Tembe - Summoned By The Chief

Dated 04/06/2011

It is the indisputable right of the great Chief Tembe to summon any member of his tribe without question, at any time... for any purpose...

(Alternative version with musk available [link] )

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Introducing new character Number Three... Chief Tembe.

I'm an absolute sucker for the tribal theme but have never truly indulged myself in creating a character to fit, and of the many major animal groupings, it had struck me that I had never drawn a feline character. I felt it was about time to address both of those issues, and I also wanted to make another character with an element of authority, so I decided to create a new lion character in the mould of a tribal chief or a leader of a lost civilisation.

I also wanted to give him a vaguely Africanised name - and not one used in The Lion King(!) - so for a while I researched real African names to find one which might actually translate as something appropriate. In the end however, I became rather enamoured with the phonetics of 'Tembe' (pronounced Tem-bay), which I believe is actually a National Park in South Africa!

Having conceived of the character, I began sketching some designs back in April before coming up with this drawing. As mentioned previously, I know absolutely nothing about costume design - or indeed tribal cultures - so the various trinkets and items of clothing were very much the product of improvisation. Some of it was partly researched; the loincloth for example, which is more representative of a certain design of breechcloth that I discovered, whilst the spear is partly inspired by the Zulu 'iklwa'. Meanwhile I decided I wanted a really simple design for the sandals with nothing between the toes or around the ankle, purely because I liked the look of it. In any case, much like Seb, I would most likely intend on varying the costume and accessories from picture to picture.

Looking back on this drawing, the anatomy is rather dodgy. Aside from a general lopsidedness and peculiar positioning of the legs, I was rather irritated once having begun colouring the picture that I hadn't previously noticed the curious sense of proportional bias towards one side of the body which, when mirrored, is quite obvious. As with the Seb picture though, I felt going back and drawing it again was pretty excessive by this point and decided to stick with it. I find it's often the case though that my colouring makes up for bad linework, so it is probably of little consequence anyway!

What perhaps surprised me most about this picture was the background. I knew I needed a proper setting to suit the character and had something of an image in my head, but it was very vague and I had absolutely no idea how to go about it. I started off using my tablet to sketch out the throne and the stone blocks (which admittedly are rather more Aztec than tribal African, but I wanted them anyway) but I hadn't really got a clue what I was doing. Even when I'd managed to tidy them up and make them look good, I was then baffled about how to draw the plants. In the end I slapped some vaguely jungle-like green shapes down and then applied some layers of dark and light on them, and I couldn't believe how well it came out. Considering I was just making it up as I went along, I think it's probably one of the best backgrounds I've ever done!

Whilst I haven't started any other pictures involving Tembe as yet, I do have a number of ideas in mind which might simply be a matter of time before I get them done - aside from using this character alone, part of the fun of said African theme is the potential involvement of Hux, though I haven't decided upon anything yet. In the meantime, feel free to gaze upon yonder lion!


RRRex