Jan '20
6

Name: Tom James
Email: artwithtomjames@gmail.com
https://tomjames.artstation.com/

My character idea is a young "lord" of the wilds. Someone who can exert effortless control over the earth itself, as well as the beasts who walk it. I wanted to do the Earth element because I feel like it is so much more than the classic image of a humanoid made of stone, or a mage who slings rock.

Final: Ailean the Evangel

Jan '20
2

To start, I researched earth spirits and deities from different cultures around the world. What I found is that The Earth, is represented as a mother figure, an example being Gaea who birthed the Greek Titans. However, deities and spirits of earth or nature are often very masculine, representing male fertility and sexuality, often in the form of a rutting stag. The roman Pan, and Celtic Cernunnos are strong examples of this, and who I ended up taking most of my inspiration from. In the end I also decided to blend the feminine and masculine sides of the earth, and create an androgynous character. Here's my first sketch from my sketchbook

Jan '20
1

Since I've decided to base a lot of my character off of Pan and Cernunnos, I decided to do costume design based off of Roman and Celtic clothing and armor.

What I found was that both Celtic and Roman clothing tended to be long and flowing cloth, though Celtic fabric was more intricately patterned, woven textiles. Celtic warriors didn't wear armor early on, but eventually started wearing leather, and an early form of chainmail they invented. Later on they wore metal helmets that resembled Roman helmets, though I don't know which culture drew inspiration from the other.

I have come up with 4 preliminary designs

EarthEmpCostume.png5100x3300 1.29 MB

EartEmpCostume2.png5100x3300 936 KB

I wanted the character to feel delicate and ornamental. Their power does not come from physicality, but rather their magic. They laxidaisically and haughtily control their "subjects" with constant heir of superiority.

I think I like designs 2 and 3 the most, with 3 being my favorite. It has a very royal roman feel to it. Let me know what you think!

Jan '20

Reply to

artwithtomjames

I forgot to mention above that each costume design contains a torc, a rigid metal band that would be worn around the neck, something Cernunnos is often depicted wearing or holding.

The final image I see in my head of this character is them lounging on a living, walking palanquin made of twisted wood entangled around chunks of stone and soil. They are almost not paying attention, lazily pointing towards the viewer, commanding a horde of beasts to attack.

Here's a quick sketch of what one "leg" of the palanquin may look like.

Cernunnos is often depicted with bulls, rats and horned serpents, so I would like the extreme foreground to have a striking snake with horns. The rest of the composition will contain other animals in the act of charging towards the viewer.

I'm also toying with the idea of having the animals be made of branches and stone as well to better represent the earth element, what do you think?

Jan '20

Wow looks great so far! You clearly put a lot of thought and research in which is super interesting.
Personally I like number 3 the most. It looks more royal than the others. It seems more fitting. (since you mentioned that he is a lord of the wilds)
One thing thats bothering me a little is that the chracter seems rather tilted. The face and the balance seem a little off. I'd recommend flipping your image. You should be able to see it better afterwards.
But other than that it looks really cool! Looking forward to see what you are going to do with the design.

Jan '20

@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.

Jan '20

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.

Jan '20

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 .

Jan '20

I'm in love with the effort you put into the thought behind this character, I love so many threads in this art war but I haven't yet come across many who've dedicated so much time into the mental side of the character rather than the physical. Great progress I love it!

Jan '20

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.

Jan '20

Leaning towards 3 for my fav for the hair i think.

Jan '20

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.

Jan '20

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.

Jan '20

I think it would be worth it to produce a few small, low effort thumbnails, and not fretting on details at this point. If you're struggling, get together some pieces of artwork and other inspirations which will help you think of something, and not just wait for something good to arrive - when i find myself struggling i often indulge in the viewing of artwork, it doesn't often fail because I'm surrounded by ideas. But even if you're tired of trying to find something that works, you can still of course make this one work. You can make the image longer vertically, and that'll give some depth to his standing there and show some more of the environment for example

Jan '20

"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.

Jan '20

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.