BoS Drawing Challenge - #64 Multi-tasking

This theme word did give me some trouble at the beginning. I can't remember where I first went to in my mind, but eventually I did start thinking of mulch-limbed robots, which made me think of multi-armed deities - which brought me to here :

This is supposed to be Tou Mu, the Goddess of the North Star from Chinese myth. Or - more specifically - the AD&D version of her from the 'Deities and Demigods' book. She's supposed to be much more monstrous in that version - with 'red scaly skin' and '3 eyes in her barely human head'. She's also supposed to have 16 arms, rather than the 8 I've done here. I decided to make her more human looking, as I don't think she's supposed to be quite so evil / inhuman in the real myths.

I really loved this character from the book as a kid because of all the cool weapons and gear she used in combat with her multiple arms, which were :

- A magic bow which never missed a target within 100 yards.
- A +3 Spear.
- A +3 Dancing Sword.
- A red flag which projected death spells from its folds.
- A living dragon head which could breathe fire.
- A piece of the moon which could block any single hit against her in a combat round.
- A lotus flower that could heal all wounds at a touch.

I loved that book. I remember my mum getting it ( as well as the Monster Manual and Fiend Folio ) at a bookshop in California when we were on holiday. Still got them on my RPG shelf, still have very fond memories of leafing through them.

Anyway - the drawing turned out ok. I would like to colour it, but I haven't got time right now. I threw a gray background on just so you can make you the figure a bit better. The hands are hit and miss - the 'lotus', 'moon', 'dragon' and 'sword' hands aren't bad - though perhaps a bit big. The rest are pretty bad. Have I mentioned how hard it is to draw hands ? ;-D. I had to move the legs over a bit in photoshop, as they were off centre and looked weird - though they're okay now. The 'sword' arm might be a little too long, but it's not too bad.

Overall - I'm reasonably happy with this one.