Doodles from work...

I gathered a few doodles from one of my notebooks at work. Whenever I am distracted for a moment, I draw a doodle :-). Three characters were actually born in the office! *g* Andecamulos was the first. Vitios the blacksmith was the second - you haven't seen him yet. The bard Cantorix is the third:

(my first few Cantorix sketches)

(crouching people without reference = AARGH)

(first sketch of Comm without a beard.

doesn't look a lot like Comm at all, does it?)

Double Comm

I was thinking the other day that a nice, and very clear, way for Comm to show his allegiance to Rome would be to adopt the clean-shaven, short-haired Roman style. Such a gesture overcomes language barriers. It's a little painful for me, because I love Comm's long hair, and to have to sacrifice it... But it makes so much sense to me that I have decided to put aside my personal preference :-).

Now, the tricky part is of course to make him still look like Comm, even when the beard has gone. For me that is not an easy matter. One reason why I gave him a beard is, of course, to make it easy to distinguish him from other characters. So far I have only one dark-haired man with a beard, and that is him. When I remove the beard, he looks awfully much like a generic Roman :/. Of course that is the point, but it doesn't make things easier for a reader. For me personally it is quite obvious that this is Comm on account of the shape of his nose, but that is probably not enough, because his nose doesn't have any particularly striking features. It's shorter and rounder and more turned-up than other characters', but I'm not sure that is obvious to anyone but me. I'll have to think of other ways to distinguish him - like giving him a torque. That would make sense :-).

Apart from experiments with Comm's look, these two pictures are also the first two that I have inked with brushes. I'm not sure how I feel about the results. I like what brushes do to the inked look of Comm's hair. But I was not quite at ease with the lack of control I had over the brush, and the lines did not come out as I had hoped. No doubt I shouldn't expect a lot when I do something for the first time, and I do think that inking with brushes requires serious skill - something I can't have unless I exercise a lot. Nevertheless, it annoys me that my brushwork lacks crispness, and that the broad strokes were still obtained by going over a line several times, which is the same thing I do with my Staedtler pens. I wanted to see if brushes could give me a more flexible stroke, and in that respect I was a bit disappointed. Then again, it may be the lack of exercise. Which only means I should try plenty more :-).

Watercolour in Gaul

Last weekend I had great fun messing around with my watercolours. I have rather come to adore them, even if the results don't always live up to my enthusiasm :P. It suddenly occurred to me that I have bought two Moleskine watercolour notebooks, but that I have been nervous about using them. It's always like that with me: I am addicted to notebooks, but somehow I have the idiotic notion that I shouldn't use them unless I am going to produce a masterpiece. But why on earth shouldn't I use them to doodle and experiment? *shakes head at self* At least it would mean I have my pictures (good and bad ones alike) together in bundles instead of on loose bits of paper that lie around or get lost and/or damaged. So I gathered my courage and started painting furiously. The six little pictures/portraits that resulted are of various quality and can be found below.

My War in Gaul story is developing very slowly. I have a large cast, I think, but recently I realised that in fact it is still too small. That is, there are many more characters surrounding my main ones who need to have a personality and a history (even if those are never made explicit or treated at length) if the story is to work. Also, for one thing, canon (hee hee, I find a silly glee in applying that term to Caesar's writings) has it that Ambiorix flees with four of his warriors - those people have to be real, because he's going to be spending a considerable amount of time with them. So far I have only got one with a personality; a second one has a name and an occupation. The other two - no idea yet. But they'll come along.

I am also happy to say that as of a few days ago, dear Comm has three wives. Their names are Verctissa, Momora and Cunovinda. As of today, Verctissa has a story. I love her :-). Expect a portrait soon...

The paintings. As you may remember (but probably don't), I had given Ambiorix four sisters - two are older than he, and two are younger. They are gradually acquiring distinct personalities, and I amused myself last Sunday by painting little portraits. The thing is that the four women and their brother all look very much alike, but that they should be readily distinguishable from each other nevertheless. I have so far experienced a bit of difficulty with that :/. I am rather happy with how they turned out in the pictures, even though some of the pictures aren't particularly good as pictures.

I painted this one last, but I am putting it first because Avitoriga is the eldest of the siblings. She is probably closest to her brother in terms of character; he learned a lot of his cunning ways from her.

