Characters and Design 3

The classic Good vs Evil.

Being a life long D&D fan, I have been drawing Dwarfs, Dragons, Elves and Mages all my life. I seem to have a strange fascination with swords/sorcery and other Sci-fi/fantasy elements.

So here is my take on more classic D&D themes of Paladins, Deth Knights and Necromancers and garden variety mages. I tried to use 'Iggy Pop' as an inspiration for the Necromancer.

Characters and Design 2

Being in San Francisco I get to see a lot of weird fashion or weirdness that passes for fashion. But the most amusing and interesting is Steam Punk.

It is hilarious and many times quiet impressive to see guys and gals dress in a bizarro version of what the Victorian era would/could have been.

Here is my take on it. A family of four ' the Steam-burgs' at their Sunday best...

BREAKERS

A while back I applied as the artist for an independent comic book :  Breakers

Breakers: An Original Graphic Novel

This was the first art that I did for the Breaker's comic book, this more or less got me the job.

It was my take on the Mer-people. I have since become the main artist  replacing the original artist who did the concepts. I have even done a six page prologue comic and illustrations for a short story for the series.

This is was the first time I used my current technique ( I have refined it since), drawing with colour pencils-inking it with a tech pen and colouring it with Photoshop and painter.

Jimi Hendrix

 Jimi Hendrix

I wanted to do one of those 60's/70's portraits and settled on Jimi.

Since I was going to paint digitally, I tried to keep it as loose as possible to force myself to rely more on painting, but I liked that I got his character.

Jimi Hendrix, pencil-CS4 and painter, mostly painter. One of the first digital images that I was sorta happy with, my monitor made it light, while it looked super-saturated in print and other screens. This was the moment I decided to finally buy a large screen  instead of working on my small laptop screen. I painted him with minimal hues, but was suggested that this being Hendrix, I go full saturated psychedelic  until my eyes bled. Tried several versions.

Still working on fine tuning this. Here are the better three version, I kept tinkering with the 60's/70's wild colour schemes. I have a dozen or more versions....someday I'll get it right.

Oh, btw no filters used.

Characters and Design

I am trying to exercise my character design muscles. .

These are a few recent attempts from my nerdy brain, Guys and gals with big-guns and big-ass swords, with the occasional lame ass Mage and Orc thrown in.

Magnus the Unicorn Hunter.

Assignment: take a movie star and turn them into a character, I got inspired by Bruce Willis to draw this: Magnus-the Last Unicorn Hunter. 

Yep, yep.

Go to museum, draw gazillion year old fossil, bring said fossil to life, active DnD powers by throwing a 12-sided dice.... assignment complete.

I give you Mageasaurous: Lvl 25 mage, with a staff made of whale bones.

While others draw cutesy characters that would not be out of place in 'my little pony'. I activate nerd powers. 

  

Gunette 1

Gunette 2

'Gunettes', I figured I never drew the cliched girls with a big guns, so here are my takes of girl with a big-ass guns, one inspired by Mass Effect, the other Steam-punk.

Oh, and for some reason I love drawing at the back of drawing pads, the texture is just fantastic.

These started when I finally got my mediums and tools right. I draw with a 0.9 pencil with Red or blue lead on marker paper, then inked over with Pigma-markers, with photoshop colouring.

 I started two years ago and now it has become my method /medium of choice. 

I tried to draw/design non-human characters. I mixed three or more animal to create these fuzzy critters. But my style is more realistic and  gritty, so drawing these was a pain. I had stand-up comedy on radio all the time that I was trying to create these as a source of inspiration.

But drawing cutesy creatures in an animation/cartoonish style can damage a guy's head, cure ? Listen to Megadeth for an hour after said drawing(s).

You are welcome.

Adventures in character design. ;)

Hooded Ronin

The idea was to create all the visual elements of a given story and to make it your own.

I choose the classical story of Robin Hood. The idea was to show the classical tale in a Japanese setting, with all the visual clues and elements that go with it.

I came up with 'The Hooded Ronin and the Ninjas of Sake'wood forest '. ( I tried to use as many bad puns as possible....)

The Hooded Ronin himself

The idea was to make a cross between the merry men in tights with japanese design clues with a little artist licence throw in the mix

Character development for the Hooded Ronin

My Idea of Little John, a failed Sumo-wrestler with big heart and an over sized naginata.

Character development for 'Little John'

My take on FRIAR TUCK, a Monk who loves Sake more than life, his excuse...it gets him closer to Lord Buddha, in size he is almost there...

My take on Maid Marian : Mariko ( I warned you I'd used as many bad puns as possible...) The first is her as Prim and proper Japanese noble lady, the second is her after she joins the Hooded Ronin gang, armed with twin-Tantōs, mirroring Ronin.

Visual development of the Mariko.

My take on the Sheriff of Nottingham : Shogun of Nishizawa, one is showing him in traditional samurai armour, the other is him in more noble japanese garments.

Visual development of the Shogun.

Hand gestures.

Character line-up

Turn-around of Hooded Ronin

Visual development for the environment.

The classical and cliched 'hero does towards the fortress....'
The drawing was easy and done in a matter of hours, but the painting took forever with several colour/mood variants. I never have this problem when I am drawing, I get the choices sorted out in the sketch stages...but while colouring.....discovered many wonderful methods of working. One of those works where you go ' hey I never knew that...' and 'why didn't think of that before...'