king famous for leading  300 Spartans against the Persians at Thermopylae. Most people these days  know him from Gerard Butler's shirtless portrayal in the _300_ movie, but I wanted to depict my (hopefully more accurate) interpretation as better-armored and more Mediterranean-looking.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 15, 2014)

*Raptor on the Prowl*
                                                          A Velociraptor takes a  stroll on a savanna with tall grass. Because I've been neglecting my  dinosaurs again and needed to show them some more love.






*Hittite Spearman*
This soldier's gear is based off the ancient Hittites who dominated the  Anatolian peninsula (modern Turkey) during the later Bronze Age. They  were actually among the first people in the Near Eastern region to  manufacture iron technology in place of the traditional bronze. They are  also known for their heavy chariots and their conflicts with the New  Kingdom Egyptians.

Although I did use a reference for the Hittite  soldier's clothing, I will admit that my portrayal of him as racially  Asian (or Mongoloid) is artistic license on my part. In real life the  Hittites spoke an Indo-European language and probably looked  Mediterranean or Middle Eastern like most Anatolian peoples. However,  some early scholars such as Archibald Sayce did claim they were Asian  like Huns and Turkic peoples, and it tickles my artistic fancy to  portray them as Asian anyway.

Maybe I should create a nation of Asian Hittite analogs for one of my historical fantasy worlds.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 16, 2014)

Map time!






*Empires of the Heroic Age*
The Heroic Age is an alternative, fantastical version of our Earth's  Bronze to Iron Ages. It may not be the most inventive fantasy world I've  created, but a setting like this allows me to write pseudo-historical  fiction without feeling too constrained by the need for strict accuracy.
*
Black Countries

 Hikuptah *- Based off ancient Egypt, with some Nubian and sub-Saharan African influences. (In earlier drafts I called this Kametu)

*Yam *- Based off South Sudanese peoples (e.g. the Shilluk and Dinka).

*Wagadu* - Based off medieval West Africa (e.g. Mali and Songhai).

*Ife *- Based off the West African peoples bordering the Gulf of Guinea (e.g. Yoruba, Dahomey, and Ashanti)

*Sheba* - Based off Ethiopia, especially Axum.

*Punt *- Based off the Somalis.

*Atlantis* - Based off the Carthaginians, with some Afro-Caribbean and West African influences.*Shinar*- Based off the ancient Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia.
* 
 Tawny (i.e. Olive-Skinned) Countries
*
*Elysium* - Based off the Roman Republic.

*Pelasgia* - Based off the Greek city-states.

*Phaeacia *- Based off the Phoenicians.

*Zion* - Based off the Biblical Israelites, with some Arabic influences.

*Babel* - Based off the Semitic Mesopotamians, especially Babylonians and Assyrians.

*White Countries
*
*Albion* - Based off the Celtic tribes.

*Midgard* - Based off the Germanic tribes.

*Eranistan *-Based off the Achaemenid Persians, with some Scythian influences.

*Makedon *- Based off the Macedonians, with some possible Slavic influences.

*Yellow (i.e. Mongoloid) Countries*

*Xiongnu* - Based off the Huns and Mongols.

*Heth *- Based off the Hittites, with some Turkic influences.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 17, 2014)

*Look Me in the Eyes*
Two arch-enemies from antiquity, an Egyptian queen and a Hittite  warrior, have a hostile staring contest. Consider this a prelude to a  battle scene between these two characters that I hope to draw soon.

The  Hittite dude is supposed to look Asian, but Asian features are actually  pretty tough to portray accurately from a side profile view. They seem  more distinctive when you're looking at them head-on.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 17, 2014)

*Egyptian vs Hittite*
                                                          An Egyptian warrior  queen fights one of her country's historical arch-nemeses, a Hittite  warrior from ancient Anatolia. This is of course a fictitious scenario,  as there's no record of any of the few female Egyptian Pharaohs coming  into conflict with the Hittite Empire.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 17, 2014)

These ones are actually a few days old, but I've just thought back to them and so have decided to share them now:






Concept art for Ikaba, a warrior princess character from a  post-apocalyptic fantasy world. This world once had several powerful and  technologically advanced empires sprawling across it, but after a  cataclysm everyone reverted to small tribes and chiefdoms while leaving  their shattered cities to rot in the wilds. Anyway, Ikaba is the heir to  her chiefdom's throne and likes to hunt in the jungle with her younger  brother Tshiko, but that's all I know about her at the moment.






And this is Ikaba's younger brother Tshiko, who prefers the bow and arrow.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 18, 2014)

*Chuwen the Man-Chimpanzee*
                                                          Concept art for the  Chuwen, a warlike race of sapient chimpanzee relatives with a  Mesoamerican cultural flavor. I created these as a sort of villain race  for one of my worlds, where they come into conflict with African human  protagonists.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 18, 2014)

*Jungle Treehouse*
If you live in a jungle with giant trees and prehistoric monsters, where  else to build but high up near the canopy? At least the tyrannosaurs  and raptors won't get you there when you're asleep.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 18, 2014)

Re-coloring an old art piece, with shading and mist effects added...


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## Jabrosky (Feb 4, 2014)

*Perseus and Andromeda's Embrace*
The Greek demigod Perseus embraces the beautiful Aethiopian princess  Andromeda, but Poseidon's sea monster Cetus is ready for a rematch.

In  Greek mythology, Andromeda was a princess of Aethiopia (i.e. "land of  the burnt faces", usually referring to ancient Kush or Nubia in what is  now Sudan) whom Perseus rescued from Cetus in a classic example of the  damsel-and-dragon narrative. Perhaps the most well-known adaptations of  this myth for modern audiences are the _Clash of the Titans_ movies  (I am referring to both the Harryhausen and Sam Worthington versions  here), but I referenced none of these when drawing my own take.  Perseus's winged helmet does owe some inspiration to Benvenuto Cellini's  sculpture though. As for Cetus, I chose to represent him as some kind  of Mesozoic sea reptile like a mosasaur or pliosaur.

I apologize if Perseus looks bored here. He's supposed to be nervously eying Cetus on the side.






*Andromeda's Pin-Up*
This pin-up is supposed to depict a warrior princess from ancient Kush  or Nubia, a kingdom in northern Sudan that historically rivaled Egypt.  The Greeks called the Kushite people _Aethiopians_ ("burnt faces")  and praised their piety, beauty, and martial skills in literature. In  Greek mythology the demigod Perseus married a Nubian princess named  Andromeda after saving her from a sea monster, and together they would  found the city-state of Mycenae.






*Queen Myrina of the Libyan Amazons*
                                                          Although the Amazons  most people know from Greek mythology were said to live near the Black  Sea northeast of Greece, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily did  describe a second race of warrior women living "in the western parts of  Libya" (i.e. Africa west of the Nile). They had a fearsome matriarch  named Myrina who led them against enemies as diverse as the Atlanteans,  Gorgons, Arabs, and Anatolian Cicilians. Obviously Diodorus's account of  Myrina's military career sounds more fanciful than plausible, but I'm  tempted to speculate that his reports of warrior women in classical West  Africa might have more than a grain of truth to them. They could have  been the precedents to the famous female warriors of Dahomey (in modern  Benin).


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## Jabrosky (Feb 4, 2014)

*Egyptian Gorilla*
Maybe this guy hangs around the temple of Djehuti (Thoth), the god whom  the Egyptians would sometimes associate with primates (though he is best  known for his sacred ibis head).

I shouldn't have to add the  disclaimer that gorillas were never native to Egypt since they are  creatures of the rainforest. However, when I was a kid, I thought  ancient Egypt was cool because of all the exotic African animals they  coexisted with and even incorporated into their religion, and I probably  wouldn't have thought a gorilla out of place there at all.






*Hikuptan Battle Behemoth*
Despite its vaguely rhinoceros-like appearance, the Hikuptan behemoth (_Arsinoitherium giganteum_)  is actually more closely related to the elephant family. It browses in  small family groups within wetlands throughout the Aethiopian continent,  including Hikuptah's Iteru Delta. The Hikuptan military uses these  double-horned beasts as heavy shock cavalry along with elephants and  hippopotamuses.

(The Hikuptans are analogous to the ancient Egyptian and Nubian peoples in one of my constructed worlds.)






*Hikuptan War Elephant*
A war elephant commandeered by soldiers from Hikuptah, my con-world's equivalent to ancient Egypt.

Although several real-time strategy games (e.g. _Age of Empires_ and _Age of Mythology_)  portray the Egyptians as commanding African war elephants, in real  history it was not until the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty that they ever  employed them to a significant degree. However, it is possible that the  Nubians to the south did use war elephants, as the remains of what may  be elephant stables have been found near the Nubian city of Meroe.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 4, 2014)

*I Have Failed You, Father*
_"Promise me, my child, that you will care for Hikuptah as if she were  you our own child and keep her peace and prosperity. Promise me you  will protect her as the fiercest lioness protects her cubs. And promise  me that you will appease the gods and honor our ancestors."_

So  said Nefrusobek's father Atumhotep the moment before he departed to  rejoin the great Pharaohs of the past in the afterlife. Now that she has  taken his place on the throne, Nefrusobek wants more than anything to  rule her kingdom of Hikuptah with the same wisdom and benevolence as he  did. This shows a hypothetical moment where she finds herself forced to  abdicate (under what pressure, I will leave to your imagination) and  looks to the night sky, fearing she has disappointed her father's  spirit.

Incidentally, the ancient Egyptians actually did believe  that their dead Pharaohs would ascend to the stars as recorded by the  Pyramid Texts of Unas. Disney didn't invent the idea with _The Lion King_.

This  isn't the first time I've drawn a Pharaoh taking off her crown, but I  believe this shows more emotion than its predecessors (plus the rest  were not digitally colored like this).






*Check Here Gloutos Out!*
If there's one downside to ruling one of the ancient world's great  empires as a woman, it's having your male servants ogle and catcall you  like you're a pricey piece of meat. Especially if they come from a  different culture not known for its progressive attitudes towards women.

(If you're curious about the art piece's title, _gloutos_ is Greek for...well, it does lie at the root of our language's _gluteus_.)






*Pharaoh's Hair Maintenance*
My OC Pharaoh Nefrusobek of Hikuptah gives her hair its daily  maintenance with an ivory comb. Some of her elite compatriots like to  wear wigs over their natural hair, as did the real historical Egyptians,  but since Nefrusobek has to wear a crown most of the time, a wig would  be superfluous in her case. Besides, natural hair still needs its  grooming from time to time.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 6, 2014)

*Always Be Alert*
This huntress must maintain constant vigilance as she prowls in the  jungle's shadowed depths, lest one of its predators ambushes her.  Thankfully her ebony skin and lithe frame blend her into the darkness of  the understory.

I drew this on a piece of sketchbook paper that  couldn't fit into my scanner, so I had to use my iPhone to photograph  it. At least it was a fun exercise in returning to traditional drawing  methods.


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## Lumani (Feb 6, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> *Always Be Alert*
> This huntress must maintain constant vigilance as she prowls in the  jungle's shadowed depths, lest one of its predators ambushes her.  Thankfully her ebony skin and lithe frame blend her into the darkness of  the understory.
> 
> I drew this on a piece of sketchbook paper that  couldn't fit into my scanner, so I had to use my iPhone to photograph  it. At least it was a fun exercise in returning to traditional drawing  methods.



This looks great!  I really like the detail you put into the back ground and the shading looks great!


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## Jabrosky (Feb 7, 2014)

Colorized version of "Always Be Aware".  When colorizing this in Photoshop, I put all the colors on a layer set  to the "Hard Light" blending mode. The results didn't come out the way I  would prefer, but the alternative blending modes seemed even less  attractive.

If you are curious, this lady's outfit is cut out from dinosaur skins,  which I felt befitted a character inspired by comic-book jungle girls.  The dark marks on her face and thighs are meant to be ritual  scarifications.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 8, 2014)

*Creeping on Citipati*
                                                          Sneaking through the tropical undergrowth with the stealth of a black panther, this huntress has her eyes on a wary _Citipati osmolskae_ (a cousin of Oviraptor).


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## Gurkhal (Feb 9, 2014)

Looks very nice.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 11, 2014)

I came up with these  three characters while musing on one of my older and longer-standing  story concepts, in which a decimated tribe of Norsemen ally with the  Egyptians against villainous Greeks. I’ve always been partial to the  idea of European and African people teaming up to fight a common  Mediterranean enemy.

 Anyway, Bjorn is supposed to be the Norse  hero of the story, Adrastos is the Greek villain, and Iseret is Bjorn’s  Egyptian ally and eventual girlfriend.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 11, 2014)

*The Three Realms*
Originally each of these lands was going to be the homeland of one  culture ripped off from the real world (e.g. Norse, Egyptians, or  Greeks), but then I decided I would enjoy more creative freedom if I  scrapped the Counterpart Culture idea this time and populated these  lands with more original (or at least less obviously derivative)  societies.

If it isn't obvious from the color scheme, Norheim has  a chilly sub-arctic climate with conifer forests and steppes, Aridia is  mostly desert and Mediterranean scrubland, and Uzuri has tropical  rainforests and savannas. The indigenous people of Norheim have white  skin, the Aridians tend to be olive-brown like Arabs, and the Uzurians  are black people.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 11, 2014)

*Brunar of Norheim*
Brunar spent his early years as a hunter-gatherer in the frigid northern  continent of Norheim, but a brutal twist of fate sent his decimated  people fleeing across the sea to Uzuri in the far south. Brunar's  parents argue over how best to lead their community; Brunar's father  opts for a peaceful resettlement while his mother swears a bloody  vengeance upon the Aridians whose ravages caused the Norheimers' exodus  in the first place. Brunar himself leans towards his mother's side of  the argument, if only because fighting in a war could give him an  opportunity to prove his manly valor.

Originally Brunar was going  to be a Norseman named Bjorn, but I gave him a name change and cultural  makeover as I rethought his setting. His inspiration is now more  Paleolithic Cro-Magnon than anything else.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 12, 2014)

*Conan and the Dragon*
Deep in the equatorial jungles of the Black Kingdoms, Conan the  Cimmerian is having an unpleasant run-in with a native dragon. Can his  scimitar save him from the monster's maw, or will he have to rely on his  cunning or flight?

Although Conan does actually encountered a similar dragon-like creature in the Robert E. Howard story _Red Nails_,  this is not meant to be an illustration of that scene. Instead I got  the idea for the composition from a movie still taken from the original _King Kong_ movie (it's the one with a carnivorous Brontosaurus about to eat a sailor who's clinging to a tree).


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## Jabrosky (Feb 15, 2014)

*Soljuw Specimen*
This is a type specimen for an alien species known as the Soljuw.  They're slothful and obese slug-like creatures whose comfortable and  futuristic standard of living depends on enslaving and exploiting other  races, most especially humans. They're also genderqueer in the sense  that they only have one reproductive "sex", regarding the two-sex system  of humanity as abhorrent. In fact they are highly xenophobic in  general, frowning upon adopting any cultural traits or practices from  their human subordinates. You could say they are opposed to cultural  appropriation.

I didn't create this slug-like alien with the intention of ripping off _Star Wars_' Jabba the Hutt. His image might have subconsciously influenced my design though.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 24, 2014)

*Spinosaurus and the Wall*
                                                  A Spinosaurus lumbers within  sight of some ancient ruins on the African savanna. The wall is supposed  to vaguely resemble the Great Enclosure in Zimbabwe, but the mask-like  face on the turret came from my imagination. I've always felt ruined  architecture would make a great backdrop for a dinosaur picture even if  it is technically anachronistic.










*Alphadon the Cretaceous Underdog*
                                                  In the understory of a Cretaceous jungle, an _Alphadon marshi_  clings to safety as a dinosaur prowls past. A contemporary of T. Rex  and Triceratops, Alphadon belonged to the metatherian group of mammals  that also includes marsupials like kangaroos. Little is known about this  animal's appearance other than its teeth, but most artists reconstruct  it as resembling an opossum which I find relatively boring. For my own  depiction I chose more exotic influences like the tree kangaroo of New  Guinea, the ring-tailed lemur of Madagascar, and various species of  spotted cats around the world.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 28, 2014)

Couple of characters from my short story The Gold Tusk (on display in MS's Showcase):





*Khalid ibn Najjar*
Khalid is a down-on-his-luck merchant who lives with his starving family  in the Masryeen city of Qahirah. In a fit of desperation he rides out  into the desert to some ancient Hikuptan ruins in search of treasure,  but his biggest finding there is a truth that challenges his  preconceptions of history and the natural order of things. In addition  he discovers a life-size elephant idol with gold tusks.

I think  my drawing of Khalid made him look like a turbaned Arab version of  Jesus. Some people may not like that he's stealing treasure from an  ancient civilization, but I intended him to be a sympathetic if  prejudiced character who cares about his family's well-being more than  anything else.






*Mehtire the Hikuptan Priestess*
Back in the heyday of the Hikuptan civilization, Mehtire served as a  higher-ranking priestess for the elephant god Yebu. She doesn't actually  appear until towards the story's end, but she does use her authority to  save the protagonist Khalid from execution at the hands of temple  guards. Although beautiful as I like my heroines, Mehtire isn't meant to  be an object of romance in the story (Khalid meets her as a  centuries-old ghost anyway).


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## Gurkhal (Mar 2, 2014)

I was a little disappointed there were less babes than normally to look at  but good work!


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## Jabrosky (Mar 2, 2014)

*Azeneith the Hikuptan Spy*
This started out as a meaningless doodle (actually inspired by a photo I  saw on Facebook), but as it progressed I decided to give this lady a  little bit of back-story.

Azeneith (yes, I drew her name from the  Biblical story of Joseph) works as a spy for Hikuptah, a fantasy  civilization based off ancient Egypt and Nubia. She knows some poisons  and martial arts, but her womanly wiles and cunning are her best assets.  She's great as seducing her enemies to get what she and her benefactors  want.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 5, 2014)

*Lady Triceratops*
Most artistic representations of _Triceratops horridus_, my own  included, give it curving brow horns and neck-frills fringed with little  pointy knobs. Many recovered Triceratops skulls do show these  characteristics, but the specimen displayed at the American Museum of Natural History  is remarkable for their absence. It has straight brow horns and a  heart-shaped frill with a smooth edge. I don't know if other Triceratops  skulls in the paleontological record have these traits, but it made me  wonder whether the AMNH specimen could represent a female of the  species. Hence this portrait of a female Triceratops, complete with an  earthy color scheme.

I'm not really a fan of drably colored  dinosaurs, but certain shades of earthy tones can still make for exotic  patterns that fit them very well in my opinion.






*Fishing for Snakes*
Deep in the prehistoric jungle, a black huntress armed with a _seme _dagger  wrestles with a swamp-viper. It's not the biggest snake I can imagine  for this setting, but then something on the scale of Titanoboa might be  overkill for one lady.

That is supposed to be a Pteranodon soaring in the background over the woman's head.






*Lady with a Big Cat*
In the interest of adding some diversity to the warrior babes in my  artwork, here's a Native American chick with her pet Smilodon. If the  saber-tooth doesn't get you first, its mistress will with either her  tomahawk or wooden war-club.

Although the war-club's angular  design is based on actual Native American weaponry, the woman's outfit  isn't meant to channel a particular Native group from real history. You  could say she's from some pre-Columbian tribe that got absorbed and lost  to history.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 6, 2014)

*Damsel to the Rescue*
In a valiant effort to save the man she loves from a brutal execution, an African jungle huntress takes on a _Tyrannosaurus rex_ with her _seme _blade.

I  got the idea for this picture after looking at some pulpy adventure art  that featured white male heroes rescuing damsels in distress (also  white) from sacrificial rituals in exotic lands. I thought to myself,  "what if it was a native black woman rescuing the white male lead  instead?" As much as the jungle adventure genre appeals to me, it's even  cooler when you get to subvert the old bothersome tropes.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 13, 2014)

*Kemyebu the Royal Elephant*
                                                  Kemyebu's name means "black  elephant" in the ancient Egyptian language, for he has much darker  coloring than normal for his species. You could say he is a rare example  of melanism in elephants. Thanks to his unusual color, the people who  keep Kemyebu revere him as so sacred that only their kings and queens  can ride him. In this sense his experience is analogous to that of  albino elephants kept by historical Southeast Asian rulers.









*Even Tyrants Adopt*
67 million years before Brangelina will walk the Earth, _Tyrannosaurus rex_ takes an adopted _Triceratops horridus_  youngster on a stroll along the Californian coast. Reports of lions  temporarily "adopting" antelope calves in the wild sparked the concept  behind this.

As for the Californian setting, while neither T. Rex  nor Triceratops remains have yet been uncovered from the state, I  thought it would be novel to have these dinosaurs roaming along an ocean  other than the Western Interior Seaway for once. Surely there had to be  dinosaurs roaming the Pacific coastline in the Late Cretaceous,  wouldn't there?






