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.

Holiday annoyance

I enjoyed my holiday. I really did. I went to Barcelona and saw plenty of Gaudí buildings, which I adore, and I learned several interesting and rather inspiring things about the architect's approach to his work as a science, craft and art. Needless to say, I came back home with a biography (I'm one third into it) and three books with pictures and analyses of his work (more pictures than analysis - I couldn't find anything more technical in a language that I read, unfortunately) - an introduction to his oeuvre and specific books on Casa Batlló and Park Güell. The trip reminded me of the fact that I would have loved to become an architect, a dream that I could not possibly realise because I am useless at maths. Gaudí, I am told, as a boy had low marks for just about everything except mathematics. Me, I managed to get a 2 out of 10 for maths in my second year at primary school -_-. I wonder whether my problems with perspective are related to my hopelessness with numbers and geometry, and the fact that I had to opt for a course of study that precluded any lessons in solid geometry...

Anyway: on to the annoyance. One of the things I don't like about going on holiday is the fact that travelling means that I don't get any drawing done. The worst of it is that I know for a fact that for many artists the opposite is true. They end up publishing their travel notebooks, and lo! they are full of wonderful sketches and watercolours of sights and people. My notebooks either come back as blank as they were when I packed them, or they contain a few rubbish scribbles. It is very frustrating. What is the reason behind this inability to make my trips pay off?

Off the top of my head, I can think of two things:

1. I am very slow in everything, including drawing. In order to draw, I have to be able to sit down quietly and work at my ease. I am so envious of people who capture a pose or a sight in mere minutes - apparently I haven't got the necessary skill to do so. Also, I rarely travel on my own. That means that whenever the fancy takes me to sketch something, I have to make my companion(s) wait for me, or to split up with them, both being arrangements for which said companions have so far never cared.
2. Apparently I need a lot of time to digest things. I am just not the impressionist type, not a person who finds inspiration on sight and is in her element when working in the open and on the move. When I see something that interests or impresses me, I take it in, mull it over, and sooner or later it will crop up in what is possibly a totally unrelated context. I will have an idea which I want to express, and somehow I will be reminded of something I have seen, probably research it, and use it.

I really think I should learn to study more in art. My modus operandi seems to be: this is what I want, now what do I need in order to get there? - and so I learn, but not methodically. That seems to be, at least partly, what gives me trouble now with War in Gaul: I suddenly discover that the project requires a whole vocabulary that I lack because I am not in the habit of starting at the beginning. And I have become so set in my habits that I find it hard to try and acquire some that more professional artists find quite natural and self-evident, such as sketching whatever comes into view, or immediately posing an interpretation/style upon sights or people that surround them.

Another thing I wondered about recently is reference. I very, very rarely work from a live model, or use a photo as reference for an entire pose. It seems that many professional artists use models or reference photos for almost everything. I only do so when I find something problematic, in the sense that I can't see its precise mechanics in my mind's eye. It seems very limiting to use reference for everything, because often enough I can't find exactly what I want when I look for it. Then again, it probably avoids many of the mistakes I make, and I would probably be able to draw anatomy, bodies in space, colour and perspective better if I were a bit more observant of outer rather than inner life.

Two colour thingies

I said I would be trying a few things with colour, and this picture of Rigantona is one of those experiments. I combined my usual inks (Staedtler pen) with colour pencilling. It's not bad, I think - I especially like the skin tones and the hair. The dress, however, looks rather paler than I had hoped, though I picked the brightest green in my box :/.

I am planning a more ambitious drawing of Comm and the black stallion with which he is gifted by Caesar - but seeing as the design involves a horse it may take some time ;-). In any case, that drawing would be on better (and whiter) paper, and I'm curious what the pencil colours will look like in those circumstances.

Rigantona's brother, Vercingetorix, in pastel pencils. (Click on the picture for a larger version...)

