#gleeman

MY ARTISTIC CHOICES (canon corrections welcome)

I’m a little dissatisfied with the image – frustrated because I just don’t want to work on it, and ended up with a mixed style of clothing. I didn’t use references for the clothes and maybe that’s why I’m not happy with them. I don’t think I’m competent enough to just make things up in my mind and paint them without a guide.

I wanted to paint a Thom who is clearly an older man, but not a frail elderly man. A lot of the existing art and fanart out there make him look scrawny and frail. I liked the TV series version of Thom because it was refreshing to see him portrayed as man who seemed to have more vitality than the majority of the art shows him as having. TV Thom was robust, but maybe a little too young than I how I imagine him? I also think that Elayne wouldn’t have had her little flirtation with a man who looked too elderly which is another reason I went against the grain and didn’t paint him as a bony old man.

I really don’t think I made his face look gnarled or leathery enough. I admit, I’ve never really painted an older face, so maybe I’ll get better at it as I go (still got older characters like Tam as potential portraits). I also don’t think my image gives a good idea that Thom is “lanky”.

I tried to make his hands look weathered and wrinkled, but I got so lazy I didn't try very hard.

Thom is described as having long moustaches that hang down either side of his mouth, and bushy eyebrows. I toned these down a little for realism – he’d look like a caricature in this style with shaggy brows and a big moustache.

His hair (according to the wiki) is said to be long enough to reach his collar, so I gave him a style I thought fit that and the rest of his image.

I gave him a harp – I haven’t seen any art of him with a harp. There’s plenty of him juggling, or with a flute or knives, but not the harp! I really couldn’t be bothered making it look better though.

I always do this to myself, start something and then get sick of it and want something new!

Thom’s cloak is described as being more patches than cloak and with patches of more colours than one could imagine. It doesn’t say explicitly that the patches have patterns, but I liked it how other artists portrayed them with patterns so I did too.

Don’t even look at the pants. I was SO DONE by then that I just scribbled some black stuff and called it a day.

Half the reason I gave him a waistcoat was because I didn’t want to paint a belt and shirt (because I hate painting fabric!)

All of the patterns on the cloak, waistcoat, harp, and lace are texture overlays. I used a stitching brush for the stitches around the patches.

I’m just not thrilled with this one, and that’s really annoying because Thom is a cool character. I'll probably spot a million errors I want to fix, but I'll fix them in the sigil version if I do.

So! I’ve just got the sigil version of Thom to do, and I probably won’t paint a variant for that because I’ve gone and burnt myself out lol. I’ll recharge a bit before deciding on who to paint next.