*Ramses and the Widowmaker*
Having just reached the cusp of manhood, young Ramses II undergoes a  treacherous rite of passage in the Nile floodplains to prepare him for  the Egyptian throne. Suffice to say that this wild buffalo (_Syncerus caffer_) isn't all that eager to cooperate.

This scene derives from the beginning chapter of Christian Jacq's novel _The Son of the Light_,  first in a series of biographic novels about Ramses II. In the original  text, it's actually a North African subspecies of wild cattle (_Bos primigenius africanus_)  he wrangles with a rope, but I decided that a buffalo would have more  exotic appeal. I am not sure which animal would have been deadlier  though. In this picture Ramses would probably have reached somewhere  between his late teens and early twenties; any age earlier than fourteen  and he would have still kept his braided sidelock of youth.






*Carthaginian Auxiliary*
                                                  This is meant to represent an  auxiliary war elephant from ancient Carthage. I say auxiliary because  the black spear-woman on top is obviously an assimilated African subject  instead of an ethnically Punic (Phoenician) citizen. Much like their  Roman adversaries, Carthage lorded over a polyglot group of peoples on  both sides of the Mediterranean, so non-Punic soldiers such as Africans,  Celts, and Iberians would have built up much of their army. As for the  shield the lady's carrying, it features a real Carthaginian religious  symbol in white, but the general design is based off traditional shields  used by the Zande people of Central Africa.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 22, 2014)

*Cleopatra as Isis*
Cleopatra VII, the most famous Cleopatra, dresses up as the goddess Isis  to appeal to her Egyptian subjects. Most of the time I draw Cleopatra  in Greek clothing to reference the Macedonian side of her heritage, so  this is the first time I've given her a native Egyptian outfit. Whereas  most Ptolemaic rulers before her shunned the indigenous Egyptian  culture, Cleopatra VII actually went out of her way to learn the native  language and reach out to the Egyptian people. The classicist Sally  Ann-Ashton has even argued that Cleopatra identified _more _with  Egypt than any other culture, analogous to how Barack Obama and other  biracial people tend to choose a Black identity for themselves today.

As for Cleopatra's green eyes, I wanted to channel the model Tyra Banks with this depiction.






*Kushite and Greek Soldiers*
Two soldiers from the ancient world, an archer from Kush (aka Nubia or  Sudan) and a spearman from Greece. Unfortunately my little scanner  required that I cut off their feet from the picture.

 These concept sketches are actually preparation for my Drawing and  Composition class's final project towards the end of the semester. What I  want to do is draw a big battle between Kushite and Greek forces, with the Kushites led by their legendary warrior king Memnon. You could call it an illustration of Greek mythology.

 Those lines on the Kushite archer's faces are meant to represent ritual  scars. Today scarification is associated with South Sudanese groups,  but some ancient Egyptian wall reliefs depict Kushite warriors as having  these scars on their foreheads.







*Ready to Fire*
This archer from ancient Kush (Nubia) is ready to loose a  flaming arrow. The Kushites were famous for their archery most of all  (the Egyptians even called their country Land of the Bow), but the  flaming arrow is my artistic speculation.






*Kushite Infantryman*
                                                  A common  infantryman from ancient Kush, a kingdom in what is now Sudan that  jostled against Egypt over dominance of the Nile Valley. Like their  Egyptian counterparts, Kushite warriors used cowhide shields as  their main protection, but pictorial evidence from one of Pharaoh  Tutankhamun's chests suggests that Kushite shields had a more oval  shape.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 23, 2014)

*Sigurd the Well-Traveled*
After returning from a trip to the West African coast, Sigurd the Norseman is about to introduce horned helmets (along with a _dashiki _garment)  from the local Igbo culture to his native Scandinavia. Most sources  limit Viking activity in Africa to the Islamic northern coast, but if  the Norse could make it all the way to Canada in their longboats, I  don’t see why they couldn’t have reached West Africa too.

It may be true that the Norse never wore horned helmets as popularly stereotyped, but such headgear really is known from the Igbo people of Nigeria.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 23, 2014)

*Itchy Dreads are Itchy* This Egyptian lady is scratching her dreadlocks for some reason. Either she's in deep thought, or something in her dreads really itches.  I ought to draw more Egyptian women with dreads like this. I need more practice with longer hairstyles anyway.  And apologies for the exposed breasts this time. It's not meant to be sexual but cultural though.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 23, 2014)

Whatever happened to the formatting options when you write a post?


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## Jabrosky (Mar 25, 2014)

*Ambush from Above*
A hungry African huntress swings down on a surprised raptor, armed with her _seme_  blade. The main inspiration for drawing this was a desire to improve my  characters' posing and foreshortening. Given the agility required to  survive in the prehistoric jungle, tribal huntresses are great for this  kind of practice.

The raptor illustrated isn't necessarily any particular species, but the downturned lower jaw was drawn from recent research on _Utahraptor ostrommaysorum_.






I*n Defense of Gaul*
                                                  A Celtic warrior from ancient  Gaul (now France) faces an attacking Roman legionary. Alas, his valiant  efforts to defend his homeland will prove futile, as Gaul is destined to  become part of the Roman Empire.

I apologize for the sloppy line  art this time. Normally I would ink the lines with a black marker and  erase all the messy pencil-work around them, but this time I was working  with very soft paper that doesn't withstand constant erasing all that  well. Unfortunately messy pencil lines don't cooperate very well with  Photoshop's Magic Wand, so I had to color the whole thing with my mouse.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 27, 2014)

*Desert Dimetrodon*
A Dimetrodon sinks into torpor under the desert sun after polishing off the remains of a hapless human hunter. Despite their reptilian appearance, Dimetrodon and its kin were more closely related to mammals like us than to proper reptiles like dinosaurs. Nonetheless most paleontologists assume they possessed a "cold-blooded" reptilian metabolism sensitive to environmental temperature changes.

So far all of Dimetrodon's remains have been uncovered in the southwestern United States or Europe, but I chose to base this fantasy desert backdrop more on the Australian Outback. Most fantasy deserts seem to draw from the Middle East, North Africa, or the American Southwest, so I felt an Australian inspiration would be a welcome variation from that pattern. Besides, Australia is well-known for housing a number of dangerous reptiles.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 27, 2014)

*Desert Huntress*
Almost all of my black huntress characters thus far have worked in jungles or savannas, so here's a variation of huntress that operates in the desert instead. Her getup and boomerang were inspired more by Aboriginal Australians than Africans, but strictly speaking she comes from a prehistoric fantasy world. Whereas her sisters in the jungle and savanna hunt Mesozoic-style dinosaurs, this desert lady goes after Permian and Triassic creatures instead (I always imagined the Permian and Triassic Periods as being more desert-like anyway).


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## Jabrosky (Mar 28, 2014)

*Atticus from Pompeii*
My portrayal of Atticus, the African gladiator character played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in the recent _Pompeii _movie. This is supposed to represent how I think he may have dressed before becoming a gladiator in the Roman Empire. The sword he is carrying is based off the gbaya used in Cameroon, which was used both as a weapon and an agricultural tool.

I don't think the movie ever mentions where in Africa he came from, but I got a West African vibe from the little idol he prays to in his cell. Maybe he came from the Nok culture which thrived in what is now Nigeria between 1000 BC and 300 AD?


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## Jabrosky (Mar 31, 2014)

*Egyptian and Olmec Ball Players*
What if the Olmecs of ancient Mesoamerica invited the Egyptians to play ball with them?

The Olmec player on the right is supposed to be a little stockier or more plus-sized than her Egyptian counterpart on the left. She actually started out a male character, but I switched to a female because I didn't want their hypothetical game to be a battle of the sexes. As for the Egyptian player, she's supposed to be spinning the ball on her finger like a modern-day basketball player.

It is actually unknown whether any of the Mesoamerican civilizations had female ball-players, but figurines of women in traditonally ball-player costumes have been uncovered.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 2, 2014)

*Memnon Attacks Antilochos*
Antilochos, a Greek prince of Pylos, is about to receive a lethal beating from the Nubian King Memnon. One might think that the Greek is the better armored fighter in this confrontation, but from what I've researched, maces like Memnon's come in handy against armored opponents. In the end Memnon will kill Antilochos, only to be slain himself by Achilles on behalf of Antilochos' father Nestor.

(These are not characters I made up, but actual figures from Greek mythology, specifically the Trojan War story. Of course the Greek accounts label Memnon's country as "Aethiopia", but that was their name for what we call Nubia or northern Sudan today.)


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## Jabrosky (Apr 3, 2014)

*Ramses the Rapper*
"And this is how I whooped those Hittite player-haters at Kadesh!" Pharaoh Ramses II would totally say as a preface to a rap about his (self-declared) awesomeness. That is, if hip-hop went back to those ancient times.

Actually some Egyptological scholars have suggested that ancient Egyptian music really would have sounded like a prototype to rap, complete with an emphasis on percussion. Most scholars trace the current hip-hop tradition to West African traditions of singing poets, but who knows, maybe those in turn shared common origins with Egyptian music.

(And yes, I am aware that the battle of Kadesh wasn't at all a victory for the Egyptians. That didn't stop Ramses from bragging about it though.)


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## Jabrosky (Apr 5, 2014)

*Slicetooth the Allosaurus*
In the _Coming of Ramun_ story I am working on, "slicetooth" is the name applied to the Allosaurus in honor of its slicing knife-like teeth. Sliceteeth are among the top predators of the setting's savanna region and may prey either on other dinosaurs or the native people. Whenever a savanna chieftain's heir comes of age, they are expected to slay one of these carnivores as a rite of passage much as the Maasai of Kenya would traditionally slay lions.

Allosaurus isn't really my favorite dinosaur, but I like how its name rolls off the tongue and how its lean and medium-sized physique looks intermediate between a Velociraptor and a T. Rex.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 6, 2014)

*Egyptian Archer*
An archer from ancient Egypt prepares to nock his arrow for an early morning attack. The criss-crossing straps over his torso are drawn from a Middle Kingdom wall relief found near the tomb of Pharaoh Amenemhat I. The cobra headband is my own addition, but I wanted to get across that this archer was specifically Egyptian rather than a generic African, and what could be more Egyptian than a gold cobra headband?

The grass and ground were both solely created in Photoshop using a special brush and a gradient effect.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 9, 2014)

*Archer Pharaoh*
This Egyptian warrior queen senses that one of her enemies lurks somewhere in the dust storm and so has her bow and arrow drawn.

I would like people to notice that lately I have chosen to give my African characters' palms and soles paler skin than the rest of their body. This is a move to make them more realistic. If you look at actual African or other dark-skinned people, you'll notice that they do indeed have paler palms and soles.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 9, 2014)

*Egyptian Archer with Otjize*
Here's an alternate version of my Egyptian archer that gives him a coat of reddish _otjize_ paste made from red ochre, ash, and rancid butter. I got this idea from the Himba people of Namibia, who smear themselves with this paste as protection against the desert climate. Since the Egyptians also lived in a desert environment, maybe they would have a similar practice. It certainly could explain the reddish coloring of Egyptian characters, particularly men, in their artwork.

Unfortunately I wasn't sure how to make the _otjize_ covering look like an actual paste in Photoshop, so instead you get a guy who looks unrealistically red-skinned.






*Prehistoric Pharaoh*
                                                  Before the Egyptians learned how  to weave linen, how would their chieftains' crowns have looked? This  early predynastic Pharaoh is wearing the familiar nemes headdress, but  her prototype is cut from zebra hide to give it the striped look. Her  necklace is made from stone beads and fragments of ostrich shell (the  latter actually used quite often in prehistoric Egyptian jewelry).


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## Jabrosky (Apr 11, 2014)

*Savanna Siesta*
A leopard takes a rest atop a tree bough in this fantasy savanna landscape. The animals in the background are the pterosaur _Geosternbergia sternbergi_ (once a subspecies of Pteranodon) and a pair of _Apatosaurus excelsus_.

Ever since I saw Disney's Tarzan as a kid, I've had a soft spot for leopards. I wanted my leopard to look vaguely like Sabor from that movie, but not so much as to violate copyright.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 12, 2014)

*Space Egyptian*
Now that their culture has survived beyond the present day and needs  more real-estate for royal tombs, the ancient Egyptians have turned  their attention to the star-spangled blackness they once called Nut. Now  is their turn to go where no Pharaoh has gone before...

(I cannot design futuristic firearms to save my life yet.)


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## Jabrosky (Apr 13, 2014)

Couple of cartoon-style drawings, one depicting Hatshepsut and the other Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (now Angola):


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## Jabrosky (Apr 18, 2014)

*Megalodon for the Win*
The giant Miocene shark _Carcharodon megalodon_ attacks the contemporaneous sperm whale relative _Livyatan melvillei_. Time to show those mammals who's really king of the ocean!






*Tyrant's Stroll*
A _Tyrannosaurus rex_ takes a leisurely walk through its jungle domain.

Back  in my childhood, tyrannosaurs strolling or hunting in jungles  constituted a recurring theme in my art, and I wanted to revisit those  good old days. Hopefully the T. Rex's green coloring won't make him too  invisible against the backdrop. However, I've always imagined T. Rex as a  predominantly green animal so it could blend into the forest when  stalking prey.






*The Ebon Coast*
This tropical beach marks the edge of a vast and shadowy jungle. The great mask mounted to the left is based off the _Tyrannosaurus rex_, and it symbolizes a warning to would-be intruders of the inland perils.

I'm  naming this area the Ebon Coast in honor of the Black Coast, a  pseudo-African region in Conan the Barbarian's Hyborian Age ("ebon" is  another word for black).






*Portrait of Cleopatra VII*
It's been a while since I last did a photo-manipulation.  This is supposed to represent Cleopatra VII, the last and most famous of  Egypt's Ptolemaic rulers. For her face I used a photo of the actress  Zoe Saldana, but I darkened her skin to counteract the usual media  procedure of digitally "whitening up" actress's complexions. The  headdress obviously comes from a modern fantasy costume, but I believe  the necklace actually does originate from Late Period Egypt.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 19, 2014)

*Julius Caesar's Ride*
Julius Caesar, the most well-known Roman statesman and general, takes a ride on his horse. Judging by the sky background, I'm guessing he's out on some open plain in the Italian countryside.

I've been playing _Total War: Rome 2_ quite a bit lately and so felt like drawing another Roman guy.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 19, 2014)

*Hannibal's Bad Eye*
When he was crossing a swamp early in his Italian campaign, Hannibal Barca of Carthage lost sight in one eye, possibly due to a disease called opthalmia. It probably would have looked much more gruesome than I've depicted here (judging from Google image search results on opthalmia), but eye gore is utterly terrifying for me to look at.

We have no definitive portraits of Hannibal dating to his time period (though there are coins speculated to depict him), so exactly how his physical features may have looked remains a mystery for the time being. The skin color I've chosen here is meant to represent a mix between Phoenician (or Punic) colonists from Lebanon and local African people. The ritual scars on his face definitely have an African inspiration, but the symbol on his left cheek actually is a Carthaginian symbol for the goddess Tanit.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 20, 2014)

*Komba the Nganga*
This lady, whom I've nicknamed Komba for the time being, works as a _nganga_  (spiritualist and healer) for the jungle society she comes from. A  career of working with the spiritual realm and magic has changed her eye  color to bright gold. Though her piercings and other getup may give her  a fearsome appearance, Komba is actually a nurturing and intelligent  young woman even if she does adhere to her native beliefs on a dogmatic  level.

Komba's design owes some inspiration to the Witch Doctor character archetype from the game _Diablo III_. I wanted her to possess a beauty that her "tribal" ornamentation could not fully obscure. Although the term _nganga _comes  from Central African languages, Komba's fantastical outfit isn't  necessarily meant to portray that of any real African group.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 21, 2014)

*
Komba's Spearhead*
Although healing and magic are Komba the _nganga_'s career specialties, as an adventurer in a savage world she still needs to defend herself when her magic runs dry. The weapon she uses would be best described as a cross between an execution sword used by the Baule people of Africa's Ivory Coast and a Japanese naginata. It's technically a pole-arm, but its curved blade allows for enhanced slashing action.

In the story I am writing for Komba, she and a male warrior named Brodi  discover a secluded city in the jungle that is the last stronghold for a  persecuted religious group (at least they present themselves as  persecuted). In that regard it's vaguely like the famous Robert E.  Howard short _Red Nails_ starring Conan the Cimmerian, which in fact did inspire it.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 24, 2014)

*Komba the Adventurer*
Another drawing of my original heroine Komba the nganga, a healer/magician who travels the world with her boyfriend Brodir in search of adventure. In the story I plan to write for these characters, they chance upon a secluded city in the wilderness that claims descent from a persecuted religious group. The city's leadership wants Komba and Brodir to capture some trouble-making rebels, but are these rebels really the vicious terrorists they are claimed to be?

This style is supposed to have more cartoon-like proportions than what I usually work with, hence why her head and eyes may appear larger here. Her eyes' bright gold color isn't natural but the product of her working with magic and the spiritual world.


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## Scribble (Apr 28, 2014)

Just a note to say I quite enjoy your work. It has a unique character. There is a deep love of African beauty and a sort of... mythological optimism? that resonates through it all. Your characters, though they are cartoon and stylized, they have _soul_, _realness_. Plus you have dinosaurs 

Keep it up


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## Jabrosky (Apr 28, 2014)

Scribble said:


> Just a note to say I quite enjoy your work. It has a unique character. There is a deep love of African beauty and a sort of... mythological optimism? that resonates through it all. Your characters, though they are cartoon and stylized, they have _soul_, _realness_. Plus you have dinosaurs
> 
> Keep it up


Thank you very much, but could you explain what you mean by mythological optimism?


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## Scribble (Apr 28, 2014)

Mythological optimism... 

The characters have a strength, pride, and beauty that seems to emerge from a fierce self-knowledge - their physicalness is not separate from their will. They are unambiguously _who they are_ in that world, and it is a world filled with rich colors and experience. It's far brighter and richer in color than our world is. To be in that world is to be fiercely human. In a world that sees blacks having a hard time for a long time, particularly in the US, it represents also a kind of lost African mythology of heroes. Like Tolkien was writing LOTR as a kind of mythology of pre-historic Britain, your images have that kind of mythological sense to them, like a bright past that once was, but also represents a bright, colorful future that might be.

It is very hard to say with words what art makes you feel...


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## Jabrosky (Apr 28, 2014)

*The Shining Kingdom*
Sometime in an age undreamed of, this capital of a shining kingdom stands surrounded by primeval jungle. I've always had a special fondness for the contrast provided by high civilization juxtaposed with untamed wilderness. In retrospect I should have probably put some kind of dinosaur in the foreground.


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## Jabrosky (Apr 29, 2014)

*Triceratops Takes a Dip*
A _Triceratops horridus_ goes for a swim in the river among some prehistoric ancestors of the red-bellied piranha. Don't worry, the fish aren't hungry at the moment. I don't even know if a piranha's bite could penetrate a dinosaur's thick skin.

I got the idea for this from various photos of Indian elephants swimming underwater. We used to have one of those on a poster at one of my old grade schools.


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## Jabrosky (May 1, 2014)

*The Priestess and the Pyramid*
An African priestess and magician holds a magic staff of  incredible antiquity. The ancient pyramid in the background obviously  has Aztec or Maya influences in its design, but the rounded terraces  also draw upon some lesser-known Igbo pyramids found in the West African  country of Nigeria.

 The creature flying in the sky is meant to be a _Pteranodon longiceps_, the most iconic of the pterosaurs.


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## Jabrosky (May 3, 2014)

*Conan and the Pterosaur*
Everybody's favorite barbarian warrior, Conan from Cimmeria, has a run-in with a predatory Pteranodon. This would probably take place somewhere in the jungle-swathed southern reaches of the Hyborian Age, such as one of the Black Kingdoms.

I'm not entirely satisfied with this composition. I think it would look better with Conan actually attacking or parrying the creature instead of just standing there like a deer in the headlights.

Conan the Barbarian (c) Robert E. Howard


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## Jabrosky (May 3, 2014)

*Pyramids and a Pin-Up*
I may have said it before, but I will say it again anyway: there is something especially alluring about beautiful women in power.

The big grinning face in front of the pyramids and behind the palm leaves is supposed to represent a Sphinx. It's almost all worn away now, but Egyptologists believe that the original Sphinx at Giza once sported a full and brightly colored coat of paint (and while we're at the it, the pyramids really would have been bright white with gold caps).


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## Jabrosky (May 6, 2014)

*Egyptian Leopard Minion*
Once a law-abiding member of ancient Egyptian society, this hapless gentleman has been transformed through malignant sorcery into a man-eating half-leopard.

