Storn's Character and Art Thread

[Storn]

And lastly, here is Mark. Ex-ranger, dealing with post combat stress from Somalia, where something very fishy happened to the poor guy. Now bounty hunter and security head for Jon's architecture firm.

[threshel]

Very cool group, Storn. I like the playing card theme. Is this part of the campaign, or something you added to identify them as a group?


J

[Storn]

Very cool group, Storn. I like the playing card theme. Is this part of the campaign, or something you added to identify them as a group?


J

Actually, the card theme came from the fact in the last ep, my character, an ex-stage magician (it was a stage in his life, pun intended, he is happier being a cabbie) used his "real" magic to give everyone a token. This token in game terms was an extra reroll much like a Hero Pt in M&M. In the setting, I gave each character a king from the deck of cards (actually doing it at the table). George (my PC) would not recover his Essense til a card was tossed, a token used.

Each king suit sorta "fit" each of the pcs... including my pc. I just incorporated into the portraits, using Aces cause at that scale, it would be a hell of a lot easier to draw than kings.

There is not a group identity as such. Each of the four pcs have become very good friends over the last few adventures... a band of brothers, so to speak. The friendship among them is some of the best and most rewarding roleplaying I've had the opportunity to be a part of. Very exciting stuff, not so much to write aobut, but to experience... it is a blast.

[chillrb]

Excellent portraits Storn! And the campaign sounds great

[threshel]

Excellent, thanks for the reply. I enjoy these windows into your gaming experience, I think it adds to the already impressive art.


J

[Tclynch9650]

I'm doin' the bump for your art, man!

[bwgwl]

who the heck let this thread fall to the second page?

21 BUMP Street.

[Storn]

The actual game was a few weeks ago, but I've gone through a real busy patch with the artwork and all.

When we last left the Black Op team, they were carrying their wounded into the jungle away from the Raven forces. To the meeting with Veer, and more importantly, Desdamona Sangetti. Desdamona was wanted by Raven for something and it was her signature (among 2 others) that released a ton of money to Scallion to resurrect Raven from the ashes.

2 days pass in the tense jungle, but no encounter with Raven occurs. The meeting place is on the south side of a large lake. Somewhere across that lake to the north is the Moreau's enclave... which becomes important. Veer and Desdamona, with her husband, Jon Pride, arrive. Also, Luke comes. He is a clone as well.... but of Locke, not Vector. {gm note: Locke is RDU's greatest mentalist.. a pic of him was posted earlier}. Luke quickly explains that he does not have any powers beyond photographic memory. And serves as the enclaves civil engineer.

Desdamona wonders how "cyberblade escaped?" Again, Lori is confused with a sibling or a clone. But this time the confusion stems from her twin, Gunmetal Silk. Desdamona and Jon show on their laptop several e-mails from a Dr. Boloz. Attached are pictures of Silk, chained, beaten, cybernetics obviously in disrepair. Dr. Boloz's e-mails request substantial funds to "rebuild Silk and mold her into a proper Raven operative". Desdamona explains that she signed away those funds that her father had acquire precisely so Raven would leave her alone.

Des and Jon's anthropological expedition might have been compromised at the Ministry of Education in Canada. Even though it was top secret, the couple believe that Raven being here, now, is after a tribe of cloned Gronds. {gm note: again, building off of a Neil idea, Malachite used clone Gronds as a security force in Africa. PCs came up against them a few times. But because of Malachite's death, part of that force melted into the jungle}

Raven is known to be recruiting paranormals. And here in the jungles between Rwanda and Zaire and Congo was a goldmine of paranormals. The Moreaus, the Gronds...quite tempting and would justify the force that Raven had sent in.

The Black Ops team and Desdamona haggle and negotiate her coming back to Holland under UNTIL protective custody. She asks for UNTIL protection for the Grond tribe. That is sticky, because Rwanda, Zaire and Congo have all declared wanting NO UNTIL involvement in their airspace, borders due to civil wars and shoddy gov't. Desdamona counters with "put the Gronds on the endangered species list".

