Vax’ildan – coloured pencil tutorial

Coloured pencils, eh? I used to use them a lot around 20 years ago. They’re beginner-friendly, yield pretty fantastic results, are easy to use and make little mess – and still they had some of a “kid stuff” vibe to them, so I pretty much abandoned them when I got into watercolour for real. Now that watercolour details escape me but I still feel the need to mess with actual pigments once in a while, large formats and coloured pencil seemed like a great idea. And they were!

Materials used:

Paper: Strathmore coloured pencil paper. Great texture, just enough grain to look interesting, but allows for smooooth blending.

Pencils: Wax-based coloured Prismacolors as well as a set from Castle Arts.

Blenders: Derwent Burnisher.

For the background: Shire Blue watercolour by Schmincke.

1: I lay down a pale, very even layer of a yellowish olive colour as a base. The trick in getting smooth areas of colour is swirly movements, even pressure, and being careful with sudden darker strokes. You can erase them with a rather rough eraser. The smooth ones I usually use just smear the colour, but with the right grainy eraser, you can take an amazing lot of colour off. 

2: Trying around with different colours for the skin tone I’m going for. I blended the smooth patch there with white instead of the blender, which results in a pastelly, very smooth look. 

3: After the bottom yellowish later, I add reds (with a burned-Sienna-like colour) to the skin areas with the most blood circulation (around the eyes, nose, lips, and ears). 

4: More skin detailing. Going with the yellow forehead/reddish nose and cheeks/bluish chin scheme, which is SO MUCH EASIER to do subtly in coloured pencil than it is in watercolour. The bluish bits on his chin will almost vanish in comparison once the dark hair is in place, so I already have it on my mental list to darken it later. 

5: Blending! I blend the portions near the nose, lips and chin that also have some white parts with a white coloured pencil rather than the blender, as it remains lighter and more pastelly. The parts near the ear and under the eyebrows are blended with a Derwent burnisher pencil, which again makes for very smooth gradients and colour flats. 

6: Adding another layer of colour over the blended base layer until I’m happy with the texture and the light/dark look. The portion near the cheek/ear is okay looking slightly fuzzier and less smooth, so I don’t blend it. 

7: More darker, desaturated browns in shadowy areas. 

8: I call the skin done for now (I can always go back to it later when the hair and feathers are done if it looks too light in comparison), and lay down the first layer for his hair and colour his eyes. Fun fact: Thirty years of drawing and painting elves, and doing my first one that has brown eyes. Which is a total shame, by the way, as I always fall for them! =D 

9: Adding blue streaks to the hair (and some to the skin) after laying down the brown. 

10: Laying down a pale blue base layer for the clothes. It felt so wrong to dress Vax in baby blue. =D Putting down a green sheen to it, too. 

11: Adding a desaturated purple. I can not work without desaturated purples. They’re the best for black. 

12: Putting down purples in the hair as well. I work in overall layers here, the way I would in watercolour, so I can see how the different areas affect each other. You often see coloured pencil artists work in tiny portions that they complete with all detail before moving on to the next portion; this works best when working from photo reference that you just have to match. 

13: I’ve put about everything down that needs to go down. Now I can take a look with fresh eyes to see what’s missing. Apart from the skin, nothing is blended at this point. 

14. Some warmer brown tones in his hair are missing, for example. 

15. BLENDING! I use two different ways to blend: For darker colours that are allowed to go even richer and darker, I use a blending pencil (here, the burnisher from Derwent, which does the job best, I find). For lighter areas – like the skin and the lighter portions of his hair – I use a white or pale cream coloured pencil, which results in great smoothness and doesn’t dull the colours. 

16. Blending the feathers was so much fun. It’s amazing to see that stuff suddenly pop to life. I followed my colour lines while blending, and left some toothier bits standing. 

Final touchups! 

17: Hair smoothing. 

18: Feather detail. 

19: Almost done, with a simple watercolour wash in the background. Coloured pencil paper is too thin for watercolour, so the paper cockled rather badly. I had to moisten the back and flatten it between heavy books before scanning. (I also forgot I no longer have a printer with waterproof ink, so the Procreate lines bled a bit on the outlines.) 