Although there are a number of genuine African myths about people transforming into leopards, this concept borrowed a lot from an old cartoon series called _The Legend of Tarzan_, which had the villainous Queen La command an army of anthropomorphic leopards like this. Truthfully I am not sure a leopard-man would need a sword if he already has fangs and claws, but maybe a blade would give him more reach.


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## Jabrosky (May 7, 2014)

*The Stalker of Qianzhou*
The newly discovered tyrannosaurid _Qianzhousaurus sinensis_ lurks in the rainforests of what will someday become southeastern China. This is the smaller, slender-snouted cousin of T. Rex that the press is calling "Pinocchio Rex", but personally I think that nickname is too cutesy for a predator like this.


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## Jabrosky (May 7, 2014)

Some projects of mine for my current Drawing and Composition class:





*Conan's Discovery*
Deep in the jungles beyond the Black Coast, Conan the Cimmerian has uncovered the moss-stained ruins of a pyramid that was ancient when the oceans drank Atlantis. What pre-Cataclysmic treasure---or peril---will he find in its shadow-guarded depths?






*Egyptians Attack Greece*
In an alternate timeline, the ancient Egyptians have sailed across the Mediterranean to conquer Greece. This is of course ahistorical, as there's no evidence of such a confrontation that I know of.






*Defending the Village*
An African warrior challenges a predatory Allosaurus in defense of his village. Unlike my other drawings, I had to use charcoal for this. I hate how messy charcoal is, and it doesn't allow for as much detail as other media.


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## Jabrosky (May 7, 2014)

*The Warrior Queen*
This pseudo-Egyptian matriarch stands ready for battle with her spear and shield. Someday I will complete that story I've always wanted to write about her. Then she can have a life outside my art for once.


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## Jabrosky (May 8, 2014)

*The Strategas*
This female warrior has risen to the top of her city-state's military pecking order through a combination of strategic brilliance and ferocious devotion to her people's cause. Now she is one of the city-state's most influential citizens, almost a de facto leader.

I wanted to draw her with a helmet on but didn't think it would fit on the page. She's supposed to look Mediterranean, but I wonder if she didn't come out a little Asian-looking instead.

Of course ancient Greece wasn't known for its female warriors or progressive attitudes towards women, but anything goes in fantasy art.


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## Jabrosky (May 8, 2014)

*The Negus*
This woman rules as the Negus (monarch) of a mountain kingdom based off ancient Ethiopia in northeastern Africa. If her expression looks like a sneer, I created her with the idea that she would function as an antagonist for my Egyptian warrior queen character. I imagine her as a sort of religious zealot who believes she has a God-given duty to force her kingdom's culture onto "infidel" countries.


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## Jabrosky (May 9, 2014)

*Captured Queen*
My pseudo-Egyptian warrior queen character lies in captivity within the bowels of an enemy dungeon. It may not be the most uplifting experience for her, but with great adventure comes great suffering. Hopefully she'll figure a way out of this nadir and fight her way back to glory.


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## Gurkhal (May 11, 2014)

More good stuff there Jabrosky.

Regarding your Greek lady I think she looked mor Greek than Asian.


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## Jabrosky (May 13, 2014)

*Pharaoh's Shame*
I think this Pharaoh looks ashamed, or perhaps shy or nervous about something. That's supposed to be her crown that she's holding in her hands.

I drew this with graphite pencils on 18 x 24 inch paper, which is much larger than the scanner-sized sketchbook paper I use most of the time. The whole process must have taken over two hours, and I still think it could use cleaning up in places. I want to see if a local art gallery or seller will accept the hard copy since I could use the income right now.


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## Jabrosky (May 13, 2014)

*Notecard Hatshepsut*
Someone on DeviantArt was telling me about these special art trading cards (called ATC or ACEO) which are 2.5 x 3.5-inch cards which you draw on and sell. When I first heard about the concept, I was skeptical that I could squeeze in half-decent art in such a small size, but nonetheless I decided to practice this kind of small-scale drawing on an old notecard. At 3 x 5 inches in dimension, this notecard is larger than the ATCs described to me, but I was pleasantly surprised at how this turned out despite the tiny canvas.

Anyway, this is of course Hatshepsut, the most famous of ancient Egypt's small number of female rulers.


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## Jabrosky (May 14, 2014)

*Jungle Surfing*
_Acheroraptor temertyorum_, the American cousin of Velociraptor,  surfs the mossy tree boughs of the jungle canopy. It even has  outstretched its wings for greater balance, much like a human surfer.

As  to why the raptor doesn't get splinters in his feet from sliding on  those branches, maybe he has tough scales on his soles for protection.


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## Jabrosky (May 16, 2014)

*Egyptian Elephants on the March*
Egyptian war elephants equipped with bladed tusk-guards march across a grassy plain somewhere near the Nile River.

I drew this 18 x 24 piece over the course of a few days. In retrospect I think I made the elephants a bit too big relative to their Egyptian drivers, but it is a fantasy piece nonetheless.


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## Jabrosky (May 17, 2014)

Digitally colorized version of my earlier Pharaoh's Shame/Burden drawing.


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## Jabrosky (May 18, 2014)

*Modern Nefertiti*
Queen Nefertiti, as she might look if she and her classical Egyptian culture were still around in modern times.

When  I first set out to illustrate my concept of modernized Egyptians, I  started with fashion inspired by hip-hop culture (mixed with native  Egyptian elements of course) in mind. I changed my mind after  remembering a conversation with a fellow artist  who was designing modern-style African clothing for some 3D program.  Ergo, I ended up with an outfit that looked more fashion model-like than  hip-hop. Maybe that's a more dignified look for a rich and powerful  Queen.

The color palette for her clothing was a bit of a  challenge. I wanted something recognizably Egyptian, yet at the same  time more colorful than historical Egyptian linen garb. As for the face  paint, I figured that if the Egyptians in this alternate timeline  weren't affected by the Greco-Roman and Islamic conquests among others,  they'd look the other way and absorb sub-Saharan influences instead.


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## Jabrosky (May 18, 2014)

*Megalodon the Tyrant Shark King
*My vision of Carcharodon (or is it Carcharocles?) megalodon, the great tyrant shark of the Miocene ocean. I don't care so much for the standard portrayal of this animal as resembling a scaled-up great white or mako shark, so I opted for more exotic-looking influences like the tiger, leopard, or whale shark.

If you're wondering what the scars around his head are, they're supposed to come from conflict with colossal squids. Megalodon is usually reconstructed as a whale-eater, but I bet something his scale would have appreciated a little calamari on the side too.

As an ironic joke, I played the Disney song _Under the Sea_ on iTunes while coloring this. Because no theme suits Megalodon like one about how fun life is in the dark depths of the ocean.


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## Jabrosky (May 19, 2014)

*Unwavering Loyalty*
Trained from a young age in the fighting arts and espionage, this elite Egyptian warrior has sworn on her life to serve her Pharaoh against his enemies. Here she is presenting the head of a hapless Canaanite troublemaker who needed pacification.

I wanted this chick to have a sinister assassin-like look, so I gave her outfit a reddish palette since red was the color of chaos in Egyptian culture. Some influences behind her basic concept include the Medjay warriors in Kandake Brockington's _Journey Through Darkness_ books and the historical female warriors of Dahomey (now modern Benin).


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## Jabrosky (May 19, 2014)

*Ketabu the Sunbeam Warrior*
From a young age, Ketabu has trained in the fighting and espionage arts to serve her father, King Djekahi of Akhiptu, as one of his elite Sunbeam warriors. She has sworn an oath of unwavering loyalty to the throne's cause, but when he assigns her a mission that goes against her conscience, she finds herself pitted against the very regime that raised her up.

The shading style used here is supposed to resemble the preliminary pencil work used by comic-book artists before the digital coloring process.


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## Jabrosky (May 20, 2014)

*Seductress with a Secret*
Ketabu, my Egyptian-style assassin, may have studied the fighting arts from a young age, but her espionage training also covered taking advantage of her feminine wiles. Here she's using them to full effect one sultry night, but she is hiding something behind her back that may not be so pleasant.


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## Jabrosky (May 20, 2014)

*Anansi and Serket Portraits*
Portraits of two arachnid divinities from African mythology, Anansi the spider and Serket the scorpion. I settled on a more human appearance for these deities' faces because spider and scorpion anatomy are frankly not my favorite subjects to look up. Spiders, along with dogs and giant squid, creep the heck out of me.

My design for these two deities may look sinister, but while Anansi has always been the archetypical trickster, both he and Serket also have some beneficial roles in their respective traditions. Serket functions as a protector deity whereas Anansi is credited with teaching agriculture to humankind.


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## Jabrosky (May 20, 2014)

*Egyptian vs Hyenas WIP*
Work-in-progress sketch of an Egyptian female warrior confronting hungry hyenas out in the Nile Valley savanna. If I don't get the whole thing finished tonight, I'll have it up within the next couple of days.

See if you can recognize these hyenas' designs. You might have an advantage if you were a kid watching animated movies in the 1990s...


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## Jabrosky (May 21, 2014)

*Egyptian vs Hyenas*
An Egyptian huntress has a nasty run-in with some predatory hyenas out in the savannas of the Nile Valley. She's going to need a new spear after this encounter, as spotted hyenas have some of the most powerful jaws of all the carnivorous land mammals.


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## Jabrosky (May 22, 2014)

Graphite facial portrait of my heroine Ketabu, an Egyptian-style warrior princess. I think she came out looking nervous or guilty here.


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## Jabrosky (May 22, 2014)

*Ketabu the Warrior Princess (Update)*
I've shaded her skin in and given her a small backdrop of savanna grass. Her story has undergone some major revisions in the planning process, but at last I've finally gotten around to actually writing it.


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## Jabrosky (May 23, 2014)

*Dress as the Greeks Dress*
This Egyptian princess is ready to visit Greece on a diplomatic errand, so she has mixed her native costume with Greek fashion items to better fit into the local environs. Mixing together different cultural influences can lead to especially creative designs in my personal opinion, but I wonder if this would count as an act cultural appropriation?


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## Jabrosky (May 23, 2014)

*An Unlikely Pair*
Imagine the surprise this Tyrannosaurus rex must feel when a fearless butterfly has settled on his snout. He probably won't eat it though, since butterflies that vibrantly colored are generally poisonous.

In case you're wondering, the butterfly is a made-up species.


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## Jabrosky (May 23, 2014)

*Not Your Average Princess*
Ketabu, my warrior princess, leaps into battle with her spear. From a young age she received training in the martial arts, which has sculpted her into one of the most formidable warriors in the whole kingdom. She also enjoys hunting in the savannas beyond her palace as a pastime. She is not your stereotypical Disney-style princess at all!


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## Jabrosky (May 24, 2014)

*Mosileon the Rebel War Hero*
Mosileon is a seasoned old warrior from the island oligarchy of Parthenos. His distinguished military career has won him a special level of influence within the Parthenan high council, but he staunchly opposes their vassalage to the mighty empire of Akhiptu across the sea. When the Akhiptan King Djekahi's son dies in an ambush, the King blames Mosileon and his supporters for setting up the incident as a terrorist attack. He sends his vengeful daughter Ketabu after Mosileon's head, but she finds there may be more to the story than it appears...

If the Akhiptans in my story are based off the ancient Egyptians, Mosileon's homeland of Parthenos is modeled after the Greek city-state of Athens. In fact the name of Mosileon's political faction, the Owls, draws from the goddess Athena's symbolic bird.

Mosileon may look like a lighter-skinned African-American dude in this drawing, but his Parthenan people are supposed to be moderately brown-skinned with curly hair. Their physical features could be described as "mulatto" or intermediate between those of the black Akhiptans and paler peoples to the north.


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## Jabrosky (May 24, 2014)

*Ketabu the Lethal Beauty*
Another view of Ketabu, the warrior princess of Akhiptu. I'm plugging through her story's first chapter as I type this, and it has her confront the loss of a loved one and the mysterious foreigners who killed him. Vengeance will feature as one of the themes in the story since it's one of her major motivators.

Ketabu's kilt may obscure it here, but I wanted her to have a shapely derriere underneath it. That actually does affect how other characters react to her, especially the non-Akhiptans who have this stereotype of Akhiptan women as having generous backsides. It should be needless to say that Ketabu takes virulent offense to this objectifying treatment.


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## Jabrosky (May 26, 2014)

*Jurassic Forest*
Deep in the forests of the Late Jurassic lurks this Ceratosaurus nasicornis. I grew up picturing this guy as playing second fiddle in the ecosystem to its larger contemporary Allosaurus, but apparently it preferred a wetter habitat than the dry open savanna where Allosaurus hunted. It may have been like how leopards can live in forests whereas lions prefer the open plains today.

I like how brilliant his color scheme came out.


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## Jabrosky (May 27, 2014)

*All Dressed Up*
Ketabu, warrior princess of Akhiptu, does not care too much for dressing up fancy. Nonetheless it's a prerequisite on certain occasions if you're royalty and you have to represent your kingdom. For example, she may dress up like this when she's on a diplomatic errand to another country.

Before this, all my colored drawings of Ketabu gave her outfit and jewelry a predominantly red palette, but this time I chose blue since it's more like the national color for her country. It's also a color I readily associate with ancient Egypt, which is what her native Akhiptu is primarily based on.


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## Jabrosky (May 27, 2014)

*Rhino Sketch*
Face of a black rhinoceros (_Diceros bicornis_) that I sketched using a photo reference.

 I'm not usually a fan of art that simply reproduces photographs. It's  one thing to use photo (or life) references to get a sense of how  something is built and to inform your imaginative drawing, but outright  copying seems artistically lazy and uncreative. Nonetheless the  reference did give me a better sense of rhinoceros head anatomy.


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## Jabrosky (May 27, 2014)

*Priest of the Spider*
This Akhiptan Priest serves a divinity represented by the Spider, which in Akhiptan culture is associated with magic, technology, and mischief. The circular scars on his face are meant to emulate spider eyes.

Moving on to the history of the real world, there never was a full-blown spider god in ancient Egypt as far as I know. However, the spider's spinning ability was sometimes associated with the goddess Neith who patronized weaving.


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## Jabrosky (May 28, 2014)

*The Nubian Grail*
This started out as a graphite drawing, but then I colorized  it in Photoshop (hence the faux colored pencil effect). The  red-to-black color scheme is meant to emulate the distinctive pottery  made by the people of ancient Kush (Nubia or Sudan) between 2500 and  1600 BC (example here). Think of this as what a grail might look like if fashioned by a Nubian potter.


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## Jabrosky (May 29, 2014)

*Maya Angelou RIP*
Paying my respects to the writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou (1928-2014), who passed away yesterday. This was actually a commission from one of my Facebook friends, who needs an illustration for an article she's writing about Angelou.






*Seti I Reconstruction*
Reconstruction of the mummy of Seti I, Egyptian Pharaoh of the late New  Kingdom. He's best known as the father of Ramses II, but you may  recognize him as the daddy Pharaoh in Dreamworks' _The Prince of Egypt_  who ordered the killing of male Hebrew children. There is of course no  historical evidence for that, and if anything that sounds like a really  stupid move if you have a slave population you want to propogate itself.

I  always thought Seti I's mummy looked vaguely like Michael Jordan, so  that's the look I set out to give him in my reconstruction.


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## Jabrosky (May 30, 2014)

*King Arthur of Camelot*
King Arthur of Camelot wields his magic sword Excalibur as protection against his enemies. This may include Black Knights and any Frenchmen who dare taunt him a second time.

Given the Celtic roots of Arthurian legend, I always preferred to imagine Arthur as a Celtic tribal chieftain instead of the traditional medieval king in a castle. He looks more interesting that way since we don't hear about Celtic tribespeople as often as we do medieval and Greco-Roman history.

The horned helmet is artistic license on my part, but horned helmets actually have been recovered from European archaeological sites (though ironically none of them date to the Viking period in Scandinavia).


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## Jabrosky (May 31, 2014)

*Ketabu's World*
So here's a map showing Ketabu's home country Akhiptu and the surrounding geography.

Most of the countries here have African inspirations, with Akhiptu itself being based on ancient Egypt. However, the Haviki Isles off the coast were settled from further west, so their inhabitants physically and culturally resemble Polynesians rather than Africans. However, the Havikians have a Viking-like annual tradition of raiding the mainland coast. In addition there are Middle Eastern-looking people living along the Phunikan Coast and in the deserts of Shemar.


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## Jabrosky (May 31, 2014)

*Havikian Sea Raider*
The Havikians are a fierce and warlike people who live on the tropical isles west of Akhiptu's shore. Venerating a volcanic war goddess named Oropele, they have an annual tradition of sailing eastward to raid the mainland coasts. For most of their history they also have squabbled among themselves, but recently the various Havikian chiefdoms have consolidated into a larger state under the leadership of King Mahana. This Havikian warrior is carrying a spear and club studded with sharks' teeth.

In a nutshell, think of these guys as Polynesians with a Viking-like appetite for raiding.

The Havikians are planned to be the main "antagonist" nation which my heroine Ketabu and her Akhiptan people will coem into conflict with.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 2, 2014)

*The Charge of Prince Memnon*
Young Memnon, who will grow up to lead the armies of Kush against Greece in the mythical Trojan War, charges into a battle that will prepare him for his fate.

This started out as a random Kushite (or Nubian) warrior drawn in a different angle from what I usually do. You're supposed to be looking at him from behind. I added the whole Memnon theme as an afterthought because I really love the idea of an African warrior king featuring in Greek mythology.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 3, 2014)

_





_*The Tyrant King Says Rawr*_
Tyrannosaurus rex_ blasts a territorial roar which echoes through his jungle kingdom.

The  Staedtler pens I typically use for inking my drawings were running out  of ink, so for this picture I switched to a Pentel ball-point. The  results aren't as good as the usual, but I guess it got the job done in  the end.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 3, 2014)

*Daughter of Horus*
Just a portrait of a random African woman with eye makeup inspired by the ancient Egyptian "Eye of Horus".

More  than anything, this was my first attempt to draw the so-called "Bantu  knot" hairstyle or whatever it's called. I think one of the  African-American chicks from the _Matrix _movies wore a hairstyle like this.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 4, 2014)

Work-in-progress drawing of a Moorish guard. Inspired by old  "Orientalist" paintings of African soldiers standing guard in Islamic  backdrops (e.g. "The Palace Guard" by Ludwig Deutsch).  For my version, however, I want this Moorish soldier's costume and  backdrop to look native West African rather than Islamic or Arabic. If  you look through the window to the left, you may notice architecture  inspired by Malian mud-brick buildings such as those in Djenne and  Timbuktu.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 4, 2014)

Updated on the Moorish guard (still needs more shadows):


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## Jabrosky (Jun 5, 2014)

*O Romeo*
"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

All right, this picture really has nothing to do with anything Shakespearean, not even the recent _Romeo and Juliet_  adaptation with Condola Rashad as Juliet. I simply set out to draw a  West African maiden standing at the edge of her balcony. Nonetheless, as  I was drawing the scene, I couldn't help but recall the iconic image of  Juliet talking to Romeo from her balcony.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 5, 2014)

*Moorish Guard* (now finished)
This drawing of a Moorish guard was inspired by old  "Orientalist" paintings of African soldiers standing guard in Islamic  backdrops (e.g. "The Palace Guard" by Ludwig Deutsch).  For my version, however, I want this Moorish soldier's costume and  backdrop to look native West African rather than Islamic or Arabic. If  you look through the window to the left, you may notice architecture  inspired by Malian mud-brick buildings such as those in Djenne and  Timbuktu.


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## Gurkhal (Jun 6, 2014)

Looks good as always Jabrosky.

I wish I had the patience and talent to paint like you do.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 6, 2014)

*The Hisborian Peninsula
*This map illustrates the peninsula of Hisboria, the setting of a short  fantasy story I have started yesterday (almost finished with the first  scene at almost 1,200 words). 

As fans of medieval history might  guess from the geography and labels, this setting was inspired by early  medieval Spain. In the northern area there are a number of petty  kingdoms who squabble among themselves, whereas the whole southern area  is dominated by the Mourish Empire whose capital is in Kardabou. The  Mours actually represent a splinter off the even larger Empire of  Nyagadu which invaded from across the southern sea, bringing with the  hallmarks of their foreign civilization.

Obviously my Mours are  partly based on the "Moorish" Islamic conquerors of southern Spain, but  actually their culture and even physical appearance more closely  resemble that of sub-Saharan West African people than anything Islamic  or Arabic. For example, their "idolatrous" religion venerates a pantheon  of divinities similar to the _orishas_ venerated by the Nigerian Yoruba.

As  for the story itself, it's about an ambitious King of Oragan who  receives a gift from the Mourish Empire, but this gift isn't nearly as  generous as he first thinks...


