ART WAR | 2D | Zarlfion, Soulbound Flame | JBLunar

jblunar 2017-02-02 01:47:12 UTC #21

Yeah, I think no. 3 is my favourite at the moment, too. I'm gonna see if I can play around with it in perspective and start thinking of a background for him to stand in.

jblunar 2017-02-02 13:58:22 UTC #22

Blew up the third thumbnail onto a landscape page, the wider page should help to extract more energy from the scene, I just need to define the elements in the background. For now, i'm playing around with angling, defining the perspective and foreshortening of the character to fit with the way you would see him from this viewpoint.

jblunar 2017-02-02 15:56:04 UTC #23

I'm extending into the backdrop now, and decided that the champion needs combatants in order to give context to the action-strike he is posing in. The tall sentinels in my painting feel like the right form of enemy/support characters as they can blend into the background relatively nicely, especially with lots of tall pillars and/or wide open areas. I've drawn up a couple silhouettes to explore their designs before I dedicate myself to my original idea, please have a look and feel free to pick out one you'd like to see developed.

jenniferbrincho 2017-02-02 16:53:27 UTC #24

I'm amazed at how quickly you turn out such unique silhouettes! I like #6 with all the straights. Seems like it would contrast nicely with Zarlfion's organic curves.

jblunar 2017-02-03 00:35:56 UTC #25

Thank you, contrast is definitely going to make the image easier to understand so I will do my best to produce that contrast. I'm slightly worried that they will be over designed and draw too much attention, but hopefully i'll come up with some colours that will keep the champion in the focus.

jblunar 2017-02-03 00:38:07 UTC #26

Here's my initial development of the sentinels standard look. There will be multiple of these figures in the illustration so I will change small elements of the concept for each individual. Colours have also yet to be decided, but I will base them off the overall colour tones I choose for the environment.

jenniferbrincho 2017-02-03 02:15:47 UTC #27

I like it! Color and value will definitely play an important role in the final composition, but it looks like you're up to the challenge

jblunar 2017-02-03 15:39:29 UTC #28

Here's an update on my current progress with the composition. I've toggled with the champions posing and anatomy a little in order to feel more believable, currently making his legs and chest taller to reduce foreshortening too greatly. Composed the background with the supporting sentinels to help create height and depth, as well.

I've struggled to find the best method to approaching the light sourcing in the room, so i've played around on a separate page to construct the light and shadows hitting the figures. With a little refinement I can use this as a reference towards improving the value of space even further down the line.

jblunar 2017-02-04 13:24:41 UTC #29

Here's today's progress! I've enlarged the hunched sentinel on the left in order to better rest on the same line of perspective as the right sentinel, to make them both suggest their size more correctly. I've also went ahead to clean up the line work so that everything can be better identified in the draft stage. Hope you're enjoying my progress and of course, do suggest me anything that can improve this piece in terms of anatomy, perspective and more.

jblunar 2017-02-05 01:18:33 UTC #30

Here's the fifth segment of my champion's background story, worked with a different technique to construct the quick painting by using an overlayed sketch to improve the shapes within the environment, which is all good practice for my final illustration

Warped by the arcane constructs and machinations of the citadel dwellers, their newfound victims were picked apart and reassembled using runic rituals and forbidden incantations. The search for unfounded secrets of dragonhood would come full circle upon this fortunate discovery, and through their specimens they would unlock the answers to an ultimate weapon that would exact their immortality. They partitioned samples from both victims, constructing armour befitting their new subject and fashioning the suit to make a mockery of the original symbols the knight wore with esteem.
Vivid memories coursed into the mind of their symbiotic creation. Wings draping across a moonlit night, confronted by an endless sea of warships and battle gongs; the rush of the hunt filled his new heart to a quickening beat as he witnessed fire soar from his gaping maw, ensuing dozens of ships blossoming into wicked infernos. His dark claws tore into their high masts, knocking the fleet asunder like wilting trees; there was no end to the malice that filled him and the dragon knew that Taaron were deserving of such hatred. This act of vengeance would blanket the world in fire, for he would take what had been ripped from his now lost and isolated existence.

jonhopkins 2017-02-05 15:27:46 UTC #31

Wow a lot of development going on in here. I like the colour designs for the armour of your character, I think 3 and 4 even 2 would all be a good choice, personally I think number 1 has too much white in it and is very bright value wise which is going to maybe be a bit harsh on the viewer's eye.