Avitoriga is married to Wulfilas, a Germanic noble. Originally I thought of him as king of the Chatti, but I have decided it would be more fun if he were a Cheruscan king. After all, he is supposed to take Ambiorix & friends in when Caesar has destroyed their land for the second time. The Cherusci receive a short mention in De Bello Gallico. In 9 AD, the Romans will suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Cheruscan prince Irmin/Arminius in the Teutoburgerwald. It's just too tempting to forge a connection between Ambiorix and Irmin, though I'm not sure yet how it is all going to work. I may at one point have to change Wulfilas' name into Segimerus (or Sigmar; Sigmar sounds extremely German, but if you ask me, Segimerus could as easily be made to sound more Celtic - as far as I am concerned it is pretty close to a name like Segomaros...)*. Another fun detail is that the Cherusci are thought to have been at least partly Celtic, so it all seems to fit marvellously well.

Drawback: Enrico Marini is currently making a comic about Arminius, Les Aigles de Rome. The linkie takes you to a site that offers a few page previews, demonstrating some of Marini's brilliance. One does not, as a pitiful amateur, wish one's readers to think of Marini's gorgeous watercolours when perusing one's own feeble attempts at the art of the comic ^_^; ...

*The mix-up between Celts and Germanic peoples is fascinating. Look at the name of king Marbod of the Marcomanni. The Marcomanni are supposed to be a Germanic tribe. But Marbod is apparently a kind of mangled form of Maroboduus. Now, "boduos" means "raven" in Celtic and is found in Celtic names like Catuboduos, Boduogena, Boduognatos and Boduocos. Maro - well, plenty of maros and maras in Celtic names too: Britomaros, Segomaros, Coviomaros, Dannumara. And then the name of the nobleman he exiled: Catualda. Catualda! "Catu" is Celtic for "battle", as in Catuvolcos, Catumandos, ... Catual, Cadafael Cadomedd, Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon, anyone? It doesn't get more Celtic than that :D! Though I must admit the "-lda" part sounds pretty Germanic. I dunno. It seems to me we are just a little too keen to divide these people into different ethnies when they were actually rather alike.

But I digress :P. Back to the matter at hand. I like the colours of this picture, especially the green and burgundy. They are the kind of tints I have long been wanting to mix, but I had no idea how, and finally stumbled upon them by accident.

This lady who is far too pink/reddish in the face is Ambiorix's second sister, Allicia. Her husband (not looking too good here, sorry) is Visurix (a cool mix of Germanic and Celtic too, that name: Germanic "wise" and Celtic "king", and I didn't make it up), whom I have made king of the Menapians. He lives on the hill of Blandinion, which happens to be the Hill I am currently Under :P. Canon says that the Menapians were Ambiorix's allies; that is why Caesar came to hunt them down in their marshes and handed the command of the tribe over to Commios.

Visurix is a lucky man. Allicia is the sweetest of women.

Abesa is Ambiorix's younger sister, and the drop-dead-gorgeous one. She's a bit of a pain, though, which I trust will lead to some sparks in the plot and the dialogue ;). I have thought of a few nice twists for her, but I can't reveal them yet.

This is Albiriga - Aia for short - the youngest of the siblings. The painting looks better in reality than it does on the scan, but it's still not very good; the dark shadow is basically my clumsy attempt at hiding the fact that I did the skin tones as badly as I did them for Allicia :/.

Aia is a bright and cheerful girl and possibly Ambiorix's favourite. He likes to think he has to protect her, but actually she protects him :). She deserved a better portrait.

Finally, there are the first two pictures I painted - last Saturday that was. This is a character I invented only last week: Andecamulos, Ambiorix's best friend. (He really needed one.)

If I said that he's my Obelix, I would probably be giving the wrong impression. I just find Asterix rather inescapable when cooking up my own Gaulish universe, even if the comical and parodical tone of that series is completely inappropriate to my story. But it seems obvious that whenever a bard is mentioned, lots of people will think of Assurancetourix/Cacofonix, and when you read about druids anywhere, a spontaneous association with Panoramix/Getafix comes up. That happens to me all the time, in any case. I'm not entirely sure why, when I thought of Ambiorix's best friend, I immediately conjured up someone heavy-set, physically strong, and obsessed with good food. It just happened. Then it struck me that sounded rather like Obelix. So to differentiate clearly (*g*), I have made Andecamulos a druid - or at least an aspiring druid, because he is too young to have finished his studies.