I think that strictly speaking I make these much too smooth; I use my felt tool thingy all the time, blurring just about every pencil stroke. I guess this is my way of attempting more or less realistic colouring :-). On the other hand, my insistence on graphite pencil lines and sharp contours seems a little contradictory. But I rather like this effect.

Oh - I mixed the purple of the cloak. Go me! More colour experiments are imminent, now that I have got myself a book on colour theory and mixing, yay! ;-)

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.

First glimpse of Caesar

Yesterday, out of the blue, I thought I would draw Caesar. Aside from a few very tentative sketches of Veridicus (my OC, from the Gens Tullia), that makes Caesar the first Roman who gets a face in my story. That, um, leaves only Labienus, Volusenus, Marcus Antonius, Sabinus, Cotta, Cicero and a few others...

The situation with Caesar is of course much different from that of my Gaulish characters: we know what he looked like, because we have portrait busts that can definitely be identified as representing him. I don't know about you, but even before I started working on this comic I was able to recognise Caesar's face when I came across it in museums; I'm sure I'm not alone in that. As a consequence, I feel that I can't just go inventing wildly when Caesar is concerned, and I copied his face from several portrait busts. The merits of my copying capacities are very relative, but I am nevertheless rather happy with the result - I don't think anyone could look at the pictures on the left here and say, "hey, isn't that Caligula?" or something. I am glad that the man has a few expressive lines in his face; they help me individualise him and make his expressions more lively too. I guess I am making his nose larger and more hooked than in the busts, but I like a little exaggeration; my style isn't that realistic.

I have found another portrait bust that shows a more fleshy Caesar. We mostly see him as lean and even somewhat ascetic-looking; I opted for that image because - well, after all, Vercingetorix's best moves against Caesar were those that cut off the food supply.

I do need to try more expressions as I sketch on; right now all the old bloke ever seems to do is smirk. But he has an excellent type of face for smirking, too... I already know I'm going to enjoy drawing Caesar. He is greedy and ambitious and totally immoral, if you ask me, but he's also brilliant as well as quirky. You just have to love a bloodthirsty general whose nickname was "the Queen of Bithynia", haven't you? Every time I have to draw his hair I am reminded of the fact that he was balding and hated it, and grew very long hair at the back of his head so that he could comb it to the front to make it look as if he did not have a bald patch on his scalp :D. Oh, and he depilated, which is great because I don't particularly like drawing hairy arms :-).

Here's to show that I shouldn't be allowed to play with Photoshop colours because I obviously don't know how to use them properly. I should do a decent version of the picture, perhaps in watercolour or something; this is just some quick sketchy thingy.

I have been thinking at which points my main characters interact with Caesar personally. There aren't that many. Comm must have met him most often, joining him on the British campaign. I suppose Vercingetorix must at least have been introduced to him. Ambiorix, I'm not sure. I think I do need to know, or determine for myself, whether or not Caesar knows what Ambiorix looks like. I wonder just how much of the business with local dignitaries Caesar conducted himself... If he delegated a lot, that would make him something of a ghostly figure in the Celts' imagination - the man who is behind everything, but who is at the same time unapproachable, a kind of nemesis more than a human being. That could be interesting for the story.

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?

Helmets

I am copying ancient artifacts in order to get a feel for the design side of the world of War in Gaul. If I am going to make a comic of this story rather than to tell it in novel form, as was my original plan, I have to exploit the visual side of things, and preferably remedy that which annoys me so terribly in most visual renditions of the Celts in comics and films: the almost total neglect of their concern for appearance. I have to try and do justice to their fine workmanship - the beautifully decorated weapons, the fine fabrics, the colours, the refined jewellery, the elaborate hairstyles. It's going to take a lot of exercise!

*****

The bronze helmet on the left was found in northern Italy; it dates back to the third century BC. The thingy on the top used to have a crest attached to it. All other helmets are from the first century BC, which is the epoch in which my story takes place. By that time, helmet-makers had apparently dispensed with crests and the smooth bowler hat-style was all the rage. The helmets of Roman legionaries were inspired on this type.

