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Illogical-Lynx — Gandalf the Chopper Pilot
#army #bat #chopper #flyingfox #geek #gunship #helicopter #hind #mercenary #mi24 #military #nerd #pilot #rocket #smg #submachinegun #mat49 #rocketpod
Published: 2018-07-27 20:08:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 1097; Favourites: 32; Downloads: 0
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Description
The next character for my merc crew! This is their helicopter pilot, callsign "Gandalf". Tiny, shy and weak, he's simultaneously the least threatening and the most dangerous member, being in charge of the massive, armoured Mi-24 Hind-D gunship "Gwaihir". When it comes to technology, Gandalf is the smartest member of the team by miles and keeps all of their equipment in working order.
A massive nerd, when given the chance to choose his own callsign, Gandalf immediately picked the famous Wizard from his favourite fantasy novels. Not getting the reference, none of the other mercs thought to tell him how utterly inappropriate it was for a person like him.
Basic Info:
Callsign: Gandalf
Real Name: TBC
Sex: Male
Species: Fruit bat
Age: 17
Height: 1.4m
Weight: 46kgs
Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Pilot/Tech
Background: School Underachiever
Personality: Quiet, nerdy and socially awkward. Intense tunnel-vision focus on things he likes, indifferent to everything else. Wants to be considered "cool" and "tough" but blatantly isn't.
Physical Identifiers: Tiny. Has vestigial wing membranes between his upper arms and his chest. They generally fold up under his shirt.
Strengths: Very intelligent and able to learn new things quickly. Precise and dextrous with his hands. Able to focus very intently on a task for long periods of time.
Weaknesses: Physically weak. Apathetic and lazy towards anything he doesn't view as important. Shy and socially oblivious.
Weapons: MAT-49 SMG. Mi-24 Hind-D gunship "Gwaihir".
Other Talents: Repairing mechanical and electrical devices. Fast mental arithmetic. Has memorised the Dungeons and Dragons rulebook word-perfect.
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Comments: 22
Haha yeap! A mean piece of hardware if ever there was one!
I worried a bit that it was too much firepower, but Gandalf is useless on the ground so I figured it was only fair he make up for it in the air. I'll just have to contrive scenarios where the team can't just win everything by having Gandalf strafe the objective into oblivion.
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this looks pretty solid but your description doesn't match. He looks more feral then timid, and hes pose seems to indicate more confidence then shyness.
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Hmm, I don't think "shy" and "confident" are mutually exclusive. There are two reasons I say this.
Firstly, Gandalf is very much a nerd. Nerds are shy and awkward in social situations like being around bigger, stronger people. At the same time though, they have areas of interest that they're intensely passionate about and have confidence bordering on arrogance. For example, if you dropped Gandalf alone into a nightclub, he'd go and hide in the corner, but try and tell him that his fan theory on his favourite sci-fi series is wrong while his friends are with him and he'd laugh, call you a peasant and defend his opinion with vitriol. A nerd who thinks he's protected from the social consequences of his actions can be very confident and very annoying, like a teacher's pet.
In social settings, too, Gandalf would really like to be seen as a tough-guy even though he isn't. If he doesn't actually feel threatened, he puts up a very thin and ineffective façade of strength and confidence until someone challenges him. Once someone calls the bluff though, he doesn't really know what to do and backs down really quick though.
I think his eyes make him seem a lot more animalistic. I might change them to human style with white sclera, since I did that with some of the other characters in the setting.
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that is true but generally his characteristics as a shy person wont show unless its obvious or contrasted against a foil, same goes for his size compared to the helicopter hes actually a bit stockier then an average person, it could be because hes an anthro, but id suggest pulling the camera back or the chopper so you get a better sense of his size. Also you might want the action he is doing to reflect his character, rn it just looks like you found a decent pose and filled in the info afterwards(id suggest catching up on a new D and D book he could be behind on), him holding a gun leaning up on his helicopter doesn't really reflect his intellect or his disconnect from everything else since you mentioned his tunnel-vision, but he just looks like a ready to fly pilot who's very in touch with their surroundings
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Being shy an reserved is an interpersonal interaction, so I agree that you need a foil to show it against, but given the scope of this picture as a neutral, one character sorta, design reference, I don't think it's necessary to do that every single time. The chopper is his pride and joy so being in it or working on it is Gandalf at his highest point (no pun intended 
The gun itself is the major size cue in the picture. The MAT-49 submachinegun is quite a little compact weapon, but in his hands, it's almost rifle size. www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/6/6…
The rocket pod is another size cue, but hard to expect someone to know how large those are.