20: I’m still finding my way around the brightness and saturation of coloured pencils, and the feathers especially felt too colourful for Vax. So I went for the complementary colour of blue/green – a dull orange – to subtly tone them down. 

Hope that was helpful!

Ice and Fire

Watercolour and gouache on Canson Héritage torchon paper, 38×26 cm.
Prints here!

Original available – note me if interested!

A few words of explanation on the style/character choices:
I discovered A Song of Ice and Fire in 2003 and devoured the first three books (which was all there was back then) in one go. I totally fell in love with Jon Snow, and I remember loving how realistically written the teenage characters were. I had fun trying to picture them in my school classes I was teaching at the time. It was easy for all of them, except Dany. All the others I could place in any odd Year Seven, Year Eight, Year Nine, easily, but Dany totally eluded me. I didn’t like her, and she didn’t have a face while I read.

The show rectified that, and admirably, which I’m sure has to do with the choice of aging everyone up five years, but my Jon will always remain my Jon.

Small Goddesses

(Anyone who caught the Pratchett reference, have a cookie!)

I’m in an exciting phase with my art. I’ve felt a latent unhappiness with aspects of it for several years, and this SmArt School class is such an amazing ride. I’m shaping up my stuff for submission to galleries, I’m learning loads, I’m trying out new things, I’m having my butt kicked by truly remarkable people.

These are small, coaster-sized pieces done using very close reference for the basic figure work and facial structures, but then deviating from them for almost everything else.

Freya, with a peregrine falcon. Watercolour and gouache on Clairefontaine Nuageux paper, 13 cm.

Tears of Isis. Watercolour, gouache and lavish gold leaf on Clairefontaine Nuageux paper, 13 cm.

These little beauties are available from my Etsy shop, readily framed and matted!

The Monster and the Scavenger

This piece combines two of my greatest loves – Star Wars and Art Nouveau. Some very mucha part in me squeed when I saw Rey’s and Kylo Ren’s long-trailing costumes. They were meant for Art Nouveau.

Watercolour and gouache on Clairefontaine Etival cold-pressed paper, 28×39 cm (11×15 in).

A creature in a mask

Is she done with him yet? Nope, she isn’t. ;)

In fact, the more theories I read about this guy, the more he intrigues me.

A creature in a mask

Watercolour and gouache on Canson Montval paper (which is seriously reaching its limits for the amount of water I’ve been sploshing on it recently). Size 42×30 cm.

Original here.

Timelapse video here.

Can we talk about the Force vision Rey has when he is called to the Skywalker lightsabre? How amazing is it to heap spoilers and dead giveaways on the audience in such a way that most of them will be too dazed to make any sense of them until they’ve watched a couple of Youtube videos taking the footage apart? Even after the second rewatch, I didn’t have a clue what I’d seen. In my head, it was WHAM rey-rain-hey-its-R2-was-that-luke-menacing-people-ah-that-kylo-guy-awww-that-poor-girl WHAM, and I never realised that I had just seen Kylo Ren saving Rey’s life by running his iconic lightsabre through a masked man – another knight of Ren? – who was just about to kill her.

Which has sold me on the theory that Kylo Ren was the one who left Rey on Jakku.

This is why nobody ever came back for her – because everyone thought she was dead like the others. Kylo Ren defied Snoke by letting her live, and hiding her. That’s why he seems to know who she is throughout the movie. On my first watch, I was sure she was also a daughter of Han and Leia, so that would have explained the familiarity. Obviously, she isn’t (and is quite probably Luke’s daughter – while that Anakin reincarnation theory is beautiful, I think it’s too out of the way), but he still freaks out when he hears that BB-8 left Jakku with the help of a girl. Because now Snoke will know that Kylo Ren disobeyed him all those years ago. I have a feeling that the completion of his training might be an unpleasant experience.

 

Fell and Fey

Some Silmarillion in between, though at least slightly inspired (as probably shows) by Star Wars – ever since I saw Kylo Ren’s costume, I felt Fëanor would really look great in a high collar and flowing coat-tails. I’ve put him in black and gold before, so that was something that always belonged to him, for me.

