The Women Warriors Project was something I started a little over a year ago.
It began as a blog where I made illustrations featuring warrior women recorded in history, from Queen Padmini to Nzinga Mbandi.
I did this to not only build up a portfolio of artwork, but to give something to others that I didn’t have when I grew up: an illustrated history of women heroes.
Well, I drew up some heroes and put them up on Tumblr… Continue reading “Why the Women Warriors Project Has Been Turbulent”
Oh man, I want to share ALL OF THE THINGS with you, but we gotta’ do this one step at a time.
First, The Superhero Ladies Sketchbook is finally online!
I listed it for $1.99 on Gumroad, and you can download a copy by clicking the cover image below:
Why Gumroad?
Because they’re nicer, cleaner, and more direct than Amazon. And you don’t have to have a super-long checkout experience. I’ve used Gumroad before and it’s smooth and fast. I wanted your shopping to be as nice as possible, and Gumroad fit the bill!
Ok, second, I’m working on a new email newsletter!
It’ll be free, and hopefully (if I can configure everything correctly) people who first sign up will get a free downloadable image for a desktop/phone background. Pretty sweet!
The newsletter will highlight comic updates, blog posts, new product news, and even bonus sketches and cartoons you can’t get anywhere else. Because INCENTIVE.
Third, I finished a new illustration, shown below:
Click it to get a better view, because I am SO proud of how this turned out.
I really pushed myself with the colors, shadows, and gestures. There’s still a few spots I could fix, but I could work on it forever. I won’t. It’s too good right now for me to fiddle with it any further.
(If you don’t know who the two ladies are, they’re Claire and Tracy, from a story I’m scripting about road-tripping through post-apocalyptic zombie America. You can read more about it here.)
And fourth, the blog will no longer update on Mondays…at least for now.
I’ve been working hard this past month to update every weekday, but it’s starting to take away time from making comics and art. Plus, with an upcoming newsletter to make, I need some time to make that awesome.
So, yeah, I’m going to make some changes to the blog, starting with no Monday updates. It’ll give me the time I need to keep making great art and comics for you to enjoy.
The other change I want to make to the blog is that the posts are going to get more personal – except for Review Day Tuesday and Featured Artist Friday. Those are features I want to keep.
I’ve discovered that, while people occasionally like my tutorials, you seem to like when I just blether on about something personal to me. Which is cool! I’m happy to make more stuff like that.
That, and there’s just some personal stuff I want to talk about that I can’t fit in a sufficient amount of space on Twitter.
But I want to keep Review Day Tuesday and Featured Artist Friday. Those are features that I hope will show you new work and new artists to geek out for and support. Like Ark Revner, or Jeff Laclede, or Shadowbinders, or Bartez.
Thank you so much for reading! I’ll see you tomorrow with a new review – and it’s for a webcomic!
This video features a portion of the sketchbook I finished between the months of July 2014 to December 2014.
I’ll be making more videos featuring this sketchbook soon!
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you tomorrow.
This month I have been drawing a lot – scratch that, a LOT – of women and female bodies. This is thanks in large part to the Superhero Ladies sketches I’m doing this month. Here are just a few of the finished ones.
However, drawing these awesome ladies got me thinking, “I need to draw non-human ladies. Like elves – “
Oh I already did that.
But then my brain went, “Wait! What about female ORCS?”
I looked into it online and found possibly some of my favorite webcomic pages on the subject, from “Orcs vs. Feminism.”
My favorite realization from the artist of this series is “Holy crap there are NO female orcs!”
So I was like, “Well what can I do to draw lady orcs for the world?”
Turns out my imagination was one step ahead of me.
There’s a work-in-progress comic starring my elf character, Auxaton (I talk more about his story in this blog post). In it, Auxaton meets a half-orc named Burnt. His dad was a human and that made his momma – Fern – a lady orc.
But I hadn’t drawn her yet UNTIL NOW:
She was actually my first try drawing a lady orc, and I found it fun.
Once I finished this, I went, “What other race in fantasy typically doesn’t feature women?”
The first race that came to mind: Dwarves.
So…
I think the reason ladies aren’t often shown as orcs or dwarves is because there’s this assumption that orcs and dwarves are muscular, tough, and battle-hearty, which are traits not often paired with women.
In actuality, this is bogus. I run an entire blog called The Women Warriors Project to feature women in history who have fought in wars, as commanders, soldiers, or queens. Women like Nzinga Mbandi, Queen Padmini of Chitor, Bat Zabai, Hsi Kai Ching and Hua Mu Lan. And yes, these women actually existed, and lived, and fought, in our history.
If women can fight and be tough in history, why can’t they be fighters in fantasy?
While fantasy literature has been relatively good on this in recent years, comics are still sort of playing catch-up to this notion. Thankfully, in webcomics like Looking for Group, they’re featuring more lady orcs and lady dwarves. I think we need more of this.
Know any comics featuring these little-recognized badasses? Leave a comment below!
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
This is a sketch I finished yesterday, to practice making stone textures in pen. I feel like I somewhat succeeded, but I still need to practice illustrating depth. For example: that sculpture of the goddess is supposed to be sitting in a recess in the wall. I don’t feel like I did a good enough job of showing how deep the recess is. It could be fixed with tones, though, probably.
Oh, let me explain what this sketch is showing:
Jamie Roberts, the figure in the foreground, is approaching the entrance to the abandoned temple/city of Kinyaht. Kinyaht is entirely underground except for the entrance, which is covered in sculptures of the Goddess.
In their mythology, the Goddess created the World, and when people and creatures die, they return to an otherworld called The Way. In this mythology, the easiest way to get to The Way is through caves and going underground, so some people got together and built Kinyaht, an underground temple.
By the time Jamie and her friends find this temple entrance, though, it’s revealed that no one has been in Kinyaht for over 500 years…
I’m looking forward to developing this environment further, and practicing more backgrounds, landscapes, and environments. It’s something I want to get better at.
Thank you for reading! I’ll see you tomorrow with a new post.