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## Jabrosky (Jun 7, 2014)

*Jeboye the Mourish Maiden*
Concept art for Jeboye, the protagonist of a short story I've recently finished titled _The Gift of Empire_.

Jeboye  is a cunning princess from the Mourish Empire, which dominates the  whole southern half of the Hisborian peninsula. Recently the King of  Oragan, one of the petty kingdoms north of the Empire, has been  pestering her people with demands of submission, so she's gone over to  Oragan to resolve this conflict once and for all.

In this picture  I've drawn Jeboye juxtaposed with her native Mourish architecture, but  the whole story itself takes place in the Oraganese king's castle. I  just like how this West African-style architecture looks (even if all  the sticks are tedious to add).

And yes, my word Mourish does  come from term "Moorish" used to refer to the North African conquerors  who spread Islam to southern Spain during the Middle Ages.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 8, 2014)

*Savanna Gates*
This Egyptian-style gatehouse was actually perspective practice for that drawing class I took at Palomar College earlier this spring. Getting the slanted turrets to look right was probably the hardest part of the whole exercise since it required setting additional vanishing points off the top of the page.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 11, 2014)

*Even Huntresses Need Rest*
After supping on some freshly killed dinosaur meat, this jungle huntress has taken to the treetops for a little relaxation.

It feels like a while since I last drew one of my tribal dinosaur huntress characters.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 12, 2014)

*





Nefertiti Shakes It*
Queen Nefertiti of New Kingdom Egypt is shaking her stuff!

Part of the pose (specifically her hands being held out) comes from an actual Egyptian tomb mural, but the shaking part is my own improvisation of course.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 13, 2014)

Beheading a Babylonian (*WARNING:* blood and gore)
                                                  This hapless Babylonian soldier  has learned not to mess with the Queen of Egypt the hard, bloody way. Or  rather he hasn't learned, because it's very hard to learn when you have  no head!

Apologies for the explicit blood and gore, but this scene came to mind after I saw a video demonstrating the cutting power of the Egyptian _khopesh_ sword.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 13, 2014)

*Primal Exultation*
After successfully defending her hunting ground from the predations of a_ Tyrannosaurus rex_, the real queen of the jungle beats her chest and lets out a roar of primal exultation.

I wonder if it would be possible for a woman to beat her chest Tarzan-style? Would her boobies get in the way?


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## Jabrosky (Jun 14, 2014)

*Lisa Frank Gorgosaurus*
I've recycled this old line art of a _Gorgosaurus libratus_ (a smaller cousin of T. Rex) by giving it a color scheme inspired by Lisa Frank.

If  you were a little girl growing up in the 1980s and 90s, you might have  seen school supplies decorated with animals splashed with extremely  bright colors (especially pinks and purples). The artist behind all  those was a lady named Lisa Frank, and she and her company are still  alive as I type this. I don't think she did too many dinosaurs, but if  she did, I'd imagine they'd have colors like this.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 14, 2014)

*Horrified at Actium*
Cleopatra VII, the last Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, and her Roman lover Mark Antony watch in horror as her dynasty nears its end at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. So too will Antony's Roman Republic undergo its twilight soon, and in its place a new Empire will arise...


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## Jabrosky (Jun 15, 2014)

*Alexander the Great vs Candace of Meroe*
This is my illustration of an ancient legend claiming Alexander the Great invaded Kush (aka Nubia or modern Sudan) and was driven back by Queen Candace's war elephants. The legend is almost certainly apocryphal, since most historians maintain that Alexander never penetrated deeper into Africa than Siwa in northern Egypt. Nonetheless the idea of Nubian war elephants scaring the crud out of one of the ancient world's most successful conquerors was too irresistible not to illustrate.

Unfortunately I was working on a small piece of paper, so I couldn't draw a lot of detail on either Alexander or Candace (which is a real shame because I couldn't get Candace's good looks across from this distance).


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## Jabrosky (Jun 16, 2014)

*Hannibal on His Elephant*
Hannibal Barca, the great general of ancient Carthage, rides his war elephant across the Alps in 218 BC.

I actually don't know if Hannibal himself ever rode one of the famous Carthaginian elephants. He would have been a valuable personage, and historical war elephants could be skittish or prone to trampling their own troops. Nonetheless an elephant seems a fitting mount for a great military leader like Hannibal.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 20, 2014)

Haven't found as much time to draw as I once enjoyed this week (taking a class in Adobe Illustrator, and I have a cousin's wedding to attend to), but I did manage to color this tonight:





*Princess of Yam*
This portrait is supposed to represent a princess or queen from Yam, an ancient Sudanese country mentioned in early Egyptian documents. The precise location of Yam remains unknown, but I like to imagine it lay somewhere south of Nubia, maybe in what is now South Sudan. The engraved gemstone in the center of this lady's crown is supposed to vaguely resemble an Egyptian-style cobra, but the rest of her costume was left to my imagination.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 25, 2014)

*Memnon's Training*
Memnon, a Nubian king fated to fight in the legendary Trojan War, practices the archery his country is so famous for. Result of experimenting with Adobe Illustrator (I'm taking a class on that over the summer).


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## Jabrosky (Jun 27, 2014)

Decided to give my Memnon picture a small update (i.e. background and skin highlights).


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## Jabrosky (Jun 28, 2014)

*Nubian Legolas*
This Nubian archer is loosing his arrows literally on the run. The  inspiration for this comes from the elf character Legolas in the recent _Hobbit _sequel and the real-life Danish archer Lars Andersen, both of whom can shoot at very rapid rates on the move.


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## Jabrosky (Jun 30, 2014)

*Cartoon Brontosaurus*
With this cartoon Brontosaurus, I was experimenting with both drawing dinosaurs in a cartoon-like style and adding more variation to my lines' thickness.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 1, 2014)

*Tyrannosaurus Totem*
                                                  Just a quick _Tyrannosaurus rex_  portrait I doodled in a vaguely tribal style. I imagine this might be  used as a totemic clan symbol in some kind of prehistoric fantasy  setting, perhaps with tribal warriors scarring the design into their  skin.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 2, 2014)

*Ankhesenamun Uncrowned*
Portrait of the Egyptian Queen Ankhesenamun, best known as King Tut's  wife. Most of the time she would probably wear a wig like most Egyptian  elites, so this is what she may have looked like with just her natural  hair.

If Ankhesenamun's head shape looks funny here, it's  supposed to be artificially elongated by a process known as head binding  (it's almost like foot-binding but applied to the sides of the head). I  got the idea from an Egyptian sculpture depicting a princess with an elongated head, which _may_  hint at this practice which was once widespread across the world. As  for the dark "spots" on her head, those are supposed to represent short  whorls of peppercorn hair seen on some African people.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 3, 2014)

*A Most Unsettling Discovery*
This explorer is supposed to be freaked out by the ancient colossus gazing out of the sand before him.

I admit that it would be more realistic if the paint on the sculpture was mostly blown off by centuries of wind erosion, just like the paint that once coated the Sphinx in Giza. On the other hand I felt that keeping the paint on would bring it to life and make it more uncanny from the explorer's perspective.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 3, 2014)

*Egyptian Giraffe*
I knew a guy who now works as a schoolteacher in Marina, CA, and he told me once that he was fond of giraffes. Memories of our time together inspired me to draw this Egyptian soldier riding a giraffe. I ought to draw more exotic African wildlife to go with my various African characters.


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## KaidanKiller (Jul 3, 2014)

I like these creatures, very interesting


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## Jabrosky (Jul 3, 2014)

*Tyrannosaurus Warrior*

This anthropomorphic T. Rex probably works as an elite minion for some villainous god or sorcerer. I got the inspiration to draw this from my DeviantArt friend Keville Bowen's fantasy comic _Kamau: Quest for the Son_, which pits humanity against a horde of villainous anthropomorphic animals (albeit none of them are dinosaurs).


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## Nagash (Jul 5, 2014)

Love it Jabrosky ! Were it blue and slightly more scaly this T-Rex warrior would perfectly match the way i picture my beloved Sehras (yeah, basically a more advanced version of Warhammer's lizard men). 

Thanks for sharing !


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## Jabrosky (Jul 8, 2014)

*Poached for Horns*
This Triceratops has lost both its horns and life to humanity's greed. If humans ever figure out how to contact prehistoric life, it would not surprise me if someone started an illegal trade in ceratopsian horns.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 9, 2014)

*Auset Spreads Her Wings*
My vision of Auset, the Egyptian goddess better known as Isis, is about to spread her divine wings.

If you look closely, you may notice that her primary feathers are sprouting from her index fingers. This is taking a cue from certain feathered dinosaurs which had their primary feathers attached to their hands' second digits. Also, the waviness of the dreadlocks I've given her reminds me vaguely of Gabrielle Union.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 9, 2014)

*Leaping into Battle (Work-in-Progress, Stage One)*

So this is going to be my next major self-imposed project over the next few days (I started it last night). It's planned to portray an Egyptian warrior queen leaping into battle against some Middle Eastern soldiers.

I'm drawing this on 18 x 24-inch paper, so it may be difficult to get the whole drawing in one photo using my iPhone (right now you're only seeing part of it).


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## Jabrosky (Jul 10, 2014)

*Leaping into Battle (Work-in-Progress, Stage Two)*
Update on my drawing of an Egyptian warrior queen attacking some Middle Eastern soldiers. I should be about 2/3 of the way through the process now. I just need to add some shading and render in the characters' skin tones.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 11, 2014)

*Leaping into Battle (finished at last!)*
An Egyptian warrior queen leaps into battle against some Middle Eastern soldiers in the desert. Hopefully her agility, lightning reflexes, and martial arts skills can aid her against this mass of enemies!

Mom taught me a way to scan this whole 18-24” drawing in. The key is to scan in different areas of the drawing and then stitch them together using Photoshop’s Photomerge tool. The results are wondrous!


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## Jabrosky (Jul 11, 2014)

Final update for "Leaping into Battle", which has color now:


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## Jabrosky (Jul 12, 2014)

*Back from War*
The Pharaoh has returned home from one of her military campaigns safe and sound, but her hair has really grown out underneath that war crown. She might be overdue for a haircut, unless of course she wants to be stylish and rock her new 'fro.

Just wanted to doodle another chick with an Afro.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 17, 2014)

*Dinosaur Whistle*
Something I came up with while brainstorming for a short story...

What if you had an instrument that worked like a dog whistle, except you used it against dinosaurs? It would produce a blast of very low-frequency (or infrasonic) sound that a human couldn't hear, but it would sound painfully loud to a large dinosaur.

This "dinosaur whistle" is supposed to be carved from horn, though it does owe some inspiration to elephant tusks with designs carved into them by African artisans.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 20, 2014)

*Bwanga Flashes Her Knife*

What you hold in your hand is not a knife. What Bwanga here is flashing out before your eyes..._that's_ a knife.

I was actually reluctant to finish and upload this picture because it's not the most unique image of an African jungle huntress standing with her knife and spear. Nonetheless I needed to end my artistic block sometime, and I actually do have bigger plans for this character. Of course she fights dinosaurs and other prehistoric monsters, but her story also pits her against someone far crueler and more intelligent than any jungle beast...and she doesn't even recognize it at first.

Sorry if her left leg looks too wobbly. I think I exaggerated her shin's inward curve too much.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 23, 2014)

*Run Away and Never Return*
This Egyptian princess, burdened by crushing shame, glances one last time at her kingdom before she flees into the desert.

In retrospect the sunset should probably be behind the pyramids here since they lie to the west of the Nile Valley.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 25, 2014)

*Bwanga and the Tyrant*
Bwanga, huntress of the Mayombi rainforest, swings in to confront a Tyrannosaurus rex. Because nothing is more awesome than an African jungle girl pitted against my favorite dinosaur of all time.

Lines drawn on 11x14'' paper. That allows more room for detail than the standard 8.5x11'', and yet it's not quite as cumbersome as, say, an 18x24''.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 26, 2014)

*Nefertiti's Steed*
                                                  The Egyptian Queen Nefertiti is  spending some quality time with a zebra from her stables. Originally I  wanted to draw a whole zebra chariot, but I was feeling tired and so  settled on this. Maybe I'll tackle the zebra chariot this weekend when I  have more energy.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 26, 2014)

*Goddess of War*
Ever wondered what Kratos from the _God of War_ games would look  like if he came from Egypt rather than Greece? Of course, given that the  real Egyptian divinity of war (Sekhmet) was a woman, I think the  Egyptian equivalent to Kratos would be female too. However, since Kratos  is portrayed as having alabaster-pale skin in the games, I went the  opposite route with my redesign and made her jet-black.

I have both the first and second _God of War_  games on one disc at home, but I'm currently stuck on one of the early  boss fights with the Hydra in the first game. Nonetheless, that chained  knife Kratos has is very fun to throw around.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 26, 2014)

*A Cold Afterlife*
What if the ancient Egyptian civilization managed to reach modern times and develop cryonic technology? Instead of mummifying their dead, the Egyptians would deep-freeze them!

Also, this is one of the first times I've ever drawn a person with their eyes shut. If you haven't had experience with it before, it's not as easy to get it looking right as you might think.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 28, 2014)

*Fiddling with the 'Fro*
                                                  Late-night doodle of an Egyptian  chick fiddling with her hair out of boredom. At least she was supposed  to look bored. I can't help but think from the way I posed the arm that  she's questioning someone's mental health.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 29, 2014)

*Ocean Goddess*
A spirit of the tropical ocean hangs out with two of her subjects, a plesiosaur (that's the long-necked reptile with the long teeth) and a coelacanth fish. She kinda reminds me of the ocean divinity Yemaja from West African Yoruba mythology.






*Modern Hatshepsut*
Another doodle prompted by asking myself the question, "What if the ancient Egyptian civilization survived to the present day?" This is supposed to be a modern-style vision of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, or at least how she might look in a more casual outfit. Most probably she would put on something fancier and more elaborate in a more formal context.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 30, 2014)

*Diabloceratops Among the Heavens*
A _Diabloceratops eatoni_  enjoys its high vantage among some cloud-shrouded mountains. This  ceratopsian dinosaur's genus name means "devil horn-face", so it  appealed to my sense of irony to place it in a more "heavenly"  environment. As for the mountains in the background, their verdant and  exotic appearance is loosely based on certain mountain ranges in  southern China.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 30, 2014)

*Hebraic Beauty*
                                                  I wanted to add some racial  diversity to the female characters in my art, so here's a young maiden  from Biblical Israel. Actually she was Indian when I initially conceived  of her, but as the drawing progressed, she came to remind me of Moses's  mother Jochebed from the movie _Prince of Egypt_. I suppose she could pass as a woman from almost any part of the Middle East.


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## Jabrosky (Jul 31, 2014)

*Proud of Her Service*
I would best describe the emotion this Egyptian warrior chick is expressing as pride or maybe haughtiness. I personally am most proud of her shield's design.

If you're wondering about the ultra-narrow waist and other exaggerated proportions of her anatomy, they were inspired by a certain little girls' cartoon called "Winx Club". Not that I have ever seen the show or have any actual interest in it, but sometimes I wonder what my characters would look like in different artistic styles.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 1, 2014)

*Golden Bristles*
So this is_ Kulindadromeus zaibaikalicus_, the recently discovered  ornithischian dinosaur from Jurassic Siberia that allegedly had  feathers. If you've seen the spate of articles claiming that _all_ dinosaurs had feathers, they're basing their conclusions off this find.

Yellow  journalism aside, if you actually examine the fossil evidence for these  animals, their "feathers" appear to have a fundamentally different, and  more unique, structure from those in theropods. They're more like  plate-shaped scales with bristly projections shooting off them.  Nonetheless, it is still a fascinating revelation and one wonders just  what kind of function it may have served. Given that it was found way up  in Siberia, I would have guessed the dinosaur might have evolved these  bristles to protect against winters which would have been cooler than  elsewhere in the Jurassic world.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 1, 2014)

*Tauriel Redesign Bust*
My redesigned portrait of Tauriel, the Elven Captain of the Guard in Peter Jackson's _The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug_.

Not  that I really had a problem with Evangeline Lilly's portrayal of the  character in the movie, even if a vocal number of Tolkien fans  apparently did. I thought a female warrior like her provided a  refreshing with the male sausage fest that dominated the rest of the  cast. Maybe it wouldn't jive well with Tolkien's gender attitudes, but  then he was a man who grew up and died in a very different  sociopolitical climate from ours. I don't believe Jackson is obligated  to let Tolkien's obsolete prejudices influence the revisions he's making  for a 21st-century audience. Furthermore, since Tolkien is dead and  can't complain about how his mythos is misrepresented, the movies are  for all intents and purposes Jackson's story. He can make it as diverse  with regards to gender, race, or whatever as he wants.

I admit  that an African Tauriel wouldn't make a lot of sense given the  pseudo-medieval European trappings of Middle Earth (though I did spot  some African extras in the movie's water-town scenes). However, if a  female warrior in Middle Earth is enough to unhinge certain Tolkien  fans, it would be hilarious to see their reaction if she was African or  otherwise non-European.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 5, 2014)

*Jungle Falls*
I always wanted to draw a tropical waterfall landscape with dinosaurs  drinking in the foreground. Some people might be reminded of the opening  from Disney's _Dinosaur_, but I was actually more inspired by a scene from _Tarzan_ that had elephants frolicking in a lagoon with waterfalls. I think _Tarzan _has  some of the most gorgeous backdrops I've ever seen in a traditionally  animated Disney movie, and I've always wanted to give my dinosaurs'  environments a verdant and scenic quality like those.

Drawn on 11x14'' paper.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 9, 2014)

*Priestess of Slaughter*
This portrait is supposed to depict a priestess of Sekhmet, the Egyptian lion goddess of war. Or rather, how a priestess of Sekhmet might look back in prehistoric times when the Egyptians were still nomads roaming the then-grassy plains of the Sahara. I've always thought Egypt's prehistoric (or Neolithic) period most fascinating of all, probably because I'm a sucker for prehistoric and tribal stuff in general.

The hairy headdress this priestess is wearing was modeled after the lion-mane headdresses worn by Maasai warriors in modern Kenya. As for the red face paint, it is supposed to reference a tradition about Sekhmet drinking blood (or rather beer dyed red like blood to get her drunk and pacified).


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## Jabrosky (Aug 13, 2014)

*The Old One*
It may look like a run-of-the-mill dragon, but I actually got the idea for this picture after thinking about H.P. Lovecraft's _Call of Cthulhu_  which I recently read. Whatever may be said about Lovecraft's florid  writing style, I thought his core concept of malevolent gods with an  extraterrestrial origin had a lot of potential and was something I  wanted to work with. In my imagination, this "dragon" is really one of  several gods who crashed down to the world to dominate humanity in a  bygone age, promising them magical power in exchange for regular  sacrifices. At some point the human race rebelled against these gods'  tyranny, using sorcery to imprison them so that they would starve and  wither into oblivion. Of course, it takes a lot of time to starve a  god...


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## Jabrosky (Aug 16, 2014)

*Defining Geekdom*
If you've ever heard of so-called "fake geek girls", hopefully you'll have a better appreciation of what I'm saying here.

In  truth, since the construct of "geekdom" has expanded to cover a broad  range of interests over the years, its defining characteristics have  grown increasingly nebulous. It used to be that geeks or nerds were  stereotyped as social rejects who struggled with attracting the opposite  sex, but given how geekdom has grown into a vast subculture in its own  right (as the vast crowds at the annual Comic-Con attest), I'm not even  sure if that applies anymore.

At any rate, I cannot fathom why  pretty girls who are interested in geekdom are written off as fake by  male geeks. You'd think we would all appreciate the company of beautiful  women who share our interests. I know I would!


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## Jabrosky (Aug 16, 2014)

*Shul the Neolithic War-Chief*
Concept sketch for a character named Shul, who hails from the Middle East's Fertile Crescent circa ~6000 BC, during the Neolithic period. His people live in a small city-state with rudimentary agriculture and animal husbandry, but they are in a state of constant conflict with other city-states in the region. Whereas Shul's job is to lead his local militia as war-chief, his mother is the city's High Priestess and therefore its real de facto ruler.

Shul is planned to be the protagonist of what essentially is a love story. He comes into contact with cattle-herding African nomads from the Saharan savanna and falls for their female chieftain, but this doesn't square well with his mother's warlike xenophobia. He is forced to choose between the woman he loves and the woman who raised him...


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## Jabrosky (Aug 17, 2014)

*Aspasia of Miletus*
Aspasia (470-400 BC) was born in the Greek city-state of Miletus on the  coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey), but moved to Athens as a resident  alien (or metic). There she worked as a courtesan and became a beloved  concubine of the famous statesman Pericles. Although her status as a  foreign migrant protected her from the legal restraints that suppressed  native-born Athenian women, it also prevented her from marrying Pericles  and didn't exactly endear her to other Athenian gentlemen. Poets and  philosophers alike would attack her sexuality and influence over  Pericles, with one even blaming her for the Peloponnesian War.