And though you might say otherwise, the hair is 100% Fëanor, too. ;)

Gold leaf (22 karat, a slightly paler colour than the 23 karat I usually use):

Watercolour, gouache, and gold leaf on Canson Montval, 42×30 cm (painting itself an inch smaller).

Original available here

Prints with gold leaf available here.

As little might be thought

“For Maglor took pity upon Elros and Elrond, and he cherished them, and love grew after between them, as little might be thought; but Maglor’s heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath.”

(The Silmarillion, “Of Eärendil and the War of Wrath”)

Watercolour and gouache on Canson Montval cold-pressed paper, A3 size.

 

A re-run of an old sketch that never took off, so I was really glad when I was asked to revisit it as a commission! My son kindly modelled both Elrond and Elros. Don’t ask me which is which. XD

Imbolc

First off, a huge thank you to everyone who supported the Indiegogo Campaign for Darkness over Cannae – you’re terrific. I’ll continue to separate stuff – everything Cannae-themed goes to darknessovercannae.com (apart from a few major updates every now and then), and the rest will be posted here.

This is a painting done for my mother’s seventieth birthday, which is in two weeks. She loves Celtic mythology and we both like druidic singer/songwriter Damh the Bard, so I illustrated his song “Brighid“.

In the song, a wanderer comes upon an old woman by a well in early February (Imbolc), and she tells him she was held captive by the Queen of Winter. As she talks, he sees her reflection in the well, and looking up, he beholds a maiden where the old woman has stood. The song has elements of the Ceiliagh and Brighid, two faces of the same goddess, who is reborn as a young maiden at the return of Spring.

Then I saw her reflection in the mirrored well, 
And I looked deep in her face, 
The old woman gone, a maiden now knelt in her place…

Imbolc

Here’s the reverse, and a detail shot:

It’s a GO! Darkness over Cannae on Indiegogo!

Now’s the time! Help me get this book out there! Head over to Indiegogo and preorder the book, support the campaign, be part of the project!

 

 

 

Cannae updates

Work on “Darkness over Cannae” is in full swing. I haven’t been this deliriously happy with anything I have done in… decades?!

 

Finished header image!

Cornelius Lentulus.

Not from “Cannae”: Hannibal, wounded during the siege of Saguntum.

Hannibal and Maharbal on a small hill overlooking the field prior to battle

Double page illu: Balearic slingers

 

Check out the (updated!) Project Page: http://darknessovercannae.com/

Or follow it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarknessOverCannae

Darkness over Cannae – some impressions

Work on “Darkness over Cannae” is well underway. I now know it’ll be an illustrated novel – a bit like Neil Gaiman’s Stardust in form (highly recommended, by the way!) – of probably around 120-150 pages.

It’s all set on this one fateful day – August 2nd, 216 BC – spanning an hour before dawn to a few hours after sunset, from the perspectives of six men, three Roman and three Carthaginian.

I’ve been doing some sketching, but the more finalised images and of course, greater portions of the text will not be online until the thing is done. Until then, here’s some impressions!

Maharbal, Hannibal’s second in command. Quick sketch with a splash of watercolour.

Top: Hasdrubal, commander of the Punic heavy cavalry. Writing him is an almost indecent amount of fun due to his wry sense of humour. Bottom: Bomilkar, captain of Hannibal’s bodyguard.

“Either Varro is smart – and conservative – enough to keep his line close together, which enables us to envelope him on the wings. Or he’s innovative – and dumb – enough to deploy in a long line to encircle us; in which case we’re more likely to break through his centre as it bumbles along than he is to break through ours. We’ll see. For the moment, however, we’ll assume he is smart and conservative, and the original plan remains the same as ever, in its main points.” Hannibal positioned the six Roman infantry rectangles as a neat, solid line with spaces between the blocks, then looked at each of the men assembled in turn and went on, sombrely, “At the risk of boring you into a stupor, here are the details again. If you want to, sing along; it can’t hurt.”

“It will, if I do,” Hasdrubal growled. Hanno chuckled; Mago snorted.

Top: After the battle, Hannibal kneels at the Aufidus, cleansing himself before praying. Bottom: Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro, the ill-fated consuls at Cannae.

