Fantasy Illustration - Tiamat's Chosen - Final

This is a mock fantasy book cover, set in the Forgotten Realms universe, that I did on commission.

The client wanted something that was akin to a Star Wars movie poster with characters sprinkled throughout the image. The blue character, Ningal, is some sort of important leader in the country of Unther. The other famous character in the image is Tiamat -- she's in the upper right corner. She's a dragon deity in cloaked in human form. The client wanted her depicted as a sort of spunky teenager girl.

During the process of creating this picture I worked out a design for each character before combining them into the picture. Here's the related character design blog posts.

Fantasy Illustration - Tiamat's Chosen: Designing Ningal

Continuing the character design feature from last time, next up on the design plate is Ningal. Like Tiamat, Ningal is a pre-existing character in the D&D Forgotten Realms universe. This design was very straightforward. In the sketch, you can see how she compares to Tiamat's design - taller, with a more athletic build. I always tried to be very conscious of making every character unique from head to toe - not just clothing and facial features, but also their body type and build.

Fantasy Illustration - Tiamat's Chosen: Designing Tiamat

A recent book cover commission I worked on called for five detailed fantasy-themed character designs. In a series of blog posts over the next week or two, I'll talk about some interesting points about each of character designs.

First up is Tiamat, a canonical character of the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms universe. The client called for some substantial changes to her appearance, however, so she's very different in these design sketches.

My initial pass on her was a modern take on the classic design in Jeff Easley's Tiamat painting.

The client liked a lot of the design elements of the initial design, but had a younger, playful and flirtier Tiamat in mind, so it was back to the drawing board for a second pass.

In the second design she's shorter and less curvy, more impish rather than sinister.

I also came up with some variations on her outfit. #1 is the classic fantasy bikini, but this interpretation of Tiamat called for a more modest costume, so I tried a number of other designs. All of them feature dragon claw shoes, a nod to Tiamat's other form, a five-headed dragon. The client chose design #4, which you'll see in the finished illustration.

Caution

My take on "Caution" for IllustrationFriday.com -- Just got it in under the wire.

I had two ideas for this piece. (Actually, three ideas if you include the quickly dismissed “semi-naked chick in caution tape” concept.) The first idea had to do with a runner bursting through a repeating black & yellow caution-tape finish line. The line marked the edge of a cliff and the runner continued past the edge, lunging into the sky. Was he flying or falling? Who knows? Maybe I’ll do this picture sometime. It seems like a strong concept.

The second idea was some sort of smiling swindler trying to take advantage of a person. The key to this piece would be the use of the black and orange-yellow color “caution sign” palette. It hit me that the swindler’s tie would make for a perfect pathway for the repeating black & yellow caution pattern. Several days later, the picture was complete.
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Sketched on 9”x12” Strathmore Sketch paper. Finalized and painted in Photoshop CS 3.

Viral - From Sketch to Colors

Sketch

Color concept

American Values & a Critique

I present American Values, a critique by Demonlover11 of Deviant Art AKA Nicole, and my response. I indicated Nicole’s comments in red.

As always~ Loving your work! (umm... I'm just a student so I don't know if it's worth much but I kinda got into a critiquing-mode when I saw this and couldn't help myself ^^; )

Look at you, all critique and stuff. BTW, are you out of high school now? Got any big plans for college?

It's kinda dark compared to most of your pieces but I like the underlying meaning and the perspective play; however, there is something about the heaviness of the foreground that dwarfs the background both in an way that I'm almost positive you did to emphasize your point about American values and also in a way that takes away a bit from the loftyness of the perspective and the holier-than-thou and superiority complex that seems to be seeping out of the man.

The foreground is heavy for several reasons, including the character's girth. ;) For one, it's close to the viewer and brightly lit, so the colors are more vibrant, the range between light and dark is more intense, and the details are clearer.

As for the character, personally I don't see him as acting superior. I read him as a man supplicant in his beliefs. He's proud of what this nation represents. That's my reading anyway. At this point, I'm just another observer.

Is that a single tear in his eyes?


While we're on the topic, here are two interesting opposing concept s of American exceptionalism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34T8zwOzW54&feature=related
(We're good because of the moral actions we have taken historically and continue to take.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf1kTiCWDe4&feature=related
(We're good because God (by this he means a specific Christian god) made this country and us exceptional.)

The heaviness of that corner robs the piece of the effect of the man towering over his conquered lands. It's the dark and bold lines/colors of the man and the trash upon which he stands that interfere with the illusion of height and distance and the absence of middle ground to establish a strong sense of background and foreground...

I'm going to cut you off there for a second because you hit something I was having trouble with. I wanted the trash piles uniform in color and composition. This leads to a sort of sterility across the landscape that's only broken by the play of shadows and the value diminishing effects of atmospheric perspective. While this was true to my artistic intent for this picture, I found the lack of a dramatic break between foreground and background unsatisfying.

I've considered placing shadows over a large segment of the background to make the break between sections cleaner. Maybe I'll try it when I'm cleaning at in the folder on my hard drive, just to see how it looks.