 Not all classical evaluations of her were so negative. For example,  Lucian in his Imagines complimented her for "experience in affairs,  shrewdness in statescraft, quick-wittedness, and penetration" and even  claimed that the philosopher Socrates would visit her to listen to her  discourse. Unfortunately most of the information we know about Aspasia  and her life comes from very fragmented sources.

 The ritual  scars I've drawn on Aspasia's right cheek are modeled after a star-like  symbol that appears on ancient coinage from her native Miletus. However,  none of the ancient texts that have been uncovered thus far describe  her appearance for certain.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 21, 2014)

Good stuff and I particular liked your part about geeks and women.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 21, 2014)

*Aspasia Full-Body*
Another drawing of Aspasia of Miletus, a woman who worked as a courtesan in the Greek city-state of Athens during the 5th century BC. She is known to have been a concubine for the famous Athenian statesman Pericles.






*Nubian Dagger*
Sketch of a Nubian bronze dagger from Kerma, Sudan, which dates back to circa 1750 BC. This particular dagger was actually pretty small with a length of 17 cm (or less than 7 inches) and was found buried in a child's grave. I'm guessing it was some kind of toy for the kid to practice his fighting skills at a young age. The blade's design is similar to that of contemporary Egyptian weapons, but the ivory component in the handle is distinctly Nubian.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 21, 2014)

*Nubian Playtime*
A young Nubian boy playfully brandishes his toy sword in emulation of the warriors whose ranks he will someday join.

I don't think there are many images of children from ancient Nubia that have survived to the present day, so this child's attire remains speculative on my part. It wouldn't surprise me if little Nubian children actually went around naked like many of their Egyptian counterparts during the same time period, but drawing naked children doesn't have much appeal to me at the moment.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 23, 2014)

*Masika the Priestess*
Just an Egyptian chick named Masika chillin’ on top of a wall. Actually requested by another user on DeviantArt (the character is supposed to be a priestess of the cat goddess Bastet).


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## Jabrosky (Aug 25, 2014)

*Hunting in Time*
A time-traveler from the future fires her beam-gun at some off-screen  peril in a Mesozoic jungle. I wanted to experiment with a subject more  futuristic/sci-fi than what I usually draw, but I've always preferred  time-travel stories than the standard space-opera stuff. There's also  some inspiration here from old dinosaur-hunting games like _Carnivores _and _Primal Prey_ which I played as a kid.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 26, 2014)

*Sketchbook Doodles*
I'm taking a "concept sketching" class over the coming fall semester, and our professor wants us to keep a sketchbook with all least 55 pages filled in by the end of the course. I think I am going to have a lot of fun with this, and it'll give me ample opportunity to do anatomical studies and practice other drawing skills.

From left to right, these are portraits of Cleopatra and a Triceratops which were actually drawn on the same page.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 30, 2014)

*Cleopatra's Contemplation*
In 30 BC, a distressed Cleopatra VII holds her pet cobra on her arm in nervous contemplation of the fate she will ultimately visit upon herself. Because when you draw Cleopatra more than once, you'll have to depict her most tragic moment sooner or later.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 1, 2014)

And now for something a little different...

These are some furniture and other artifacts I made for an Autodesk Maya class I am taking at a nearby community college. For this specific exercise I went with a vaguely Egyptian theme.












The weapons on display here are a spear, a shield (if textured, this would be made out of cowhide like historical Egyptian shields), and a sickle-like khopesh sword. The curved headrest at the end of the bed would have functioned like a pillow and was traditionally used by ancient Egyptian and sub-Saharan African people. I don't know how comfortable it would have felt, but I guess the users' kinky Afro-type hair would provide an adequate cushion.






No Egyptian tomb would be complete without a giant sarcaophagus to stuff the mummy in!






The table's legs, like those of the bed, are supposed to resemble lion paws. This was characteristic of real Egyptian furniture. The drum's form is of course based on a traditional African design.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 1, 2014)

cont'd...






This three-legged stool was based on a craftsman's seat found in an Egyptian workers' village near modern Luxor.


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## Noma Galway (Sep 1, 2014)

I love your Cleopatra drawing! The look on her face is nuanced well


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## Jabrosky (Sep 1, 2014)

Noma Galway said:


> I love your Cleopatra drawing! The look on her face is nuanced well


Thank you! Though looking at it again, I wonder if the lines on her brow make her look too old (though I believe your brow does wrinkle up a little when you're frightened or nervous).


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## Jabrosky (Sep 2, 2014)

*Planning for the Climax*
"Come to bed, Marco. You've been at it with that map all evening."

"Sorry, Cleo, Roman war is serious business!"

The map Mark Antony is plotting over is supposed to show the area around Actium, the site of his famous naval battle with Octavian in 31 BC. The blue circles represent his and Cleopatra's fleet, the red squares represent Octavian's fleet, and the green cones represent their respective campsites.

Come to think of it, I did draw and color the whole picture fairly late at night too...


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## Jabrosky (Sep 2, 2014)

Shaded and highlighted version of the above drawing:


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## Jabrosky (Sep 3, 2014)

*Tribal Necklace from Maya Class*
Another assignment from my Autodesk Maya class, this time making smoother-looking objects than the last assignment. This is supposed to be a tribal necklace made from dinosaur teeth and claws.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 3, 2014)

*Nemesis for a Tyrant*
Even _Tyrannosaurus rex_ needs an arch-nemesis with whom he can  vie for dominance of the Cretaceous jungle. And who better to challenge  him than another giant flesh-eating dinosaur?

I just read on Twitter that a paleontologist named Robert Detrich is  working on a newly discovered giant oviraptorosaur from the same time  and place as T. Rex itself. This new dinosaur’s tibia alone has a length  of 88.9 cm (35 inches). Whether or not it would have antagonized T. Rex  remains to be seen, but I always felt the Tyrant King needed a  competitor from the same time and place with whom he could fight.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 4, 2014)

*Antony and Cleopatra Sketches*

More sketches from my art class's sketchbook. On the left, Mark Antony strikes a tough-looking pose with his gladius (a favorite Roman sword), whereas Cleopatra is showing off like a supermodel on the right. Someday I want to draw these two characters from history in a romantic/sexy moment together.

Can you tell I've been going through a Cleopatra phase lately?


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## Jabrosky (Sep 4, 2014)

Sorry, been artistically fixated on Cleopatra lately...


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## Jabrosky (Sep 5, 2014)

*Caesar and Cleopatra Plot Battle*
In 47 BC, Julius Caesar goes over his strategy with Cleopatra against her brother Ptolemy XIII. The battle being prepared for is the Battle of the Nile, which will decisively put Cleopatra on the throne as Queen of Egypt in Ptolemy's place.

This was actually an assignment for my Concept Sketching class. We had to practice with sketching an environment in one-point perspective and then "embellishing" it using markers, ink, and special marker paper. I chose my kitchen for the environment in question (the table Caesar has laid his map on is actually the kitchen's island counter).


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## Jabrosky (Sep 6, 2014)

*Find a Way or Make One (unshaded)*
In 216 BC, African elephants and cavalry under the command of Hannibal Barca march across the Italian countryside, planning to capture Carthage's old enemy Rome itself.

I enjoyed making up an exotic color scheme for the African horses, but in general this was exhausting to draw and color since it had so much going on in it. At least it should look good once I get around to adding shadows.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 7, 2014)

*Find a Way or Make One (shaded)*


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## Jabrosky (Sep 10, 2014)

*Alexandrian Embrace*
Antony and Cleopatra having a romantic moment. I drew and inked this in my sketchbook and then rendered in the shading using grayscale markers (unfortunately the sketchbook is of the hard-bound variety, so I couldn't simply tear out the page and scan it in for coloring).

I have been drawing Cleopatra VII way too much lately. In most of my recent depictions I've given her cornrows ending in a ponytail, but today I elected to give her an Afro instead.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 12, 2014)

Redrawing of an older piece from last year...





*Alexander III of Macedon*
My vision of the famous conqueror Alexander III of Macedon, better known as Alexander the Great. When drawing this, I was working with the (non-mainstream) argument that Alexander and his Macedonians weren't really ethnic Greeks as popularly believed but rather a separate group of European "barbarians". Hence why I gave him Celtic-inspired war paint and bear-skin cape. Whether or not it's historically accurate, I think this barbarian interpretation of Alexander looks cooler than the standard all-Hellenic portrayal.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 13, 2014)

*Gone Fishing - Inks*
Inked line art for a prehistoric jungle girl's pin-up. Of course the sail-backed dinosaur in the background is a _Spinosaurus aegyptiacus_. I wasn't able to fit in the stumpy hind legs that we now know Spino had, but I was able to suggest the updated concave spine.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 13, 2014)

*





Gone Fishing*
This jungle lady managed to spear in her snack before that _Spinosaurus aegyptiacus_ came over to lay claim to the river.

The  amber-yellow eyes I gave her aren't a normal color for human beings,  but this is fantasy, and they make her look sexy in a fierce sort of  way.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 15, 2014)

*Princess Surveys for Prey*
Out in the savanna within sight of her ancestors' great and ancient tombs, this princess has mounted a rocky outcrop in search of prey. Hunting for her is a pastime that provides the exercise she will need to lead her armies into battle once she ascends to the throne as Queen.

Taken from the sketchbook I'm keeping for my art class this fall semester.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 15, 2014)

*Coronation*
This young Egyptian lady is ready to receive the great power (and responsibility) that comes with ruling one of the ancient world's most enduring civilizations.

The crown being handed to her is the nemes, which is the most recognizable of many different crowns that Pharaohs would wear throughout Egyptian history. It's the crown King Tut is seen wearing on his famous sarcophagus mask.

This is another drawing excerpted from my art class's sketchbook. Since the book is hardbound and therefore difficult to scan in, I had to photograph it with my iPhone which was much more awkward. In the end a lot of the drawing had to be cropped out from my final photo.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 16, 2014)

Updated my Coronation piece so that it has a background.






_Tyrannosaurus rex_ from my art class's sketchbook. Just in case you were missing my dinosaurs again.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 17, 2014)

*Ready to Come Home*
After an unrewarding hunt out in the savanna, this princess must return home to the comforts of her riverside kingdom.

Those are supposed to be pyramids with gold caps standing on the horizon. The obelisk that the princess is about to pass by is probably some kind of frontier boundary marker for her native civilization.

I'm having fun filling out my sketchbook for my art class this fall.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 23, 2014)

*Jurassic World Raptor*
Felt inspired to draw this old-school Velociraptor in my sketchbook after thinking about the upcoming Jurassic World movie. At first I had my doubts about whether it would turn out any good, but lately I've grown more and more stoked about it. It sounds like the director Colin Trevorrow has a unique vision for this movie that would set it apart from the previous Jurassic Park sequels. For instance, he's mentioned in one interview that he's dealing with themes of humanity's relationship with nature (which won't be portrayed as all monstrous since there are no "good" or "bad" dinosaurs) and how technology getting woven into our lives has numbed us to the scientific miracles around us. One of his premises essentially goes, "what if Jurassic Park was rebuilt, and what if people were already kind of over it?"

The new sequel's protagonist, played by Chris Pratt, is going to work as a behavioral researcher on raptors like this, which is a concept I can really get behind. Of course the paleontology fandom is upset that the Jurassic World raptors will have the scaly skin of their cinematic predecessors instead of the feathers uncovered by current paleontology. I understand why people want these animals to be portrayed as accurately as possible, and I too think seeing the JP raptors get a feathery makeover would be neat. At the same time, one theme I remember about the original Jurassic Park is that the dinosaurs turned out to look and behave very differently from what the scientists cloning them expected, which was key to the original park's ultimate collapse. These guys had little if any way of predicting that the Dilophosaurus could have spit venom, the Velociraptors were so intelligent, or that any of the dinosaurs were so aggressive that they could not be contained. In this light, while scaly raptors might appear obsolete in current scientific thinking, having these particular raptors look different from what's now expected of them might be in keeping with the longstanding JP theme of nature surprising us.

If nothing else, I'd like to see how or whether the movie addresses the whole feather issue once it comes out.






*Surprised*
I've never had a talent for reading subtle facial expressions, but I would best describe this chick as moderately surprised about something.

The headdress was of course modeled after Queen Nefertiti, but embellishing its design and her makeup was my favorite part when sketching this portrait.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 25, 2014)

More sketchbook stuff (gotta get back to making digitally colored pieces sometime)...





Doodled portrait of Attila the Hun, the "Scourge of God" best known for  his campaigns against the divided Roman Empire in the 400s. I wanted to  draw this after seeing a trailer for the upcoming game _Total War: Attila_, which I thought had an appetizingly menacing "villain speech".

One  writer from Attila's time period, a Greco-Roman diplomat named Priscus,  describes him as having a short stature, tanned skin, and a large head  with small eyes and a flat nose, all taken as evidence of his Hunnic  origin. To reflect this, I wanted my rendition of Attila to look Asian,  but Asian features are not easy for me to nail down yet.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 25, 2014)

*Attila is Coming for You*
Attila the Hun, the Scourge of God, holds his Sword of Mars in readiness for his next bloody rampage against the fragmented Roman Empire.

The tiger-skin cape was an afterthought that came up during the coloring process. It was originally going to be a bear-skin, but I switched to a tiger since it looked less drab, not to mention fitting for a warlord of Asian descent.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 28, 2014)

*Jurassic Knight*
An African warrior surveys the savanna from atop her tame Allosaurus.

I was conflicted over whether to give the dinosaur reins. They would probably make riding easier for the woman, but on the other hand they would probably limit how much the Allosaurus could use its jaws when attacking enemies. Let's just say this chick has a special, alternative method for communicating with dinosaurs and getting them to stop.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 29, 2014)

*Depressed Triceratops*
This depressed Triceratops lying down has been sitting in my sketchbook for over a week, but I remember that I first drew him when mulling over how I've been feeling this past year. For complicated reasons, I've been suffering from this toxic cocktail of emotions like anxiety, frustration, listlessness, and general unhappiness that all make me wonder if life itself is worth continuing. In certain ways my life might seem fortunate or privileged relative to others, but I've had my own share of struggles that were difficult for me to cope with and they're taking their toll these days. I need to consult a psychologist sometime soon.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 29, 2014)

*Gondor Architecture Sketches*
And now some fan art for Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth!

Actually these sketches sparked in my mind when I noticed that Gondor, one of the great human kingdoms in Middle Earth, had a name similar to a real city named Gondar in Ethiopia. That's almost certainly coincidence as I seriously doubt Tolkien was the kind of white guy who would allow African influences on one of his world's "nobler" cultures, but the mental image of a Gondor with Ethiopian trappings was irresistible to me.

Someday I shall draw Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, using an Ethiopian influence. Before then here are some sketches of how I imagine this Gondor's architecture would look like. The turret on the right side is obviously based on the castle at Gondar whereas the obelisk borrows from Axum and the rooftop at the bottom from Lalibela's rock-cut churches.


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## Jabrosky (Sep 30, 2014)

*"Men of the West, Unite!"*
A soldier from Gondor, the greatest human kingdom in the west of Middle Earth, brandishes his shotel sword while shouting out his national war cry.

This is a continuation of a theme which I hatched after noting that Gondor, which comes from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, has a name very similar to a city in Ethiopia called Gondar. I'm sure this has to be coincidence on Tolkien's part, but nonetheless the idea of a Gondor with Ethiopian trappings was too tempting to resist drawing.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 1, 2014)

*The Historian*
I wanted to try my hand out at designing an African lady with a more intellectual, scholarly background than the warriors and royalty I usually draw. I imagine this particular character is a professor of history, or maybe archaeology, at a prestigious university in her native kingdom. The bird figurine on her headdress is supposed to represent a sacred ibis, the totem animal of the Egyptian god Djehuti ("Thoth").


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## Jabrosky (Oct 3, 2014)

*Taharqa to the Rescue*
Concept art for Taharqa, future ruler of the Kushite empire, as he might have looked when he was a young prince in the year 700 BC.

Last night I cooked up an outline for short story in which Taharqa and his half-brother Shabaka travel to what is now Italy to rescue their sister from barbarous Latin raiders. Inspired by their boyhood hobby of collecting turtle shells along the Nile, Shabaka has devised a cunning tactical maneuver which he believes will protect their forces against the Latin onslaught, but Taharqa rejects it as too passive and cowardly. Once Taharqa lands himself into the clutches of a Latin chieftain with imperial ambitions, he might have to reconsider his brother’s ideas…


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## Jabrosky (Oct 5, 2014)

*Early Roman Warrior*
A prehistoric Italian warrior from the tribe that will someday become Rome. Because all great empires must arise from primitive beginnings.

The challenging part was combining this character's tribal aesthetic with design motifs that would make him recognizably Roman. In the end I settled on giving his shield eagle and wolf images, since eagles were used on the standards of Roman legions whereas a wolf was said to have suckled Rome's founders. The feathered crest attached to his headgear is supposed to represent a progenitor of the crests on Roman centurion helmets. As for the red and purple war paint, red is the color I most readily associate with ancient Rome, but the Emperors were fond of wearing purple too.


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## Gurkhal (Oct 5, 2014)

Looks cool, although to be honest when I saw the Italic warrior I thought that you were giving him an Native American angle. But when you explain your reasons I see where you were going with it.

And good work with the rest as well.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 5, 2014)

For the Lovecraft fans out there:





*R'lyehan Priest of Cthulhu*
This High Priest of Cthulhu, whose hand is still stained with sacrificial blood, probably enjoys prestige as the de facto---or maybe even de jure---ruler of ancient R'lyeh. Because whatever bygone humanity built that Cyclopean city would have needed some sort of leadership to organize its monumental construction.

Since R'lyeh is supposed to be located in the far south of the Pacific Ocean, I figured its human founders would be an offshoot of some Oceanic population like the Polynesians, Aboriginal Australians, or Melanesians. I went with a Melanesian, or possibly Tasmanian, origin in the end, but my R'lyehans have evolved somewhat lighter skin and blue eyes as an adaptation to the sub-Antarctic latitude they've settled in. On the other hand their kinky blond hair would have been inherited from their darker-skinned ancestors since blondism does appear in some Melanesian and Australian populations even today.

R'lyeh and Cthulhu (c) H.P. Lovecraft


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## Jabrosky (Oct 6, 2014)

*Jungle Ambush*
A raptor leaps out to ambush this huntress. Which of these predators will end up the prey in the upcoming battle?

The composition and subject matter were both inspired by Atula Siriwardane's "Kushite Warrior", except that has a lion ambushing a male warrior. As for the raptor's lack of feathers, I was deliberately aiming for a 1990s look for it given the obviously fantastical setting.

Drawn on 11x14'' Bristol board.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 8, 2014)

*Torosaurus Needs to Scratch*
_Torosaurus latus_, a close  relative and contemporary of the more famous Triceratops, has an itch  on its shoulder that needs addressing and so prepares rub itself against  a savanna tree. In hindsight I should have tilted the dinosaur's body  closer to the tree to better convey the scratching motion.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 9, 2014)

*Cultural Contamination Cast*
These three characters come from a fantasy short story I recently  finished called "Cultural Contamination". It's set in a world where  imperialistic elves form the ruling class whereas orcs and humans lay at  the bottom of the racial hierarchy. The protagonist Zaryasien is an elf  who has befriended the orc Ugrok and fallen in love with the human  Nthendi. As tokens of their companionship, Ugrok has given Zaryasien  traditional orcish tattoos while Nthendi has cornrowed his hair in human  fashion. Unfortunately this doesn't sit very well with the elven  authorities who have Zaryasien arrested and tried for "cultural  contamination". Zaryasien doesn't want anything terrible to happen to  his friends too, but he may be powerless to save them...yeah, the  current draft is a pretty sad story.

I drew the line art in my  art class's sketchbook and recorded it with my iPhone, but the coloring  was done in Photoshop CS6 as is usual for my colored art.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 10, 2014)

*Kong Battles for the Golden Woman*
Deep in the jungle on a remote island off the west coast of Sumatra, a native maiden hides as the mighty Kong battles a tyrannosaur. She does not even know which of the two savage titans to root for, if she must take sides at all.

In the original _King Kong_ movie from 1933, Skull Island's native inhabitants decide Fay Wray's character would make a unique sacrifice to their ape-god since she is a "golden woman" (i.e. blonde). The irony is that, since the dark-skinned islanders themselves appear to be of Melanesian stock, blondes would _not_ be so scarce within their population. Blond hair does pop up as an indigenous trait in Melanesian populations, as well as Aboriginal Australians, and it appears to have evolved separately from the better-known blondism in Europeans. White American filmmakers need not show up on Skull Island's shores for the locals to have their prized golden women.

