Showing posts with label canne'pirates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label canne'pirates. Show all posts

Iyce'lasher, the taskmaster & 1st mate aboard the Dragon's Maw!

This was another character I created back in the 90's as a teenager for my 'Creature World' series of stories & artwork. Back then, he was just a green monster who found a pair of rare magical ice-themed artifacts. With a crack of his whip he could freeze enemies in their paths. He was a bad guy back then, and in all honesty his character had almost ZERO development put into it. I can't even remember WHY I created him or for what reason ice & whips seemed like a good pairing for a magical weapon. Plus, if the whip itself emits ice..why does he have a stone of the same color on his chest?? These are the questions I ask myself as I go through my old drawing books & try to figure out just what the hell my teenage brain was thinking.

Below is the original Creature World drawing of the character. He's from a time before my drawing style got a bit more polished so there's not alot of depth in here aside from a large green monster with an ice whip.


Next I sat down & did a quickie concept study sketch of what this character would look like as a canne'boid. I gave him a cross-bite where his top & bottom jaws over lap one another and a little goatee because, well his face didn't have much else going on. The more difficult part of this figure was going to be the frost whip; I had no clue how to sculpt a whip with those teeny-tiny little ends on them. I put him on the back-burner for a few weeks to mull over how to do this and finish some of the earlier canne'pirates instead.


Eventually, this Tuesday to be precise, I sat down & began sculpting the figure. Having already assembled the build a few days prior, that would have made the entire process fast & easy....how wrong I was. Due to the softer nature of the mixed color green I made, I spent the better part of 2 hours trying to get his head sculpt just right. It took a few dozen tries but I eventually got it to a level I'd be happy with. Check him out:

Iyce'lasher "Taskmaster & 1st Mate to Captain Jahroh"


"There be quite a bit o' work in runnin' a ship smoothly, and even though I be a tough and fearlful captain...sometimes I need assistance gettin' the crew in line. This is where Iyce'lasher comes in. This 'boid has a vicious bite and is quick with his whip for anyone not followin' orders. Most o' the crew doesn't give him trouble, as they know as dangerous he is- I'm worse. I rely on him to keep Shark-Hook in check when he enters a feedin' frenzy as he can eat the whole crew if not taken down quickly. For some reason, he and me ship's cook don't see eye-ta-eye and constantly get into disputes over some such nonsense, I can't be bothered to figure out why.
"A number o' years ago, we stumbled upon a tribe of Frrr'ohst and did battle with them ta steal their riches. Iyce'lasher found nothin' of too much value but took the heart of one of the ice people as a trophy. When wearing it around his neck he be shocked ta see it enables him to emit freezing cold temperatures and aiming werever he be choosin'. Later he embedded it in his forehead, and doin' this allowed him to channel freezing temperatures through his whip and freeze anything it touched.
In battle he be one o' me best fighters and the Glyans run for the hills when his frost whip rains frozen death down upon them."- Excerpt from Captain Spakk Jahroh's Log Book

As a nod to the original drawing, he was originally going to have a pair of green gloves for hands...but I really wasn't happy with how they looked so I gave him one regular hand and his whipping hand is wearing a torn, finger-less glove. Instead of giving him twin boots, I had his toes "burst" through one of his boots- this was something I saw with old TMNT figures alot & I always liked that look on characters. The more I sculpted him, the more he came across as that crusty/tough type of character who can put anybody in their place easily. I think my subconscious mind might have been channeling the orc captain from the Rankin/Bass "Return of the King" animated movie ("where there's a whip there's a way!"), just the face reminds me of them a bit. Below are more pictures to look over.





















I have another canne'pirate ready to make his debut, but I just need to alter his build colors a little bit before his un-veiling. Stay tuned for more!

Beware of Lokk'up, the living treasure chest!!

This character was another of my original Creature World pirate characters that I gave the canne'boid treatment to. He was the last of the 5 that I re-designed back in November so he was a long time coming but I think he came out awesome.

Here's a drawing I did in the 90's of the original character back when he was named "Treasure Keep". Basically, the concept was making one of the pirates into a living treasure chest as who would be better to keep the captain's treasure safe then a tough-as-nails monster who stores the loot inside his body? I gave him eyes on stalks so he could always tell if someone was trying to sneak up on him.