Andecamulos is a darling; you'll see. I'm afraid he can't stand Rigantona, but I forgive him :).

BTW, I have been looking for a solution to my problem with the length of all those Celtic names. I think it is probably best to use nicknames for the main characters, and to that end to split those long names into their constituent parts. That means that Ambiorix and Andecamulos can call each other Ambios and Camulos, and Rigantona might address her brother Vercingetorix (try fitting that in a word balloon when you have some dialogue to report too!) with a tender "Cingetos" (whoo! that's only three syllables instead of five!). I'm so relieved that one of my blokes is called simply Comm. I'm not sure what to do about Catutigirnios. I have been calling his father "Catu" in my head, and two Catus would be confusing. Maybe I should switch to Volcos.

Incidentally, in another instance of the Great Celtic Confusion I have read a translation of "volcos" as "wolf" (and it's the premier Celtologist Venceslas Kruta who says so). Previously I have encountered it everywhere as meaning "falcon". Rah. So is Volca now called She-wolf, and her father Battle-wolf? I wonder.

More faces - and some colour

A whole week has passed in which I have been very busy, but somehow I don't recall accomplishing anything :/. It suddenly struck me that I hadn't done any pictures for War in Gaul for a while, and my fingers got itchy... So here is a sketchdump with the results.

Here is a first glimpse of my Original Roman Character (*grin*), Quintus Tullius Veridicus. At this stage he is still worryingly much "a Roman" - that is, I know quite a few things about him, but not so much his looks, unfortunately. Amateurs of Roman names may notice that Veridicus has Etruscan ancestors: the Gens Tullia, so I discovered, has Etruscan roots, and the name "Quintus" is not the Latin for "fifth", but a Latinised form of the Etruscan name "Cuinte".

The reason why I am so keen on making this man Etruscan is because - well, there are several things. First off, the Etruscans made the Romans, but sort of disappeared inside them as well. I find that an interesting given. Second, the kings of pre-Republican Rome were Etruscans. They were so hated that they inspired fear of kingship in ancient Rome, and one reason why a civil war broke out between Caesar and Pompey is that many people feared that Caesar wished to turn Rome into a monarchy again. (They were right, of course, and le grand Jules ended up being stabbed to death by a bunch of Republicans.) I like to refer to this conflict between republicans and monarchists because what Vercingetorix tried to achieve in Gaul effectively mirrors Caesar's actions in Rome. I'm not sure yet how I am going to integrate this into the narrative, but at least the element will be there so that I can call upon it when it pleases me :-).

Finding a face for Veridicus is not so easy. I should like to have a look at the ancient paintings in Etruscan tombs, to see if I can snatch some stereotyped looks of the people depicted there... One problem I have is that the Romans don't seem to leave me a lot of scope in terms of hairstyle to help me distinguish between characters :/. I am at present in danger of producing a bunch of clones...

I have also been pondering Veridicus's cognomen. I don't know of any Romans called Veridicus. I gave him that name as a cognomen in the sense of a nickname that says something about the kind of person he is (in this case, "he who tells the truth", honest and outspoken), but in fact I doubt that the cognomen still functioned that way in the first century BC. It is rather likely that he would have a more standardised name, one that serves to specify the specific branch of the Tullia family from which he hails. Of course in the meantime I have become rather attached to the name of Veridicus, and I'd rather not change it. And I don't know how many people would fuss about it if I let it stand ;-).

I am still working on Rigantona. It is such a bother having to draw someone really pretty. I mean, I hate it when I read a comic where it is clear that a character is supposed to be gorgeous when they don't look at all gorgeous to me. Besides, it really annoys me when an artist can't draw beautiful women. So, well, I would rather not be guilty of those offenses myself XD.

It's a bit stupid - I used to be much better at drawing pretty girls than at drawing men. Then I tried to get better at drawing men, and now I am no longer happy with how my women look (and my men still look girly *g*). Blah.

Anyway - Riga is improving, I am glad to say, though there is still some work to be done. I guess I will be looking at photos of beautiful women for inspiration, and see where it takes me. I also need to go back to studying naked females. Something always seems to goes wrong with the ladies' boobs these days, and we can't have that, can we? Not that you should ever expect the trashy Lady in Skimpy Outfit from me, but I want to be able to do "alluring" when I need it :-). I'll post the results as soon as they look nice.

