Jabrosky's Crimes Against Fantasy Art

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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?

 

[Jabrosky]

Sorry, been artistically fixated on Cleopatra lately...

 

[Jabrosky]

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).

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

Find a Way or Make One (shaded)

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.

 

[Jabrosky]

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.