posted
This is my depiction of Medea, a mythical princess and enchantress from the kingdom of Colchis in the western Caucasus (where there now lies the modern country of Georgia). Gifted with prophetic abilitiy, Medea helped the Greek hero Jason of the Argonauts obtain the Golden Fleece and became his wife.
However, a later tragic drama by the playwright Euripides portray Medea and Jason’s relationship as ending unhappily, with her murdering their two sons after Jason abandoned her for the princess of Corinth (whom Medea murders as well, along with her father). Taking refuge in Athens, Medea marries their ruler Aegeus, but he then has her cast out after she tried to poison his son Theseus.
Despite Colchis’s Caucasian location, the Greek historian Herodotus proposed that its people came from Egypt on account of their relatively dark skin and some shared cultural practices (e.g. weaving techniques and ritual circumcision). I am not aware of any harder evidence for a connection between the Colchians and Egypt or any other African country, but his conjecture did inspire me to give Medea a rich honey-brown complexion.
posted
This is my portrait of Hagar, an enslaved woman of Egyptian descent who appears in Chapter 16 of the biblical Book of Genesis. She belonged to the patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarai, the latter of whom had Hagar act as a surrogate mother since she could not conceive a child herself. However, Sarai and Hagar did not get along, causing Hagar to flee into the wilderness. There, a messenger of Yahweh (the biblical God) told her to return to her owners and put up with their abuse, but then bear them a son named Ishmael who would be “a wild ass of a man”. Not my preferred form of divine justice, honestly speaking, but I suppose burdening your owners with an unruly child would be better than nothing.
I don’t know for certain what sort of clothing an enslaved Egyptian person serving Hebrew owners would wear, but here I went with more-or-less Hebrew-style clothing with an Egyptian color palette (blue and gold).
posted
Under the sea during the Late Cretaceous Period, around 66 million years ago, Mosasaurus hoffmannii pursues an ammonite for lunch. Stretching between thirty and sixty feet in length, this massive predatory sea lizard would have most likely been the apex predator of the Late Cretaceous oceans. Its closest living relatives would be snakes and monitor lizards such as the Komodo dragon.
If you’re wondering what those pink things with the tentacles in the lower right corner are, they are rudists, an order of molluscs that would have dominated reefs during the Cretaceous Period. They died out approximately at the same time as the mosasaurs and the non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Mesozoic Era.
posted
I want to share some of the references I used for creating my portrait of the mythical princess/enchantress Medea of Colchis. Authentic artifacts from ancient Colchis are not easy to come by online, but what I was able to find include a gold piece from a headdress, a gold necklace with turtle pendants, and a coin depicting a Colchian person who appears to be wearing cornrows (a type of braided hairstyle commonly associated with both African and Aegean cultures).
posted
Queen Kassi was the wife of the Malian Mansa Suleyman (r. 1341-1360 AD), who like most Malian queens would have shared power with her husband. Although Kassi enjoyed substantial popularity with the nobility of the royal court, her husband divorced her to pursue a relationship and then marriage with a commoner named Bendjou. Understandably incensed by both her loss of power and her husband’s infidelity, Kassi and her supporters instigated a civil war by revolting around 1352, although Suleyman and his faction ended up winning. It goes to show you, however, that hell hath no wrath like a spouse scorned (or cheated on).
posted
I wanted to make the subject of this drawing look like a classical marble bust. I’ve often seen White supremacists and politically adjacent “traditionalists” point to old marble sculptures as evidence of the superiority of “Western” (read European) civilization, or perhaps as a symbol of how great that civilization used to be before the onset of “modernity” (as in the pre-socially progressive era), so I wanted to see how an African woman would look as the subject of one of those marble busts.
posted
This is a character concept that came to me in a dream. I don’t have a whole story or even a name for her yet, but she’s essentially a traveling sellsword from Egypt (or a fantasy world’s equivalent thereof) who has made her way to imperial (pseudo-) China. I have to say that combining Egyptian and Chinese motifs was fun, if a bit challenging at the same time.
posted
Perucetus colossus was an early whale of the basilosaurid family that swam in the oceans of the Eocene epoch between 39 and 37 million years ago. The study describing it estimated its weight as ranging between 94 and 375 tons, which would make it the most massive animal to have ever lived (for comparison, the modern blue whale has a maximum weight under 220 tons). So far, however, only parts of its rib cage and spinal column as well as vestigal hips have been found.