Due to Raven jamming, getting a word out to Col. Dassault is not easy, but eventually accomplished. Col. Dassault has to do some political tap-dancing at UNTIL, but Desdamona's request is granted. A UNTIL VTOL streaks its way towards the meeting place to pick up the team, the couple and return to Holland.

Meanwhile, the Raven forces having interrogated one of the Moreaus, realizes that the Moreaus are closer to the Gronds. So, lets go subjugate them first!

As the Team and the Prides are being extracted, the Ravens hit the Moreau village. Lori countermands orders and orders the VTOL pilots to take the Team to the village. Drop them off and take off with Fury (who was so badly wounded last fight) and the Prides back.

Veer flys across the lake, but the VTOL quickly passes him. The Black Op Team rappels, flys, superleaps into a confusing morass of a firefight. The Moreaus, while paranormal, just do not have the organization to deal with modern warfare.

Yet the battle quickly turns against the Ravens. The Black Ops team blunts, captures and kills the ringleaders of Kurki, Capt. Cori and Expedition {Capt. Cori and Expedition was art I found on the net and used for my own use, but will not show w/o permission}.

Veer is thankful and asks for UNTIL protection, giving enough veneer of respectability, it allows UNTIL forces to descend into the jungle, take possession of Malachite ship {see last iss, natch} and capture or run-off the remaining Raven forces.

Which pretty much ends this arc. It will take some time, but the e-mails of Dr. Boloz will be traced and then the mission to rescue Silk will be started.

I'm on hiatus because events in Neil's game make sense that next week is his. And we've missed a few weeks due to schedule conflicts among several of the players. But hopefully, in 2 weeks, I'll have another installment. Which will probably be the last Black Ops game for quite some time. Never fear, faithful perusers of my pendantic posts, I'll still be running a game, but this campaign is going to mutate somewhat. We want to move away from a military structure and into more of a what I call a "building campaign". Less combat, more roleplaying. Stay tuned.

Desdamona Sangetti

[Storn]

Hmm... lets try desdamona again.

[Storn]

Jon Pride. And friends. This artwork is for Hero Games and was one of my first digital coloring attempts. I have a real soft spot for this one. It was for 5th ed and I always wanted to make a character for it. If you been to my website, you've might have seen him already.

[Storn]

And this is a Grond. For those who are not familiar with Champions Universes villains or books. This was also done for Hero Games, specifically their Crooks, Killers and Conquerors book. Of course, in the Champions Universe, there are not multiply Gronds running around... that is an invention of Neil's. One that I love, btw.

[Storn]

Not the most superhero-y art, but like I said over at the hero boards, maybe someone can use a japanese sorceress.

[smiler127]

Just wanted to say tha your artwork is amazing Storn. I truly appreciate you posting it for our enjoyment, and I must say that the characters have often inspired me to create some very memorable adventures. Just a request though. I personally would love to see some of the art you have done for older supehero games like Champions, and even some of your scenery and landscape work if you have any. These images ae always fantastic and add sice to my games because they allow me ( the artistically challenged) to actually show the players what I am imagining.

Thanks again.

[Storn]

Just wanted to say tha your artwork is amazing Storn. I truly appreciate you posting it for our enjoyment, and I must say that the characters have often inspired me to create some very memorable adventures. Just a request though. I personally would love to see some of the art you have done for older supehero games like Champions, and even some of your scenery and landscape work if you have any. These images ae always fantastic and add sice to my games because they allow me ( the artistically challenged) to actually show the players what I am imagining.

Thanks again.

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that you get inspired and it helps the game. I felt the same way about Jeff Dee's work back in the early 80s and I wanted to be able to do the same thing. So that is very nice to hear.

Ok, when you say older superhero games like Champions... do you mean my run on the 4th ed stuff? Because I'm still working for Hero Games (in fact, today, I work on battles in a mall for Champions Battlegrounds).

I have some older stuff on my website. But I don't have anything (I think) from 4th ed. days. There is a couple of mundane reasons for this. 1) All of that stuff predates my ownership of a scanner. I have the originals, but they are buried in the basement. 2) In terms of my abilities as an artist, that stuff is ancient. I cringe looking at my mistakes. And there is a real business reason for not posting it. Part of my viewing public are Art Directors who have the power of hiring me. I don't want them seeing my old stuff if at all possible.

As for new superhero stuff, whether for Champions or SAS or whatever, I only show a few of those illos from a book on my website. I've been asked not to put everything up.... so folks have another, albeit slight, reason to purchase the book in question.

The other place to be aware of is RPGnet Freelance and Freelancers section. Chris Stevens, Eric Lofgren, Brak1 and new guy named Aris... are all very good superhero artists. Chris and Eric both work for Hero now. Some of the stuff we all put up there is for support and problem solving. Not as many character illos go up there, but more scenes. We help each other out with perspective and storytelling aspects. So the mix of art tends to be a bit different. There are threads about 3 weeks old over there of my art from UNTIL Super Data Base book and Millennium City, both contain more "scenes" than portraits.

But now that I know that you are interested.... I'll try and put up some of the scenes when I can. I usually have to wait for Hero to either publish the book or show it on their own website before I can post it. Just so ya know. Anyway, stay tuned!

[smiler127]

Thanks! I can totally understand the whole idea behind not showcasing some of your earlier stuff if you feel it is not up to par. As far as the business reasons go, I can understand that too, and believe me, as far as i am concerned, the artwork IS a major factor in my choosing to buy a book. Often, I gain as much inspiration from the artwork as I do the writing. So I guess I am just going to go out and purchase some more books! (as if I needed an excuse). Thanks Storn, your stuff is amazing!

[Storn]

Here is a much beloved character in Neil's RDU champions game, Speedball, played by Geoff. Geoff has moved to NYC and doesn't get to play often, but came back to Ann Arbor this weekend for a visit, where we did managed to fit in a great game of the Mavericks. Neil, nice guy that he is, commissioned this pic for Geoff.

[Paladin]

Hey Storn, more and more I get the urge to pay you to do The Paladin, seeing how great your art is.

Do you take PayPal?

[Storn]

Hey Storn, more and more I get the urge to pay you to do The Paladin, seeing how great your art is.

Do you take PayPal?

Sure do.

http://www.stornc.rpggallery.com/Char%20Comissions.htm

It is under the Character Commission section of my website.

[Strand0]

Here is a much beloved character in Neil's RDU champions game, Speedball, played by Geoff.

That is great!

[Storn]

Often when I'm playing in the long running Champions game, I have my sketch book and I doodle. I'm actually quite good at paying attention and doodling, so my GM is quite lenient.

I scanned a bunch of these in today. Some are from this week, some are from about 8 months ago.

I don't have any preset notions when i do these folks, they are generic superhero/villain archtypes. Often, my GM will make characters out of them. These are a pencils sketches...and let me emphasis... these are doodles. I'm actually doing something else while I'm doing these. So don't hammer me over the head over anatomy or perspective... they are just silly sketches.

Maybe some of you can get some use outta these for your games....

This first one I called Neutron II. There is a published character called Neutron in the Champions Universe and this one sorta reminds me of him. Maybe its his long lost twin brother or something....

[Storn]

I call her Energetix. I have no clue why. I have no clue why I doodled her in the first place. Pretty standard energy manipulator pose. I like the short hair though... at least that is kinda different.

[Storn]

Ok, this guy is a totally weirdo. I must have had my circle template that day. I have no idea why he has a "Y" on his chest. The only thing I could think of to name the scan file was "Yonder". What a dumb code name. Yup, he might be one of those super villains whose sole purpose in life is to just get the snot beat out of him because he is simply an enormous doofus.

...and no... I'm not on crack.

[Storn]

Standard martial arts pose, yawn.

[Storn]

Ok, y'all thought Yonder was pretty hokey. Check out this dude. Some mix between Namor's tiger shark, Legion's glowworm guys (ferget name) and your standard brick body....

... sheesh.

[pilot]

I inhaled but did not exhale....