This is slightly more serious as a drawing :-). A few weeks ago now I thought I'd take out the enormous pencil set which Waterzooi gave me as a present this summer, and see where all those types of graphite would lead me. I was thinking of a picture I had done of Volca a while ago, and of the nice effect I got doing the texture of her skirt - I wanted to have a try with Comm and exercise my cross-hatching skills. It didn't work very well at first, but I continued to layer with ever darker pencils until the hood looked really nice (or so I think). What keeps escaping me is the shading of faces. I really didn't like what I got, and erased almost all of the work I did on the face. In the end I have a relatively realistic hood and beard, combined with my typical cartoony face. I'm not sure whether I am entirely happy with that.

What I do like is the fibula :-). If you click the picture and zoom, you'll get a better idea of what I mean: the hard pencils allowed me to achieve what for me is a rather good metal-y look *g*.

Seriouser and seriouser: the following is a quick sketch run riot :P. I was drawing spears in the booklet that I keep for copying historical artefacts, when something struck me about the designs I was drawing, and I ended up toying with a bit of plot. To make sure that I wouldn't forget it, I doodled a scene, and then thought I might as well refine the drawing, and everything got out of hand from there *g*.

Yes, yes, plenty is wrong with this, but please have mercy and don't tell me right now - you can offer concrit in a few days, when I am ready to accept enumerations of all the flaws. It will be obvious that I didn't use reference for anything except the spear and the Roman uniform, and then I didn't even check whether I gave Veridicus the clothes that befit an eques... I was enjoying myself too much to bother. Bad reflex, that ;-).

So, anyway: here are Veridicus (looking rather "standard Roman" - *sigh*) and Comm, in a picture entitled, Comm Commios and the Well-Ordered Mind. *giggles*
There is a story to go with it - though, story... It's horrible, but I will always drift from action into contemplation, it seems. I'm supposed to be working about the war in Gaul, so you'd expect plenty of action, but what do I get? "We interrupt the action for a Philosophical Interlude about the Difference between Roman and Celtic Mindsets." Go me. Alas, this is my idea of "fun" and "interesting stuff". Incidentally, this drawing has decided for me that Veridicus and Comm will meet - they weren't going to. I had invented Veridicus for another storyline. But Comm is the kind of character who wants to understand what makes Romans tick, and that means he needs a Roman willing to talk to him about such things. Caesar would seem too busy, Antonius too frivolous, Labienus too antagonistic - so I thought of Veridicus. I will have to find out which rank and function he needs to have in order to hang around Comm for a while and then move somewhere else when I want him to.

The drawing doesn't really work without a plot - it doesn't tell you by itself why Comm looks so startled, or what Veridicus is talking about. But I like it because I ended up making it very detailed in terms of costumes and such. In fact, when I was done with the pencils, I thought it might be worthwhile to try and colour the drawing, because it would provide a good picture of the complete look I hope to achieve. I'm not saying that it's now decided that everything will look like this - just that graphite and black/white feel incomplete for this project, and that I want to get an idea of what a coloured look can be like.

I didn't want to colour my pencils, because they were too small. I photocopied the drawing from my sketchbook onto heavy paper, enlarging it to twice the original size. The photocopier didn't like my paper, and its black dusty stuff stained and came off. The photocopy looked very grotty, which normally speaking I would hate, but somehow I took a fancy to all the dust and stains and decided to use it. The photocopy dust mixed with my coloured pencils, but I thought that made for a nice effect. I guess the result is my best pencil colouring job to date, and at this moment I am rather pleased with it ;-).

It was more obvious to me in the pencil version that Veridicus is looking at the tip of the spear, not at Comm - in the "inked" version he seems to be staring at a point between Comm's head and the spear tip. Too bad. At least I had fun with it, and Comm looks singularly handsome ;-).

(Please click for the larger version!)

Two exciting pictures!

...Okay, maybe they are not that exciting to you, but they certainly are to me :D!

Yesterday the comics expert and his dazzling Elfie came over for coffee and cake, and apart from a pile of yummy comics (Courtney Crumrin Tales! Scott Pilgrim! Castle Waiting! Wonderland!) he also brought me a picture. Actually, it was my own picture - but a friend of his (I don't even know his name! - Nout?! What's his name? Linkie to his blog? plz? thx!) had been playing around with it - and given it digital colouring.