“Terentius.” Paullus hastened after him, holding his colleague by the arm, speaking in a low voice. “Let us not fight on the right bank, at least. It favours his cavalry too much.”

“You don’t want to fight on level ground for your fear of his cavalry. You don’t want to fight on rough terrain for your fear of ambushes.” Varro had come to a halt in the semi-privacy of the tent entrance. “Where, in your opinion, should we give battle? At the bottom of the sea? Or on treetops?”

“In a place where we know he can’t stage an ambush, and that we have controlled for about a week before he gets there!” Paullus answered between his teeth. “He has been here for weeks! What do you think he has been doing?”

“Such a situation will never happen!” Varro’s face was red with contained anger. “We cannot force him to fight. That much is clear. The gods know why he even wants to fight here, outnumbered as he is! We need to take this chance, and beat him now, before he can come to his senses! Aemilius, why won’t you see it – Hannibal has finally made a mistake. We finally have him where we want him, and we can finally end this. And by Jupiter Stator, I will. It’s the great deeds and courage of our ancestors that have made Rome great. Not hesitating, not hiding, and certainly not bickering!”

First ink test. Not exactly what I wanted – too clean.

Second ink test – NOW we’re talking! Aemilius Paullus in the last moments of his life.

Servilius Geminus was dead, hacked to pieces by several Iberian swords at once. Furius Bibaculus was dying, run through with a spear. The legates’ bodyguards were just being cut down along with them. Lentulus had drifted into view and out again, shouting at him, but the words had made no sense. Claudius Centho was dead, defending the consul, who was in a state of shock and utter disbelief.

Aemilius Paullus had left the dying right flank, only to die in the centre.

Crossing the Alps

Across the wild alps

This piece really gave me a hard time, but it’s probably very fitting that, in mid-October, I struggle with a piece depicting Hannibal struggling with the Alps in mid-October. My losses were in paper and pencils rather than mules and men, but it seems crossing the Alps isn’t meant to be easy.

The lineart stage alone took me a week and four pieces of paper as I redrew this bit and that and put the pieces back together again. The colour was even tougher. I don’t think I’ve ever painted anything as complex as this. I’d say I mostly succeeded. Another parallel there.

Before I started, I made myself a greyscale sketch in Photoshop, so I knew where to get how dark in the final piece.

 

Then I mixed some Phtalo Blue, Indigo and Shadow Violet in one compartment of my palette, some Ochre in another, and then some reddish brown from leftovers I had in my palette (probably mainly Burnt Sienna, Piemontite Red, and Sepia).  I sprayed my entire canvas with water and added a very light blue wash, then going into all the bits that are exposed to the light with extremely thin Ochre.

Then, when this had dried, I painte a rather uniform pale blue sky. The picture is going to be busy enough; when everything else is done, I’ll decide how many clouds this piece can handle.

Next, I started painting the mountains in the back of the image. I used a pale Blue, mainly Phtalo, and painted the “negative space” around the snow. I mixed in some green to suggest a few trees further away.

Then I went about detailing the rock-faces closer to us, with mixes of different blues (more Pthalo here, more Indigo and Shadow Violet there), intermingled in the shadows and rockier parts with different, toned-down browns I mixed above.

I make sure never to get too dark, but more and more detailed towards the front.

More details and deeper shadows to the rocky bits.

I painted a thin brownish/bluish wash across the army and the space below them, to tie them in with the surroundings. The group of three men, immediately behind Hannibal and the soldier he’s pulling to his feet, is overlaid with a muddy wash so they won’t distract from the two later on.

I then decided the empty triangle of sky could well use another mountain, plus a few bluer shadows on the other mountains, which I painted in with Phtalo and Indigo.

Next, I set out to paint the mountainside to the left. It’s completely in shadow, and I mixed some more reddish tones into the blue.

Down there, you can already see me detailing out the rocks with a brownish wash. The colour consists of everything I have on my palette at this point. 

Finished detailing. Not too much – I want the detail to be almost lost in the rock face later on, enough to look finished and non-monotonous, but nothing to distract from the figures.

Next, some skin, bronze and leather.

Outfitting Hannibal’s Libyans with warm winter clothes. Quiet there in the back, I’ll get to you eventually. The elephants go first.

