Character of the Week # 255 : Eye-Gouger the Orc

These “of the week” challenges are really draining me, but  I have to admit I’m addicted to the rush of finishing an artwork every week and there’s no better way to push yourself to improve.  This week I took on a character instead of a creature, and the brief was as follows:

Eye-Gouger is the name of the most ferocious and savage Orc warboss of all the Orcs. Driven by his horrible blood-lust, he Wreaks havoc and destruction where ever he leads his endless horde of Orcs and War machinery. He is not known for his patience, forgiveness or mercy, and does not think twice even to kill an Orc of his own clan. Eye-Gouger reputation is all but clean, he kills the cowards, eats human babies and kicks cats. He also has a horrible habit of gouging the eyes of unloyal or unlucky servants of his, hence the name. 

Designing for Video Game:
This week’s design is aimed at a video game character. Whilst that should not limit your design, we would like you to consider how to bring this character out to suit a video game of the style of your choosing.

A lot of the orcs that were created for this challenge were your rather typical monstrous, hulking orc, but one of the gesture thumbnails I made for this led me to designing an orc that was cunning, clever, and ultimately twisted instead of just a hulking brute.  You can see that thumbnail above, as well as the rushed character sheet I made to comply with the rules. I thought this piece turned out well, and I may, if I have time, go into the process of creating it with a little more depth if I can ever muster up the energy.  I’m rather disappointed that I didn’t quite manage to retain the energy of the sketchy thumbnails.  Even looking at it now the 1 minute sketch has more drama in it than the final piece.  I also failed to really think about the orcas a video game character, though I made some offhand remark about games in my description of the character to compensate:

The first of many failures in a series of experiments in orc-human relations, eye-gouger’s tribe was betrayed by the orc agent upon whom they were dependent upon for rations from the human Kingdom. His own eye being gouged mercilessly by soldiers of the kingdom, his twisted mind can only find solace when he extracts the same brutality on the race of man.

(Eye-gouger’s attacks have a 20% chance of blinding his enemy, 30% if he’s under bloodlust)

I may be going for the Illustration of the week banner next if I have the energy.  I have some ideas and I’ve sketched out some thumbnails but I’ll have to see how this week goes before making any promises.