meeting doodles

A few random doodles that I did during a meeting. I really like how the blue space marine turned out, he looks cool.

Hypno Primate

He will hypnotise you and then steal all of your bannanas!

Manna

I wander in the desert Between captivity and the Promised Land And there is manna for me Bread that comes each day from heaven I go each morning to collect it And although sometimes I can only carry a very little, I find upon my return that It has been enough to get me through the day.

vine song

I hope that maybe Leo,matt and people can build on this a bit Chords available on request, feel free to add comments Words are Lying here on the ground covered in dust and earth the most delicious part of me that you have brought to birth Growing here on the floor covered in cobwebs and muck But you have come to wash me, come to lift me up For you have come to cut me to cut me close to you For all your ways are perfect and all your words are true

The Pig Who Wasn't

Once upon a time there was a pig who did not like being a pig.
Every day he would walk down to a still pond and study his reflection in the muddy water before the other animals spoiled the smooth surface with their drinking.
“ I look like a big fat pig!” he would say to himself. And he would turn away from the water disgusted and stump back up the little hill to the farmyard where he lived.

All day long he would avoid spending time with his brothers. “Let them root and grunt and grow fat” he said to himself. “I am not going to become a fat pig like them”!
Instead, the unhappy pig would avoid the company of other animals of his kind. He took to walking alone for hours in the woods that adjoined the farm.
Instead of rolling in the mud, he found a small secluded stream where he would wash each day, and bracken where he would roll until he was dry and clean.
Instead of rooting for food and truffles, he made cologne for himself and
wore it on his clean pink skin. He purchased wax and somehow managed to remove all of his course piggy hair with it.
Instead of the rich swill enjoyed by his brothers, the pig kept to a strict diet of leaves and berries and ate as little as he could bear.
But every day when he went to look at himself in the water, he still saw a pig staring back at him.
The pig became more and more despondent until, one day, as he was walking in the wood and thinking about how very hungry he felt; he came upon the wizards cottage.

Now the pig knew very well that it never does any good to talk to wizards. No matter what they promise; it always turns out badly in the end. The pig recalled that his mother had always been very firm on the subject of wizards.
Nevertheless, the pig was so tired and hungry that before he knew it he found that he was already at the edge of the wizard’s garden and peering over his fence.
The wizard was outside tending to his vegetable garden and appeared not to have noticed the pig. Like all wizards he looked a little frightening with a shock of brown hair that he had formed into great spikes using goose fat. His face was painted with thick white clay and his eyes appeared a little too large for it which always made people feel uncomfortable when they spoke to him.
He straightened up and regarded the pig. “ What do you want little pig, and what are you doing in my vegetable garden?” he asked. The pig noticed that the wizard had sharpened his teeth to points and he stepped back a little way out of fear. Eventually he found his tongue and answered the wizard.
“ Please sir; I came because I don’t want to be this big fat pig anymore”.
“ Oh really,” said the wizard, “and what will you give to me if I agree to turn you into a man?”.
“ Oh, I would give you anything, anything you asked” cried the pig as hopeless tears brimmed and fell from his eyes.
“ Very well then,” said the wizard, “ I will require your two front legs for my dinner tonight”.

The pig was afraid, but he had already agreed to the bargain and told the wizard that he would give whatever was asked. In the end, he allowed the wizard to cut off his two front legs and to cook and eat them for his tea.
When finally the wizard had finished eating the meal he sat back at his dining table, threw down his knife and fork with a crash and cried “very well then, let us get to work”!

The wizard drew a chalk circle around the unhappy pig and lit smoking braziers that made the pig cough and feel ill. He uttered strange enchantments in foreign languages that made the pig’s ears buzz and ache and caused his skin to tingle and burn.
By the time the wizard had finished with him, the pig was very tired and so the wizard led him to a small bed and bade him lie down whilst he went to get two fresh willow branches from the garden.
The wizard took the branches and put them in the empty places where the pigs front legs had been. He bound them in place with a fresh cloth and spoke a last spell over him.
“Sleep now pig, and when you wake, these willow wands new arms will make. Your skin will bubble, melt and flow; until into a man you grow.
And that was the last thing that the pig heard; for he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When he awoke, the pig was all alone. The wizard had gone. The house and garden, the bed and covers. Everything had disappeared. The pig was lying naked in some bracken and night was closing in.
But this was not what frightened the pig and made him cry out in alarm.
It was when he tried to stand up and found legs and toes and arms and hands and feet where before there had been only trotters and pork and willow wands.

The pig ran and ran through the darkening woods. His new soft human skin was little defence against branches and thorns and soon he was bleeding from a dozen cuts and welts.
Finally he arrived at the little pond near the farm where he lived and peered anxiously into the water.
A very ugly human face peered back at him.
The pig was exhausted from his long ordeal. He finally collapsed by the side of the pond and wept.
“ Oh, Oh, what have I done to myself? I was a perfectly beautiful pig and now I’ve changed myself into a terribly ugly man. Whatever shall I do?”.

And so the man set about looking for the wizard so that he might ask to be made back into a pig again. He searched from place to place and from year to year. To pay for food he would work at local farms as a labourer and became known as an excellent pigs herd. He asked again and again about the wizard and gave his description to everyone he met. But as the years passed he was no nearer to finding him and found that he did not really fit into the human world.
For all I know, he is searching still to this day. Moving from farm to farm and having few friends because of his ugliness.
And at night. When the farms are silent and still and all eyes are closed, he will often creep back down to the pig sty and snuggle warmly in amongst the swine. For you see, inside himself he never really stopped being a pig.
He was the pig who wasn’t

4pm

Come on come on 4pm finish
I want to travel home and vanish
My mind is tired and undernourished
I need to find myself again.