Original Character drawing


Re-designed Canne'boid Sketch:


Basically, the re-designed character has the same job but now it's more direct. I gave him wood textured skin and gold teeth & claws (again a throw back to him being a living treasure chest) and decided on a dark brown sculpey to further give that wooden look. The character IS actually part wood as he ate a tree person and mutated the characteristics of wood, so trying to sneak up behind him & bash him on the head wouldn't be a good idea.

His job aboard the Dragon's Maw is to guard the treasure that he keeps inside him via a sub-dimensional pocket. Typically, it happens like this: when the canne'pirates board a ship, Lokk'up heads off on his own to find the treasure & literally smashes through anyone and anything in his path to get to it. Once there, he gobbles it up & then makes his way back to the ship. Whatever he ate & chose to not digest, gets shunted into that sub-dimensional pocket and he can regurgitate it later.





















Since making those sketches back in November, I've draw sketches for another Creature World character-to-Canne'pirate in addition to 4 more canne'pirates, so Capt. Jahroh's crew is getting big REAL fast. One of the new ones has a head & fur, I just need to give him hands and feet, maybe tomorrow he'll be done- you'll just have to wait & see. ~_^

Next Canne'pirate: Rig'n!

This crew member is the mechanic & weapon maker for the Dragon's Maw. His original Creature World counter-part, 'Rigen', would swing from the rigging in the ship's sails (hence the name) and use his powerful pincer legs to catch & crush anyone who boarded the ship.

Here's an original drawing of that character:



I was going to give the canne'pirate the same pincer legs, but since the Dragon's Maw is a space pirate ship without any sails or rigging, I decided to alter his job on the ship. So instead of pincers he gets a second smaller pair of arms with hands so he can work on things while using his larger more powerful arms to swing around the inside of the ship. I had to give him some sort of pirate-themed accessory so I gave him a long striped cap to wear. I might turn it into a bandanna or doo-rag, but for now this works & brings some contrast to all the browns & tans on him.

Here's the sketch I did of him (bottom half of the page). The head sculpt I ended up doing came out differently then the sketch, almost simian or gorilla looking. Actually I think it works with the whole swinging around thing so it's not a bad change at all.

Sketch


Final Sculpted version






Link


(Showing the hands on his leg-arms)

There are still more canne'pirates to be made, I still have to make Lock'up the ship's living treasure chest & Ice'lasher the ship's interrogator & task-master. Should be fun to sculpt them.

Oh & in the meantime, head over to the October toys forum & check out pics of the canne'pirates riding around in a Playmobil Pirates dingy. It's not their actual space-age pirate ship but it will do in a pinch.

Next New Canne'pirate: "Keel'ovr"!

This was another old-school design I'd created in my early teens & opted to give him the canne'boid pirate treatment. His original back-story was he died at sea, but having no desire to stay dead, re-animated himself & joined Capt. An-grrr's crew. I liked how half his face was hidden behind an old pirate flag (maybe from his original ship?) and he had barnacles growing all over him. I remember being proud of thinking up the name 'Shipwreck' and completely forgot about the G.I. Joe character of the same name, so the name has to be changed. I never drew a picture of what he looked liked without the flag, but I always assumed it was scarred & disfigured. You know, seeing as he didn't even have hands, that must have made re-loading his cannon arm difficult.....ah well, it was a cool design anyway.

Original Artwork/Drawing


I went with the name "Keel'ovr" (keel over) as it's an old nautical/pirate term for when someone is killed/dies so the name seemed appropriate given his back story. Changing him over to a canne'boid didn't take too much work, but unfortunately I had to go with a darker shade of blue as I couldn't find anymore of the blue that matched his original drawing much better. I also opted to give him one real hand and changed his anchor hand into a harpoon one. I was going to sculpt him a pirate flag to cover his skull face but I might just put some black cloth around it to make it appear his skull face IS the skull & crossbones from a pirate flag. I may also give him pants or some similiar clothing as he's looking a little incomplete to me. Maybe some red clothing to tie back into the original drawing?

Keel'ovr
"The undead canne'pirate!"