Although Kong was originally conceived by his creators as an over-sized gorilla (he was inspired by 19th century sensationalistic accounts that exaggerated gorillas' savage behavior), I chose to give my Kong a more orangutan-like appearance since unlike gorillas, orangutans actually are native to Southeast Asia near Skull Island's location. Nonetheless I gave his shaggy coat a blond-ish color since it would better match his "bride". Who knows, maybe this Kong prefers blondes since he's a blond ape himself!

As for the tyrannosaur, I reckon it is descended not from the North American T. Rex but an Asian species like Tarbosaurus or Zhuchengtyrannus.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 11, 2014)

*Cleopatra's Tanning Elixir*
The early sunscreen industry of Ptolemaic Alexandria has decided their sales would soar up if they received Cleopatra VII's royal sponsorship.

All kidding aside, while sunscreen as we know it was invented in 1928, the ancient Greeks are claimed to have used olive oil for the same purpose whereas the Egyptians used myrrh or jasmine. I have no idea if those would actually work though.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 13, 2014)

*Zulu Night*
A Zulu soldier on patrol pauses to admire the aurora australis shimmering in the South African night.

The aurora australis is pretty much the Southern Hemisphere's equivalent to our aurora borealis, or "Northern Lights". I don't know if you actually can see it from South Africa since it's usually an Antarctic phenomenon, but then nobody has lived in Antarctic for the vast majority of human history. Though I read you can see it from southern Australia or New Zealand, so maybe an Aboriginal Australian or Maori spectator could have worked too.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 16, 2014)

*Imperial Smugness*
This Roman legionary feels smugly superior to the Germanic warrior next to him, but his "barbarian" counterpart isn't all that impressed.

Drawn in my art class's sketchbook and shaded with gray Prismacolor markers.






*Fish for a Pharaoh*
This Egyptian chick wants a bigger fish than usual to go with her chips.

Of course a hippopotamus or a crocodile would be a more common waterborne antagonist for ancient Egyptians, but being the unorthodox artist that I am, I went for the unorthodox choice of a bull shark instead.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 17, 2014)

*The Queen of Sheba*
For this piece, I was practicing using a dib pen for inking and rendering value. It's a much messier and exhausting process than the marker pens I'm used to, and I am still not satisfied with how I rendered her skin tone (I had to clean some of the mess up in Photoshop after scanning it in). The pose and subject matter owe inspiration to an ink drawing I've seen from the late artist John Flanagan, who specialized in illustrating adventure stories. Flanagan's art somehow reminded me of the Queen of Sheba from the Bible, so that's what I'll name this chick.

Modern historians generally identify the Biblical Sheba with the Sabaean civilization in southern Arabia, but for this I was working with the old idea of a connection between Sheba and the Great Zimbabwe civilization. The bird statue behind the Queen is based off soapstone sculptures recovered from the Zimbabwean ruins, and its likeness graces the modern Zimbabwean flag.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 18, 2014)

*The Last Couple*
A _Smilodon fatalis_, or saber-toothed cat, watches the last couple  of leaves cling together before their inevitable parting. The summer is  over, so the greenery expires.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 20, 2014)

*Pharaoh's Soldier*
More practice with dib-pen inking on this Egyptian soldier.

Let me tell you, dark skin can be a real pain in the ass to render with this inking technique. You have to balance between conveying the dark tone using only black ink and making the anatomical features (e.g. muscles and face) clearly visible.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 22, 2014)

Adding shading and highlights to my old "Antony and Cleopatra" piece. I also made Antony's skin a bit more of a tan, though the change is subtle.


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## SugoiMe (Oct 23, 2014)

I like your highlights and shading in your digital works, and you clearly have a nice grasp on anatomy.  Do you take art classes?


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## Jabrosky (Oct 23, 2014)

SugoiMe said:


> I like your highlights and shading in your digital works, and you clearly have a nice grasp on anatomy.  Do you take art classes?


Yes I do. The dip-pen techniques I learned in my current illustration class. However, I also had to teach myself some things about drawing before these classes.


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## Jabrosky (Oct 24, 2014)

*Cleopatra Concept Art*
Cleopatra VII is now armed for battle with a bow and knife. I  wanted this to look like concept art for a video game character, and I  very well may try making a 3D model of this someday. Not sure what kind  of game the character would belong in, but I'm leaning towards either  the strategy game genre (e.g. _Age of Empires_) or some hack-and-slash action game (e.g. _God of War_).

 The scarred design on Cleopatra's left cheek is supposed to represent a falcon emblem as seen on Ptolemaic coinage.


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## Gurkhal (Oct 25, 2014)

Looks nice. I'll be waiting for more goodies.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 7, 2014)

*Sketchbook Slayer*
My current art class is delving into designing characters with cartoon-like proportions, so I wanted to practice this with a cartoony dinosaur-slayer in my sketchbook. I think I made her calves a little too big here, but I wanted to convey strong legs since that fits her agile warrior archetype.

I wonder if there is an indirect anime influence here. I didn't have an anime style specifically in mind when drawing her proportions, but given how Japanese and Western animation styles have cross-pollinated each other over the decades, it would not surprise me if the large gleaming eyes did channel something influenced by anime.

The defeated dinosaur isn't from any particular species, but its brow horns were inspired by the tyrannosaurid _Gorgosaurus libratus_.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 13, 2014)

*Sita from the Ramayana*
I should have probably drawn this on Diwali this year (Oct. 22-23), but unfortunately the inspiration did not bite me until weeks later. Consider this an overdue celebration.

When I was going to grade school as an expat in Singapore, every autumn we would celebrate the Hindu holiday of Diwali in honor of the local Indian community. We would watch these animated videos retelling the story of the Ramayana epic, in which the blue warrior Rama saves his girlfriend Sita from Ravana. Good times, those were.

This is supposed to represent the love interest Sita. I referenced her facial features and wavy hair from a girl of India's Irula ethnic group. In the old days of racial anthropology, these people were classified as "Australoid" (i.e. similar in appearance to Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians) in contrast to the "Caucasoid" Aryans who entered the Indian subcontinent around 1750 BC.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 22, 2014)

Trying to break out of my art slump...





*Dancer in Blue*
An African dancer lady I doodled with a blue colored pencil. She likes to dance with large venomous cobras.






*Afrovenator*
This is one hairstyle you really don't want to touch. The dinosaur is supposed to be based off the African megalosaurid _Afrovenator abakensis_.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 23, 2014)

*Dressed like a Spitter*
This chick has styled her hair into two "crests" like those on a _Dilophosaurus wetherilli_, the "spitter" dinosaur from _Jurassic Park_. Honestly, that little guy always gave me an even bigger jump-scare than even the T. Rex or raptors.


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## Jabrosky (Nov 28, 2014)

*Queen of Kwanzaa*
The winter solstice will be coming up in about a month, so I decided to get into the holiday mood by giving this Egyptian queen a Kwanzaa-inspired color scheme. Happy Holidays!


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## Jabrosky (Dec 3, 2014)

I am not dead...





Pencil sketch of a lady swinging through the jungle canopy. I sure had fun drawing this, but later this week I'll have it inked and colored as always.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 4, 2014)

*In Full Swing*
This African huntress is taking the high road, as in high over the jungle understory in true Tarzan tradition. Boy, did I have a lot of fun with this one!


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## Gurkhal (Dec 13, 2014)

Very nice pictures and I'm happy to hear you are alive and kicking/painting.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 15, 2014)

*Let My People Go*
Moses, the champion prophet of the Jewish religion, challenges the Pharaoh to release his Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. I've wanted to draw a scene like this for ages now, but the recent release of the _Exodus: Gods and Kings_ movie prompted me to tackle it now. I didn't count the hours, but I am sure I spent far more time drawing and coloring this picture than I have any other art piece I've produced over the years. The perspective on the architecture alone was a major pain in the ass.


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## Tom (Dec 15, 2014)

I like it. The composition is dynamic--you can feel the tension in the room. My only concern is that Pharaoh's head may be jutting out a little too far. Other than that, fantastic!

Great, now you've got that song from _Moses: Prince of Egypt_ in my head. Which do you think is the better adaptation: _Moses: Prince of Egypt_, or _Exodus: Gods and Kings_? Personally, I prefer _Moses_.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 15, 2014)

Tom Nimenai said:


> I like it. The composition is dynamic--you can feel the tension in the room. My only concern is that Pharaoh's head may be jutting out a little too far. Other than that, fantastic!
> 
> Great, now you've got that song from _Moses: Prince of Egypt_ in my head. Which do you think is the better adaptation: _Moses: Prince of Egypt_, or _Exodus: Gods and Kings_? Personally, I prefer _Moses_.


I like _Prince of Egypt_ more too (I presume you're referring to the Dreamworks movie).


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## Tom (Dec 15, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> I like _Prince of Egypt_ more too (I presume you're referring to the Dreamworks movie).



Of course. I love Prince of Egypt. It's actually part of the reason I started writing fantasy--I wanted to emulate its imagination and ability to move emotionally, and what better way to do that than to write fantasy? The animation was also a big factor in the development of my own art style.


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## Philster401 (Dec 15, 2014)

Hello is the Prince of Eygpt a good movie I've never seen it?


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## Tom (Dec 15, 2014)

You've never seen it? I grew up with that movie! Ah, well, you are several years younger than me, so I guess its popularity wore off a little since the time I first saw it at 5.

It's a great movie (arguably the best 2D-animated movie of all time), and it's currently streaming on Netflix. Pop some popcorn and enjoy!


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## Philster401 (Dec 15, 2014)

Ok but I will probably check it out at the library (don't have Netflix) or unlimited fast internet service.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 21, 2014)

*Regal Relaxation*
                                                  This seductive African queen is ready to enjoy a cup of _mukumbi_  wine (made from the fruit of the marula tree), but her pet wildcat  isn't in such a cheerful mood. Did you know that all domestic cats  living today are descended from an African subspecies of wildcat (_Felis silvestris lybica_)?


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## Jabrosky (Dec 30, 2014)

*Canyon Crossing*
                                                  While crossing a gorge, this _Tyrannosaurus rex_ has noticed a _Geosternbergia sternbergi_  (a cousin of Pteranodon) in hot pursuit of a poor micoraptorine. I just  got back home from a Christmas vacation at Chicago with my big sister,  and I'm glad to be drawing again.


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## Tom (Dec 30, 2014)

How was your Christmas? Chicago's got to be pretty cold this time of year, am I right? Brrrr.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 30, 2014)

Tom Nimenai said:


> How was your Christmas? Chicago's got to be pretty cold this time of year, am I right? Brrrr.


It definitely was cold, though surprisingly there was no snow. However, on one day we took a little road trip to Milwaukee in Wisconsin, which was even worse due to severe wind.


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## Tom (Dec 30, 2014)

We didn't get any snow on Christmas. Not even a flake. And it was so warm out I could take a walk in the woods without a coat, and our lawn was turning _green_. It was very disappointing.


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## Jabrosky (Dec 31, 2014)

*Peloponnesian Raptors*
                                                  Along the southern coastline of  what will someday become Greece, two raptors squabble for leadership of  their pack. As you might guess from the double sickle-claws on their  feet, these particular raptors are based off the Late Cretaceous _Balaur bondoc_.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 3, 2015)

*Gaythelos and Scota*
In old Scottish mythology (as recorded by Walter Bower in his 15th century chronicle the _Scotichronicon_),  the Celtic Gaels of Scotland and Ireland could trace their ancestry to  an Egyptian princess named Scota and her Greek husband Gaythelos.  Needless to say, it's a ridiculously fanciful account not supported by  any archaeological or other evidence thus found, but nonetheless I like  the idea of Egyptian, Hellenic, and Celtic cultural influences coming  together in one place. So here's Gaythelos and Scota rallying some  Gaelic tribesmen somewhere in the woods of the British Isles.

My  usual technique for highlighting art in Photoshop is to create an  Overlay layer on top of the art and paint pale yellow over where I want  the highlights to be. For this piece, on the other hand, I used the Hard  Light blending mode instead of Overlay and used a brighter yellow color  matching the torchlight. It was a real challenge to get the effect  close to how I wanted it to look.


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## Zāl Dastān (Jan 5, 2015)

Just wanted to say that you've got some great work here. Great job!


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## Jabrosky (Jan 5, 2015)

*The Great Questions*
All over the world and throughout history, humanity has mused upon certain mysteries of existence. This was another painstaking project to embark on (took me a couple of days to get it finished), but I did get to draw multiple characters from diverse cultures.

Oh, and apparently the History Channel's _Ancient Aliens_ show aired a brand new season just a month ago. How they're still up and running after four years of insulting the public's intelligence and critical thinking abilities remains the real enigma to me.


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## Tom (Jan 5, 2015)

I really liked the portrayal of the different cultures and their philosophical questions. My browser loads slow, so I didn't get that the last panel turned it into a wisecrack. When I saw, I couldn't help but groan at the sad, absolute truth of it. What has happened to humanity?

That last question really hit the nail on the head. Man, do I hate _Ancient Aliens_.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 5, 2015)

Wait, I might have an explanation for the ongoing persistence of _Ancient Aliens_ after all.


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## Zāl Dastān (Jan 6, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> Wait, I might have an explanation for the ongoing persistence of _Ancient Aliens_ after all.



I now believe fervently in this conspiracy theory. Aliens perpetuating hack shows about aliens to convince us all that there aren't aliens. It's perfect.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 8, 2015)

Another, briefer attempt at a humorous comic strip.





In all seriousness, chemistry classes were never my favorite throughout my education, but I can see why other students might get more out of them.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 9, 2015)

Waiting for Leftovers
A troop of huntresses hides and watches as a _Tyrannosaurus rex_ gorges on his kill. Hopefully the tyrant predator will leave some scraps for them to scavenge once he's done, but unfortunately his species has territorial tendencies. On the other hand, the tame raptor that the huntresses use as their blood-hound is already eager for the leftovers.

Detailing this whole scene was great fun, but it also made for an exhausting coloring stage. The whole project, which I drew on a 11x14'' Bristol, took almost two days to finish.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 10, 2015)

*The Mother of Invention*
200,000 years ago on the plains of East Africa, an expectant _Homo sapiens idaltu_ (immediate ancestor of modern_ Homo sapiens sapiens_)  decided she wanted to join the boys and single ladies on the hunt. To  circumvent her obvious maternal burden, she developed a novel technology  that would shift the course of human development for millennia to come.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 11, 2015)

Another cartoon. Somehow it's grown a lot easier for me to come up with jokes in the past few days. I guess my new meds must be working:





*A Plague of Trolls*
Ever wondered how our history and mythology might have changed if the Internet had been invented at a much earlier date? Considering Moses is one of the most famous advocates for social justice from distant antiquity, he would have been quite popular with a certain, notoriously irritating subset of online trolls.

Also, it is a LOT more fun drawing a bed-headed Afro than it is a hand holding an iPad stylus.
*
EDIT:* See this for a larger, more legible version.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 13, 2015)

*Apep Attacks*
Ra and Sutekh, two prominent Neteru (gods) from ancient Egyptian  mythology, battle the monstrous serpent Apep while sailing through the  underworld of Duat.

Sutekh (better known to Western audiences as Set) is often perceived  as the Egyptian pantheon’s resident villain due to his power struggle  with Heru (or Horus), but he was not always portrayed as an antagonist.  Other traditions maintained that he helped Ra defend himself against  Apep every night while their barge passed through Duat. OIf any entity  in the whole Egyptian belief system represented evil incarnate, it would  really be Apep rather than Sutekh.

While the long-nosed, long-eared creature commonly identified with  Sutekh remains unidentified, I’m partial to the suggestion that it  originally represented an aardvark, so I gave my rendition of Sutekh an  aardvark motif. Since aardvarks have long claws for digging, the logical  next step was to give Sutekh bracers with big claws on them, almost  like Shredder from the 1987 _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_ cartoon.

You may notice that Sutekh has reddish dreadlocks and lighter skin than Ra. This references a condition called _rufous albinism_,  a poorly-known form of albinism more commonly observed in people of  African descent. It’s characterized by ruddy-brown skin, reddish hair,  and hazel or brown eyes. Some sources claim that Sutekh had red hair and  that red-haired people were considered to be his followers, so I  thought rufous albinism would make sense for his human form.

As for Apep, his facial features are based off a subspecies of the Gaboon viper called _Bitis gabonica rhinoceros_, which has larger nose-horns than the other subspecies.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 13, 2015)

*A Rubbery Snack*
This family of _Edmontosaurus regalis_ has gathered together to  extract gooey tree sap. Whatever the substance's nutritional value,  these hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) sure enjoy licking up and then  chewing it like gum. Even dinosaurs can have bad habits.

Hadrosaurs  aren't exactly my favorite of all the Dinosauria (that honor goes to  tyrannosaurids and ceratopsians), but since they were one of the few  dinosaur groups that had the ability to chew their food, they seemed the  most appropriate subjects for a drawing of dinosaurs chewing tree sap.  The claws on their pinky fingers are speculative, but then they needed  some way to scratch for sap.


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## Nimue (Jan 14, 2015)

Heheh, bubblegum baby Hadrosaur is adorable.  I really like your art style, particularly the colors and the creative dino & clothing design. This sort of world would make a great setting for an animated short!


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## Jabrosky (Jan 16, 2015)

*Romans Recuperating*
Deep in the forests of what will someday be known as Germany, a patrol of Roman legionnaires has settled down to catch their breath. The most fun part of this was giving each of the legionnaires something to do, however insignificant, so that they wouldn't all be just sitting there looking bored.

Don't feel too scared for the Christian dude's safety. Satanic connotations aside, that snake he's about to receive is really supposed to be a nonvenomous species.


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## Jabrosky (Jan 18, 2015)

*Awkward Swag is Awkward*
It doesn't matter if you're black or white. If you're a male African rhinoceros, you may find yourself in that awkward situation where certain females just won't get into you no matter how hard you try. And your kind's poor eyesight won't exactly help you discern why.

Here's a pro hint: it's all in the lips, it's all in the lips...


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## Folderol (Jan 23, 2015)

Fabulous stuff, Jabrosky   I'm loving your style.  Your progress as an artist is a delight to behold -- keep up the good work!


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## Gurkhal (Jan 25, 2015)

Good stuff, keep it coming!


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## Jabrosky (Feb 6, 2015)

*Jungle Love*
These two adventurers, one from the icy north and the other a native,  are about to make the jungle even steamier. Because it's been such a  while since I last drew people in love.

Unfortunately the  backdrop was an afterthought when setting up this piece's composition.  If I were to take another shot at it, I would have moved the couple a  little to the right, and maybe add a curious dinosaur peeking from the  undergrowth. The girl's costume drew a few influences from concept art  for the game _Diablo III_'s female Witch Doctor, but I wasn't sure  how to dress the guy besides making him shirtless. In the end he came  out resembling a blond Conan.


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## Jabrosky (Feb 8, 2015)

*Fat Dudes Need Love Too*
I've chanced upon a photo  from a fat-acceptance website called the "Adipositivity Project", which  pairs up a large-bodied woman with a not-so-large-bodied man. It  prompted me to draw a couple with the body types reversed, or a fat guy  with his not-so-fat girlfriend. There does seem to be a curious  under-representation of fat male characters in so-called "body positive"  art after all.


Spoiler: dirty little secret



I drew and uploaded this to see how the (predominantly female) fat acceptance activists on the Internet would react to a fat guy/non-fat woman pairing (as opposed to a fat woman/non-fat man one).


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## Jabrosky (Feb 13, 2015)

*Spearhorn Nesting Grounds*
The stony faces of ancient gods watch over these mother Triceratops in their traditional nesting grounds. One of them, who bears the scars of a T. Rex attack on her frill, is driving off a snooping Albertonykus (one of the alvarezsaurids, or feathered dinosaurs with tiny clawed wings).

Some paleontologists theorize that ceratopsians in Cretaceous North America would migrate between coastal and inland regions over the year, with the inland movements headed for seasonal nesting grounds. This gave me the image of Triceratops congregating in some hallowed valley for their annual nesting. In this picture, the nests themselves have mud, leaves, and other debris spread overhead to incubate the eggs (and hide them from prowling alvarezsaurids, of course).

As for the ruined sculptures rising from the jungle canopy in the background, their design is inspired by bronze and terra cotta busts from the Yoruba kingdom of Ife, which thrived in what is now Nigeria from the 12th to 15th centuries AD. These statues are characterized by a level of realism in rendering the facial features that would put most ancient Egyptian sculptors (and maybe even some classical Greek ones) to shame.