More detailing of the figures in back. Simultaneously, I determined how dark my darkest spots would be in this image – Hannibal’s hair – to set off the rest against it, and to have something to check the column against, to keep myself from getting too dark in the background.

And well, after fiddling with hundreds of little figures for hours that don’t look like anything, I needed something rewarding to paint.

In this painting, my approach is very un-classical. Instead of going strictly from light to dark, I made sure to lay done some guidelines, shapes through the painting, forcing myself to keep an overview rather than getting lost in the details.

Like the fact that Hannibal’s sword is four inches long. >_<

So this is where the mixed media part comes in, and I mixed some dark burgundy with gouache and fixed that sword thing. Next, I added some bright colours (not gouache this time, still sticking mainly to the colours I’ve previously used) for Hannibal’s clothes. They’re too bright as of now, but I plan to make generous use of dark shadows and liquid watercolours to tone them down and add that extra punch that liquid watercolours excel at.

The shields of the men in the back have also been detailed with a mix of ochre/Burnt Sienna/violet mixes already in use. No new colours have been introduced here.

I also painted over the entire army in the back again with a good brushful of dirty water. That got rid of the little white flashes of unpainted whites everywhere, and tied them together neatly. I’ll go in later to pick out some bronze helmet highlights.

Liquid watercolours in action, picking out shadows.

Some gouache too, for lighter highlights, which I rarely do, but which are needed here.

The colours look off in the photograph; the original looks much better.

As gouache palettes, I always keep the plastic lids of Chipsletten crisps (Pringles-like,but Chipsletten taste better). They’re the perfect size and quality for palettes on an overcrowded desk like mine.

The epiphany of the week came with the realisation that a watercolour that looks off is ruined, and a gouache painting that looks of may just not be done yet. That’s a concept I never really grasped. The next step will be to understand how to go on. I manage well enough with gouache in metal and clothes, but skin is not very successful yet. A part of me refuses to paint skin with anything opaque, which seems to be my problem.

Last details of the Celt’s helmet…

And the clothes of the men in front.

That’s all Greek to me

“δίδομαι, δίδοσαι, δίδοται, δί… uh… διδόμετα…”

“διδόμεθα, Hannibal. That’s a theta, not a tau.”

Hannibal sighed. “Sosylos… can’t we carry on with the Anabasis?”

“The Anabasis? You think I’ll let you near Xenophon when you can’t conjugate δίδωμι?”

“But is that important? People’ll understand me. You understand me.”

“It’s not about being understood somehow. Even a peddler in the market can be understood somehow. I wouldn’t have to be here if it was just about that. It’s the details. Today, you learn to conjugate δίδωμι. You’ll learn to distinguish between tau and theta. Next year, we’ll read Plato. You’ll learn to distinguish between fine points  of right and wrong, and one view and another. You father is chasing you around the fields to exercise your body. This is just as important. I’m chasing you round the Greek verbs to exercise your mind. You’re going to need both.”

“But why Greek? Can’t I exercise my mind with Punic?”

“No. Because, no offence, Punic is a language for peddlers. Your esteemed father saw that and gave me the task of getting some culture into your head. Now, again. δίδομαι, δίδοσαι, δίδοται…”

We know next to nothing about Hannibal’s youth, save for one thing that I, personally, find very touching: He learned Greek, from a Spartan turot called Sosylos who later followed him on his campaigns as a historian. When I did my Graecum at University and struggled with the Greek conjugations, especially δίδωμι, I often wondered whether there were any words Hannibal hated, too. I always thought it was funny that I understand not one but two languages, Greek and Latin, that Hannibal also spoke.

And of course, if you’re a Latin teacher, you’re so used to fifteen-year-olds with thin arms and legs and huge feet slouched on chairs in deep concentration, questioning every task you make them do.

Sosylos is ever so slightly based on the professor I learnt Greek from. Obviously. :D

Well-rested, well-fed, well-oiled

Late December 218 BC. Hannibal’s army has recovered from the ordeal of crossing the Alps, and unwritten laws of ancient warfare say that this is the time to move to winter quarters. Hannibal, however, can’t – he’s in enemy territory; neither is the Roman consul Servilius willing to wait for warmer weather. He wants a military success before his term ends, and he is not overly worried about the Carthaginian army, thinking the weather is worse for the Africans than it is for the Romans. Hannibal, with his inferior numbers, plans to make good every tactical advantage he can, and to force the Romans to fight tired, hungry, and frozen to the bone. Romans and Carthaginians are encamped at opposite banks of the river Trebia.