posted
I did this sketchbook doodle while on a trip to the Channel Islands off the coast of California. It depicts one of the pygmy mammoths (Mammuthus exilis) that used to roam the islands, with a Paleoindian huntress standing next to it for comparison. I wanted the woman to represent the ancestors of the Chumash people who had settled on the Channel Islands in pre-Columbian times, but I didn’t have a reference handy (cell-phone reception on the boat and the island we went to was not great), so I admit her costume may not be that culturally accurate.
posted
This is a moment of intimacy between the leading man and lady of my historical-fiction novelette "The Slave Prince of Zimbabwe". The man here is Drazhan Khazanov, a native of the medieval Eastern European country of Ruthenia who is brought in chains to southern Africa under the ownership of the Swahili sultan of Kilwa. Drazhan ends up teaming up with Ruvarashe, the Mambokadzi (Queen) of Zimbabwe (who is the woman in this picture), against his former master, who in turn has the might of Song Dynasty China to back him up!
I have to say that Drazhan and Ruva are among my favorite couples I’ve ever created for a story.
posted
This is my interpretation of Katara, the leading lady from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Although her water-bending culture drew heavy inspiration from Inuit and Native American cultures, I feel that her people’s combination of darker skin and blue eyes makes them look like Mesolithic inhabitants of western Europe after the last ice age, so that is how I chose to depict her.
posted
We’re all familiar with the science fiction scenario about cloning dinosaurs from fossils for a zoo. But what if we went back in time and visited them in their native habitats instead? Of course, we’d probably be viewing them from the safety of an airborne vehicle, unless someone really wanted to get close to the animals.
posted
This is a map I made for my next novel-in-progress, which I am calling "Nyanja and the Starborn Terror" for the time being. It's a prehistoric fantasy novel set in a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist, with the main human culture (the Abanti) being loosely based on the Proto-Bantu cultures of ancient West/Central Africa.
As you can see, the geography of this map draws inspiration from the area straddling modern Nigeria and Cameroon. At this point in the world's history, the Abanti peoples all live in small, autonomous villages along the Nzadi River. They practice horticulture alongside hunting and fishing for subsistence, but have not yet developed metallurgic technology.
posted
For "Throwback Thursday" this week, I wanted to share a triplet of drawings of women from predynastic Egypt that I did back in 2018. IMHO, the predynastic is among the most underrated periods of ancient Egyptian history.
posted
Went on another family trip this weekend, and these are the doodles I did!
This is my portrayal of a woman from the Neolithic village of Nea Nikomedeia in the region of Macedonia, which dates to around 6250 to 6050 BC. As a Neolithic farming culture, the people of Nea Nikomedeia would have grown crops like wheat and barley and raised livestock such as sheeop, goats, pigs, and cattle. Despite their sedentary and agricultural lifestyle, they would not have developed metal tools yet.
Like most Neolithic farmers in southern Europe, these villagers would have traced most of their ancestry to migrants from the Anatolian peninsula (modern Turkey). However, some physical anthropologists such as J. Lawrence Angel have remarked on the people of Nea Nikomedeia’s skeletal remains as showing some physical traits indicative of African ancestry, which might suggest admixture with North African peoples.
I drew both of these female faces on one sheet of sketchbook paper. The woman to the upper right is a prehistoric Native American wearing the fangs of a saber-toothed cat on her necklace, whereas the woman to the lower left is a modern African-American with sunglasses.
I always thought the combination of black trench coats and sunglasses looked cool (you can credit the Matrix films for that, so here’s a sketchbook doodle of a beautiful woman in such getup.
Gojira, the infamous King of the Monsters, lets out a devastating blast of atomic breath from his maw!
This ancient Egyptian woman with dreads hanging from one side was inspired by Senna from the game League of Legends.
posted
This Otodus megalodon is munching on the leg of an early elephant it has caught swimming offshore. O. megalodon was a giant shark that swam in the oceans between 23 and 3.6 million years ago, during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs. Stretching anywhere between 50 and 67 feet in length, it was likely the marine apex predator of its time.
posted
This is a quick little photo-manipulation I did in Photoshop. The base was an ancient marble bust of the king Juba I of ancient Numidia, but the facial expression comes from the rapper Xzibit and I added the colors myself.
posted
Out on the grassy plains of West Africa, this huntress is aiming her arrow with her loyal hyena standing behind her.
