For those interested in my progress...
I've drawn animals for about the first 15 years of my life... around 15 I became more interested in history, and also began drawing people.... normally I don't draw too many sketches of a particular drawing-to-be because I doodle and sketch so much that the animals and people are already ingrained. However this is a bigger piece so I'm gonna have to conceptualize a bit more. Here's some concepts that I drew before I decided I needed to figure out what weapons were really from the right time period...
I was trying to "feel" the body motions and dynamic. Trying to work in strikes and movements I know from the fighting arts, and that I know happen in a brutal street fight. See... I always like to create mini-stories with my art. When I began drawing as a little kid, I drew to mentally capture the thing and also remember it's story. I didn't draw to express feelings, or symbolize anything, or show something abstract. It was to capture the essence and story... so here it is... the "story"...
I still need to draw all 19 characters... get them down on paper... how do they dress? What are their mannerisms? How well do they handle their weapon? Will they die in the street? Will they kill and live? Do they fight like a counter-fighter or an aggressive fighter? Do they fight in a rage or calmly... or out of fear? You can see their weapons betray their backgrounds... some coming from Koxinga's army... local martial artists... some milita... and just simple farmers fighting for their own protection.
I don't want this to be a big messy brawl where you don't care about anyone and it's just a bunch of 2-D drawn men killing each other... I want people to see the stories behind these men. Why they fight. How they fight. I hope I will succeed in that.
You guys can be the judge when I am done. Hope you will all enjoy viewing it as it progresses.