I was astonished when I saw the result. My first thought was, "Wow, he's real! He's, like, not flat anymore!" :D I am really surprised to find that this realistic way of colouring is not at odds with my simple line art. It gives me an entirely new perspective of what the finished product could look like, and it sort of reassures me that my kind of linework does not automatically disqualify the art from getting a look that is perhaps more appropriate to the war story it is supposed to tell than my rather cutesy cartoon-like style might possibly be. Drawback is that I am not capable of achieving this kind of colouring myself, and as far as I understand, the Hitherto Anonymous Artist is not looking for a long-time War in Gaul engagement. (And, to be honest, long-time always means looooooooong-time if I am involved :/.)

As you can see in the next picture, I am still more comfortable with monochrome myself... This is watercolour paint on sketchbook paper that is actually a little too light for it :-). Anyway, if it is exciting, it is not so because it is particularly brilliant, but because it is my first picture of a War in Gaul character that is not a development sketch or a kind of study, but a pure picture picture that is not meant to be anything but pretty. It's a shy start, but it is a start none the less.

It is, as you can see, a totally spontaneous, unstudied speed painting, done for no better reason than that I had a leftover of paint in what I thought was a nice hue. I had added quite a lot (I think) of Gum Arabic to make it more transparent. You can't see it on the scan, but the real picture actually has a vaguely glittery quality to it because of the gum, and is rather appropriate for something supposed to look cold and snowy.

My confidence with and enjoyment of watercolour is slowly growing. The results are not great, but at least I am figuring out a thing or two. In this picture I had fun playing with water and the wonderful stains it can make. So yes, those stains are deliberate :P.

A few sketches

Here are a few more attempts at getting a grip on my characters and familiarising myself with their features. I often fill in the characters' backgrounds and stories while doodling. In the case of War in Gaul, I still have a long way to go.

I haven't been able to do something decent with Comm's scar yet. Part of the problem seems to be (though it is perhaps not that obvious in these sketches) that most of the time the thing I draw just doesn't look like a scar. It looks like, well, two lines drawn onto his forehead, not the remnants of a grisly wound. I'm working on it :-).

I like this sketch of Comm very, very much. Well, he's looking rather more handsome than he is supposed to be, but that's what usually happens along the way *g*. I like the contrast between him and Ambiorix; I do hope I'll get it to work in the story too.







This thingy developed into a picture that is rather too complex for my limited skills to be ventured upon without thinking and/or looking for reference. (Yep, I know what that says about my artistic genius.) Anyway: it just happened, and if there are plenty of things wrong with it (proportions come to mind), that is a result of its improvised nature. But hey, I don't care, because it's only a sketch. It's (vercingeto)Rix and Riga(ntona), who have been clamouring for my attention lately.

It looks like I am returning to my simple, clean style - though it is possible that it might change again when I get round to drawing actual story pages. Unfortunately those still seem a long way off.

Styles...

I find it a little bit annoying that I haven't been able to settle on a style yet for this project. I haven't found one for Mademoiselle de Maupin either. It's not as if I haven't got anything more basic to do and learn than develop a style for these stories - I mean, writing a scenario would be a nice start ;-). But for some reason I like to know about the visual element too; it goes hand in hand with the story and atmosphere for me, and I am used to developing both at once. For my previous project things actually started with the style and developed from there. So I'm feeling a bit blah about my inability to settle on a particular visual approach. I did a few try-outs, but none of them feels right so far.

The first thing I tried was inking with Faber-Castell PITT pens (see image above). Compared to my earlier inking style, it is rather loose (I used a brush pen as well as a more ordinary one), with an attempt at slightly more realistic shadowing. I don't really know what to think of the result. I guess that for me it is not neat enough, but on the other hand I am not sure whether my usual preference for a more polished style is all that suitable to a story about a brutal war...

Despite my love of black and white illustration, I rarely use quill pen and ink, and have never ever attempted to ink with a brush. I can't control them very well, and only started to ink my drawings when I discovered Staedtler pens - teensy felt tip pens that don't run, don't stain, dry very quickly and produce really neat lines. With them I have about as much control over the linework as I am ever likely to get. The drawback is that they don't allow much variation in the lines in the way that quill pens or brushes do when you apply pressure or swirl them. Drawings done with Staedtler pens arguably lack in spontaneity, too - they are perhaps more static than pictures done with a quill or brush, or at least they are when I am drawing.

