James's Character

tyler's character

Moogle redeux

while Im painting some old stuuf I thought I would post another

you might be wondering: What does a Moogle have to do with your d&d/Pathfinder illustrations Jared? And what in tarnation (yes all of tarnation) is a Quam?

Let me answer that with this: I thought it would be fun to have Moogles in a campaign a few years back. Thing is, they aparently went unnoticed by the players, which was sad really because they missed an entire side quest dealing with supernatually evil Mooglekind that I had created called "Quams". The word Quam is silly word for "argument" so I thought if Moogles were generally always good natured beings (See any of the FFs) than their opposites had to be a constant problem, or a constant.... quam. Silly I know, but it stuck. To bad the players didn't even bother to notice this whole side quest that I had created just to put them in our campaign. Boo, but thats how the game goes.

 

So since I never got to tell the story of how the Quams came to be, I will tell it to you, the non-existant listener now:

There was once an evil sorcerer. He lived forever alone in an isolated tower of his own designed, surrounded only by his undead servants. As he aged, he knew that someday, if he were to live on, he too would have to join the ranks of his deceased live in servants. Fearing that he would lose his physical strength and vitality in trade to death for everylasting life, he set out to find a way to stop the decay that had over taken his servants.

The problem was not that he couldn't live forever, it was that in time his body would become as broken as his evil heart. To fix this, what he needed was a well spring of vitality that only life-magic can provide and so in his study he happened across one myth of the four magi creatures of creation. He read first about the Magi themselves, a spirt with physcial form with a mass so black that the details of their figure could not be seen. They however had died out in long before the time of man. He read than about the goblin, a creature foul and bad tempered and thought to himself that they would only cause him trouble, as combining his heart to the heart of chaos was like playing roulette with his un-life. Next he found the Kobold, the little devotees of the dragon gods. While interesting, they too had, in his understanding, had passed out of time hundreds of years before his time. All this leaving only one kind of Magi left, the moogle.

Trouble was moogles, by design are rather rare creatures. Its not that they aren't friendly or lack a certain social charm but more that, well there are only a few of them. Unlike some magi, they are unisex. The kobolds lay eggs, the goblins breed as rabits but the Moogles do niether. It was if they were made by some early creating force in a certain number only to die out slowly. This fact intregreed him as the moogle aparently lived eternally. He too had designs to do the same and so it was born in him that he should use the heart of a moogle for his last living experiment.

And so he did.

Funny thing about fate however, when one makes a descion to steal life from one source and give it to another, there will always be an even trade. For the life of that single moogle, fate cursed our stories sorcerer with destruction at the hands of his creation. You see, to take on the heart of a Moogle, one has to turn the heart of the moogle as black as his own, so that there could be a fusion. A good heart can never mingle with the likeness of his, and so he first had to turn his captive Moogle evil.

The forces of creation that had created the Moogle by number were turned on their sides with the twisting of this Moogle heart. Instead of creating a single evil Moogle, the sorcerer found that he had accidentall unleashed a creative force in opposite. First his dungeon had only a few dark moogles in a cage. Than 20, than 50 than 500.

Today, we know the anti-moogle army that roams the land as the Quam. The detailed history of the Quam army little known. What is known is that the Quam was created in great number, they turned on their captor and destroyed him. Destroyed his tower, and have been raveging the landscape one valley town at a time ever angry with creation. In total effort to destroy all living things that are created naturally.

The good news? They are small and cute, so its hard to take them seriously.
The bad news? There are several hundred thousand of them and they wreak havoc.

The Thief of Caspain Redux

The for-named "Thief of Caspain" anti-hero character, with some touchups. I added some color and light because I love this character.

Before:

After

DoozelDorf Prolouge

So because Im so bored in NY, beyond Taiko, Kanzashi and working, Im feeling pushed to write a prologue to A Devil in DoozelDorf. The story is being written to teach my girlfriend and maybe some other locals how to play pathfinder, not to mention it fills in my need to write and play. Ive developed a story line and I want to introduce the bad-girl to you, the Witch:

 

Yes that's bird sh!t.

MetroCon Theme Mascot Contestant 3

Baby deer skin?

The hopeful mascot person has asked that I put more clothes on this painting.... sigh... just when I was into all that lizard leg... oh well

MetroCon Theme Mascot Contestant 2

So like I figured, not enough clothes, not that there is much more here but there is some....

MetroCon Theme Mascot Contestant

My close friend Tyler finally got a decent gig with MetroCon after being last years mascot. His Girlfriend, also a longtime Metro enthusiast is trying out for mascot this year. Im not sure how much Im suppose to say about the theme but considering this blog is only really read by me, potentially college reps soon enough and a few friends its prob not bad to post this.

So Sasha (tys gf) came to me and ask me to design her "monster" character for this years convention. The specs were that it had to have this snout-prosthetic that she really wanted to incorporate into the design and so the below concept painting represents that. This will probably be the first version of this piece considering that I need to put more clothes on said character not to mention accessories and various jungle-what-nots.

Kanzashi 6

As usual, a pic of my current project. This time the Buddhist Lotus in Kanzashi.

KuroShiroNoDaiko (Black and White Taiko)

I believe Ive mentioned in other posts that Im in taiko. I will be moving back to Tampa soon and when I do I will be establishing a taiko group there. As a member of the SME, I wanted to found it on the colors of the org (black and white) so Ive designed it as such. Here is the Mon for the new taiko unit Im forming.

Kanzashi 5

Here is a pic of the first batch of Sakura Kanzashi. After all the manhours on this (roughly 20) I feel like these should go for about 10$ a peice