I work so hard to make the hour
I tell myself I'm overpowered
The clock ticks on, the future cowers
And I have switched off my concern.

BOOK: Lord Eschin part two

That had been three weeks ago.



The Princes office smelled of mahogany and bees wax. The only sounds the ticking of a long case clock and the scratching of Tasaam's quill as he signed off army dockets proffered by an aide.



Lord Eschin stood stiffly at attention in front of the great desk. Usually he would have taken the time to bathe and change following arrival at the palace but he had bee ushered into the Prince's command room by a nameless aide who refused him time for such luxuries.

After what seemed like an age, Tasaam placed the quill back in it’s silver holder and turned his cold gaze on the young Lord standing before him as if becoming aware of his presence for the first time.

“ I’m waiting Eschin,”

Sozo considered pointing out that in fact he was the one being kept waiting; but the prince was clearly in no mood for games. How on earth did the man even find out about these things?

“My men were exhausted you highness. Deployment of shadow wings was the only thing to do under the circumstances. It was either that or lose twenty men to exposure for the sake of two trolls”.

The Prince held Eschin’s eyes for a moment. He was irritated and allowing it to show. Finally he turned and dismissed the aid, leaving them alone in the room.

“ You fail to comprehend the greater picture Eschin. This is about more than the lives of twenty soldiers. It is about the hundreds who would lose their lives if we were forced to join battle without air support. How many weeks does it take our mages to re cast shadow wings on a horse once it has been deployed. Two, three? Not to mention the risk that some superstitious peasant might have seen you and told all of his inbred clan to stop feeding my army as it harbours sorcery”

Eschin stood at attention and said nothing, his face impassive. He tried to concentrate on the ticking of the clock; mentally picturing the intricate mechanisms within, their tasks unseen, measuring out the moments of his discipline.

“ What would have happened had battle been met with your steed unable to take to the air?” barked the prince. He seemed about to continue but suddenly sighed deeply and sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes an massaged them with the balls of his fingers, as if attempting to rub away the frustration that he was feeling.

Finally he Opened them once more and motioned to Eschin to take the seat in front of his desk.
“I am sorry your highness, it really did appear to be the best course of action available at the time”.
The prince took up the crystal decanter from the desk and filled a glass with water. He sipped a mouthful and swilled the contents of the glass around for a moment. Savouring the mouthful as if it were a fine wine before returning his attention to the young looking lord sitting before him.
“You are a fine leader of men Eschin, your battle instincts are good and your prowess with the blade is already making you a legend amongst the men.
But a lord must have more. You must learn to be a strategist as much as a fighter. You must resign yourself to make the hard decisions at times. I’m afraid that you no longer have the luxury of being able to be liked by all.
Sometimes it is cold mathematics that must decide out fate rather than hot blood hmm?”

The prince poured out another glass and offered it to Eschin who received it gratefully.
“how fares your noble mother fare?”
Eschin found himself studying the pattern of grain on the waxed mahogany table. The surface was so well tended that it provided a perfect reflection of the ledger.
“She remains bedridden, but my father’s physicians have managed to halt the spread of the disease and have given her powerful narcotics to ease her suffering. She remains lucid for the most part and spoke of you with great affection on one occasion prior to our parting”.
The prince sighed.
“They are your physicians now Sozo, you are the Lord Eschin. The responsibility weighs heavy upon you does it not?”.
“Aye, it would be a lie to say that it does not. All of my life I watched my father rule our lands, and now that rule has passed to me, I find myself at war a hundred leagues away “.
“And why are you here my Lord Eschin?” the prince asked.
“It is the hard choice but the best one. Much as the Eschin lands need me, my skills are better employed here if those lands are to remain free and clear of the taint of Chaos”.

“Just so”. The prince rose and gestured that Eschin was dismissed. “Come dine with me tonight, once you have had the opportunity to bathe and change. We will talk some more; of happier days my friend”
Another aide, buried under a mountain of paper, scurried into the office as Eschin left.
No wonder the prince was tired. Feeding an army in a foreign land in winter was a logistical and political nightmare. It was a role which Eschin reflected he was glad not to have as his own.
Walking down from the princes ‘ready room’, Eschin passed back through the huge oak door; opened for him by one of the palace servants.
The bright morning sunlight outside caused him to shield his eyes as he passed the parade ground, already filling with soldiers. Surrounding the ground were the wooden sheds; home to the leather robed battle mages who endlessly bore the stink of their incense burning.
One of those sheds now held his steed; she had been hurried into the dark confines as soon as they arrived at the palace. Wizards swarming around her like bees around a hive. The last he had seen of her before the door closed was a mage muttering some unpronounceable incantation at her head whilst his younger aide daubed sigils and runes along her flanks with some substance that glowed brightly in the darkness.
As Prince Tasaam had said, casting shadow wings capability on a creature as large as the mare could take days or weeks. Sozo bit his lip as he passed through the busy sheds and headed towards his lodgings.
As much as it angered him, he had to reluctantly concede that Tasaam had a point. IF the forces of chaos could find a way to attack their position in the next few says then the army would fare much worse without his air support.
Proferring his woollen cloak to a young page he entered his lodgings.