I don't know if showing more of the helicopter would have helped as a size cue because when I was drawing this, I had to go searching for references of how big a person standing next to a Mi-24 was. Maybe other people are more aware of how large aircraft are, but I'm often surprised at how big/small an aircraft is. The Mi-24 is actually smaller than I imagined: c2.staticflickr.com/4/3048/263…
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well if that's how you see it ig, it is yours
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Totally awesome, beautiful & epic!!
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Haha thanks very much! He's a cute little bastard, I'm really glad you like him!
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You're welcome!
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Huzza you finally finished and posted him! I must say it took me a long time to adjust to the name Gandalf since it's such an iconic character, but yea now it's starting to grow on me^^ especially the possibilities when he meets a fellow Lotr nerd and it becomes a epic NERDOFF
but yea absolutely fantastic job here! I really love the hard shadow of the gunship giving it a much more space and weight to the picture. The gunship itself looks really good with all the bolts and welding places all over it and that hint of rust colour scattered across it. you really hit the nail on the amount of textures used throughout on the drawing, it all looks perfectly in place (especially the ground) and adds soooo much to the whole scene.
So yea Gandalf himself looks to a really fun addition to the team who could bring some much-needed levity to all the hearth sacrifices and gunshootings 
-- After Razor has shot and mutilated himself through the gang and then proceeds to untie Gandalf in a separate room "Hi Razor nice to see you drop by! These captors where really nice guyes! " Then awkward silence "you didn't kill them all did you?"
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Just thinking a little further on that reaction from Razor, I think the logic would be that someone crossing him directly is a dominance challenge. He'd want to beat that person down to put them in their place but you don't get to be top of the pile if you kill everyone underneath you. Conversely someone attacking his friend, especially someone weak like Gandalf is acting like a predator and is not challenging him but trying to go behind his back to damage or take away something that he values. A dominance challenge is understandable, but someone trying to take his things or hurt his friends without going through him first is scum and just needs to be exterminated painfully as soon as possible.
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Haha yeah, I must admit I was a bit hesitant about that too. It's a name that sorta has to be thought of from the character's perspective to be understood and I was worried that would be too... meta I guess haha. I figure I'll add the backstory detail that the others kept calling him "a wizard" for fixing their kit before he joined up, which led his thinking that way too.
I've got a good strategy in place for ground now, I've been making a big area of dirt-like texture and then using distort/perspective tools to kinda, flatten it into the distance. The rust and rivets made a huge difference to the chopper too. It sounds real obvious, but I until someone mentioned it recently, I hadn't really considered that some colours actively cancel out other colours rather than just sitting on top of one another. I think the red rust really dulled down the green of the camo.
Haha yeah, I'd like to try something like that. Razor has fairly few morals but one of them is that you always look out for your guys. It's one thing to start something with Razor himself, but quite another to mess with his friends. The former gets someone sent to hospital, the latter gets them on the missing persons list.
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Yeah, he's a little shorty. Has to have a stack of cushions on his helicopter's seat so he can see over the dashboard.
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sounds like a comfy seat
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I'm curious. How do you come up with the names of the characters? I always have trouble just trying to make any name for my characters, but they end up sounding too childish or just plain dumb.
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Coming up with names is something I also find very difficult. It took me about two weeks to come up with Kyrophon's name, trawling through lists of ancient Greek names and trying to modify ones I liked. For fantasy settings, that's my usual method, I figure out roughly what ethnicity/culture the character is themed closest to and then search for "male/female [culture] names".
If it's a "normal" English name, it's hard to find one without any unwanted associations to real people.Often I just write whatever it is I'm writing with **** in place of the name and just try to keep an eye out for one that I think seems to fit, rather than specifically going searching.
I've had it a bit easier with this mercenary team I'm making since their callsigns are things they came up with for themselves. Being that none of them are literary geniuses, I can give them cheesy action-hero names and pass it off as something a gun-toting thug might think is cool.
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That's really cool. I've been very generic with names ever since I was young. This has been hard with two characters that I've been writing about and I'm trying to give them names that relate to their personalities and species, especially since one's a lion and one's a dragon, both are anthros. Thank you for the help. I really appreciate it.
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No problem.
I don't suppose you have Discord do you? A few friends and I have started up a server/room mainly for art and art related stuff with the aim of creating somewhere to post WIP's and discuss ideas about characters. At the moment there are only about 4-5 active people on there, but we're looking to add more people on an invite-only sorta basis. The guys there generally draw the same sorta stuff I do, military anthro, but anything goes, I post my fantasy stuff there too and random scribbles for other people.
If you'd be keen on joining, I'll get you an invite link, but no obligation if you don't want to.
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I have a Discord, but I haven't used it in a long while. However, I would be interested in joining in, if possible. I've wanted some criticism on some WIPs I've been working on in between my part-time job.
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Sweet, ok feel free to pop in. I think this link expires in 24 hours but once you're in, you can come back whenever. discord.gg/Dx5tft (updated link)
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