I didn’t have a particular culture in mind when designing the character, but if I had to pick one for her post hoc, she would be an ancestress to Mandé peoples like the Soninke and Mandinka who would later found empires like Wagadou (or old Ghana) and Mali.
posted
This is a commission I did for a recurring client, who wanted me to draw a woman from ancient North Africa in her early fifties. This woman would actually be the mother to another character of the client’s creation named Malika.
posted
Thirteen thousand years ago on the wintry plains of Pleistocene North America, this Paleo-Native American hunting party is going up against a lone bull woolly mammoth!
Given that prehistoric humans attacking mammoths or other elephants is one of the most enduring tropes of paleoart, it would be remiss of me not to do my own spin on it.
posted
This started out as a simple illustration of a prehistoric jungle girl climbing up some branches emerging from the jungle canopy. To give her a more specific identity, I modeled her knife after the distinctively elongated stone blades of the Lupemban industry, a Middle Stone Age lithic industry that spread across the Congo Basin in central Africa over 265,000 years ago. The people behind this culture would have been either early Homo sapiens or a related hominin species.
posted
This Aboriginal Australian hunter is wielding a special type of throwing stick best known today as a boomerang. Having become iconic for Australia and its indigenous cultures, boomerangs are famous for flying back to their owner after being thrown, but only a minority of Aboriginal boomerangs would have actually possessed this aerodynamic ability. Nonetheless, whether returning or not, boomerangs would have been useful not only for hunting game such as birds and marsupials, but also as weapons of war and digging sticks.
posted
Deep in the rainforests of Central Africa around 265,000 years ago, this huntress from the Lupemban culture is leaping down with her knife drawn for the kill!
posted
Somewhere in the South Pacific in ancient times, this Melanesian huntress must defend her island home from the wrath of Gojira, King of Monsters, with a rudimentary ballista!
posted
This portrait is a birthday gift I did for my friend Punos Rey which represents him as a general from ancient Carthage in North Africa, since he has an interest in pan-African history.
posted
This is Anyango, the leading lady from my short story “The Raid on Camp Struthers”, which takes place in the protectorate of British East Africa around 1896 AD. She has become the queen regent of the Sibour nation (whom I based on the Luo people from the region), for the British colonial authorities has arrested her brother the king for refusing to pay their oppressive taxes and are holding him hostage at a place called Camp Struthers. When Anyango accosts the American diamond prospector Jack Erwin for trespassing in her people’s territory, he offers to help her free her brother from the British in exchange for her sparing him.
posted
Meet Jack Erwin, the leading man from my (short story “The Raid on Camp Struthers” which takes place around 1896 AD (right now it is awaiting revision). Hailing from a struggling family in rural Kansas, Jack has spent an arm and a leg venturing to the colonial protectorate of British East Africa in search of diamond wealth. After the local warrior queen Anyango accosts him for trespassing and stealing from her people, Jack offers to help her rescue her brother from imprisonment by a British colonial garrison to redeem himself in her eyes.
posted
This is Col. William Struthers, who is the antagonist of my short story “The Raid on Camp Struthers” which takes place around 1896 AD. Overseeing a colonial garrison in the protectorate of British East Africa (the titular camp being named after his family), Col. Struthers has captured and imprisoned King Oburu of the local Sibour people for refusing to pay the colonial regime’s oppressive taxes. It is up to Oburu’s sister Anyango, together with the American diamond prospector Jack Erwin, to free him from Struthers and his men’s clutches.
posted
This is my portrait of Twosret (or Tausret), the last Pharaoh of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty, who reigned between 1191 and 1189 BC. At first she was the second royal wife of Seti II, but after her husband died, she become regent for their stepson Siptah, who in turn passed away at age sixteen after a brief reign of only six years. This tragic development would have promoted Twosret to become another one of Egypt’s female Pharaohs.
However, Twosret’s reign as queen regnant proved even shorter than her stepson’s, ending with a civil war that led to a man named Setnakhte seizing power and founding the Twentieth Dynasty. Setnakhte and his son Ramses III would later describe the dynasty before them as ending in chaos and even went so far as to omit Twosret and Siptah from official kings’ lists to deny their reigns’ legitimacy.
posted
This is a scimitar-wielding Moorish maiden I designed for the sheer fun of it. It’s not supposed to be a historically accurate design, which is honestly a shame, since I really like how she came out!
posted
Diplodocus carnegii was a sauropod dinosaur that roamed the savannas of North America during the Late Jurassic Period, between 154 and 152 million years ago. It was related to the more famous Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus with whom it would have coexisted, yet had a significantly lighter build, weighing little more than sixteen tons. Nonetheless, Diplodocus is among the longest dinosaurs known from a complete skeleton, stretching up to 85 feet from head to tail.
posted
This is a map I made of what medieval Britain might look like if the Islamic Moors were to expand beyond their Iberian holdings and conquer it (along with France and Ireland) in the mid-8th century AD. I have to admit that I'm not 100% confident about some of the place names here, since I obtained most of them from Googling "Arabic word for X". Sorry, Arabic is not a language I know.
