Jabrosky's Crimes Against Fantasy Art

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

In 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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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).

 

[Jabrosky]

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?

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.)

 

[Jabrosky]

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.)

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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).

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.)

 

[Jabrosky]

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

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.