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## Laurence (Feb 13, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> *Spearhorn Nesting Grounds*
> The stony faces of ancient gods watch over these mother Triceratops in their traditional nesting grounds. One of them, who bears the scars of a T. Rex attack on her frill, is driving off a snooping Albertonykus (one of the alvarezsaurids, or feathered dinosaurs with tiny clawed wings).
> 
> Some paleontologists theorize that ceratopsians in Cretaceous North America would migrate between coastal and inland regions over the year, with the inland movements headed for seasonal nesting grounds. This gave me the image of Triceratops congregating in some hallowed valley for their annual nesting. In this picture, the nests themselves have mud, leaves, and other debris spread overhead to incubate the eggs (and hide them from prowling alvarezsaurids, of course).
> ...



I love your dinosaur artwork the best by a long shot!


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## Jabrosky (Feb 25, 2015)

And now for a completely different artistic medium...





This is an early stage for this Egyptian "Scorpion Queen" I'm modeling as an assignment for my ZBrush class at Palomar College. ZBrush has already become my favorite program for 3D modeling due to its intuitive "clay sculpting" approach to modeling. By the time I have this finished and turned in (which should be two weeks from now), I'll have all her skin textures painted, with maybe some jewelry and a dreadlocked hairstyle added for extra decoration.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 2, 2015)

*Huntress Animation for Flash Class*

This is the main character for a simple homework assignment for an Adobe Flash animation class I'm taking. The whole project will be due a month from now, and it'll have a background, music and sound effects, and a larger cast of animated characters. I have two other characters created for the project so far, an Oviraptor and Deinonychus, and plan on adding a T. Rex next. All these characters' body parts will have been drawn in Adobe Illustrator before importing them into Flash.


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## ascanius (Mar 7, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> And now for a completely different artistic medium...
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Not bad, not bad at all.  Looks good though the tail stinger looks really big compared to the rest.  I use blender for 3d work but I've heard great things about zbrush.  I'm curious.  Did you take an iso shpere and scupt from that or did you create the base mesh then sculpt the details.  I usually start with the shere, or cube and subdivide the faces a lot then use dynamic topology to scult the entire thing.  I did create a skull by creating the base mesh first, It's extremely tedious if you haven't done it.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 12, 2015)

ascanius said:


> Not bad, not bad at all.  Looks good though the tail stinger looks really big compared to the rest.  I use blender for 3d work but I've heard great things about zbrush.  I'm curious.  Did you take an iso shpere and scupt from that or did you create the base mesh then sculpt the details.  I usually start with the shere, or cube and subdivide the faces a lot then use dynamic topology to scult the entire thing.  I did create a skull by creating the base mesh first, It's extremely tedious if you haven't done it.


One of the many neat traits of ZBrush is that it actually has a special "ZSphere" function, which lets you construct the "bare bones" of a figure by drawing chains of spheres and then melding them together into something you can then mold into whatever you want. Saves you a lot of trouble relative to other modeling programs.

Meanwhile, just to let y'all know I'm not totally dead yet, here are some sketches of my favorite Pharaoh:





Though admittedly I have been neglecting my old sketchbook in the last couple of weeks. The ZBrush and Flash classes I've been taking this semester seem to have distracted me from my older hobbies. But with Spring Break coming up next week, I should have time to catch up in between working on homework.

These are all supposed to depict the same character BTW. The upper right is our heroine without her crown, and the lower right is...well, what she likes to show off to her favorite subjects.


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## ascanius (Mar 14, 2015)

I didn't know that about zbrush, that zsphere has to be very convinient.  Makes me want to get back into 3d work, I've mostly done structural models and so far and scenery.  I did a cool waterfall with the cycles render engine.  Sadly I too haven't been drawing as much lately, I need to get back to and continue doing anatomy studies.  Well keep up the good work.


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## Gurkhal (Mar 15, 2015)

Haven't been on the site for some time but I see that you've kept things coming Jabrosky. Keep 'em coming!


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## Jabrosky (Mar 15, 2015)

So here is a little update on that Egyptian Scorpion Queen I was working  on for my ZBrush class. Now that my parents (bless them dearly) were  kind enough to lend me the money to download my own copy for home, I  have _much _more time to work on this assignment than I would have  otherwise enjoyed. And it is a very fun program to use, even if there's  still a bit of a learning curve that requires me to look up tricks on  the Internet every so often.

Obviously there's still quite a bit  left to do, like embellishing her hairstyle (it's supposed to have a  kinky dreadlocks look), giving her some clothes and jewelry, and maybe  painting some patterns on her scorpion body. But designing her has still  been a blast thus far!


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## ascanius (Mar 17, 2015)

Hey jabrosky its looking good, though your facial proportions need work.  I know it's really hard to get them right but it's worth the effort to understand them now while your learning.  I made a paint over of what I think still needs work, pm me if you want the rundown and what not.  Imagine doing it in stone and you cannot add stone when you go too deep.  Otherwise it's looking good, it's going to look very nice when you render with lighting and materials especially once you add textures.  Well keep it up and good luck.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 18, 2015)

*Egyptian Scorpion Queen*

This was an assignment for my ZBrush class, which had us make a creature based off an insect (or some other arthropod). I elected for an Egyptian Scorpion Queen, like a female version of Dwayne Johnson's Scorpion King monster from The Mummy Returns. I am so glad to have this finished once and for all, but it was a blast to design.

See here for bigger image


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## Lunaairis (Mar 18, 2015)

that's pretty neat! I recently got Zbrush myself and am excited to try it out.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 22, 2015)

*Nature Brush Set for Cartography*
This is the first draft of a set of cartography brushes I made for Photoshop. I drew the actual art for each brush in Illustrator before importing them into Photoshop to make into brush presets. It's not necessarily a complete collection at the moment, but I hope it'll help some fantasy map-makers out there who need mountains, trees, and other landscape features for their wildernesses.

Soon I'll make brushes for settlements from different cultures around the world.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 23, 2015)

*Egyptian Lady WIP*
Another Egyptian chick I'm making in ZBrush. This one isn't a  class assignment but a labor of my own love, with the medium-brown skin  texture made by myself. Afterwards I might make a "Nubian" version of  this character with a darker skin tone and broader facial features.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 24, 2015)

*This Dino Should Diet*
This Triceratops really needs to cut down on the jungle vegetation she's  been grazing, as you can see from all the stretch marks scarring her  beautiful hide. But don't tell her that to her face lest she trample you  for judging her by "oppressive beauty standards".

This character  was inspired by certain individuals I've had the misfortune of bumping  into in recent years. Their vain and ornery attitude reminded me more  than anything else of a large and defensive ceratopsian dinosaur, an  animal you had to tiptoe around carefully if you didn't want it to gore  you. Sometimes your own life experiences can be a rich well of ideas to  draw upon for characters.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 28, 2015)

T-shirt design I made in Adobe Illustrator, using one of my older  Cleopatra portraits as a reference. You can actually buy the T-shirt  itself over at Zazzle.

Because I am in dire need of the monies.


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## Jabrosky (Mar 29, 2015)

And now a new original drawing!





*Khaos D.Ree*
                                                  At first I simply wanted to draw  a sexy lady-rapper (which I personally think is a very attractive  concept by itself), but then I remembered how much "rapper" sounds like  "raptor", as in the vernacular name for the Dromaeosauridae  (Velociraptor, Deinonychus, and all those other feathered dinosaurs with  big sickle-claws on their feet). And that's how her distinctive motif  and rapper nickname were born. In the little biography I'm dreamed up  for her, she was adopted by a prominent American mathematician from an  orphanage in Haiti (which, by the way, is geographically contiguous to a  country well-known for its amber deposits), and has named herself after  his championed theory.


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## ascanius (Mar 30, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> *Egyptian Scorpion Queen*
> 
> This was an assignment for my ZBrush class, which had us make a creature based off an insect (or some other arthropod). I elected for an Egyptian Scorpion Queen, like a female version of Dwayne Johnson's Scorpion King monster from The Mummy Returns. I am so glad to have this finished once and for all, but it was a blast to design.
> 
> See here for bigger image



Turned out very nicely, I can see the changes you made to the face.  The scars on the abdomen are an interesting touch.  Overall well done.



Jabrosky said:


> *Egyptian Lady WIP*
> Another Egyptian chick I'm making in ZBrush. This one isn't a  class assignment but a labor of my own love, with the medium-brown skin  texture made by myself. Afterwards I might make a "Nubian" version of  this character with a darker skin tone and broader facial features.



Your gonna hate me...  But her legs are too long compared to her torso.  Remeber that an adult female and male are roughly 8 heads high, two heads wide at the shoulders.  Drawing Tutorial: Anatomy and Proportion #1 | idrawdigital  Check out heroci proportions compared to realistic it gave ma a laugh.


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## shwabadi (Apr 5, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


> *This Dino Should Diet*
> This Triceratops really needs to cut down on the jungle vegetation she's  been grazing, as you can see from all the stretch marks scarring her  beautiful hide. But don't tell her that to her face lest she trample you  for judging her by "oppressive beauty standards".
> 
> This character  was inspired by certain individuals I've had the misfortune of bumping  into in recent years. Their vain and ornery attitude reminded me more  than anything else of a large and defensive ceratopsian dinosaur, an  animal you had to tiptoe around carefully if you didn't want it to gore  you. Sometimes your own life experiences can be a rich well of ideas to  draw upon for characters.



I love this dinosaur haha
I've met a fair few people like that too


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## Gurkhal (Apr 27, 2015)

I've been away for some time but I've seen you've kept yourself busy! I hope to see even more in the future!


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## Dipti13 (Apr 28, 2015)

Very nice art work done by you.


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## Jabrosky (May 1, 2015)

*Heeeere's Jabrosky!* You may resume cowering in my shadow, mortals.






*Preying on Penguins*
_Carnotaurus sastrei_ was in the mood for poultry by the seaside, so he opted for these primitive penguins.

The  oldest fossils found for the penguin order Sphenisciformes date back to  62-60 million years, or less than five million years after the  non-avian dinosaurs' extinction. Some researchers estimate that penguins  as a distinct lineage may go even further back to 70-68 million years  in the Late Cretaceous, making them contemporary with dinosaurs like T.  rex, Triceratops, or the South American Carnotaurus. Given this, I think  it possible that dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous Southern Hemisphere  might have munched on the earliest penguins.

On a semi-related  note, looking up what penguins' mouths look like when open is not the  most visually pleasing experience. Their tongues actually have spines on  them!











*Andromeda, Disney Style (concept art above, ZBrush assignment below)*
This was another homework  assignment I just turned in for my ZBrush class. We were supposed to  design an original character that could fit into an existing movie, or  what you might call a "fan character". I chose Andromeda, the Nubian  princess who married Perseus in Greek mythology, as the basis for my  character, and I set out to give her design a "Disney _Hercules_"  influence (her hairstyle is meant to channel Hercules's bae Megara). The render's background is of course a screencap from the  movie's very first scene with Charlton Heston's brief narration.







*Homecoming for Brontosaurus*
This sweet little girl is offering a nice starchy yam to a friendly _Brontosaurus excelsus_. Welcome back to scientific nomenclature, you ol' thunder lizard!

I  wanted to try my hand out at cuter, more kid-friendly subject matter  than usual, though I have to say little children can be challenging to  draw if adult figures are your comfort zone.


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## Jabrosky (May 1, 2015)

Two characters from a historical story, set in the year 1878, which I was outlining earlier this month (my next ZBrush assignment is actually going to be based off the male character):






*Nothembi the Azenyan Soldier*
Having distinguished herself as one of the bravest and most formidable  soldiers in her province, Nothembi was well on her way to becoming an  inDuna (army commander) for the Kingdom of Azenya. But fate almost threw  a wrench into her ambitions when British marauders under Col. Benedict  Chambers launched a devastating raid against her village, carrying off  her bookish little brother Lungelo. Figuring the British want to use  Lungelo's newfound discoveries about uranium to manufacture the most  destructive weapons known to humanity yet, Nothembi has taken it upon  herself to pry him free from their clutches. But she may need the help  of a vagabond Texas Ranger who won't tell her why he ran away from his  country across the Atlantic...

Nothembi's home country Azenya  isn't a real one (though I drew its name from the old Greek word  "Azania"), but it combines elements of various historical peoples in  southern Africa, especially the Shona of Great Zimbabwe and the  Nguni-speaking kingdoms of South Africa (e.g. the Swazi, Xhosa, and  Zulu). I would place it somewhere around where modern-day South Africa,  Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique touch. You might recognize Nothembi's  short spear (or _iklwa_) and oxhide shield as Zulu-influenced, but  the stela in the background attests to Azenya's tradition of monumental  stone architecture much like Zimbabwe (though the hieroglyphic sign is  meant to channel ancient Egypt, since that's the best known written  script native to Africa). As for her story, I'm still in the process of  outlining it (though large parts of it are scavenged from my writer's  back-burner), but I would sum it up as an adventurous historical romance  in which this beautiful African warrior and a runaway Texas Ranger team  up to save Azenya from the world's first uranium-based explosive in the  year 1878...which the warrior's own brother was forced to make.






*Mick Hancock the Runaway Ranger*
Once famous as the most daring and suave Ranger in all of Texas, Michael  Hancock parted ways with both his beloved state and country to protest  their brutalization of the Native Americans. Now his pursuit for a new  living has brought him to the bushveld of South Africa, where the  beautiful warrior Nothembi implores him to help her rescue her brother  and people from British predations. At first Mick feels powerless  against the might of the British Empire, and worries they might catch  him for sale to American bounty-hunters, but his sense of justice (and  hots for Nothembi) tell him it's worth the risk. Even if the British  plan to develop a new weapon of mass destruction utilizing uranium...

I  think I may have made Mick's face look a little too "pretty boyish" or  effeminate, since he's supposed to be this strong and ruggedly handsome  guy. Maybe it's his long hair, but then I like giving my white male  characters long tousled hair. As for his black leather trenchcoat, I  always thought black leather trenchcoats looked stylish and macho. Ought  to get one myself once I can afford one.


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## Jabrosky (May 1, 2015)

*Hannibal Roars*
Hannibal Barca, the great general of Carthage who threatened Rome  itself, yells out his order to charge from atop his elephantine steed.

Yes, this time I did base Hannibal's look on Mr. T of _A-Team_ fame. It's such a shame that Mr. T has grown so long in the tooth now, as I think he'd make a great actor to play Hannibal in a historical biography flick (although they could also use him as a voice actor for a _Beowulf_-style motion-cap).






*Behind the Mask*
I've had this animation playing in my imagination of a lovely African woman  hiding behind this fearsome-looking mask (like the kind you'd associate  with cartoon "witch doctors") and then taking it off to reveal her real  self. You're scared of the beast when you first see it, but when you  learn it's just a disguise, you fall for the beauty behind it.

As for the mask's facial features, they're supposed to resemble a mix between a human being and a dinosaur (especially the _Tyrannosaurus rex_).


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## Legendary Sidekick (May 1, 2015)

Jabrosky said:


>


"I pity the fool who obstructs my elephant!"


I love that you made a Mr.T-based character design! Mr.T puts the _laughter_ in _manslaughter._ He _can_ divide by zero.


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## Jabrosky (May 1, 2015)

Legendary Sidekick said:


> "I pity the fool who obstructs my elephant!"
> 
> 
> I love that you made a Mr.T-based character design! Mr.T puts the _laughter_ in _manslaughter._ He _can_ divide by zero.



...and here am I wishing I'd ever seen him in action. Let me see if I can find some of his gems on Youtube...


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## Jabrosky (May 9, 2015)

*Reward for Mick Hancock*
For our final assignment in my ZBrush class this semester, we have to  make "self-portraits" of ourselves, but with the theme of either  Western, science fiction, or Pixar movies. Choosing the Western theme, I  chose my own original character Mick Hancock as my subject (since he  was always supposed to look like a leaner, brawnier version of myself  anyway). Since his backstory is that he's a Texas Ranger who left his  state and country for South Africa, I decided an Old Western-style  Wanted poster would suit the assignment well.

I know certain  language used in this poster is...symptomatic of attitudes prevalent in  the Anglophone world throughout the 19th century, but then it is the bad  guys from Mick's story who would have drafted this.

(As an  aside, President Custer Davis is another fictional character from my own  imagination. As you can guess, his name is a portmanteau of Jefferson  Davis and George Armstrong Custer to sum up his general character. In  real history, the President of the United States during 1878 would have  been a Republican named Rutherford B. Hayes.)

Oh, and here's his portrait in color:


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## Jabrosky (May 11, 2015)

*Ranger's Wedding Night*
My characters Mick Hancock, the runaway Texas Ranger, and his beloved  African warrior Nothembi are eager to consummate their new marriage.  They're supposed to be on some kind of sleeping mat over her house's  earthen floor, with our perspective looking down at them. And yes,  Nothembi is about to check out the pleasant surprise Mick has waiting  for her down there.


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## Tom (May 11, 2015)

*deep breath through the nose*

Alright. I've held off for a while, but now I feel I need to say this. I just need to get it out.

Jabrosky, I want you to stop. I want you to stop posting drawings of sexualized, fetishized black women. I want you to stop drawing those sexualized, fetishized black women in sexually suggestive scenarios with white men who look uncomfortably like self-inserts. It's just...it's creepy. 

You have no idea how f***ing uncomfortable it makes me. How _angry_ it makes me. These women you draw are not people in their own right. They're posed to show off their sexiness. They're dressed revealingly. They're _sexual objects_, without personal agency. That's so wrong, especially when it's _black_ women you typically draw that way. Black women have a long history of being hypersexualized, or denied sexual agency of their own. The implications that lie behind every sexy black woman you draw are...frankly, they're unnerving.

Let me ask you this--can you draw a woman who doesn't have a perfect hourglass figure? Can you draw a woman wearing anything other than revealing clothes? How about one wearing _armor_? Can you stop drawing "sexy chicks" and draw real women with their own stories and personalities?

I just want it to _stop_. _Please._


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## Nameback (May 11, 2015)

Tom, I don't think your criticisms are particularly well-founded. Jabrosky's female characters usually _do_ have (often elaborate) backstories, and it seems to me that they usually are presented as having agency in said backstories. The idea that they're somehow totally lacking in agency or personality doesn't really jibe with what I've seen of Jabrosky's work (both written and drawn) on here. 

Showing them with armor would also be an odd request, given that many of the peoples he draws inspiration from didn't wear heavy armor. Like, the most recent posting--he says the character's backstory is inspired by Southern African cultures, most of which used shields but not heavy armor. Neither the Zulu nor the Shona wore Western-style armor in combat, rather relying on shields and the reach of long weapons (spears, javelins, etc) for defense. Wouldn't make a lot of sense to draw her in heavy armor. Add to the fact that also many of said cultures did not share our Western ideas of "revealing clothes." Effectively, you're imposing a Western, white notion of sexualization on a historical non-Western perspective that didn't necessarily find e.g. exposed breasts to be sexualized or obscene. Ancient Egyptians, for example, show up a lot in Jab's work and also considered exposed breasts to be totally acceptable at various points throughout their history. In this vein, it could even be said that Jab is making concessions to Western sensibilities in the clothing he _adds_ in some of these depictions.

Personally, I find his latest two characters to be delightfully anti-racist in theme. The idea of the British colonizers as bad guys out to create weapons of mass destruction who must be stopped by an African woman? Yeah, what lack of agency! And that she does it with the help of an American defector perceived by his people as a race-traitor doesn't detract from that at all--only adds to it, in my opinion. Too often we excuse racists in the past by saying they were "of their time," without noting all those people of the same place, time, and background who _resisted_ imperialism, colonialism, slavery, racism, etc. Often those people were treated very poorly and considered traitorous, but remembering that they existed helps us to place moral burdens on the villains of the past--because it shows us that those villains still had moral agency, but they used that agency to make immoral choices. That's a lot more damning than "well that's just how people were back then." You can tread into white-savoir territory if you're not careful, granted, but I don't think Jab's done that here.

Finally, as to black women's sexuality in the American/European context, I find that it's often a bit of a Catch-22. If black women are considered unattractive, it's a result of racism. But if black women are considered especially attractive, it's also a result of racism. The only way to have a healthy romantic or sexual perception of black women, it seems, is to be color-blind, which is oddly opposed to most progressive notions of anti-racism, which explicitly eschew color-blindness as a way of avoiding the problem. 

I'd argue that like most color-blind mentalities, this is a way of avoiding the problem. Maybe in a perfect world none of us would have beauty standards, but in the real world most human beings do, and these are socially informed. Most people have an idea of beauty that is archetyped, not universal--and usually that archetype is a white woman. Asking people to not have an archetype is a bit like asking people not to see color and expecting that to solve the problem. Rather, it makes more sense to me to hope that our society can allow people to hold a wide array of beauty standards and to accept that diversity of ideals as legitimate, rather than tearing down opposing ideas of beauty as we so often do today (in a way that tends to reinforce white hetero-patriarchy). 

