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Inkthinker β Warmup_20121112 - The Lord Ruler
Published: 2012-11-14 05:20:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 56215; Favourites: 782; Downloads: 0
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"Those are very hard to replace..."Today's warmup doodle became something I wish I had done for The Mistborn Adventure Game; a vignette portrait of The Lord Ruler, immortal god-emperor of The Final Empire.
Not canonized... while I do draw official Mistborn work for Brandon Sanderson and Crafty Games, I'm working off the reservation here, drawing on my own time. That being said, I went by the text same as did when working on the RPG, so it shouldn't be any less accurate than those were.
Got a little closer here in terms of the technique I was aiming for during the RPG work too, something I wish I'd worked out sooner. Silhouettes are more important than I had realized when trying to mimic illustration techniques from a hundred years ago and blend 'em with modern influences.
Tablet and Manga Studio. "The Lord Ruler" is a feature character in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series of novels.
-EDIT-
Updated with a few minor changes... a more extensive pattern in the vest, lace at the cuffs, and frogging in the jacket so that it be a little more fancy, befitting the deathless despot of a dying dominion.
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Comments: 75
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Ha. I just read this part. Like, an hour ago. Nicely portrayed.
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Double impaled, looking at the severed head of one of his minions...and he looks like he's just not feeling the new color of his drapes. That is how you portray a powerful villain.
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Oh man this is EXACTLY how I envisioned the Lord Ruler in my own mind. Great job!
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No idea why, but I love this. Β It's definitely something about his expression.
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Oh man, I am really happy I saw this. Β I had always imagined him with shorter hair, but wow. Β That long, dark hair is incredibly striking, and it is after all rather fitting with how he probably sought to portray himself (youthful, certainly, and I'd say proud, too). Β I'm looking forward to keeping this in mind when I go back and reread the books.
(And as a side note, how does he keep his hair so silky? *u* Perfection is to be expected from such a powerful ruler, but I'm still impressed!)
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One of the things I love about deviantart is being able to find the people behind the worlds I've encountered in the rest of my life. I've wandered across your illustrations a dozen times at least in the last couple of years -- I actually saw one of your illustrations of Vin before I read the Mistborn books -- and I've always been struck by what you can do with lines and shading. Sometimes your take on scenes is really different from my own, and sometimes - like here - it's eerily similar to the pictures I've conjured, and either way I can't get over how exciting it is to see someone else who's clearly got enthusiasm and passion and skill turn their hand to something I enjoy and rock it.
This is hands down my favourite, though; those spears look cruel, and the lines of his body and the coat and his hair, it all flows so beautifully I'm kind of in awe. Glad I managed to find you, looking forward to seeing more of your work.
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Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy it!
I'm looking forward to working in the Cosmere for a long time to come.
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I JUST read this today, finished that book too! And when this scene happened I thought it was so cool.
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Get on to book 2! It's even better, says I.
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No worries! I actually gave the first book a not so good score, but I'm totally going to keep going with this series and your pic just reminded of how badly I want to.
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His earliest stuff is definitely the roughest (Elantris, the first Mistborn book, Warbreaker), but the latest stuff is my favorite. Working on "The Wheel of Time" definitely made a difference, and how could it not?
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It's weird since I went backwards with his works. I started with: Way of Kings, then sort of skipped around Elantris before reading Mistborn and now I'm loving The Allow of Law.
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So long as you read the Mistborn series in order, you can't really go wrong... Each individual world in the Cosmere is, so far, self-contained, so it's not required to read them in publishing order. Though it helps to recognize the cameos in Kings when you've read the other Cosmere books, so you might want to re-read the Interludes there with a fresh eye.
Did you catch The Emperor's Soul? That's a short novella that takes place on the same world as Elantris, though on a different continent and separate from those events.
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Ah, not yet. I've read about half of Elantris, but this time I want to read it all before I delve into Emperor's Soul. But it is in my bookstore and looks like a very quick and contained read, so I might end up reading it before I finish Elantris.
Yeah, Way of Kings feels like it had way more going on in the background (as per usual of epics), but once I read Mistborn it really connected; especially with the whole Sliver of Infinity bit.
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The Emperor's Soul takes place on the same world (Sel, I think?), but it's effectively disconnected. I think don't think there's any need to worry about spoilers arising from it or anything. And yeah, as a novella it's quite the quickie. I actually liked it a lot more than Elantris, which I think suffers a bit from being one of Brandon's earliest novels.