Also looking at the linework of your illustration there are a few anatomical issues that stand out mainly his left leg (bottom right of the image) just seems to big (especially the foot) and the arm that is behind him (his left arm without the weapon) it wouldn't be able to turn like that unless it was broken, I also think you'd not be able to see as much of it the way the body is positioned and turning.
If you can get some reference of this position it would be good, or maybe get someone to take a few photos of you in the pose, I think it would really help the believability of the final image.

I I look forward to seeing the final outcome of your hard work! :).

jblunar 2017-02-05 22:04:45 UTC #32

Thank you, this is ever so helpful feedback. I always try to reach for a dynamic angle in the image but I have felt that certain areas of his form weren't where they needed to be.

I would like to give this a few more tries before i'm happy with it, too, just because anatomy is something I will always find myself having to reiterate on.

jblunar 2017-02-06 01:05:49 UTC #33

To quickly jump the wagon, I had a toy around with my character's pose once again. I realised that the overall impression I wanted to convey might be better achieved in one more attempt at constructing his anatomy within the scene. Here's my latest attempt at that task, please let me know if you feel this is an improvement to the original, or if you prefer how it looked beforehand, all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Original

Latest

Certain areas I've changed include the champion's overall pose. I feel that this is a more kinetic, energetic representation of this scene, as I re-positioned the left leg to appear behind the thigh region, thus giving him a sprinting/dashing stance. I also tweaked the left sentinel as I wasn't happy with how big he was in comparison to the rest of the composition with the new take on Zarlfion.

jenniferbrincho 2017-02-06 04:00:44 UTC #34

I like this pose much better! The anatomy is certainly improved, especially in the legs. His upper arms look just a little short to me, and the wrists may be a bit narrow for his build.

However, I tend to struggle with foreshortening and anatomy, so take anything I say with a grain of salt! 😉

jblunar 2017-02-06 15:53:19 UTC #35

I took a good shot at fixing the wrists and the length of each arm, while cleaning it up it became easier to see the difference between them, so here's how the pose is coming along at present. I pushed the front arm down so that the upper arm sits naturally beneath the left shoulder pauldron.

jblunar 2017-02-07 12:39:37 UTC #36

Here's a new version! After a lot of contemplating, the new pose has caused the weight of the composition to shift, so I decided to rearrange the support roles into a segment of the background that could better complement the flow of the main character.

I liked the idea of a much bigger, more dangerous enemy to create more impact and agency within the scene so I drafted this snake-like sentinel lord to take the limelight. Do you think this improves the images composition?

jenniferbrincho 2017-02-07 17:29:31 UTC #37

It keeps improving every time! I'm liking the flow of this one a lot, and the snake sentinel seems like a good touch to me

I would recommend nudging the composition a bit to the right, though. Then it would comply more to the rule of thirds. (Something like this!)

jblunar 2017-02-08 00:45:25 UTC #38

Thank you ever so much for the suggestion with rules @jenniferbrincho , I feel as if that slight nudge gave the image the proper adjustment it needed to sit correctly in the viewpoint. Filling up the negative space on the right gets rid of that unoccupied emptiness that was originally there. I also added an additional sentinel behind the others to block the blank room behind them, as well.

Here's the improvements all made up to this point, I feel as if i'm almost ready to start moving into the painting stage now that everything has been cleaned up.

jenniferbrincho 2017-02-08 02:44:59 UTC #39

Glad the suggestion was helpful Looking forward to the painting stage!

jonhopkins 2017-02-12 15:11:52 UTC #40

Great job fixing the pose Jblunar! You really have great a great sense of movement in the image. The arm holding the sword is looking a little flat at the moment, remember to wrap your lines around the form and what the perspective is when drawing so that the 3 dimensional shape is being represented well to the viewer. Keep up the hard work and effort you're doing a great job!