Just before sunrise, Hannibal went on a walk around the camp with Maharbal. Several units still looked bleary, cursing the cold, but most were already at breakfast, and wherever Hannibal appeared, the men did their best not to cut a bad figure before their commander.

The Numidians were in the process of rubbing themselves with oil that Hasdrubal had distributed among them the previous night. They would cross the Trebia to draw out Sempronius, and bait him across the river. They were sitting around fires, huddled under blankets, and did their best to drown out their chattering teeth with the loudest and self-assured banter possible.

Warning: terrible proportions.

“The only g-g-good thing,” one of the men shouted to Hannibal and Maharbal, “is that the river c-c-can’t be any colder than the Alps!”

Hannibal grinned as he joined them at the fire. “I hate to tell you this, Gaia,” he said in Numidian. “But I’m afraid this’ll be colder. At least you’ll have something to do to get warmed up again this time.”

“Hurry up with your breakfast over there!” another man shouted to the Punic camp as he was pulling his chiton back over his head. “We’ll get you some Sempronius for afters!”

“No unnecessary heroics, Gulussa,” Hannibal warned. “Draw them out and get them to follow you into the river, but don’t let them get you.”

“No worries,” Gulussa replied. “They can’t get us, we’re too slippery.”

They all laughed, and Maharbal added, “Be careful not to slip off your horse, Gulussa.”

Maharbal turned away with a suppressed grin, and Gaia roared with laughter. “Too much information.”“I can’t!” the man chuckled. “I didn’t oil my thighs on purpose. That’s where my horse’ll keep me warm.”

Hannibal gave Gulussa a clap on the shoulder. “Think a few warm thoughts, but keep them to yourself. I’d like to keep my breakfast to myself, too.” He wiped his hand on his cloak. “Bah. Yes, I think the Romans won’t get you. Good luck.”

Mago’s victory report in Carthage

Livy reports that, after the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal’s brother Mago was sent home to Carthage to report of his brother’s great victory, pouring out “three pecks and half” of gold rings on the floor of the Carthaginian council. These rings had been taken from knights and senators who had fallen in the Battle of Cannae.

(Long historical rambling following. I had this thought today, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it voiced, so I need to pin it down before I forget it).

Usually, this gesture is seen as nothing but “Look at my bro’s awesomeness!” and its flourish is well enough in keeping with what we know of Hannibal’s general conduct, so that was most likely the overture. Mago then proceeds to demand support (money, grain and reinforcements) for his brother.

I actually think that the rings episode was one of Hannibal’s more brilliant ideas, and if anything could have worked, it was this. Alas, it didn’t, as so many other things after that time.

Why do I think there was more to it than a joyful victory report and a mandatory plea for reinforcements that was never implemented in a way that actually made a difference for the war?

Firstly, Livy says Hannibal did not send Mago straight away. The reason he gives is that some peoples in Italy had declared for Hannibal during that time, but there’s something else, something incredibly important, that happened in that time. Hannibal’s envoy he’d sent to Rome for negotiations was denied entry to the city. This must have been the instant in which Hannibal realised that his entire concept of the war threatened to collapse in itself. According to every rule of war in the Hellenistic world, Rome should have capitulated. It did not.

Secondly, Hannibal sent Mago. Perhaps his closest confidant after Maharbal. Granted, he couldn’t have known that Mago would never join him in Italy again; that the council would send him to Spain where he would never do much good. But the fact that it was Mago makes it clear that Hannibal wasn’t just reporting home. Mago had something important to say, something that Livy, in the speech he puts in Mago’s mouth, doesn’t record, but it’s highly likely that it was these three main points.

(I) My bro is awesome. Yes, there’s no way around that.

(II) These are the rings of senators. Old men in their fifties, who, as opposed to you, don’t sit in a council and debate on how many men to send where, who actually get on their horses or stand in ranks in a bloody field and die in their dozens.

