Paladin Half-Ork

With the Paladin class for day 7, I got my second chance to make a metal armor, and it should be an epic one! Paladins are about aura of God, honor, and heroic fighters, and inspired by eagle, phoenix, and feathers. As a contrast this paladin is a half-orc, a creature with barbaric features of an orc, but figure and intelligence of a human.

Race
The ork is about 180-210 cm tall and bulky, however agile like a human. I researched for faces to find the best features. I think a stubby nose and some fine facial lines are the best mix.

 

Pose
There are many possible poses, all showing a proud and honorable paladin posing in front of the camera. I mean the painter. I found it a bit silly that all of them look like conqueror epic paintings, so I wanted one that looks calm and like standing guard. When I started with the sketch I decided to work out the complete body first, with all the muscles before designing the armor. None of the muscles will be seen, and I normally don't draw the full body as I always pity to have to erase everything again. But I really wanted to be sure that the body looks alright and the muscles take up the correct volume before drawing an epic armor, and that was more important.

Full body model of half-orc before armor

Armor
I researched more careful and longer than I did for the previous fighter (fighter dwarf in my blog), as I needed the information about the build up and appropriate pattern. Most difficult was to figure out how the joints (elbow and knee) are covered and protected, and still mobile. I collected a few examples through my research and copied them. Have a look for cauter, the elbow protector, there have been some really bizarre shapes around in past centuries.

A great collection is for example here:www.medievalwarfare

Plan for the armor of the paladin

 

What I learned from the previous ink drawings

In all of the previous drawings, I started with the face and head, and work down towards feet. And in all of them you can see the quality decreasing towards the feet. I was either getting tired, or uninterested, or the research was missing.

This time, I started designing all the "uninterested" parts first. I sketched the boots and the knees covers (poleyns) and invented a pattern to fit best for them. Then I moved on onto gauntlets and the cauter. For both I wanted the pattern to be phoenix inspired art-deco style with medieval elements.The sketching and researching took a good couple of hours.

When I started with the actual drawing, ( I had the sketch of head and full naked body now) I started with the part that isn't covered by anything. My idea was that the part that sticks out into the camera gets my first attention. Also, most probably the pattern is fully visible and I should be fresh and concentrated. So, I started with the gauntlets, then pauldron, then boots, and so on. Looking back I think that saved me from the mistake I did earlier, that I am too tired. I did the less detailed pieces last, when my energy was dropping. I kept the same order when I refined the sketch with a thicker pencil, and when i started the ink drawing with a fine liner.

final picture

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