ART WAR 4 | 2D | War of the Elements | Granny Smith | alinabeska

Name: Alina Besanidou
Email: alina.besanidou@gmail.com
Website: https://www.artstation.com/alinabeska

My character for the War of the Elements contest, a champion for the Earth team, Granny Smith.

Character backstory:
Granny Smith used to own an orchard, peacefully tending to her apple trees every day. That is, until the War of the Elements broke out and a Fire army burned her beloved orchard do the ground. Driven by her thirst for revenge, Granny Smith decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Equipped with a massive gun, she joined the war as a champion for the Earth faction. Now Granny embraces every chance to jump into battle, supported by a loyal army of sentient tree soldiers that she herself created. Inside every bullet she fires, she puts a seed - so that from every fallen foe a new tree soldier emerges. And now that Granny Smith has tasted real war, she might not want to return to a peaceful life of gardening too soon.

Final illustration:

So I was brainstorming characters for this challenge while eating an apple, and got really inspired by the apple sort's name - Granny Smith. I immediately imagined a badass grandma protecting her orchard. I read up on the real Granny Smith, and decided that I wanted my character's look to be from the same time period - so think an old lady in a Victorian dress and a bonnet. I will post a more detailed backstory for my character later For now I will say that she is a champion for the Earth side, as she has a deep connection with nature, and can create sentient apple trees that help and protect her. Oh, and also she has a massive gun.

Here are a couple of quick pencil sketches. The first one is Granny Smith herself, and the second is one of her sentient tree soldiers.

This is my mood board for Granny Smith. Helps me get a feel for the character and the mood of the illustration. These aren't the images I'll be using as reference, this is purely for inspiration and fun

Super early sketch of Granny, mostly to get an idea for values / silhouette. Planning on placing her tree soldiers behind her, also will definitely rework her face and the weapon once I find some reference.

Worked on the black and white sketch some more.

Added some colour to Granny! I still need to find some reference for the face, because what she has now is kinda horrifying l I know I will rework the background and foreground, but they'll do for now to just give me an idea of where everything is going. I'm having so much fun working on this!

A mysteriously flipped update!

The earth emblem will be on her chest as a lacy decorative piece This project is really fun!

Another update! I actually already started redoing the background from scratch, so what you see in this update will definitely change. I just think it looks too busy, there are too many trees and too many details. I'm happy with everything else in the illustration though, I think it's coming together nicely

Aaaand just like that it's done! After redrawing the trees in the background the whole image just came together. There were some small tweaks here and there besides the trees (like making the emblem on her chest more hexagonal). I added the bullet shells and worked on improving the lighting. This is the end result, and I'm very happy with it!