Character Art

It occurred to me today to post some slightly older work (relatively speaking).  This is the kind of work I sometimes gravitate toward when I have time to do what I like, free of class assignments or particularly directed projects or commissions.  They're essentially character drawings, aimed at a very simple and straightforward portrayal of a character, giving some basic information about them and their context.

These were conceived of by friends of mine for a fairly traditional fantasy-type setting.  Explaining each one would take paragraphs, so I'll just leave it at that.
Though, it is interesting to think about what I take for granted, knowing a lot of "nerd-culture" as I do; there's a sort of visual language in some character art for video games, comics, etc.  I tend to only notice this when I take a chance and show these character designs to people who aren't very familiar with that visual language.  It's only when I get questions like "why is her hair green?" and "why is that sword so wildly impractical in design?" that I remember that I've been taught to read and portray characters a certain way.

Fabian here is fun for me to draw when I just want to unwind.  Mostly because I like playing with his hair.  But also because his flamboyant personality lends itself to a good range of poses and expressions.  But mostly the hair thing.

I suppose a good example of my inspiration for these types of drawings would be the official character art from the Fire Emblem game series (a turn-based strategy series of games, the plots of which tend to be very character-driven).

Maybe I'm giving to much significance to these images, but I've always found something really beautiful in the work on these characters in particular.