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Yeah, I've heard the same criticism levied against it. And thanks for dispelling what I thought about the Emperor's Soul. I should be able to finish it and Alloy of Law tomorrow--Miles is so cool; far better development than the Lord Ruler.
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This is amazing. Waay different from how I imagined him, but everyone to themselves, eh? I love the nonchalant of Mr. Lord Ruler in this picture. If you've read The Way of Kings, you can see my name shows how much of a fan I am of Sanderson. He's a genius, and so are you, sir.
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How did you imagine him differently?
I'm a little bit familiar with the Stormlight Archive.
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Very professional looking. Short, cropped hair almost military style. The clothing wouldn't be as smooth. He would have some resemblance of his "old days" (don't want to spoil anything) with some sort of fur clothing. Much broader in the shoulders and he would look much more a leader you could follow in war. Something like that.
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Hmmm. So, the fun thing about the hair is that I only realized after I drew it that he doesn't specify the length at all, it could go either way. You might be interested to know that the concept art I did for the film (which hasn't been shown yet, to my knowledge) keeps his hair shorter (not short, though I did do a couple short-hair versions) and his coat is much more military in cut. I did try fur at one point, but they wanted a high collar instead.
So who knows, you might get a version closer to what you were thinking after all.
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Nice alliteration on the last line on the edit description, there. And, naturally, very elegant work indeed. I like.
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I am completely incapable of containing myself when it comes to applying alliteration. It's a failure of mine. I also write preposterously purple prose.
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Purple? Why not palatial, or better, presupposed?
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"Purple prose" is specifically defined as writing that's so ornate and flowery and tries so hard to be "clever" that it draws attention to itself and breaks the reader out of the reading experience. Alliteration, properly used, can create trippy little flows of rhythm or easily memorable names and terminology, but when abused it just makes you sound like a prat.
But I'm just so easily amused by it. It's a failing of mine.
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Haha, thank you for enlightening me. It would seem then, that I have a friend whose every status update empodies the very essence of purple prose. It's hilarious.
Perhaps I'll have to experiment with alliteration a little more (ooh, that was assonance, utterly unintended). Absurdly over-the-top descriptions are more my thing. Ah, but why should it be a failing? Seems more like a feature to me...
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So I've been thinking; if you can't help it, if you even (heavens) find you like it, the only solution is to leap in full-frog. No half-measures, you go so deep that it makes Ian Paice think he's drumming for Light Lavender. Embrace the prose so hard that Hendrix rises from the grave to tell you that his haze is merely a pale pink in comparison.
There are genres of writing where florid description and poetic licenses are respected. Certain styles of superhero, detective, space opera or fantasy all allow more or less tolerance for it.
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Oh dear. You didn't. Obviously you did do a bit of thinking.I did a bit of googling, considering I know didn't know enough on that topic to get the references. Seriously, how much purple can you possibly reference?
Wait.
Don't answer that.
Mercy! 
*embodied. Not empodied. Sounds like some sort of podgy puce pudding.Ick.
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It's a fine line in fantasy, 'cause I think people have a hard time telling the difference between homage, satire, and just plain awful writing. I love a good satire, but I've been burned before. Good luck walking that fence.
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Where did satire come into it? I was under the impression we were still talking about florid description...I'm a little too busy walking several other fences to get too heavily into satire.
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Florid descriptions can be used as a satirical device when creating a parody (or even just making a side joke) of genre fiction. Then the point is to go over the top, and so extraneous adjectivery and multisyllabic tomfoolery become not just acceptable but laudable.
I'm just into playing with the way words sound inside our heads, which is tricky space because I can't ever be sure (with writing) that it's working until I get a reaction from someone.
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I love this. Just saying... if you ever feel the desire to create a Mistborn graphic novel... I'll buy it, whatever the price, haha.
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Thanks! If someone ever feels the desire to pay for me to draw one, I'll do it.
I don't know who has first rights on the license though. Wish I did, 'cause at some point someone is probably going to think of it (what with the game in development and the film rights already bought) and I'd like to be in their sights first.
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The second book is my favorite. Sooo much good stuff in there.
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The last 70 pages of the last book ties everything together perfectly. And when I say perfectly, I mean it. It's a work of art.
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THE SPEARS
THEY DO NOTHING
COME AT ME BRO
This is sweet. Awesome work, as always.
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