Tag Archives: brandondrawsmonsters

Drawing the Monster Manual #15: Stirge

I got thrown off course for a while, but I’m back! This is #15 in my quest to draw the entire D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual.

I guess I was feeling burned out on doing the same style for so many years, and I was starting to feel hemmed in by the limitations of my coloring process, especially. So I took some time away to really delve into digital painting. I learned a lot, but after a while, I found myself itching to ink again. So now I’m bringing some of what I learned studying digital painting into my coloring, and I like the results! But there’s still a lot to figure out, so I decided to bring this series back and have some fun.

As for the Stirge itself — a two-foot, multi-winged, fleshy mosquito monster. Gross.

Drawing the Monster Manual #14: Green Hag

#14 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Green Hag!

Hags are cool. Creepy witches in the woods tricking you into deals that backfire spectacularly, and cackling at your ruin. I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked witches. I’m looking forward to throwing some of these ladies at my players some time soon, perhaps! They’re supposed to be repulsively ugly, but I think this one came out kinda charming somehow. Oh well!

So when I started this series, I intended to ultimately use these drawings for paper miniatures. However, at this point, I think I’ve abandoned that idea. Drawing paper minis is so restrictive in so many ways, because you have to have the front match up with the back perfectly for when you print and assemble them. You’re pretty much stuck with a straight-on camera angle, and they either have be standing right on the ground with both feet, or you gotta do some janky workarounds. I like to put some hints of environment into these drawings, and trying to do them for minis makes that difficult. So having decided to forgo that plan, I’ve now gone a little overboard and let the hints of environment start to turn into a full background. Well, you gotta have the little witch hut, right? I tried to let it blend into the parchment texture in the background. I don’t know if it works, but hey, you gotta try things.

Drawing the Monster Manual #13: Grell!

#13 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Grell!

Lucky number 13, and I couldn’t have rolled a cuddlier little guy. What the hell is this thing? A beaked brain with barbed tentacles? Gross. But also undeniably awesome. Of course it’s from the Underdark!

I’m struck by how many D&D monsters are just a weird combination of different animals and different body parts. Hey, don’t mess with what works, right?

Drawing the Monster Manual #12: Goblin!

Number 12 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual, the Goblin!

An even dozen, and (finally? Already?) we come to the ubiquitous Goblin. I don’t know why, I love these guys. They’re so standard that everyone knows what a Goblin is supposed to be. They’re perfect low-level generic bad guys that you can always find a reason to put in, and at least in my estimation, they have a hilariously selfish and chaotic culture.

On the other hand, this guy came out looking pretty heroic. Maybe less of a Monster Manual Goblin, and more of a Volo’s Guide. I’d play that Goblin! (In fact I think I’ll put him on the list: Slerk, Goblin Barbarian. Nothing fancy, but I’ll bet he’d be fun.)

I’ve been experimenting with a new coloring style lately, and I think it finally started to click on this piece. More “painted” than the cel-shaded/comic book look I’ve always used. Until now, these experiments have been an uneasy combination of old and new. Here, I feel like it all started to click as a unified whole. I’ve got a new feeling of inspiration here, so I’ll bet the next entry in this series will come soon!

Drawing the Monster Manual #11: Bronze Dragon Wyrmling

#11 in my quest to draw the entire D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Bronze Dragon Wyrmling!

So this whole pandemic/lockdown kinda threw me off my game for this project. Funny how that works — you’d think with all the extra time at home, you’d get so much done, but in my experience and observation, it’s worked out quite the opposite. (Must be that creeping existential terror!) But anyway, I’m back on the case now!

This is the first dragon of any kind that I’ve drawn for this project, but certainly not the last. I’m playing with some new coloring techniques — more of a painted style of rendering, rather than the “airbrush cuts” comic book style I’ve typically used. We’ll see how it goes!

Drawing the Monster Manual #10: Doppelganger

Number 10 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Doppelganger!

Doppelganger is kind of a weird one, because the whole point is that it’s a monster that takes on the appearance of other people. Its true form is apparently a kind of nondescript, slightly melty purple dude. Different art depics it in different ways — the 5th Edition Monster Manual has it as a very humanoid figure. Other sou rces depict it in a stranger way, often with big “grey alien” eyes, or with an overgrown, misshapen shoulder girdle, and spikes growing out all over.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m planning on producing paper minis out of this series. I’m looking forward to using this guy in my game soon!

Drawing the Monster Manual #9: Fire Giant

Number 9 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual — the Fire Giant! I got a nasty flu last week (and hiccups for almost a week besides) so it’s been a while since I’ve released one of these, but I’m back at it! Can’t stop this train! I’ve actually been sitting on the sketch for this one for months, and it kinda got lost on my tablet. Finally got around to finishing it up. I struggled a little with the armor design — the Fire Giants in the book, and most of the ones you can find on the internet all have that dark, monochrome armor, and I felt like it was a tough to make it look good. To that end, I added a little bit of red cloth, which helped. I guess I don’t have a lot else to say about fire giants. Never used one in game — still far too early in my DM career to be using such high CR creatures. But like I’ve mentioned before, I plan to format all of these as paper minis eventually, and I would like to use it one of these days!

Drawing the Monster Manual #8: Noble

Number 8 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Noble!

What’s that you say? A noble isn’t a monster? Well, you’re right about that — arguably. This is D&D after all, and I’m sure many of the nobles that appear in our games are downright monstrous! (In fact, this guy is roughly based on Lord Urien Dumay, an NPC in my game who’s a real piece of work.) But this isn’t a project about drawing just the monsters from the Monster Manual — this is about drawing every damn thing in the book. So I’ll keep rolling dice for page numbers, and drawing whatever comes up!

Drawing the Monster Manual #7: Mummy

Number 7 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual: The Mummy!

I’ve been trying to get through at least one of these a week, but I had an extremely busy week on a personal level, not to mention the fact that for some reason I struggled with this guy. I guess I had trouble finding a way to do the wraps that I was happy with — and with a mummy, if you don’t have the wraps, you don’t have anything! But then I remembered that one of the points of this project was to not be too precious with it — with over 200 creatures in the Monster Manual, I just can’t afford to! So I knocked it out and moved on. But ultimately, by the time I got the color on there, I think it came out alright!

 

Drawing the Monster Manual #6: Planetar

Number 6 in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual — the Planetar! These guys are huge angelic warriors with green skin for some reason. Who knows?  It’s D&D, and D&D is pretty weird sometimes.  I probably wouldn’t have picked this one to draw any time soon, but I’m rolling randomly for them, so you get what you get. I guess it beats drawing all the cool stuff in the beginning, and being stuck with a bunch of weird stuff I’m not that interested in at the end!

Drawing the Monster Manual #5: Thri-kreen

Number five in my quest to draw the entire 5th Edition Monster Manual — the Thri-kreen. I don’t even know what to say about this guy. A large majority of D&D monsters are either taken directly from traditional folklore/mythology/horror sources, or are at least inspired by the same. These guys are just crazy desert-dwelling bug people. I believe they come from the Dark Sun setting, which is a sort of gritty fantasy post-apocalypse sort of thing. I actually recently completed a commission of a Dark Sun party that featured one of these guys, so I had already figured out how to draw them, which made this one easier!