Black women are explicitly demeaned in our society, and our world, as undesirable. If you don't believe me, look to Nigeria, where 75% of women use potentially dangerous skin-whitening creams. That's a massive problem. Having some counter-narratives that portray black women (especially dark-skinned black women) as desirable is a rather necessary thing, I think. And Jab isn't showing African women as hyper-sexual jezebels, or other classic stereotypes of black female sexuality. He's just presenting them as desirable, which I think is perfectly fine. If you disagree, you might also want to take it up with Shonda Rhimes, who has made white male/black female pairings a staple of her television shows, to such an extent that it almost has to be a deliberate statement. Presenting black women as desirable to non-black men is a counter-narrative to the way that white women are presented as universally desirable, and to the narrative that blackness is unattractive or unfeminine. 

I think there's something wrong with assuming that preferring a black female standard of beauty is deviant, or bad, or creepy. There's a nasty implication buried in that, isn't there? It's one that bothers me greatly.


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## Tom (May 11, 2015)

@Nameback: Thank you for lecturing me on why I'm so wrong. 

I'm aware of African clothing conventions, and that African clothing is traditionally more revealing than European (due to climate differences), but that's no excuse for blatant sexualization. One element of a composition is not enough to consider; you have to look at the whole thing--the clothing, the figure beneath, the way the artist presents the figure, the intent behind the scene. 

Many of Jabrosky's female characters are drawn with the focus on their breasts or buttocks, or in sexy poses. There's nothing wrong with that in the right context, but an artist should be able to depict a female character in a non-sexual way when there's nothing sexual in the context. If you can't tell the difference between wholesome sexuality and fetishization/sexual objectification, I'd recommend heading over to Escher Girls or Bikini Armor Battle Damage. Many of the pictures they feature and deconstruct deal with the fetishization/sexual objectification of female characters. 

You seem to be projecting racism on me--I don't consider a black beauty standard wrong in any way. Where the hell could you have taken that from in my post? Just because I disagree with someone's depiction of black women does not mean I don't consider black women beautiful. I don't like Jabrosky's portrayal of black women, because I consider it racist, sexist, and disrespectful. 

Plus, you seem to be under the impression that I disagree with interracial couples. No. I simply find it off-putting that Jabrosky depicts his self-insert in sexual situations with fetishized black women. That's what I mean by depicting women as sexual objects. They are accessories for the male character's enjoyment. 

Please discover the difference between "preferring a black female standard of beauty" and "exclusively fetishizing black women". Maybe then you'll see why Jabrosky's artwork bothers me so very much. 

Ta. I need to take an aspirin.


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## Nimue (May 11, 2015)

I agree with Tom.  And I've also felt that way for an awfully long time, but it's just enough on the other side of the line that you don't want to say anything, right?  None of these images, by themselves, is particularly objectionable.  When I first came across this thread, I thought it was pretty cool.  Dinosaurs, African warriors, nice.

Then...the voice of doubt piped up.  All of these women are black.  All of them have large breasts and butts.  All of them are scantily clad in one way or another.  And all of them seem to be involved with blond, blue-eyed white men.  If this is about equalizing art, where are the black men?  (In one image, I think.)  Why do all the women have the same body?  Why are none of them fully dressed?  Is it really necessary to have a topless scorpion women...? "Miscegenation with a negress...?"  Whoa. 

Oh, lord.  The thread title starts to seem a little less tongue-in-cheek.

Maybe the intent here is to redefine beauty standards.  That would seem more sincere if there was any genuine celebration of variety, or if the women were doing something, anything! other than posing in leopard-skin bikinis and cuddling with white dudes.  But they're one-dimensional, and that dimension is "sexy".  If I saw a sexy African warrior on a pulp novel-cover where sexy white bikini girls usually stood, I might say "Eh.  Step in the right direction, I guess?" as you seem to think we should be doing here.  But four dozen sexy African warrior women in someone's personal art gallery doesn't make me think "societal progress" at all.  I think you get what it makes me think.

Honestly, I could go on about this.  I could bring in things that Jabrosky has said elsewhere that seriously make me doubt the intentions behind the artwork.  But you're posing the question as though the _only_ options are these sexualized images of black women, or nobody will ever draw black women again!  I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this argument, sorry.  We'll just break this down.



Nameback said:


> I think there's something wrong with assuming that preferring a black female standard of beauty is deviant, or bad, or creepy. There's a nasty implication buried in that, isn't there? It's one that bothers me greatly.


You had that strawman up in a jiffy.  You're saying that if someone doesn't like Jabrosky's drawings of "sexually attractive" black women, they must, by deduction, dislike ALL depictions of attractive black women? That's, uh, that's pretty ridiculous.  The logic in the rest of the post is somewhat along those lines.



> Effectively, you're imposing a Western, white notion of sexualization on a historical non-Western perspective that didn't necessarily find e.g. exposed breasts to be sexualized or obscene.


Good thing these boobs aren't being drawn by a Western white male in a sexual way!  Wait, um...



> You can tread into white-savoir territory if you're not careful, granted, but I don't think Jab's done that here.


Right, he's just made every single one of his main characters and every female character's love interest into a white man.  In African settings.



> Presenting black women as desirable to non-black men is a counter-narrative to the way that white women are presented as universally desirable, and to the narrative that blackness is unattractive or unfeminine.


What makes them valuable is that white men want to have sex with them!  Of course.

I...I just can't.  I can't.


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## Nimue (May 11, 2015)

Here! Here is some lovely fantasy art of attractive black women doing badass things.  Please, tell me again that we should settle for jungle warriors in bikinis.


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## Tom (May 11, 2015)

So you're saying you have no social responsibility to be a decent person? That the rules of the forum and the views of other members shouldn't apply to you? That's...interesting.

Jabrosky, I am so done with you. You claim to be a feminist and diversity ally, but really you are the opposite.


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## Nimue (May 11, 2015)

So you get to pick and choose whose opinions to believe.  Now you're arguing that we should listen to POC who agree with you, but disregard any POC who disagree with you?  Oh hey, and you're white too.  Holy cherry-picking, Batman.

And yes, I can absolutely believe that people would, at first glance, see your art as positive representation!  I did, myself.  But I would be surprised to find someone of color with the whole picture of your artwork and storylines who isn't a little uneasy about it.


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## Legendary Sidekick (May 11, 2015)

Well, he wasn't surprised. And no, there's no excuse. Tom was objecting to the art, which many women do (I mean generally, not just Jabrosky's art).

The sad part is I was planning to partake in the discussion, but saw how hostile it had become. Insulting Tom's sexuality is where the line was crossed, and I already gave a warning on Friday when I should have given a ban.


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## Tom (May 11, 2015)

LMAO

Sorry, was this supposed to be offensive to me? You're just telling me things about myself I already know (and like). And it's synesthesia. Jesus, if you're going to try to insult me by calling up a mental quirk I have (which is not a disorder), at least spell it right! And I have ADD, not ADHD, just so you know. And I'm not on tumblr (yet). And why do you need to call attention to the fact that I'm biologically female? Does that fact somehow invalidate my opinions?

If you're going to insult me, don't half-ass it. This is just funny!


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## Philster401 (May 11, 2015)

Btw he's already been banned. No way he can answer.


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## Tom (May 11, 2015)

I know. I just needed to do that for myself.


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## Devor (May 11, 2015)

We'll give it a few days so that people understand a little about what just happened, and I think maybe on Wednesday we'll delete this thread.


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## Philster401 (May 11, 2015)

If I might ask why does the the whole thread have to be deleted, the thread itself contains good artwork while some of it is sexist, that doesn't mean the whole thread should be deleted. Even though I hold no power he I would think that thing thread should be closed not deleted. But again I say it's not my choice or decision.


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## Devor (May 11, 2015)

Philster401 said:


> If I might ask why does the the whole thread have to be deleted, the thread itself contains good artwork while some of it is sexist, that doesn't mean the whole thread should be deleted. Even though I hold no power he I would think that thing thread should be closed not deleted. But again I say it's not my choice or decision.



To be honest, we haven't talked about it yet.  We might not delete it.  But I wanted to post ahead of that discussion to give Jabrosky a heads up in case there is anything in the thread he wants to save - I'm fairly sure he can still view the thread.  But I also understand why many people have come to feel very uncomfortable about the artwork here.  The art forum moves very slowly, and I'm not sure it's worth giving people the willies now that he's been banned.


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## Philster401 (May 11, 2015)

I agree that some of these posts do come close if not completely break the forums rule only now do I relize(because my internet is slow and some of the newest  images didn't load properly the first-time) that some of these posts need to be deleted.


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## Nimue (May 11, 2015)

...I was actually going to say something in support of not deleting it, because I know some artists rely on forum threads as indexes of old artwork that they might not have saved elsewhere.  As much as I might not like it...it is someone's art.  But if you're letting him know if it's going to be deleted, I think that'd be a good compromise.  And it's a good point about the pace of the art forum, and how long this would be hanging around.


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## Philster401 (May 11, 2015)

Nimue said:


> Here! Here is some lovely fantasy art of attractive black women doing badass things.  Please, tell me again that we should settle for jungle warriors in bikinis.



Those are amazing painting.


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## Devor (May 11, 2015)

Nimue said:


> ...I was actually going to say something in support of not deleting it, because I know some artists rely on forum threads as indexes of old artwork that they might not have saved elsewhere.  As much as I might not like it...it is someone's art.  But if you're letting him know if it's going to be deleted, I think that'd be a good compromise.  And it's a good point about the pace of the art forum, and how long this would be hanging around.



If that's that common of a practice with artists then I don't want to mess with it.  45 pages is a lot for him to go through in any amount of time. Maybe we'll move it to a faster forum like Writing Questions or Chit Chat so it's there for him while still sinking through the pages.


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## Nameback (May 11, 2015)

Tom Nimenai said:


> @Nameback: Thank you for lecturing me on why I'm so wrong.



This seems unnecessary? I kept it 100% civil in my post and didn't impugn you personally in any way so I don't understand why you are registering indignation that I disagreed with you. You seem to be suggesting that I did something rude just by disagreeing with you, which I don't get, nor do I understand the need for starting out with a hostile barb! 



> I'm aware of African clothing conventions, and that African clothing is traditionally more revealing than European (due to climate differences), but that's no excuse for blatant sexualization. One element of a composition is not enough to consider; you have to look at the whole thing--the clothing, the figure beneath, the way the artist presents the figure, the intent behind the scene.



Indeed, although I think I addressed that also. This was merely one point, mainly because you mentioned drawing women in armor.



> Many of Jabrosky's female characters are drawn with the focus on their breasts or buttocks, or in sexy poses. There's nothing wrong with that in the right context, but an artist should be able to depict a female character in a non-sexual way when there's nothing sexual in the context. If you can't tell the difference between wholesome sexuality and fetishization/sexual objectification, I'd recommend heading over to Escher Girls or Bikini Armor Battle Damage. Many of the pictures they feature and deconstruct deal with the fetishization/sexual objectification of female characters.



I understand your argument, but I disagree that Jab has never done that. Some of his drawings are definitely sexualized, but not all of them are. I'm familiar with both those tumblrs (and I like them) and the general discussion around objectification in fantasy, but the line between "wholesome sexuality" and objectification is not necessarily bright and obvious in every instance, and I think even most people who ardently oppose rampant objectification will agree with that. Yes, a lot of Jab's work is sexualized, but personally I see that balanced by his stories and settings. He's not just posting some T&A and leaving it at that, but crafting characters and stories, which _for me_, and _given what I see as agency_ in those stories goes a long way towards avoiding objectification. I'm not saying you must agree with me, but that I have a different interpretation.

I'm not arriving at my disagreement with you out of ignorance of concepts like objectification, and I thought my post made that clear; I simply stated that I didn't feel Jab's work met the criteria in the way that you did.



> You seem to be projecting racism on me--I don't consider a black beauty standard wrong in any way. Where the hell could you have taken that from in my post? Just because I disagree with someone's depiction of black women does not mean I don't consider black women beautiful. I don't like Jabrosky's portrayal of black women, because I consider it racist, sexist, and disrespectful.
> 
> Plus, you seem to be under the impression that I disagree with interracial couples. No. I simply find it off-putting that Jabrosky depicts his self-insert in sexual situations with fetishized black women. That's what I mean by depicting women as sexual objects. They are accessories for the male character's enjoyment.



I didn't suggest that you don't consider black women beautiful. I suggested that you may have a problem with a black "beauty standard" (or at least Jabrosky espousing one), meaning that black women set a standard or ideal of what is beautiful. The difference being that someone with no beauty standard would find black and white (and NBPOC) women equally beautiful, whereas someone with a black beauty standard would consider their _ideal_ of beauty to be black. Of course, many people have a beauty standard that is similar to themselves or the people they grew up with, so in turn many people have a black beauty standard.

I'm suggesting the same concept as a Eurocentric beauty standard--the one that I am sure you would rightfully decry because it is the socially dominant beauty standard that acts as a part of white supremacy in a way that, say, a black beauty standard does not. Like white pride vs black pride--one is unacceptable, one is acceptable. I'm suggesting that, analogous to the white person who gets upset at the notion of black pride, you may being reacting negatively to the idea of a black beauty standard, at least when such a standard is espoused by a non-black person. 

You post, to me, suggested discomfort with the idea that someone who is not black may find black women to be _especially_ or _ideally_ beautiful. Presumably you'd be OK with someone who is black expressing that opinion, although I can't know for certain. In any case, to me there seems to be an embedded assumption--it's healthy or acceptable for black people to find black people especially beautiful, but deviant and unacceptable for non-black people to find black people especially beautiful. I don't think that's true, and I do think it's implied in the way you raised the issue, and I do think it implies that there must be something deviant or sick about having preferences outside one's own race. I don't think you _intended_ to make such an implication, but good intentions alone do not mitigate problematic statements. I was suggesting that your statement was indeed problematic, intentions totally irrelevant. 

I also already explained that I disagree that Jab's female characters are all subordinate to male characters' desires, so I won't reprise that here. Suffice to say I understand your argument, but I interpret the evidence differently--I agree that what you are alleging would be bad if it is true of someone's work, but I disagree that it is true in the case of Jab's work.



> Please discover the difference between "preferring a black female standard of beauty" and "exclusively fetishizing black women". Maybe then you'll see why Jabrosky's artwork bothers me so very much.
> 
> Ta. I need to take an aspirin.



This is pretty condescending! I'm not coming at this out of ignorance. I assure you that I'm plenty well-versed in intersectional thought--maybe not as much as you, but maybe I am! I think the line between fetishization and preference is treating people (or characters) like objects, not like human beings. Now, clearly you think Jab treats his characters like objects, and I think he treats them like human beings. That is a disagreement about the common evidence--not a disagreement of values, nor a disagreement based in differences in understanding of intersectional issues, feminism, or anti-racism. 

I don't appreciate the condescension or the hostility, to be totally honest. I didn't condescend to you at all in my initial reply, and I didn't impugn your character. I disagreed with you and said your _statements_ and _arguments_ were problematic. And, no, this is not tone-policing; I'm not using this to derail or invalidate your argument at all. I'm not substituting a critique of tone for a critique of content--I'm critiquing your content, but I am also making a _separate_ statement that I feel like I'm receiving some really unprovoked rudeness. I'm spelling this out so explicitly (as I have all my arguments thus far) not out of condescension, but because social justice conversations can be very difficult and very personal, and I want to be as clear as possible to avoid being misconstrued. I have trouble being both brief _and_ clear, and my length of reply is not meant to impugn anyone else.


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## Nameback (May 11, 2015)

Nimue said:


> Honestly, I could go on about this.  I could bring in things that Jabrosky has said elsewhere that seriously make me doubt the intentions behind the artwork.



Bringing in outside context is of course important--part of the reason I defended Jab is because I've always thought he was pretty darn invested in rebutting white supremacy, especially in historiographic terms. He's always made a point of rendering Ancient Egyptians as black, talking about the historical crime that is the Hamitic Hypothesis, and pointing out the cultural achievements of pre-colonial African civilizations. He also has made a point of knocking down white supremacist narratives of European history by emphasizing the "barbarian" past of Northern Europe.

I have a lot of the same hobby-horses as Jab (white supremacist mis-renderings of African history is something I am forever talking about, because it plays a huge role in maintaining white supremacy in my opinion), so I've always appreciated his mildly Afrocentric stance on history. 



> But you're posing the question as though the _only_ options are these sexualized images of black women, or nobody will ever draw black women again!  I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this argument, sorry.  We'll just break this down.



I never suggested that. I only suggested that sexualized images of black women are not, in and of themselves, bad things, nor is it bad for a non-black person to find black women especially beautiful. And I argued that Tom's initial critique did kind of imply those things, albeit unintentionally.



> You had that strawman up in a jiffy.  You're saying that if someone doesn't like Jabrosky's drawings of "sexually attractive" black women, they must, by deduction, dislike ALL depictions of attractive black women? That's, uh, that's pretty ridiculous.  The logic in the rest of the post is somewhat along those lines.



Not at all. I said that black women can't win in the West. White supremacy so often renders them as totally undesirable, unfeminine, unattractive, etc. But, when individuals who are non-black buck that trend and instead see black women as especially attractive, a lot of folks rush in to say that's also white supremacy. And most of those folks are white feminists, to be totally frank. I think it's a bit of a blind spot that grew out of an over-zealous desire to combat fetishism but which has become something of a catch-22. It's gotten to the point where any praise of black female beauty by a non-black person comes under suspicion, which I don't think actually serves black women. I think it's problematic, and white feminists who want to be allies need to be aware of it.



> Good thing these boobs aren't being drawn by a Western white male in a sexual way!  Wait, um...



Are the boobs drawn sexually, or are they being interpreted that way because of Western context? 



> Right, he's just made every single one of his main characters and every female character's love interest into a white man.  In African settings.



Every female character? Pretty sure this is not true. Definitely some, but also isn't there something to be said for wanting to represent your own experience when it's underrepresented? White male/black female pairings are one of the rarest pairings represented in fiction. On network TV, we've only had one lead-character BW/WM pairing _ever_, and that was on _Scandal_ (When White Men Love Black Women on TV | tressiemc -- this source is from a black female sociologist who examined this issue on her blog). If this is your lived experience, of course you're going to want to fill in the gap. I'd love to see more BW/WM pairings in fiction, along with East Asian male/non-EA female pairings, which are also sadly too rare (East Asian men in general get terrible short shrift when it comes to being cast as romantic leads, Glenn from the Walking Dead being notable for being such an outlier). 



> What makes them valuable is that white men want to have sex with them!  Of course.
> 
> I...I just can't.  I can't.



Well that's an extremely uncharitable interpretation of what I said. First of all, I pointed out that Shonda Rhimes, a black woman, has made a theme of it in her television shows--perhaps for a good reason. Second, this is very straight-forward: If society says "only black men find black women desirable," then that's clearly meant to be a damaging stereotype. Portraying a non-black man finding a black woman desirable is a direct refutation of _that particular_ narrative. It's not saying that black women are valuable because white men want them--it's a rebuttal to a specific white supremacist narrative that _does exist_. 

And, as I said to Tom, I don't appreciate the condescension.

EDIT: let me add this real quick to the conversation as a whole: I think that if you're a white feminist who wants to be an ally to women of color, you have to be open to the possibility that your statements, made with the intention of defending women of color, may themselves be problematic. And another ally may point that out to you. Automatically assuming a defensive stance when someone critiques you and says you are being problematic is not good allyship. Of course I'm not suggesting you _must_ agree with anyone who critiques you in order to be a good ally, but I think it's necessary to be at least _open_ to the possibility, and I feel like I'm not really seeing that here and it's kind of a bummer.


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## Philip Overby (May 11, 2015)

Just a reminder: if you're going to have a discussion here, please do so without snide comments or attacking any other members. Not saying anyone is doing that, but be aware of how your post might sound to other people before you post it.

Again, this isn't directed at any one person. Just a heads-up.


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## Nimue (May 12, 2015)

Nameback said:


> Automatically assuming a defensive stance when someone critiques you and says you are being problematic is not good allyship.



Dude.  Well, that's a good description of how Jabrosky responded to things.  And frankly, as far as "problematic" issues go, when the argument is between a white guy who wants to draw sexualized pictures of black women in tribal getup and a white woman who's saying that's kind of gross and not a good representation of anyone... I don't think the problematicness is evenly distributed.

Look, this discussion is kind of over.  Jabrosky is banned.  For like the fourth time, apparently.  For posting inappropriate and offensive things.  Again.  Not interested in reading a couple thousand words of argument over how MAYBE he's actually RIGHT about everything and not racist AT ALL and really I'M the one being racist deep down. ...Yeah, um, I'm gonna go to bed.


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## Philip Overby (May 12, 2015)

I'm going to lock this thread for now.


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