"Imperial Escort"

This drawing began as a form drawing, simply an anatomical image of a man (an attempt to draw more realistically sound bodies.) Scratch that... I actually sat down with the intent of drawing a picture that had suddenly popped into my mind, and ended up digressing into what you see here. The original was covered in flowing garments, whereas with this I decided I was too much in a mood to make something more appreciable.

After a while of staring at a textureless, bald man I decided rather than ruin the image with loose clothing I'd try to make him into something else. There wasn't enough room for an actual new concept, as I was trying to preserve the shape and hence had no room for any real details. So, I got it in my head that the form looked vaguely similar to what Shawn Sharp had done in some of his pieces in the Starsege Compendium. So, I picked out a reasonable entry (ref: the Imperial Escort guarding the Emperor on his throne, surrounded by Tigers, first page "The Empire") and emulated the concept.

I've never cared much for Sharp's characters or designs myself, as I find him a much better painter than a designer, as his people tend to be very meaty and exaggerated while his designs are usually fairly simple. So, I found myself fairly annoyed while trying to duplicate Shawn's original details since they were mostly just blank surfaces with no details, just textures (he's a good painter). Coincidentally, I'm totally the opposite: I can't texture but I consider myself an okay designer. In any case, I altered the design oh-so-slightly in some places to make things a little more interesting. This all took about one hour, from start to finish.

On a side note, what was Sharp thinking giving the Escorts spears with gun triggers? Do they actually fire the spearheads at people or something?