Hey guys I'm back. This time I drew a goblin warrior and I'm going to talk about my process a bit here. So first thing's first: description. A goblin warrior is a type of combat goblin. These ones I usually think of them as melee-based foot soldiers but a bit more brave and aggressive side. They wear some gear, but too much because that would slow them down and they're not the buffest guys. The gear is also not the greatest quality usually. They can be pretty shabby, crude, or rusty, etc. The goblin I drew features a knife and round shield. What I see a lot with goblin knives is that they're curved, but also jagged kind of like abnormal shark teeth or saw teeth. The Chaos Blades from the God of War series is a good example of this kind of look. Since I mentioned that these guys are kind of tough and brave, I depict him doing a battle cry pose with his knife raised and him doing a little a scream. So lets get to the steps.
Step 1 - Line Sketch
First thing is a try to sketch that battle cry pose, and have him drawn to scale along with the previous goblin. If you haven't read that post yet, I'd suggest checking it out since that goblin's probably easier to draw. At this early stage I wasn't entirely sure what he would look like, but I knew the pose I wanted for him.
Step 2 - Cuirass
I was looking at various goblins on Google and Pinterest, just looking for clothing/armor ideas. I notice these ones usually wear a lot of brown and grays, stuff like armor plates, leather, fur, or just fabric. I still wasn't sure exactly what I wanted him to wear, but you just gotta start sometimes. I tried some rusty cuirass and it didn't look too bad for a start. He's also supposed to be wearing a pauldron with his shield arm. It's a bit obscured right now but I fix it up later.
Step 3 - Pants
I decided to give him some pants, although not sure what color I wanted it to be, I felt like something was off about it but the blue worked just fine in the end. I also try to show a few creases here and there.
Step 4 - Boots
Next thing was the boots. Brown boots are pretty simple and an easy choice to go with so that what I did here. They could be made of leather or something.
Step 5 - Waist Cloth
I felt like something was missing for his waist. Usually there's something there, I just don't know what to put! But I tried just adding some kind of loin cloth with a skull emblem, and well, it looks good enough.
Step 6 - Knife Arm
Next up, I wanted to figure out what his weapon would look like, so I tried some rusty knife with a jagged blade and I thought adding a decaying hole through it would be a nice touch. It's rough right now, but sometimes it easier to return to part of sprite later.
Step 7 - Shield Arm
Then the shield. So as I mentioned earlier, I wanted to try a cheap wooden round shield. This shield is just made up of some pieces of wood and a rusting rim. It also has some straps so that the goblin can wield it on his forearm. Also roughly sketched in for now. Also I got the sudden idea to add some bands to his knife, it's just what I see a lot and kind of makes it look makeshift I guess.
Step 8 - Head
Finally the goblins head, but I don't polish the sprite just yet. Since he's doing a battle cry, I want his mouth to be open. I also try to give him a helmet, but it's just a sketch for now.
Step 9 - Polish
Now that I had the general idea complete, it was time to polish the sprite. I kept the general idea the same but I added some final touches and small last minute ideas. There's actually quite a few subtle things I did here. First of all, I think his sword arm looked a little off in terms of pose, and was blocking too much of his head so I moved it over. I gave him some scars to indicate that this guys has been through previous battles already. I gave him a harness so that maybe he can carry loot around or a second weapon. I thought it would be a little silly idea to give him a health potion but it also makes perfect sense since he deals with combat a lot. I added some arrows stuck in his shield, also to indicate previous battles. The helmet also now has chainmail on the sides. And the last thing I'm noticing is that I changed his skin tone to yellow and made his nose and ears curve up instead of down, just to add a little more variation from the previous goblin.
So thanks for checking out this post! For my next tutorial, I plan on drawing another goblin. Feel free to suggest some goblin variants and I might give it a go, but for now I think the next one will be an archer. Anyway until then, see you in the next art tutorial!