You've seen this guy before, in my illustrations for "The Flame of Iridar," where he shows up as "Bram," the hero's friend and mentor. Bram/Barak/Big Bob has nothing to do with another "Barack." But when it comes to fighting with the axe and the longsword, Barak is your man. He comes from a pseudo-Viking background where he is a nobleman, so to speak. In the Eddings tale he also has the option to go "berserk" and turn into a bear, and in this animal state he at one point saves the young king's life.
In Eddings' "Belgariad" series and its sequel, the Prophecy (required in epic fantasy, please fill out all the asterisked spaces) specifies a set of archetypal characters which must come together to fulfill its needs. By the time you get into the second Belgariad series the number of required characters, each with an epithet, runs into the double digits. I was going to do a portrait for each one of them, but I ran out of time.
This image was borrowed from an old pirate movie, there's no penalty for lifting images from older media as long as you change enough to make it your own work.
"Barak, the Dreadful Bear" is colored pencil and a bit of ink on Bristol board, 7 1/2" x 10", February 1993.
2 comments:
I'm pretty sure he was my favourite character. :)
This is very nice, you CAN do people and do them well! You just need to remember what you used to do and do it again! This is a great illustration!
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