(III) This is what we’re up against. We’re up against a nation whose very leaders bleed and die on the battlefields. A nation that, after its entire army has been annihilated. closes its city gates to peace talks. A nation that will not surrender unless it is crushed even more decisively than it already has.

And this is the point where we can’t really find fault with Carthage, or with Hannibal. Hannibal had played his hand. He saw affairs rather plainly. He might still hope to bring over Rome’s associates, and it’s highly likely that his successes in that regard fooled him and Carthage into believing it might be enough. But he knew that this Rome would not surrender in one battle. Had Carthage sent more men, it’s even possible he might have attempted a siege. But we can’t really fault Carthage for not sending as many as Hannibal would have needed (we’re talking at least another fifty to seventy thousand). Carthage could never have matched the insane numbers of soldiers that Rome sent into the field, and Carthage must have thought the very idea of it was completely insane, and that it had to be possible to win the war in another way.

Later, after the war, Hannibal’s political opponents put him on trial for not attacking Rome itself, and thereby losing the war. Hannibal defended himself by saying that Carthage itself had brought about its defeat by not sending him enough reinforcements. Both sides have been criticised – the council for leaving Hannibal hanging through ignorance or malice; Hannibal for originating such a stab-in-the-back-legend. The truth is that both acted as they had to. Hannibal probably had a clearer idea of the threat Rome posed – and its nature – than any of his contemporaries, while it would have been impossible for Carthage to grasp this idea. And even if they did grasp it, who can fault them for not resorting to the same means that their Roman counterparts employed?

Hannibal had been brought up far from Carthage, on his father’s Iberian campaigns. War was second nature to him, much more than to most other Carthaginians, and much more than any of the men sitting in council. In that, he probably understood Rome better than most of his fellow citizens. And he probably also understood this too – that he would not be able to make his fellow citizens see this, and act on his understanding.

You need to get that treated

In spring of 217, the year after Hannibal’s arrival in Italy, two new consuls are closing off the Apennine passes to stop Hannibal from leaving the north of the country. Hannibal has chosen an unguarded road, but due to flooding of the area round the river Arnus in Tuscany, his army is having a hard time getting to drier ground. Hannibal himself suffers from ophthalmia. Maharbal (right), the chief commander of his cavalry, has just returned from an extensive scouting mission.

Maharbal returned just before sundown. Despite the late hour, the men weren’t setting up camp, instead standing where they were, some sitting on their packs, trying to catch some rest until an officer walked by and shouted at them to get their gear out of the mud. Some were too tired to shout. The only dry places where a man might sleep were dead mules. Many of the remaining pack animals and horses were in a bad way, and the men weren’t looking any better.

He found Hannibal with Hanno and Mago at the rear of the column; the strategos wore a bandage around his head, covering the inflamed eye. He looked terrible, even the left eye reddened from lack of sleep. Syrus, the last surviving elephant, stood close by, looking almost unperturbed in all the misery around him, but his flanks were sunken, the small ears beating pointlessly at the flies and mosquitos.

“Ah, finally. How much further?” Hannibal asked as he saw Maharbal approach.

“Five to seven hours. Probably closer to seven,” Maharbal amended, dismounting.  “There’s a place called Faesulae ten miles ahead, but we found a few estates on dry ground close to the swamp. The town is small and far enough away not to bother us. My men are taking care of the estates. The barns are well-stocked, and there’s enough cattle to keep the army fed for a while. We ought to be able to rest there for a few days.” He cast Hannibal a beseeching look at these last words.

Hannibal nodded, apparently oblivious to the plea. “We’ll march in an hour. Mago, you stay with the rear. Hanno – ride up to the van and tell the men we’ll be on dry ground before dawn; that’s as much comfort as they’re going to get here. Take Sedoc with you, so he can tell the Celts as well. I’ll be coming after you on Syros.” He grimaced and rubbed his eye under the bandage, watching as his nephew mounted a bedraggled-looking horse and laboured his way up the column again. “You’ve been thorough?” Hannibal finally asked Maharbal, who was watching his friend with worry written across his face. “Any news on the consuls?”

“Thorough? You know me. – Hannibal, you need to get that treated.”