The large helmet with the bird decoration on the cheek pieces was found in former Yugoslavia. I'm very fond of it, and it's the only one for which I have found a definite owner in the story: on account of the bird, I'm giving it to Catuvolcos. Catu-volcos apparently translates as battle-falcon, and though the bird on the helmet is most obviously not a falcon, I think it sort of fitting :-).

A note on the medium:
I used graphite and colour pencil, and made the drawings in my brandnew Moleskine reporter notebook. The paper is very smooth and light, and I believe it is to this that I owe my pleasing results with the colour. I tend to be not very accomplished working with colour pencils, but on this paper they glide and blend so nicely; it makes the notebook a good buy :D.

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Most of the time when you see Celts on the screen, they are dirty, with wild masses of hair and dressed in dark and/or drab colours (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves), single bits of animal skin (the first Astérix film), or in the case of Keira Knightly in King Arthur, a few leather strings *g*. The costume designer on Vercingétorix (released elsewhere as Druids) could be heard to claim that Celtic clothing was ragged because these peoples were lazy and not strong on finishings. What a funny thing to say, when most of the few bits of Celtic fabric we have left are seams and pieces of embroidery. If real Celts had seen what the dear lady made of Vercingetorix, they'd have assumed him to be a beggar rather than a prince.

Many people seem to assume that because we are talking about the ancients, their notion of what was beautiful must be entirely different from ours - but surely they, too, distinguished between scruffy and neat, dirty and clean. They, too, preferred combed and shiny hair to a tangled mess; we have recovered quite a few combs and hair ornaments, bog women with complex plaited hairdos, and in Celtic literature it is a sign of hospitality and affection to comb and cut another person's hair. They, too, valued cleanliness; Caesar reports that the Celts washed every morning (he seems to find that worth remarking on), and they are the people who invented soap (something the Romans didn't use). Celtic women used make-up, and some sources claim that men depilated their body hair. There are classical authors who assert that Celtic men would get fined if they were overweight - but of course that may be one of the stories they told to show what freaky foreigners these Celts were :-).

While watching the BBC series Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome recently, I paid special attention to the fabrics of the costumes, and to my surprise, the Romans did not receive a much better treatment than the Celts tend to get, though they were allowed a little more colour. I saw Nero, and just about every other rich Roman aristocrat, dressed in rough, stiff fabrics that I wouldn't have expected to see worn by such lovers of luxury. Either the costume designer had a small budget and was forced to make do with cheap stuff, or I was meant to believe that the ancients were incapable of weaving finer fabrics than that. Now - I know that the Celts' small sheep, at any rate, were half-wild and their wool not very soft. But lo: in the salt mines of Salzburg were found several samples of Celtic woollen fabric, and they are beautifully woven and smooth! With my untrained eyes I can't distinguish them in any way from samples of modern fabrics. Now, if a Celtic miner could have clothes made of smooth stuff, I bet Nero could too :D. We have such a weird way of looking at the past... I am bound to conclude that all in all we seem to think very, very highly of our modern selves *g*.

So there, I feel that I should try and show an approximation of the visual opulence of the Celtic aristocracy. That means lots of bright colours, ornament, jewellery, and decorated props. I am not usually inclined to draw such detail, but the Celts do deserve it :-). The nice thing is that I found, when I started drawing these helmets, that I enjoyed myself; that surprised me, because normally I am not interested in drawing objects - I prefer people. As I copied them, the beauty of these helmets dawned on me as never before; the Celtic craftsmen had such an eye for detail and balance that it is a true joy to try and render them in pictures. I am not sure how feasible it will prove to be in the long run, because I am very slow and my usual style is not very elaborate, but I am certainly determined to do my best with the clothes, the attributes, the houses and so on.

I don't know about colour yet. On the one hand it seems necessary. On the other, I'm not good at colouring :/. I guess much will depend on how much I manage to learn about colour and techniques while preparing the project.

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.