ART WAR 3 | 2D | Villains | Exodus - Shadow of an Astral | r4yl

[r4yl]

In the Era of magic and fire, the realm the dragons resided in filled with magic - they shared with Astrals [Powerful peaceful beings]. The dragons did not want to share the magic, so they initiated a war that would last many seasons. They showed no mercy as they brought fire upon the Astrals. The Astrals fought as best as they could but It wasn’t enough.
The war waged on and dragons figured out a way to banish the Astral’s ethereal bodies to the human realm so they would not be able to access the magic without their physical bodies. This was a great and successful plan. But the dragons didn’t take into account that humans with strong spirits have slight access to some magic. The Astrals capitalised on this and took advantage of the situation. Astrals begun to fuse with high spirited humans, once again gaining access to physical forms and a great deal of magic. On top of that the Astrals can now traverse easily through the realms like the dragons.

This turned the tables. The dragons fought hard, but they couldn’t harm the Astrals because they had no physical form of an Astral, and they couldn’t harm the human because the Astral protected his/her human alternate with this new immense power. The dragons realised what they needed to do and it was going to change the face of the war for good.

All the dragons left the realm under the command of Zazura the three eyed elder dragon. The command was to raze humans and Astrals alike, leaving no trace of their existence. Many lives were lost, humans, Astrals, all other life forms in the human realm suffered. Azusa, daughter of the elder dragon saw the destruction, and the fire in her eyes dimmed as she saw the pain they caused. She knew she couldn’t stop this, but if she could save some or even just one. Then maybe, just maybe she can redeem her kind.

A young lost Astral had found a baby crying while Azusa searched, and had infused the baby’s heart in order to heal his torn limb, one of the special traits of the peaceful beings. The baby stopped crying immediately so that other dragons wouldn’t find them.

Azusa eventually finds this baby, and does the one thing that had never been seen in the dragon realm, she showed mercy and thought she could fill his heart with love while keeping him hidden from her father. But he would be their demise, because on that fateful day when both being pain and suffering combined, the young Astral and the young baby had seen the departure of their kind into the afterlife. Together they will become the Exodus of all magic users good or bad.

"Mercy is for the weak, and I will show them none."
-Exodus

Name: Sean John Jr Akinniyi
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Concept Sheet -

Final -

[r4yl]

Here is a concept sketch of what my villain will eventually look like.

[r4yl]

More conccrete concept for the boy in his natural state, and his summoned Astral state.

I have pointed a few differences on the concept art sheet for the boy as to what he has in both form and how he looks.

[r4yl]

Astrals concept designs, I’m leaning towards number 3 because I feel it captures the character from the story in the first post.

Feedback is welcomed, you can see that I more or less combined the first 2 for 3, it was fun exploring these characters.

[r4yl]

Here I have his main weapon, which is called a lightning spear. It can be used by both Exodus and his Astral. His main source of power is the Astral energy which is fused with him.

I’ve also started doing some clothing concept, after working with a bunch I boiled it down to these as a lot of them were still too complicated especially for the time I have. This my first Art War so feedback is much appreciated.

[aegilrod]

Yeah no. 3 seems quite fitting.

[aegilrod]

Nice backstory, although to me it seemed to lead to being a hero
Costume no.3 seems to have the most defined silhouette, so I'd keep iterating on that one.
Keep it up!

[r4yl]

Thank you, yeah at first I wanted to go hero. But I thought what could be more sweet a villain that has no morals, he’d just be empty, being controlled. Theres a few easter eggs in the story. A devil in disguise, a tainted heart. The true villain is the Astral that lost it all. ^_^

[r4yl]

Got some silhouettes on some of the Astrals, I feel number 3 and 5 give off the most personalities. Some I’m looking to combine the 2 somehow.

If you guys have any you like please don’t hesitate to mention. ^^ thank you.

[mr_dessin]

4th may be interesting too.
Good luck !

[r4yl]

Thank you, Ill see what pops up when finalising.^^ Appreciate the input.

[Tesat]

Nice sketches, I like #3 more but 5 is not a bad choice either

[aegilrod]

I'm liking 3 and 4

[r4yl]

As you can tell I'm feeling 3, 4 to me had a younger feel, almost like it's still a kid and not quite ready for whats to come. Really appreciate the input ^^

[r4yl]

Here I made a quick pre post story image of how our villain lost his arm and when. It’s a little graphic. I hope it isnt too much gore. If so just teach me how to hide from view and only viewable when clicked.

[aegilrod]

Well I'm no moderator but I feel this does reach inappropriate levels, which collides with the guidelines, so if this one has to do with your final illustration I'd suggest against it to avoid any potential disqualification.

Keep gore and nudity to a SFW (safe for work) level. If you think you'd get in trouble if your boss looked over your shoulder and saw it, then it's probably too much.

[r4yl]

It doesn’t, it was just an illustration to show pieces of the past in the story.

[r4yl]

Finally started working on the final comp. Got the base down of what I want where. So next stage is base colors.

[noodles]

Such a cool background story, you can make a whole universe out of it!!

About the comp, may be it will look different with color and more polish, but the dragon looks as important as the main character in your picture, if that was the idea its fine, but you can try pull it backwards or make the values have less contrast.

Looking forward for the next stage!

[r4yl]

Finally added some color to the comp, I’ll work off of this now till the end since I got only 2 days left.