In this drawing of Catuvolcos and Ambiorix I thought I would give classic inking a try. It is done with quill, brush and waterproof Chinese ink. I suppose the result could have been worse, but I am not entirely happy with it. Once more it is not quite neat enough to my liking, though that may be because I am just not adept enough at using these tools. Also, I am wondering whether my lack of insight into realistic shadowing does not make this type of drawing look merely clumsy.

Another thing I tried was to combine graphite pencil linework with colour pencil. I am not yet comfortable using colour in a comic; up until now I have always worked in black and white. But the Celts were a colourful people, so much so that the Greeks and Romans felt obliged to report on the many and bright colours of their clothing. Not to use colour means not to counteract the drab costuming in so many films...

One problem I already have to face is that the scanner, for one, does not like my pencil colouring very much. Quite apart from my merits in using pencils, the subtleties just don't register in the scan :/. I am garantueed to have trouble if I should try to get art like this printed from scans. It just won't look the way it should, and it's not a mere matter of enhancing contrast in Photoshop - I tried that.

Apart from that, I don't suppose it is very practical to use only pencils and no inks. I need to try a combination of colour and inks and see where it takes me. I have no idea whether inks and colour pencils combine well... So far I have only ever tried inks with watercolour, but that requires special paper, which is not very practical either.

If I manage to sort my colouring problems out, I should very much like to adopt clear colour schemes for each main character. It would make them more recognisable, and say something about the character at the same time. For Ambiorix I want blue and gold, and royal purple for Vercingetorix. Rigantona, as a priestess, I would dress in vivid greens. Green is the colour of the supernatural and of nature; I should like to give my druids green clothes too, in order to avoid the cliché image of the white-clad bearded man who is in remarkably little evidence outside of Roman sources.

I'm not sure about Comm's colours yet. My very first plans involved lots of black for him, but I wonder whether that wouldn't be a little too unusual. I'm still considering it. Maybe a black cloak and a red tunic? Volca will probably end up in browns and reds - warm colours, but not too striking. She isn't supposed to be someone who likes to draw attention to herself, unlike Ambiorix, who is a bit of a showoff.

Anything watercolour-related takes a bit more preparation than anything you see in this post - I can't just try it out in my sketchbook, because for sketching I like a very smooth sort of paper, and watercolour simply doesn't catch on that. I will be posting painted colours for comparison, hopefully soon, and comments and advice are very welcome :-).

Costume - a few sketches

In a previous post I mentioned the problem of having to convey lots of information without taking too much recourse to text. One specific element I will be dealing with in War in Gaul is that the Gauls were divided into many different peoples; in fact we are not even sure that they called themselves Gauls or even Celts.

According to Caesar, the Belgae differed from the other continental Celts by their descent from Germanic peoples. There is quite some debate among historians as to whether the Belgae spoke a Celtic or a Germanic language. Unfortunately these discussions are often frought with politics. Those people who argue vigorously that the Belgae spoke a Germanic dialect are sometimes prone to using their theory in order to emphasise, say, the difference between the Flemish and the Walloons in Belgium; consequently I find it difficult to know whether I am reading propaganda or honest historical research. Moreover, in wishing to distinguish between 'Celtic' and 'Germanic', historians are pulling a Caesar: they force some kind of order and distinction on a culture that does not actually seem to have cared much about this kind of deliniations. The Celts did, however, make distinctions among themselves: they seem to have been forever picking fights with their equally Celtic neighbours. That appears to have been one problem the Romans solved...

I would like to keep 'my' Celts' ethnic identity fluid. It might be nice to go with the Germanic thing to some extent. For one thing, it would make my Eburones and other Belgae extra annoying in Caesar's eyes because they are impossible to categorise. As a bonus, it would give me the opportunity to throw in a few Germanic names, which are easier to come by than Celtic ones :P.

In terms of costumes, I was thinking that I might show the sliding differences between northern and southern peoples by the men's trousers. Apparently it is a typically Germanic thing to strap leather laces around the leg up to the knee; the Celts usually strapped their trousers at the ankles. So I'm going to play with straps, and with the width of the trouser legs - narrow in the south, wide in the north. Now Catuvolcos and Ambiorix look as if they are wearing a kind of ancient plus-fours :D...