Bio
"Ten years ago the canne'boid now known as 'Keel'ovr' was killed in battle by a blaster shot to the head. The blast took all the flesh off of the right side of his face leaving nothing but the bare bone exposed. In an odd turn o' events, this canne'boid was not wantin' to remain dead so Keel'ovr's soul re-possessed his water-logged body and he rose up from the depths to live again. As he is one of the undead, he can not be killed by conventional means & shrugs off most forms of injury like a wee guppy biting a whale. Since his left hand was blasted off during the attack, Keel'ovr grafted the tip of an old harpoon onto the stump to provide himself with a weapon. He joined my crew to find his killer so his soul can finally rest. Keel'ovr is a valuable warrior to me ship so I'm not too keen on loosin' him as a warrior. Unknown to everyone it was I, Capt. Spakk Jahroh, who killed Keel'ovr those 10 years ago. The bright flash from the blaster shot at such close range must have temporarily blinded him and kept my identity hidden. Not even Shriekbeak knows this secret, and I will never tell a living (or dead) soul this for fear of loosing my undead warrior...or my own life. I killed him once before...but how ye be killin' something that be already dead?"- Excerpt from Capt. Spakk Jahrohs Log Book











I have at least 2 more canne'pirates to sculpt up to finish the good Captain's crew, so keep an eye on the blog for updates.

The next two canne'pirates of the Dragon's Maw: One-Eye & Shark Hook

After creating Capt. Spakk Jahroh the other day, I've had canne'boid pirates on the brain (the canne'borg is on the back-burner right now, but one of my other canne'boids might need to be rebuilt- I have the technology) and set to work giving the good captain a crew.

Now, before I delve into the 2 new guys I have some back story: I've only been sculpting since late 2007/early 2008 BUT I've been drawing and creating characters since 1994-1995 with my old "Creature World" stories that took place on the planet Slauria (the planet where the canne'boids come from). Well back then I'd decided to make a team of pirates and created Captain Ang-grrrr to lead them. He was a mutated slaurian with a chip in his head that increased his strength when he became angry, but his crew was predominately made up of characters from non-Creature World stories of mine. But, amidst the re-used characters, there were 5-6 original pirates. So while thinking of ideas for new canne'pirates, I touched onto these older characters and "canne'boidized" them.

Original Drawings (circa the late 1990's):
"One-Eye"

One-Eye's one large eye was actually a doorway into another dimension where vicious creatures lived. He wore an eye-patch at all times to keep the doorway closed, but while in battle he'd often take the eye-patch off and call forth a monster to attack his foe. I'm not sure why I gave him 2 peg legs (feet?), maybe his original legs had gotten beaten off by the inter-dimensional creatures? o_O??

"Fishook/Shark Hook"

I remember drawing his while on vacation in New Hampshire in August of 1997. I liked the colorway & the name so much I later used them on a completely different character. With his original name & color now on another character, I re-designed him for canne'piracy.

New 2011 Canne'boidized Re-Designs





There are 3 more characters waiting to get sculpted up, but I might need more parts before I attempt that. They should be pretty awesome once I'm all said & done with them. I did draw out the build for one of them and it should prove to be a solid build when assembled.

Sculpted Canne'boidized Versions



One-Eye came out great in my opinion, it took me at least 4 tries until I finally got his head just right. The eye-patch sits snuggly on his eye & two teeth, but some fun-tack helps keep it from falling off. I gave him red fur as a homage to the black/red striped shirt the original character had





Shark Hook didn't get too much of an overhaul, he's a canne'shark and thus has the canne'boid underbite, scaley skin & fur. As a nod to the original Fishook's colorway, I chose green for his teeth & claws & I think it's a good contrast. Not sure if you can tell from the photos, but he actually has a few fish-hooks pierced through his tail, fin, nose & mouth. He came alright, but once I get some firmer sculpey I'll try making him a 2nd time.

I'll have full bios for both of these new canne'pirates probably by the afternoon tomorrow, baring any incident of course. Until then, I hope you enjoyed these new canne'pirates...hmmm...now all they need is a ship...

The 1st of (hopefully) many Canne'pirates: Captain Spakk Jahroh!


"This is Spakk Jaroh, Captain of the Pirate ship, Dragon's Maw! and This is a warning going out to any of you stupid fools thinking about gettin in my way, like the Travelers & Glyaxia Command. I've set a course for the Glyos System and while me and my crew sail the spaceways: NO ONE is safe! If you're not wanting to go to an early grave you'll steer clear of the sights of my ship! Fly them colors lads, let'em know the Dragon's Maw's comin' for 'em! HA HA HA!"

Go check out my post (CLICK ME) on the October Toys forum for his full bio & photo gallery. I'll probably edit them into this post when I get home from work later. Enjoy!