Part of game play for Mandate of Heaven involved choosing a style of Kung Fu to use. Derek wrote out basic descriptions of each fighting style and I came up with a Master to illustrate it. This is the Master for Wing Chun.
Author Archives: skook
Kung Fu Dictionary 8
I’d planned to split the kung fu dictionary between two characters – a male master and a female master. This was my first attempt at the female character. I went with a tougher, scrappier looking character than Derek wanted. I tend to find really pretty women unbelievable as fighting masters. To become a fighting master you’ve got to … fight. And fighting doesn’t generally improve your looks. But, as Derek rightly pointed out, Mandate of Heaven was a game. Games are fantasy anyway and the setting of the game was also a fantasy one. Within the context of the game pretty fighting masters are perfectly believable.
Kung Fu Dictionary 7
Practice sketches for the kung fu dictionary for the unfinished RPG Mandate of Heaven.
Kung Fu Dictionary 6
On the left – a palm strike?
On the right – a pair of leopard punches?
I’m not sure of either of these at the moment and the reference I used is still in boxes.
Kung Fu Dictionary 5
On the left, a round house punch.
On the right, an uppercut.
Kung Fu Dictionary 4
I’m pretty sure that the illustration on the right is an earlier version of the horse position that I posted a few days ago. Certainly I like this version better than that.
The figure on the right is probably a simple punch.
Kung Fu Dictionary 3
More kung fu dictionary. A backhand punch and an elbow jab. I didn’t like that jab and redrew it later.
Kung Fu Dictionary 2
Another couple of examples of the kung fu visual dictionary from the unfinished Mandate of Heaven RPG. I believe that’s a palm strike on the left and (probably) a couple of leopard punches on the right. I did these back in 2004 and my memory on exactly what I illustrated is a little fuzzy.
Kung Fu Dictionary 1
Mandate of Heaven was a role playing game Derek Fetters and I tried to put together in 2004. He was the writer. I was the illustrator. One of the features of the game that Derek came up with was to be a visual kung fu dictionary. The intention was to provide players with a set of visual references so they could create more interesting action sequences. Here we have the basic “horse” position on the left and a left cross punch on the right.
Color by Swenson 4
This is the last of the art samples (that I’ve found anyway) from 1998 with Jeff Swenson digitally painting over my pencils. I don’t think that this was one of the pages of the comic. I think we did this one just to see what it would like to have him paint over my pencils. It’s … interesting. It’s always weird for me to have someone ink or color my work. Not bad. Just a little weird. I can digitally color my own work now but in 1998 I barely understood what Photoshop did, let alone Painter. And even if I did Jeff could paint far faster than me. Hell, he could probably paint faster then than I can now.
