Chaos And Order

I am currently working on the third of the series of painting I have been doing. (The first two were King's Blacksmith and Forging).

It actually feels quite different, to go behind topics that are more playful and relaxed that the serious and dramatic ones I usually work on.

The mood seems to reflect back from the painting as I work on it, and sort of forms a feedback loop. :)

You can download the lineart from deviantART if you want to try coloring it. Please attribute back to the source if you choose to publish it.

To keep a close eye on the progress on this painting, watch the CGPainting.com thread - Siblings - I will be updating that regularly.

Anwun - Assassin by ~Vyoma on deviantART

The first of this series, Anwun is an assassin of the Oro Order - an assassin guild. She has passed the rite of passage of the assassin order and has several successful jobs under her belt.

Done completely in GIMP 2.4 and Wacom Intuos3. Doing this particular piece I never saw GIMP as inferior to Photoshop for digital painting purposes.

WIP thread at CGPainting.com - Anwun - Assassin

Walkthrough articles: Anwun - Assassin - Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Created out of the same existence, all the races including the Firmans seemed to develop similar set of skills that were grouped into similar categories by all of them. It was a different issue as to how each of the race took to these skills and how it was taken by the society.

The skill sets are broadly classified into Jantara, Mantara and Tantara.

Jantara skills are the ones that are attained by virtue of ones occupation, and can also be attained by undergoing specialized training. It takes the Jantara skills of blacksmith to forge weapons out of metals. It takes Jantara skills of a carpenter to create furniture and minor buildings and hovels. It takes Jantara skills of both of them to become a gadgeteer. Any particular physical task that a person may take at hand requires the use of one or many of the Jantara skills. The skills of using swords, axes and knives in battle come under this category.

Jantara skills are common among all the races, but the Giants seem to be the ones who seemed to have many masters in it. The skills that the Orcs possess in the destructive category of Jantara skill owe to their battle skills. The Elfs though tend to resort to Mantara for most of the non-trivial tasks, and usually take assistance of the services from the Giant or Human builders and gadgeteers for most of the works that require Jantara skill.

The Mantara skills on the other hand acts on a plane that seems to be present through out the planes of existence. It involves the ability of a sentient being to tap into his or her mana reserve and use will to form spells and cast them. Wizards and mages have known to create intricate spells using their imagination that would affect the reality in many different ways. The amount of will and skill it takes to use the Mantara skills reduce the numbers who purse the higher level.

Many of the basic Mantara spells can be attained by all the sentient but the ones who actually know how to use them are lesser than the total populace. Some of the basic Mantara spells are the ones that assist the people in their daily activity. One of the spell, the Light spell is used by many when they do not have a torch at their disposal. The duration of the spell though is limited by the mana reserve a person has.

Some warriors too are known to wield some of the offensive Mantara spells like Shock and a little advanced Fire-throw. These skills become complementary to their Jantara skills of fighting and are used in both melee and ranged combat. Another overlap of Mantara and Jantara spell can be found among the Healers. These have taken the path to help others regain from wounds and diseases that could be as small as irritating to as profound as fatal. The Healers too learn some of the skills of Potion-making which is a Jantara skill along with healing spells – Mantara skills. The healing spells can range from minor to major that varies in the level of effect it has on the patient or the subject. There are even some healing spells that are at higher levels – which are intricate enough to heal the subject of a particular disease or ailment. The healers though usually resort to antidote potions when they need to deal with poisoning. The Elf Healers deep in the province of Liraken are known to possess high level spells that can heal poisoning effects.

The Mantara skills are usually sought after by the Elfs due to their inherent nature to be disciplined and have a flair for finer aesthetics. It is not that the Elfs do not use the Jantara skills – in fact they happen to have good archer warriors among their ranks – but it is just that they have more affiliation towards the Mantara arts. The Orc on the other hand, do not seem to go by the purist rules of separation of the physical from the magical until the application of the spell, and hence seek to gain the Tantara spells.

The Tantara spells, are often thought wrongly to be a combination of Jantara and Mantara spells – even though similarities do exist. The Tantara spells too - like the Mantara spells - rely on the mana reserve of a person. But the lack of higher tuning to the magical plane is compensated by the knowledge that results in the heavy use of physical objects like fluids, powders, flames, stones, rocks and metals. The physical objects are used from the beginning of the incantation, and the mana is channeled through these objects. A skillful user may find different uses for Tantara spells.

The Tantara user is shunned by the general society of Firmans. After the effect of Chaos, many Tantara users turned evil and many lives were lost in attempt to gain the control back from maniacal Tantara users. The Orc society embraces it as though it were a way of life. The other races do not bother much about the Tantara skills, and just judge a Tantara user by the acts he or she performs and also the intention behind the action.