Orc Studies from World of Warcraft - Pencil sketching to Build a Visual Library
World of Warcraft orc studies (pencil sketches)
It’s been a little while since I sat down and drew anything I was happy with, but also a while since I studied anything efficiently to make progress on my art journey. So me drawing some WoW orcs had two main goals.
Goal 1: To make myself actually draw something. I’m one of those people that spends all day wanting to draw and improve my skills, complaining that I just don’t get the time. But when I do have the time, I seem to look for any excuse to put it off, and find myself procrastinating or doing basically anything else other than drawing.
I often find if I sit down to draw I start by asking myself ‘So what am I actually going to draw?’ I don’t often do studies or copies of pre-existing designs because I don’t feel like I learn enough, or never have anything original to show at the end of it, which leads me to not drawing anything at all. So this time I told myself I was going to start simple, draw something cool that I enjoy, no excuses, which in the case was World of Warcraft style orcs.
Goal 2: Seeing as I had decided on something I was in the mood for drawing (Warcraft Orcs), I next wanted to get something out of it. You could argue copying without intent could improve your hand control with a pencil, or whatever medium you want to use. But I wanted a little more than that, to work towards something. For me this meant building my visual library and trying to understand how to achieve that classic Blizzard art style look.
Basically I wanted to draw some cool WoW orcs, but copying alone wasn’t enough, so if I could consciously try to remember elements of the designs, features and shapes that stood out to me. I could implement these in my creature designs in the future, taking what I have learned and put it into practice. My intent was to actually put all the elements together to create something for this post / video, but I ran out of time, but I hope to still do this soon to solidify the information (not giving myself enough time to use what I learnt soon after is generally a bad idea, it needs to be put into practice pretty soon after for maximum benefit)
Plus, if I’m being honest, I also thought it would make a cool YouTube video, which you can see below ( heck it’s always nice to have some video content ideas!).
World of Warcraft art books and reference
If you have already watched the video above, you will probably know that the reference I used for these studies was a range of World of Warcraft books. If you haven’t checked the video out yet, and want to see what’s inside, I recommend the video above. But here is a quick breakdown of the books I had to hand. It’s worth noting, there are lots of other Art of World of Warcraft books for each expansion such as: The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Shadowlands and many more..but i don’t own any of those so I couldn’t use them!
The art of World of Warcraft: This one is pretty OG by this point, they’ve even released a newer version since this one with a griffin on the cover. Some images are reformatted / different size and it has a couple of extra pages for one of the expansions, but overall it’s very similar. In short though, this is mainly concept art with a few digital models in there, all from the base game. This one contains a decent amount of orc reference you will likely have come across before, but with an equal amount of content for the other factions such as humans, gnomes, dark elves.. etc. Like most video game art books it also contains lots of environmental art work, weapon designs and some cinematic storyboards.
World of Warcraft Ultimate Visual Guide: This is the second edition of the book that I have here, published by DK. This one is a decent book for someone like me that doesn’t actually know that much about Wow. It aims to give you information and stories, accompanied by images. Again this is full of concept art, finished renders and digital models. The images range in size from some taking up a full page, and others unfortunately being small thumbnails accompanying text. Like the above, whilst it does have lots of orcs in here, it has as much for every other faction and aspect of World of Warcraft, as this book aims to give a general overview of everything.
Warcraft Behind the Dark Portal: This one is the book that was made for the Warcraft movie, and is intended more of a behind the scenes / making of the movie. But as you can imagine that contains a decent amount of art ( really high quality too ) and lots of cg models and movie stills that show the orcs in great detail. One half of the book is dedicated to the Horde Alliance and the other half to the Horde. I was surprised by how good the reference is in this one.
I have attached some images below of the books, which contain affiliate links if you click the product, which helps support me at no extra cost.
The Art of World of Warcraft original book
World of Warcraft Ultimate Visual Guide
Warcraft Behind the Dark Portal making of book
Sketches and Studies
Orcs 1 & 2: To my knowledge the first orc here is not named / a well known character in Wow but rather a general orc design that is quite recognisable in any Wow content, but feel free to correct me, as my knowledge is limited. The second one on the other hand is Garrosh Hellscream, a names character from the game.