“I am getting that treated, but look around. – The consuls?”

Maharbal caught Mago’s look that said, How many times do you think I’ve told him that? “Servilius is still in Ariminum,” the cavalry commander reported at length. “A couple of men from Faesulae we captured yesterday are definite that Flaminius is still in Arretium – perched on the road to Rome like Iuppiter Stator in person and wondering when and where we’ll be crossing the Apennines.” He grinned. “Baal Hammon, I wish I could see his face when he finds us right in front of him.”

“Enemy scouts?” Hannibal wasn’t smiling, his voice clipped in pain.

“None. Not a horse’s tail in two days. It seems our friend Flaminius doesn’t believe in such Punic treachery as ambushes, or scouting. A fine, stout Roman. Bah.”

“Perfect. Servilius is completely out of touch and Flaminius isn’t expecting us. We need to make sure it stays that way. What have you found out about the terrain?”

“Bad terrain for cavalry. Hills and woods for at least twenty miles, beyond Arretium.”

“Bad for cavalry, but an ambush might work,” Mago said. “Especially against a commander who doesn’t do much scouting.”

Hannibal nodded. “We’ll see about that. Tell your scouts to keep their eyes open.” He cursed under his breath and vigorously rubbed at the bandage, his face contorting in pain.

“Once we’re out of here, a couple of days’ rest will fix that up.” Mago didn’t sound convinced in the slightest.

“I told you, I don’t have a couple of days,” Hannibal said, his voice raw. “You heard Maharbal. We know Flaminius is eager to meet us, and we want to draw him along before Servilius realises what’s happening. Flaminius will be happy to tackle us without his colleague – more laurels to him – but if Servilius gets wind of where we are, he’ll move. The terrain might allow us an ambush of one consular army, but not two. Any delay may well get us crushed between hammer and anvil. We can’t risk that. Not now. Not if we can take out one of them without much trouble.”

Maharbal exchanged a glance with Mago. Hannibal’s logic was impeccable, but the unspoken question was whether the defeat of Flaminius would come at the price of the strategos‘ eyesight. He didn’t dare to voice it.

Pencil version:

From the Alps to Metaurus

What’s a Hannibal obsession without a proper crossing-of-the-Alps picture? I have a large one in the works, but this scene begged to be done first. On their ninth day in the Alps, Hannibal hears loss reports over gruel. I’m working my way to the other important people in the story – the one bearing the bad news (and the curls) is Maharbal, Hannibal’s best officer and one of his closest friends. I was really fond of the pencil drawing; unfortunately, I wasn’t that happy with the colours, I’m glad I scanned it before colouring.

The colour job is here. I brings home the cold – but dear me, I managed to bring out every anatomical flaw with it. O_o

Loss reports and gruel

Today, I dedicated a picture to Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s younger brother, who was left behind to hold Spain, was beaten by the Romans, scrounged together the rest of his army and crossed the Pyrenees, the south of Gaul, and the Alps (with fewer losses than Hannibal), and sent messengers to Hannibal in the south of Italy, with plan on where to join forces.

The message was intercepted by Roman troops, and Hasdrubal was met by two consular armies at the river Metaurus. When he realised that all was lost, he rode straight into a Roman cohort and met his death in battle.

C. Claudius Nero, the Roman consul, had Hasdrubal’s corpse beheaded, and the head taken to Hannibal’s camp and thrown over the fence.

Fingon and Aredhel – mixed media experiment

I doodled a very nice Fingon and Aredhel into my sketchbook yesterday – with coloured pencil, which yielded some really charming results. I decided to try watercolour on top of those – only to realise that my coloured pencils were water soluble.

So I printed the sketches out on watercolour paper again, and got to work, spraying the entire paper with water and then laying down a Quinachridone Gold wash.

A bit of flesh-tint with Burnt Sienna and Madder Red.

Some Ultramarine for the shadows.

More reddish and bluish tints. I really like this effect. Maybe next time I try this technique, I won’t do it on a character with dark hair.

Painting the hair with Ultramarine, Madder, and rather a lot of Shadow Violet.

Some final touches with paint, and later some more with Polychromos and white gel pen.

 

Finished: