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.
Category Archives: mandate of heaven
Your Kung Fu is Weak
Sketches (mostly) for the Mandate of Heaven RPG.
Product Placement
The sketches on this page look like they are all Mandate of Heaven oriented. The note was an idea I had for generating income for writers and artists. And would no doubt be a business all on its own. I’d be surprised if it didn’t already exist. It seemed like a good idea to have some sort of clearinghouse or agency that listed all the products that parent companies were willing to have appear in any story. Basically a middle man who let you know that, say, Coors Lite, St. Pauli Girl and Grolsh, were available to appear in your porno comic. Once the comic was published you’d get paid a small fee for placing the product. The fee would depend on the circulation of your comic (or book or radio play or movie). Having this sort of middleman agency would save the creators the time courting the marketing departments of big corporations. And maybe put some extra money in the creators pockets.
Demons
I’m pretty sure that these demonish critters were sketched in connection with the Mandate of Heaven RPG. I don’t remember if Derek had written any rules around using demons and monsters but they were part of the game.
Superior Kung Fu
Another illustration for the Mandate of Heaven RPG
Gut Serpents
Illustration done for the unfinished Mandate of Heaven RPG.
Monkey Style
This young woman is holding a stance from monkey style kung fu. This is one of the sketches I did for the uncompleted Mandate of Heaven RPG game.
Stepping Lightly
This was to be an illustration for the Mandate of Heaven RPG. There’s a scene in one of Jet Li’s movies (Fist of Legen, I think) in which one of his martial arts battles amps up to the point where he and his opponent are walking on the heads of the crowd while fighting. That seemed like a handy skill to have, especially in modern crowded cities. This illustration features a character escaping his pursuers by running atop the masses.
This is also the last page scanned from my 2003 sketchbook. Tomorrow I’ll start show more recent work. Work that actually evolved into finished projects 🙂
The Female Master
This was the design I settled on for the female master for the Mandate of Heaven kung fu dictionary. Originally I’d been leaning toward a female version of the other master – older, sort of beaten up, but Derek expressed a preference for someone more conventionally attractive. I don’t know that I do conventionally attractive very well but I gave it a go.
The Other Master
For the Mandate of Heaven kung fu dictionary I planned to have two characters demonstrating the moves. One was the male I’ve shown previously. Here are some of the work sketches as I tried to figure out what the female kung fu master would look like.
