11 days later

Sorry, been ages since my last post. I've been ill.

Some thumbnails and thoughts.
7. Xan is landing on a deck while a airship crashes and a city burns behind her.
8. Xan and her drones cut through a mechanical monster.
9. Xan faces off against mechanical droids. Maybe they are the nobility's response to her piracy.
10. Xan blocks a cannon ball while her drones return fire.
11. Xan slides/ducks while one of her drones fires and hits an opponent. Might make 11 larger to show the fire behind her that the other drone has set off to burn opponents behind her.

Not really sure which one to pick.

Still think like @coldburger said previously 1 & 6 (now 7 & 11) look very cool !
It could work with 10 also...but not really sure with your pirate pose... (or maybe that's the camera angle which is not working here).

If I only choose one, I take 11 directly.
Hope you can have other opinions.

Good luck !

@mr_dessin Thanks so much for your feedback. Sorry I was on autopilot when I was the numbering.

I also prefer 7 (prev 1), 10, 11 (prev 6).
I won't be going with 7 as I think Xan might get lost to the background.
I'm leaning more towards 10 as there might be room for more visual effects, but yeah that pose or camera angle gotta fix to show more of the knock back and punishment she takes.

Added a bit more detail to 10 and 11.

After working a bit more on 10, I've chosen 11.
I'm going to explore the background more with hopes that I can transfer some of the design from 9 & 10. Incorporating more metal, cables, rays of light, maybe a disintegrating droid for her opponent, stuff like that.

Awesome thumbnails! I really like the bottom one, #11. Keep up the amazing work!

Added a bit more shadow and highlights. I think that should be good enough for the character concept sheet.
I suppose I could always come back later to add cables and detail if needed.

Still in the rough stages.
Added some detail to her opponent and the background.
Put some colours in as I'm trying to get a feel for how the image is going to look when it's finished.

Damn what a cool painting style! I love the dark thick lines! As for the composition it looks perfect! I would say her right leg is a bit out of perspective, try to angle it more where the tip of the boot is slightly pointing towards the camera! I hope this helps! :smile: Keep it up!

@berrysquare Thanks, I'm hoping it turns out the way I imagined. Yeah the idea started as a steampunk concept and it kinda morphed into a mix between cyber, diesel and steam.

@Kreyhardt Thank you! I think my style has been heavily influenced by comic book inking. I agree with you about the foot. I battled with the perspective for awhile till I decided to take some pictures of myself in that pose. What I found is that the right foot has a hard time coming forward and it feels more natural when it's pointed down and trailing behind. So all the weight is on the left leg while the right hovers giving you the sense that the motion has just happened. I'll show you what I mean in my next post.

The right leg and foot does seem a little off. The way the foot is positioned looks like your character's hips are opened up making the knee go to the right side, unless you were intending it to be that way. But if your character is moving forward the right foot should be facing the same way as the left foot because no one can move fast enough with only one foot facing the target (force and direction of the right would be different to the left). Now if your character is just dodging an attack and/or is getting ready to attack then I guess that the leg position would work, but I am not sure, it just seems awkward.

Yeah I agree. Her right foot will need a bit of work, maybe once I push it back a bit and add the proper lighting. Her movement is interesting because what she is doing is ducking and putting her weight on her left leg that is slowing her forward momentum. Meanwhile she is lifting her right foot to change her balance. She could put it back down and continue forward, but I think what she plans to do is to fall into the momentum to her left and spin around to follow up with a slash or spray of her sword. Making this movement one she has planned beforehand and linking up to her bot could make it possible.

Added a lot of detail and rendering before I realized that I forgotten to increase the image resolution.
This is me sketching a few things on top of the blurriness.
At least I was able to separate the characters from the background to make it easier on the next part.

Gave the image colour. I'm quite surprised at the difference.

My power is being turned off for the next two days so I'll see how much I can do before then.

I just wanted to say thank you so very much to everyone that liked, commented and critiqued this thread.
Your interest and feedback have been a great boon to my character creation journey which I will hopefully carry over to my future characters.

I can't seem to edit my first post. If I have enough time I'll post everything together.