ART WAR 3 | 2D | Villains | Hourglass | morecado

Female villain, who creates and manipulates glass around her. She's fixated on eternal beauty and encases "beautiful" people in glass. Her definition of beauty is unclear, but those who've been caught in her glass are frozen in time - hence her name, Hourglass.

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The submission stuffs:

Name: John Dahlgren
Mail: Kuya.Dahlgren@gmail.com
Website: https://www.artstation.com/morecado
Twitter: @ActuallyJohnD
Facebook: @john.dahlgren.568 (I haven't been active on facebook for years)

(Did I post this correctly?)

A first sketch of the Hourglass character. I'm not sure how I want to proceed from here.

The waist will remain hourglass-shaped, because it's in her name.
The staff might not be a good accessory, so I feel like removing it.
And, to be honest, there isn't much in her design that stands out to me.
I do feel like I should design her around the way her powers are meant to work and look. Her powers would probably look very similar to "waterbending", but with the liquid solidifying whenever she stops moving it around.

Maybe something like this is better. I feel like she still need the more of a sexy look, but I do like the idea of making her a character that moves around a lot when using her powers. I think this will be the last one before moving onto the actual design of the character. I got the feel down now, so that's good.

I knew that I wanted to add glass to her outfit, so that she'd always be able to use her powers. Her outfit would also define her combat-style (and personality, to some degrees), so I had to keep that in mind when choosing what to keep for the final design.

The final design wasn't that special to be honest. I feel like her powers are meant to carry her overall character quite a lot, but I still need to give her some sort of gimmicks in her attire. Right now she keeps on reminding me of that pink girl "Nui" from "Kill La Kill", which kind of bothers me.

Lots of glass added to her gear and "costume". I figured I'd make her colors very pale, since her powers both look and behave in a similar way to ice. I'm going for a "ice-queen" kind of vibe in terms of looks. I was really happy with how the dress and umbrella turned out.

The dress has this thin net hanging over what's supposed to be frills. This net has smal drops of glass attached to it, something that was present in one of the outfit sketches. There are also some small glass ornaments added to the top part of the dress, since it felt a bit empty up there. I didn't really feel like she would wear gloves, as she won't be cutting herself on the glass she controls - Unless that is how she goes down in her universe. Maybe she's careless and dies from being hurt by her own glass...

The umbrella was an unexpected but welcome addition to her outfit. At first, I wasn't planning on doing anything special with it. When I tried to create some kind of fold-able glasspanel design, it kind of looked like a blunt weapon to me. This reminded me of the magical girl genre in anime and how the girls sometimes have very large weapons, so I was instantly hooked on giving her some of that.

I did mean for her to be taller, but this works just as well.
She'll still be fixated on preserving beauty in glass, her dress will create an hourglass waist and she has a neat combat style - mage when far away, brawler when close.

Next step is to thumbnail for a good composition. I'll be looking to find a good mix of showcasing her powers along with her motives.

I'm having hard time deciding between these thumbnails. Personally, the ones on the left (1,3,5) are the better half. 1, 3 and 5 all show the prime aspects of "Hourglass" and really convey the sort of impression she was meant to make on people.

Number one shows off the dominance I wanted her to have, being so powerful that she sits on top of her encased enemies.

Number three catches her ruthless side, as she smashes one of her "captured" subjects. Perhaps they didn't live up to her standards?

Number five brings out a more aristocratic approach to her, since she holds her head high and walks with class? Whichever it is, she looks like she really knows what she wants.

Now, all that's left is to pick one and create the two pieces required for submission.

That's a good idea! I'll look into it, for sure.
If I can figure out a good composition, the throne makes it in

It would come down to how the surroundings convey the desired emotion. Say, through the terror in the faces of the people that she would have encased in glass? But it's something I'll keep in mind, regardless of how I end up doing the final piece.

Masked and ready for paint. Once these are done, I'll paint a small portrait of her. This one, the portrait and the previous sketches will make up my concept sheet.

I did close up her chest, as the hole didn't have any particular importance to her as a character. It made the top part of her dress look more sturdy, which I really liked. There will probably not be any more changes to her outfit from this point on, as the rendering is supposed to elevate the dress even further (it'll be glossy and reflective).

I'm not sure just how rendered it's meant to be, but there really isn't much more to her than this. The big illustration is quite a challenge, so I'm jumping between polishing my concept sheet and it, whenever it gets overwhelming.

Despite not making any sense, I decided that the see-through part of the dress would in fact not be as stiff as it looks. I suppose it would be possible to say that she'd be reshaping her dress constantly to make it seem soft, even thought it's meant to be made out of glass.

I enjoy painting her shoes.

This is pretty much the final illustration. Well, it will be.
I think I made the right call when creating the people stuck in her throne. It looks somewhat more like ice rather than glass, but I think this will make her stand out more. If the glass throne was more see-through, the people stuck in it would be too detailed and steal the show. Although, they kind of are anyways at the moment.

I'm jumping around a lot when working on this piece, since I only work on one layer (due to bad planning). Hopefully I'll be able to make it into what i want it to be.

I've been working mostly on the throne, since it will play a big part in showcasing her powers or well... the aftermath. Anyways, I think I'm getting the glass right and I'm actively looking to make it not look like ice.

So far I've been very surprised with how well it's been going. The color picking feels rather on point so far (I'll probably have to adjust it later, just in case) and the overall composition really speaks to me now.

There are three unfinished characters in the throne and once I'm done with those I'll move back to my villain. Adding another character in the center of the throne seems pointless, as that one will just end up being covered.

I ended up using an icecube as reference for the behaviour of glass. They should be behaving similarly, when not perfectly smooth.. I think?

Had a friend of mine (he's into writing) take a look at it. He suggested putting as much story as i could into the people within the glass, so I tried just that. I ended up doing a cheap move and made one of the characters a parent with a child. That usually makes the villain seem even more evil.

I don't know when I'll get to work on it again (probably 26/12 or something), so until then... Happy Holidays!

Changed her pose.

I'm a little unsure about her left arm, but I like that she looks like she's about to get up from her throne. Her umbrella ended up being turned into it's mace-form and her dress still lack some of the decorations. The background still doesn't exist, since I have no clue as to what I want to put there.

And finally - her head.
I don't like or dislike her face right now. It just doesn't stand out to me in any way. She looks rather pretty though, so there's that. Her hair is still chunky and I might just keep it that way, albeit after some refining.

I'll probably crop the image once I'm done. There's a little bit too much of nothing above her.

One week left. Still doable.

To do list:
1. Light, Shadows and reflections.
2. Polish her throne.
3. Polish her dress and add the final components (some ornaments and the "glass" section)
4. Background
5. Final pass (correcting colors and values)
6. Turn in!

Honestly, I'm still surprised that I managed to get this piece this far. Low-key panicking now, as I realized that I might not be able to work as much on it as I'd like to during theses final days of Art War.

Your comment gives me strength!
(I too look forward to the final)