One thing I did learn, however, is that "Majus" was the Arabic term for the Vikings.
posted
I was fond enough of my earlier “Moorish Maiden” character design that I did a second, full-body version of her. I think I will name her Halawa.
By the way, the tiled background is also of my own design, inspired by the geometric patterns prevalent in Islamic art.
posted
While traveling deep in the forests of Al-Biritania, the Moorish princess Halawa ibnat Omar has stumbled upon a vicious fire-breathing dragon!
This is an illustration I did for another one of my short stories, which I would describe as a cross between fantasy and alternate history. It takes place in a version of early medieval Britain that the Moors from North Africa have conquered and made into the Sultanate of Al-Biritania. Halawa here is searching for an ancient treasure she believes will heal her ailing father the Sultan, and the dragon is one of the obstacles she will face on her quest!
posted
150 million years ago on the ferny savannas of Late Jurassic North America, two Allosaurus fragilis squabble over territory. Far overhead the battling dinosaurs soars the pterosaur Harpactognathus gentryii.
posted
This female Homo bodoensis, who represents the hominin species hypothesized to be the immediate ancestors of modern Homo sapiens, is throwing a spear while charging at her prey. Both the spear’s stone point and the knife she has strapped to her left thigh would have been fashioned using the Levallois knapping technique which was characteristic of tools made during the Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Stone Age) circa 300,000 years ago.
posted
This would be a female of the species Homo neanderthalensis which roamed Europe and western Asia between 430,000 and 40,000 years ago. The blond hair is speculative, but any form of light pigmentation in either hair or skin makes sense to me for a hominin species adapted to the northern European environment.
posted
40,000 years ago on the grassy steppes of Pleistocene Europe, a Neanderthal trader plies some exquisite furs of his to an Aurignacian (Homo sapiens) couple. Although modern humans like the Aurignacians would end up displacing the Neanderthals in Europe, some peaceful interactions between the two hominin lineages must have taken place, especially considering the genetic evidence for interbreeding between them in Eurasia.
posted
Toussaint Louverture, champion of the Haitian Revolution, must defend the freedom of his people from the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte! In case it isn’t clear, Toussaint is the dude riding the T. rex and Napoleon is the one on the woolly mammoth.
In real history, although Napoleon never invaded Haiti himself, he did send a punitive force to capture Toussaint and enslave the Haitians all over again. The general leading this force, Charles Leclerc, did succeed in catching Toussaint and deporting him to the French Alps, but Haitian freedom fighters were nonetheless able to drive off the French over the course of a year.
posted
Meditating your way to enlightenment is hard and energy-intensive work, as Buddha knows all too well.
This is not meant to be historically accurate, by the way. For example, I doubt Buddha, if he was real at all, wore his hair in an Afro bun. However, given how many Buddhist sculptures depict him with what appears to be such a hairstyle, that’s the look I wanted him to have.
posted
Captain Jack Sparrow, accompanied by a local guide (who happens to be doubling as his inamorata of the moment), is probing the ruins on the legendary Skull Island for treasure. But they are about to have some unwelcome company join them, and it’s the kind of company that prefers fresh and bloody meat to a bottle of rum.
In all honesty, even though it’s only the very first Pirates of the Caribbean movie that I would consider all that good, I must admit I’d love to see the next film in the franchise have the premise illustrated here. Skull-themed islands are already ubiquitous in pirate-themed media, and if you were to cross that over with the alternate trope of the “skull island” as a lost world with dinosaurs and ancient ruins, then you’d have an adventure worthy of Captain Jack and his crew.
I don’t necessarily think it likely that such a film will ever come to fruition, though. As hard as it to imagine anyone replacing Johnny Depp as Sparrow, he has grown a bit old for the role of the daring swashbuckler even if we disregard how divisive a figure he has became thanks to the whole drama with his ex-wife (which I haven’t really followed and therefore can’t give you an informed verdict on). Still, I can see him voice-acting his character for an animated film, and we all know how Disney does better with animation than live action on average anyway.
If you’re wondering which interpretation of Skull Island I’m going for here, it’s my own, albeit inspired most by the version in Peter Jackson’s 2005 King Kong remake.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic