No Humans for You
Figure 1 is what I thought I might do next on Monday. A was originally intended to be a test for the heroine, but I intend to make her look older and more boyish than the protagonist, so I should have made her a bit less wide-eyed and skirt-wearing. I also didn't bother to think up a good design for her top or her pauldrons. As you can see, when you're over 10,000 years old, it's reasonable to expect you may have a visible battle scar. With B, I attempted to try out narrower eyes and a longer face (to emphasize how tall and slender elves are). I also tried making a design for bangs without obscuring the archetypal eyebrows. C was another attempt at a longer chin, but it looked so bad that I decided to give him a silly haircut like before.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
By Wednesday, I had further revised my idea of where to start. Of the two listed, "Final Exam" (thankfully) has no sex, or even female characters. Further, as skaven carry lots of things with warpstone in them and these ogres live close to the Great Maw, it'll be understandable if they look a bit deformed. (Interestingly, although this unsourced article claims that warpstone is common in the area, the Lazarghs are described in their army book as having their teeth and hair fall out as with radiation poisoning, contrasting with the usual Chaos warping, exemplified by the more northern ogre tyrant who has grown fingers on his head.) I may further avoid problems (particularly with cloth) by making the skaven a bit indistinct to emphasize their stealthy skills.
So, Figure 2 shows some ideas for the skaven themselves. The guys on the left were facial structure tests, but then I tried out designing a helmet and mustache. Neither is common among Clan Eshin adepts, but I'm planning to use them to distinguish certain individuals who lean in less usual directions. The one on the right is a test for body structure. As they're sneaky assassins rather than proud leaders, they're as hunched-over as any skaven. I also tried another hat for him, but not any footwear, as I wanted to make sure I can still draw the bare feet that most skaven sport. I wasn't thinking straight, so I gave him the sort of sword you may see on an old Warlord Clan rat-man. (You can see a more Eshin-style blade in the lower left.) All three show different attempts at the incisors. I think normal buck-teeth make them look a bit nerdy rather than scary, so I'm testing more fearsome designs.
As I have much more experience drawing skaven than other things, I devoted the rest of the page to weaponry. This is an important tool to differentiate the various Gutter Runners and their specialties. For instance, the kusari-gama is a compromise between the two-handed flail used by some Clan Eshin members in Mordheim (as seen in the boxed set) and a more versatile tool. (I don't know if there's any real-world background for using one as a utility item like in the original Seiken Densetsu, but this is supposed to be an over-the-top action comic, not historical fiction.) As skaven have no precedent for using kama in the first place, I added a slight hook on the end of the blade (to match typical fighting claws) and small spikes on the weight to make it more vicious-looking as per their style.
Many of the other weapons show simpler concerns. Skaven don't usually use scabbards, but one of them is secretly an assassin, whose trademark weeping blade constantly drips "corrosive venom" (presumably meaning acid). I've modeled it after a Japanese sort (notably the lack of a pointed end). I also don't know how throwing stars are supposed to be carried. (Perhaps a Pez dispenser would do.) The boomerang is another weapon that is not known to be used by skaven. I'm debating where I should put them in the spectrum between historical (based on their geographical counterparts in the real world) and original (made up or taken from elsewhere) fantasy.
Figure 3 shows my attempts at the defenders. As you can see, much of it is experimenting with proportions. (For some reason, I wanted to make it so the gut-plates completely obscure the breadth of their torsos from the front view.) The upper-right one also shows the lumpy forehead seen in some ogres (presumably knobs in the bone of the cranium?) and the fact that ogres have five toes per foot, like men but unlike skaven. The lower-left guy is the hunter, who is an outcast from the kingdom and thus hasn't suffered the radiation therapy the others constantly endure. Although the standard model has a full beard, I gave him a more typical ogre Fu Manchu and goatee to make up for the fact that the tribe doesn't have them. (Of course, I forgot to give the others no teeth, so the contrast isn't as significant.) The fact that he's wearing a cloak (with a very crude rhinox head showing) and helmet shows that he's on his way back from a hunt, not just getting out of bed as most of the surprised squatters will be (if they even manage to wake). I want to give him a fairly round skull for his plackart to match the usual ogre gut-plate style, but I haven't thought of an appropriate one yet, so I've just used a place-holder in this image. (The one obvious choice would be a giant, but those are for tyrants to enslave, not for hunters to hunt.)
The gnoblar in the upper right shows that these gits will not allow me to forgo the noses. You can also probably guess where he scavenged the shirt. The hammer shows a more distinctive variation on the classic ogre club than the one held by the upper-left fellow. As ogres are quite strong and don't mine, they often use stone weights in their clubs, with iron bands to keep them from splitting. I'll have to be careful about textures to show that. You can also see that I've put another pistol here. Although Clan Eshin use them in Mordheim, I suppose firearms are not very good for covert missions in the days before suppressors, but I'll have chances to show them off with the ogres.