What is ACAD?

ACAD, very simply, stands for 'A Character A Day', a sketchbook challenge I set for myself several years ago. The basic idea was to design and draw an original character every day for a year - thus A Character A Day!

At the end of the first year I aimed to have 365 characters done and, to my amazement, I did! So I thought if I can do that, then I should challenge myself to another year of drawing, and see if I could do it again - and I did! Now, the ball was rolling, and 4718 characters later, this drawing challenge has become an integral part of who I am and, how I structure each and every day.

On top of the drawings themselves, I began to do write-ups about each character when I posted them on FaceBook. I don't remember what prompted me to begin those write-ups, but I do know that, to my surprise, I began to enjoy the writing almost as much as the drawing. In fact, I'll let you in on a secret - sometimes I enjoy the writing more than the drawing!

Seriously though, the combination of drawing and writing has been a powerful creative impetus and release for me.

Some rules about my ACADs: they must be original characters of my own design; I can't plan them in advance - I just have to sit down with sketchbook and begin to design; I can't use reference (although I've relaxed that a bit for certain images); and, if I start the final render, whether in tight pencils, or inks and colour, I must take it to the finish, whether I'm pleased with it or not.

Today, with a busier schedule, and more involved rendering challenges, I now intend A Character A Day to mean I work on it every day, which I do, and then finish a character every two days.

I hope you enjoy them. Onward to 5000!

Lysar

Slowly his massive head swivelled to face me. Behind him lay the corpses of my bodyguards, dispatched so quickly, so efficiently, so ruthlessly. Between us was nothing but empty space - the killing space if Lysar gazed there. But he wouldn't kill me yet. I had something he wanted, and I could prolong my life just a little bit longer if I bargained with him ...

His Voice Is Like A Storm

"Once there were horses. Once the bison herds had stretched from horizon to horizon. Once the world had a centre. No longer."

I met him very late in his life, long after the power of his youth, and the fame of of his war leadership had faded. I had been properly and respectfully introduced to him, and he had been told why I wanted to see him. But when I spoke to him he said nothing, turned away from me, and retreated to the far corner of the room, where he regarded me with a baleful eye. I knew better than to press the point, and began to converse amiably with Captain Collingham, as if I had not just been rebuffed. Several minutes of conversation ensued, in which I almost forgot the presence of the great man, when a rumble sounded from the corner. Then I knew why he had been so named.

"I will speak," he said. He had taken my measure while I talked to Collingham, and I'd been been found acceptable. "I will tell my story," he said. "Once there were horses ...

Zabrad

He began in a ravening storm, sweeping away an isolated outpost of the vermin man. But that did not satiate his fury, it only enflamed it. The crash of the masonry into the waves, the screams of the miserable insects flung to a watery grave only acted as a goad to the red, raging, all consuming anger that now propelled him towards the mainland. There he would sweep it all away, not just humanity itself, but all life, scouring the earth clean. Only with utter nihility could he be placated, and placated he must be!

Quarterstaff

He was the Training Master in the court of Udra, Lord Ardek of Illoden. His task was to take us through through martial sports, hand combat, and the use of edged weapons: daggers, swords, and the spear.

At first, we did't take him seriously. He was smaller than most of us, and had a voice like a squeaky frog. In fact, we used to call him Froggy behind his back ... until training began in earnest.

Weaponless, he would invite us to kill him, while we were armed with daggers, or short swords, and within seconds we would be down on the ground, his hand poised to deliver a killing blow to the neck. Armed with a long sword, or a spear, he would engage us with a puny quarterstaff that doubled as his walking stick. None of those combats ended in any other way than with the student disarmed, and covered in bruises.

We started by calling him Froggy, and ended by calling him Master.

The Witch Woman of Solca

For longer than anyone could remember she had lived in our village. Some went to her for potions and spells, but most gave her a wide berth. What manner of person was she? It wasn't her strange ways, and her muttered imprecations, but her physical being itself. How could her arms seem to emanate from a point on a hump higher than her head? And why was her forearm so short in comparison to her upper arm? We also only saw one foot as she shambled forward in her bizarre canter - was there another? But no-one dared wrench away her stinking garments to see what lay underneath ...

The Demeyanti Satyr

I could smell it before I saw it, and I didn't like what I smelled. When I saw it, I liked it even less. So, I stepped back one, two steps. It matched them, and with its long legs it drew closer to me. I stepped to my right, hoping to slip into laurel trees that bordered the path, but the creature motioned threateningly with its left arm, and I knew better than to go further.

For a moment neither of us moved. Then, I turned and bolted back and to the left, toward the high bluffs over the Pamisos River. If I could reach those bluffs I might have a chance ...

The Galaxy Maker

Before the galaxies, she was. But now she dipped her hand in the primordial material of the Universe, and between her fingers streamed star stuff, and from that the galaxies were birthed in all their wonder, and their multiplicity, and their mystery. Oh, I know that is not what our latest science teaches us, and I do not even disagree with that science, but I will say this. I was there in that beginning time, and when it was done I held her hand, and I hold it still, and my only purpose in this life is to re-unite with her - the truth that transcends all life, and even death itself ...

Black Dog

It radiated. There was a heat, and a smell. Neither were organic, as I understood the word, but neither were they mechanical. They were unique to the creature, and uniquely repulsive. I struggled to contain my vomit.

It made no sound, nor moved to menace me, yet my flesh literally crawled in ripples and spasms of fear and disgust. I knew I must move, yet was frozen in place. Then a sound began to grow in the creature ...

Taine

With a golden amulet he once possessed in real life Taine protected us as we fled the ruins of Sorby. With that amulet he sped our ship underneath us like a vessel of the Gods. With that amulet he protected us from the foul creatures that lurk in the sea, and healed our wounded, and renewed hope in our hearts. And I knew it was Taine, my brother, though his helm and aspect were different, for such happens to those who ascend to Valhalla, because he held the golden amulet I had given him in life, the mark of our love, and a bond that could never be broken.