As I was composing this response, Lindsay read over your comments and did a quick color alteration to a jpeg copy of the image. She focused on the foreground elements, and increased the red saturation among other things. Here's how it turned out. I actually like it quite a bit. I think I might have to apply some of these changes to the full scale image.



Also, I'm not sure you "need" a middle ground to establish a strong sense of foreground and background, but it couldn't hurt. :)

maybe continue the floating trash from the bottom right a bit over the rubbish heaps with the same chroma and intensity of the things underfoot to really draw into the perspective and show depth? It also might be that the horizon line is a tad high from his placement- although you do have mountains... so it's difficult to decipher- (Although I am on cold medication so it might be my eyes- and if that's what's wrong I'm so sorry m(_ _)m ).

I'd actually argue the horizon is a little low. Look at how his body is angled and find a point where the lines converge. I haven't done this, but I bet it's slightly higher than the current horizon, like somewhere around his shoulders. Either way, I don't think it's very important. Maybe I'll look back in a month and slap myself for f-ing up the horizon, but right now, it looks okay to me.

Get better soon, and thank you for the thoughtful critique.

How Microsoft took Japan - WIP Colors 1

Eat Desert Last. That's the doctrine I stick with when working on these large-scale images. The character is the capstone. It takes the most effort, and is usually the most pleasing portion of the picture to look at. When you're done with it, you want to be on your way out of the painting. Maybe you'll still need to clean up a snag here, or alter the coloring there, but the last thing you want to think about is rendering the other 2/3s of the picture. That, more than any technical reason is why I start with background elements and work up.

--and there's also technical reasons, like overlap and such.

I got off to a late start tonight, picking up the painting after dinner. The preliminary painting and texturing for the X-Box flag and Tokyo skyline are done.

I'm working on the city now. God I hate the working on the city. I'm half-tempted to catch a flight to Tokyo, snap some photos, and drop them directly into the image. That's what a real manga artist would do. Or they’d buy a stock photo. Nevertheless, I suppose that's why I'm a quasi-manga artist. I make life 10 times harder on myself. Hopefully I’m learning something.

Work on the city continues tomorrow. Hope to have this done in the next two days.

Cherry Blossom Pink, How Mircrosoft took Japan - Work in Progress

Welcome to my first post. I'm starting with a simple picture post entry. I've got some education related posts lined up, stuff that I'm certain will reveal deep universal art secrets, but for now I'm just looking to get my feet wet on this blogging stuff. I'm also looking for feedback on a couple of specific elements in my recent picture. You don't mind commenting, do you?

"Wait! Are you just crowd-sourcing me for art feedback?"

You seem unconvinced that following this blog is worth your time.

"Where do I benefit?" You ask dismissively.

I'll tell you where you benefit! By taking part in my blog you'll...
Get a behind the scenes look at the art world.
Learn how to become rich and famous as a comic or manga artist.
Revel in personal drama and intrigue.
Gleam HOT insider knowledge on how an award winning artist develops his art.
Have a say on where I take my projects. Perfect for control freaks or aspiring art directors.

(The above was said with a tongue-in-cheek inflection.)

So this is the new idea. I'm trying something different. Art that's big, dramatic, has a message, is geeky, and editorial-ish.

Original Concept for Microsoft takes Japan:
Microsoft does what it takes to win the war for the videogame counsel market in Japan. Halo is rebranded to feature a sakura blossom pink suited Master Chief, with a face of a cutesy anime girl (cel style face?), and the flowing glossy black hair of a princess . A tsunami wave rips around the front of the picture and crest overtop of Tokyo. The wave is made of millions of green dollar bills. Foamy water droplets are glittering coins. The sky is red and white. The symbolic sun from the imperial Japanese flag rises over the city, but the center of the red sun is slashed through by Microsoft's trademark neon green X-box 360 logo. Consider putting dollar symbols or yen symbol in corner or in the wave?

I have three slightly different versions of Mistress Chief-Chan. The rendering is crude. Disregard that. Focus on the character's pose and how it ties in with the overall image. Tell me which you think works the best.

The first has concept has the character staring out at the viewer with an adorable face, as if to say, "We did it! We took Japan!" From my POV I think this version focuses the viewer's attention on the character at the expensive of the rest of the picture. I lock eyes with her and the image becomes a pin-up. What do you think?

The second version takes the most of the pose from the first and refocuses the character's face towards the mainland. She looks more accomplished and solemn. "We did our job..." is what I think her look says. Should this be the one I use? It's less cute but more... deep?

The third and final version has her posed differently and turned more towards the action. Her helmet looks like it was just removed and her gun rests on a shoulder strap. She has the same solemn look of the second version, but the pose makes her seem more concerned with events and less with a viewer. She doesn't seem to realize there is a viewer in this version. How voyeuristic. :p

So that's what I have. I hope you enjoyed this little exercise. If you have any thoughts, let me know. I can't seem to pick one.