Duncan Idaho

My third Dune design, and obviously after starting out with the Arrakeen lovers I've moved on to the charismatic and noble Atreides ... and of course where else to start than my very favourite of all the Dune characters, Duncan Idaho. Specifically here we have the ORIGINAL Duncan (not the Ghola versions seen in later volumes, but the living breathing man), who was perhaps the finest swordsman of his age and Paul Atreides' closest friend and one of his trusted mentors. Not to mention (according to the books and also, thankfully, the movie and mini series too) quite the looker. Apparently ...

I had a BALL doing this one, it worked great almost entirely from the start, and turned out pretty much perfect for me. Yeah, this one really was a proper labour of love. It also represents my tightest, most professional colour job to date both with Gimp AND my new tablet - I seem to have finally reached the point where it actually looks proper like one of my old hand-coloured-with-markers trad pieces ...

Anyway, as you can see there's a definite post-Renaissance vibe going on here, which I feel is a pretty good representation of where I'm heading with my overall interpretation of the look of this future. After all, it's super futuristic, but there's a very real feel of historical influence to it as well, with a definite martial twist. I injected a uniform element here, but at the same time Duncan definitely has a softer, less formal take given he's really more of a man at arms than a rank and file soldier to the Atreides. And a very trusted, invaluable one at that ...

And before you ask, the shiny silver bracelet is an idea I'm tinkering with regarding personal shield generators ...

Original inks created with Pilot Hi-technpoints on Bristol Board, digital colours created in Gimp 2.6 with Wacom Bamboo Pen. You can also find my original pencils, inked lineart and digital colours in my scrapbook: [link] , [link] and [link] (but like a muppet this time I kinda fluffed the saving so I DON'T have a clean version of the background for perusal this time ) Duncan Idaho is property of the estate of Frank Herbert.