Here is old Catuvolcos, leaning on his spear. I didn't give him a shirt; I wonder whether I should change that. As I said in a previous entry, I imagine him as an old-fashioned warrior king, so he has to look sort of hardy, even if he is getting on in age. Shirts are for sissies like Ambiorix ;-).

For some reason I like to picture Catuvolcos in a cloak with a fur collar - does that give him a heroic, royal air, or is it just me?

The armlets are ... Well, armlets are archeologically attested, but not exactly in high numbers. They are more of a pictorial tradition than anything else, but I like them, so my kings wear armlets. Let's say we haven't found many because Caesar confiscated them and melted them all into sestertii, all right? ;-)

Here is Ambiorix, in full regalia, or almost. I need to sort a few things out, like for example the way the cloak is worn; I am having a bit of trouble drawing cloaks properly, and I need to copy a few fibulae for inspiration too.

The basic clothing consists of trousers, a shirt, a tunic with belt, and a cloak. I am wondering whether I can make my Celts wear shirts that are open at the front - kind of like the modern versions but without the buttons. I have read a description from which I understand that they may have had such shirts, but I am not sure whether I interpreted the passage the right way :/.

Ambiorix wears his sword on his right, not because he is left-handed, but because the Celts just happened to wear their swords that way. Seeing how they loved to show off, I bet they did it because when you draw a long Celtic sword from your right with your right hand, you have to make a long, sweeping movement - quite impressive-looking, that *g*.

Here is Commios. He lives a bit more to the south, on the border between what Caesar calls Gallia Belgica and Gallia Celtica, so I gave him different trousers, shorter straps, and a tunic but no long-sleeved shirt. I guess the main reason why I am inclined to give him short sleeves is because I picture him as rather muscular and so I want to show his arms. Only, well, at the moment I am still learning about muscles, and so far his arms merely look beefy :P. To Be Fixed.

I am still playing around with costume ideas; as you can see this drawing is on the whole less well-defined than the previous two. My Eburones are taking shape more quickly than the rest, and I still draw a complete blank on the Romans. It's not really a problem; I will get there in time. As a character, Comm is shaping up nicely. He has a daughter now, and a lovely little plot that will take him to Ambiorix. I was rather relieved when that idea popped into my head, even though it means I have a new cast member... Her name is Dannumara, by the way - Mara for short.

I am still trying out for Volca - her face isn't quite stable yet, but at least I had a lot of fun with my graphite pencils :-). One important job is to invent nice hairdos for my Celtic ladies; the one with all the braids was a first try, and I think it could have looked worse. I need some more training though, and I am looking for reference material too, but so far I have not found a lot of useful photos.

I need to think the ladies' wardrobes through, too. It is not immediately obvious to me how I am going to bring variation to it in the way that I did with the men and their trousers. Sleeves? Girdles? Stoles? Necklines? I have to try a few things out. I also need to look into making peplos-like dresses more elegant. Maybe I should watch a few peplos films for inspiration?

More character sketches...

One of the more problematic elements of War in Gaul for me is - you'll laugh - the fact that a host of characters will have to have facial hair. Commios is the most important of them. I am not used to drawing beards or moustaches, and I had to study reference photos; otherwise it looked as if the beard had been glued on :-).

You may have noticed that in the image I posted to go with his character description, Commios has a scar over his left eye, the result of an assassination attempt. I rather like how it looks, but I have to find another place for it nevertheless. It has been pointed out to me that Miller's Leonidas in 300 has a scar like that, and I also noticed that it makes Comm bear a striking likeness to King Arthur in Chauvel and Lereculey’s Arthur. I think I will make it come out of his hair, or something. It is less decorative, but I don't want him to look as if I copied him from someone else.

This is a page of particularly bad Rigantonas. The picture that went with her character description is much, much better, but it was done after these and I already had a better grip of the character. The difficulty with her is that she is supposed to be very attractive, which means I need to train on how to draw beautiful women. I don't feel as if I have been doing a particularly good job so far.

Finally, Volca. Since she is the newest addition to the cast, she is probably the one to change most often. Her character is developing nicely; I have a few recent sketches that I will post as soon as I get them scanned. Volca is the most ordinary of my characters, visually and story-wise, but I have grown rather fond of her.

War in Gaul: the cast (3)

3. Commios, king of the Atrebates, the Morines and the Menapians



Alas, poor Commios. He has been so utterly forgotten that I haven’t been able to find a single portrait of him, real or imaginary! No nation adopted him in the throes of Romanticism, even though he was a very clever strategist, and the king who held out longest of all against the Roman occupation.

