@griasnoggal
Hey thanks! You're totally right about it being tilted, I'll have to fix the anatomy when I do some more finished sketches and poses.

First color study for my character. For the skin tone I drew inspiration from red rock like you'd see in Arizona, and I added the plum and red violet colors in because that's what I'm thinking the main colors for the costume will be. I want to include only small amounts of green and contrast it with these other earthy tones to make it pop. I think I should push the red skin tone further.

This took way too long, I don't work on anything "technical drawing" related and it shows. At least it's in a place that demonstrates my intention behind the living palanquin. I tried to make it look like the legs of the throne had grown through the rock and burst out the sides.

EarthEmpPalanquin.png3300x5100 1.03 MB

Now I want to draw the beasts my character is commanding, and start thumbnails, value and color studies. I still feel like I'm missing something to push it over the edge creatively .

Thank you! <3

I had completely neglected my still unnamed character's hair. At first I liked the Furiosa cut but now I'm over it. I wanted to look into Celtic styles of hair, or at least modern interpretations of long, complex braids, to mix more Celtic influence in, since the costume is very Roman. Here are my first 3 designs. I want the hair to communicate the character's wild or untamed personality, as well as their royal side.

EarthEmpHair.png5100x3300 1.43 MB

Another aspect of Celtic hair is that it was often very decorated, gold bands, balls and colored ribbons were used, as well as combs made of bone or metal, so in that spirit I want to make an ornamental head dress to complement the horns and the hair.

Here's a headdress I came up with.

From the beginning of costume design I've loved the idea of using the earth insignia as some sort of clasp, with feathers behind it. Here I've repurposed the idea as a sort of crown you could make with what you find in the wilds. I'm in a groove on doing this fashion/costuming stuff so I want to do a full body now.

I've been hitting a major wall for the last several days, struggling with my design and whether or not to start over. Trying and failing to make compositions for hours and hours with nothing to show. I still wanted to update this because I feel it is very important for my growth so here is the one, problem filled sketch I've come up with over the last six days.

I'm unhappy with so e of the perspective, it's too simple, its missing elements that I don't know how to place (like the snake and other beasts) and I think I'll have a hard time showing off many of the character's details. So I'm working to make more but since this little sketch literally took me almost a week, it may be another week before I update my forum again.

"Ailean The Evangel"

The Fey are an ageless people. My father said they had no beginning, and so they will have no end. What always was always will be. I’d always thought they were a myth.

The faerie standing before me now was beautiful. It’s rosy skin shone in the light of the distant moon as it stood atop its stony throne that walked on iron-hard legs of wood, holding me with its gaze; a dozens feet long serpent with gracefully curved horns, contrasting the faerie’s own, which were sharply twisted, coiled around the cathedra. It was all tension, its inhuman eyes trained on me, waiting for its master’s raised arms to drop. And they did.

I did not watch the beast strike me, I was unable to pull my attention from the mismatched emerald and violet eyes of the faerie. When the fangs pierced the flesh of my thigh I did not feel pain as I expected. No, instead I heard Mother speak to me. As I fell to the earth, enrobed by that rapturous voice, I noticed how the green of the serpent’s eyes mirrored one of the faerie’s. It was such a magnificent shade.

The warmth of Mother’s love began radiating outward from my thigh, washing over me to the rhythm of my beating heart. My, how wonderful that shade of green was, it was almost all I could see now, consuming my vision. Blades of grass wrapped themselves around me, and I had the sudden feeling that this was what it must’ve felt like in the womb.

It was then that I realized how tired I was, how tired I’d always been. I knew that if I went to sleep now I would awake invigorated like never before, ready to fight for a greater purpose. So I closed my eyes.

The last thing I saw was the faerie’s smiling face.

Surrounded by green.

I finally came up with a name and story for my character Ailean!

Ailean is a name of Celtic origin, meaning rock or noble, and is used for both boys and girls, so I'm really lucky that a name existed that fulfilled every facet of my character.

Also I took the advice that @nesokaiyoh gave me, surrounded myself by awesome art, and I have a composition I'm much happier with that I'm almost ready to share. It's fairly simple, but evokes the emotions I'm going for, and I think I can execute it pretty well.

I just hope I can finish it in time, because I'm damn slow at painting.

Here's my progress on the new composition! There's obviously a lot to add and fix before I really start rendering, especially in the environment, but I wanted to put out an update.