Honestly these first 2 were my least favourite. Let’s put it down to warming up. There isn’t much to say about these ones, but the front view of Garrosh was surprisingly the most difficult to get right. I think it’s down to the difficulty of getting symmetry of the face and feature.
Orc 1: unnamed character? this one appeared in most of the books and was early orc conept art
Orc 2 (Garrosh Hellscream: a ‘head on’ or ‘front view’ portrait which I found difficult
Orc 3 & 4 (Garrosh Hellscream): Another design from the art of World of Warcraft original book. This one was probably my favourite design, it’s features stood out as being a little different than generic designs to me. Sure he still has the big bottom lip, the deep brow line with an angry expression, but the hair, beard, tattoo and general gtittiness all added more to this character, especially the damage to one of his eyes.
Orc 4 was another attempt at Garrosh Hellscream, this time from a different angle. I wanted to draw this one because of the aggressive expression, mouth open, teeth showing, ready to attack! This one turned out much better than the head on view from earlier. Again, noticing a lot of similar themes by this stage with the noses, eyes, brows, ears, teeth and jaw. They even reminded me a little bit of my favourite artsits work Joe Made, which I talk about in the video.
Orc 3: unnamed character but definitely one of the best character designs
Orc 4 Garrosh Hellscream: this time a more succesful attempt at a roaring ¾ angle view of Garrosh
Orcs 5 & 6 (Gul’dan): This design was another super cool one, this time of the legendary orc Gul’dan. The Warlock / shaman looking design with the hood and runes gave magic vibes and helped mix things up a little. I thought it would be easier to draw the head whilst it was half covered by a hood - I’m not really sure that was the case though.
Again, huge fangs and tusks with a snarling nose and an evil look really gives this character...well, character. Plus the half hidden in shadow look worked out pretty menacing. I couldn’t help but think this kind of set up would make for an awesome sticker design of a generic fantasy orc.
Orc 5 (Gul’dan): a hooded ¾ angle with some really neat design elements
Orc 6: Possibly Gul’dan again, effective use of shadows on the face from the hood
Traditional mediums - materials used
Artists often ask other artists what materials they used, even when we all know it doesn’t really matter ( I’m very guilty of this) so for those wondering, I used :
Pentel Graphgear mechanical pencil 0.5: There are a few different types of Pentel Graphgear pencils now, but these ones are still my favourite. They come in a range of sizes from 0.3 leads to at least 0.9. I tend to prefer the thinner leads at 0.3 - 0.5, but it’s personal preference. Graphite lead used.
Cheap generic sketchbook: The one I have here is an A4 sizes home brand type from Jacksons art shop here in the UK. I know other art shops like Hobbycraft sell them too, and I would imagine it’s the same in most art stores around the world. They tend to be about 20 sheets / 40 pages, with a little tooth / texture to the paper, usually slightly off white.
I have linked some products below (affiliate links to support the channel at no extra cost)
Pentel graphgear mechanical pencils in a range of 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 graphite leads
Home brand 20-30 page sketchbook with a little texture to it.
Final thoughts and next steps
Overall I am actually pretty happy with the way some of these came out. If you compare them side by side I am sure you could pull them apart, but without the original reference image next to them, I was pleased with them. That being said I can’t exactly take much credit because the designs are not mine, these are just studies or copies.
To actually benefit from this work I need to get my butt in gear and start drawing some more orcs, this time without sticking too strictly to the reference, For example, working from imagination to create some generic orc heads from various angles whilst keeping in mind some of the things I have learnt whilst studying this style of orc (think shapes, exaggerated features, patterns I noticed throughout each design, things that generally make an orc, an orc).
As mentioned previously though, part of this exercise was also just to get me drawing no matter what it is I was drawing, it’s better than not drawing at all.
I talked about the problem I have with time management, motivation and procrastinating in the video for this blog (give it a watch, I think you will enjoyt it) and a few people commented that they have the same issue with actually making themself work and not prioritising other none important jobs above their drawing schedule, asking if I could make a video on this, and my opinion on how to break this habit. So hopefully there is enough interest for me to create more content around this subject moving forward.
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