Actually, in the case of Commios, it is not even clear what his name really is. He is one more victim of the near-incomprehensibility of Gallic today – for Commios, I’ve found “crow”, “equal”, and “he who strikes”… Quite apart from the meaning, what is Commios – his first name or his patronymic? The ending –ios could well indicate a genitive, which would make the nominative form “Comm”. There are coins of the British Atrebates inscribed “Comm Commios” – is that Comm, son of Comm, or is it lack of space that called for Commios, son of Commios to be a little bit compressed? Yay for dead languages, especially when they remain largely unwritten!

Comm or Commios (I think I’m settling for Comm Commios, just to keep things easy ;P) – one thing I know for certain is that he is the kind of character I like, because he changes his mind so often. Like Ambiorix and Vercingetorix, he hung around Caesar for a while; in his case, it lasted longer than for the other two. After the battle of the Sabis in 57 BC, where his people suffered severe losses, Comm seems to have stepped up to Caesar or in some other way made himself noticed, and Caesar appointed him king of the Atrebates; the Atrebates were henceforth also exempt from taxes. Comm saved the Roman general’s skin in Britain, and in return he got to rule the Morines, a neighbouring people of the Atrebates, as well. In 53 BC, Caesar pillaged the lands of the Menapians to put them under pressure not to shelter Ambiorix, and here too he put Comm in charge, whom he praises for his courage and cleverness.

However…

Also at this time, a fugitive Ambiorix is riding around Belgica, skirting Roman man-huntsmen and preaching rebellion to the Belgic leaders. And though Caesar remains tactfully silent on the subject, Aulus Hirtius reveals in his Book VIII of DBG that shortly after, Labienus has to send his right hand man Gaius Volusenus (“who hated Commius”) to undertake the Atrebate king’s assassination: Labienus has heard it rumoured that Commios has lapsed and is now conspiring against Rome. The attempt fails (though only just), and next time we hear of Commios, he is heading the army that must rescue Vercingetorix from Alesia.

Commios was one of the last leaders to take up arms against Rome, but he proved to be very tenacious once he had set his mind on rebellion. He never managed to mobilise a great army after Alesia, but what forces he had he used efficiently; Caesar notes that his troops are better organised than is usual in Gaul and that their attacks are well thought-out. But eventually the Atrebate king tires, too. He gets even with Volusenus, then offers peace to Mark Antony (yes, that Mark Antony) on the condition that he never has to face a Roman again.

One other thing I like about Commios is his resilience. When Caesar is done with Gaul, the land is little more than a graveyard. Commios has spent a lot of energy fighting, and he has lost. So what does he do? Instead of sulking in a corner, he crosses the Channel to Britain and starts a new dynasty there, eventually reigning over Berkshire, Hampshire, West Sussex, West Surrey and a part of Wiltshire. Archaeologists say that he introduced the practice of coinage there.

There is an attractive, but probably fictitious, anecdote about Commios’s sailing for Britain. Frontinus records that Caesar did not honour the agreement made by Mark Antony and decided to pursue Commios. When he arrived by the coast, the Atrebate king had already set sail, but the tide was low and his ship stranded on the flats. Commios had his wits about him and ordered the sails to be spread, and because the wind was fair, Caesar gave up the pursuit, thinking that the ship was afloat and had too much of a head start. Thus the traitor escaped…


A coin minted by Commios in Britain – it has his trademark “E” with the funny slant.

In the case of Commios, Caesar is even less specific than he was about Vercingetorix; we have not even the vaguest indication about his age. For some reason I have always imagined him as fortyish, maybe because I assume that his down-to-earth approach to leadership (his siding with Caesar was of great benefit to the Atrebates; he seems to have been more concerned with his people’s welfare than with glory) is an indication of sedate maturity as opposed to Ambiorix’s and Vercingetorix’s fiery radicalism. My idea of Commios (and Vercingetorix, actually) changed very little between 2003 and today, and I actually find that it plays out really well with my new version of Ambiorix. Those two will be close during the most crucial phase of the story, so it is important to have some interesting interaction between them. They are sufficiently different to provide contrast, whereas, if Frontinus’s story is any indication, their minds certainly meet when it comes to shrewdness.