ART WAR 4 | 2D | War of the Elements | Mother Glade | obsidanite

[nesokaiyoh]

Damn the concepts for this are really indepth. Looks amazing so far and I'm getting a distinct Shadow of the Colossus feel with those last few pages!

[obsidanite]

@nesokaiyoh thank you! I'm definitely inspired by shadow of the colossus for this, but I'm also trying to avoid making it look like it came right out of that universe lol.

[nesokaiyoh]

I like that you're pushing against it then, imo the sheet you posted 7 days ago does look like it came right from the game which honestly is impressive in itself lol I'm excited to see where you push it though

[obsidanite]

Almost forgot to do some work on the symbol! I'm having trouble deciding if it should be a hole or maybe the paint reads better. Kind of leaning towards the paint but still on the fence!

The paint was inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn's Banuk painings (really beautiful symmetrical designs and colors, check them out!)

[obsidanite]

on the topic of paint on rocks, does anyone know a solid technique for making the paint look like paint? Can't seem to achieve the same level of realism as something like this:
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F63%2F4a%2Fe4%2F634ae4bfa00ec2d85fd571a3fd4c093c.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

[nesokaiyoh]

That has a lot of photobashing, and textured brushes (I photobash concepts too so it's a skill I'm familiar with). He probably imports photo textures and paints over them using lasso and textured brushes. If you want to learn that kind of technique without photos, then Shaddy safadi is a good bet. Look him up on Google, I learned my textured painting from him too and it;s definitely worthwhile. (The videos are free on his website!)

[olegulianytskyi]

Cool. Reminded me Shadow of the colossus

[obsidanite]

so I've come across a huge roadblock. I'm not sure if it's a virus or not but I went to go and uninstall a questionable program I had on my machine and it took on a sort of "if I go down, I'm taking you with me" nature and uninstalled half the programs on my computer (Office, all Adobe programs, chrome, and a lot of other important programs).

Fortunately, it didn't damage or remove any of my documents so I still have all of my ART WAR work, but I'm going to need to repair the damage and so my next few posts will probably be delayed. Going to need to re-install all of the programs that were lost and figure out what happened and whether or not I have a virus. Reconfiguring all my photoshop settings to the way I had it before is going to be really arduous though, haha. Definitely going to reinstall photoshop by tomorrow and get that back up and running so I can be back in business ASAP!

[obsidanite]

Before I continue I'd love to upload the WIP for the final concept page. I decided to choose tribal paint for the emblem, but it felt out of place by itself on her stomach so I decided to add more paint on the rock formations on her back. I think I may also add some to her skull if it doesn't get too crowded on the design. Gonna add little bits of paint on parts of the design to make it feel more complete.
Let me know what you think!
WIP:

[nesokaiyoh]

Sorry to hear about the computer stuff, I've been having a lot of trouble myself, had to reset from the harddrive twice and completely uninstall and reinstall Windows from my SSD. Had to install everything so many times and it was still crashing, figured it might now be a RAM problem so I took one out to test individual crashes lmao been lucky so far. Either way there's no rush and you don't have to post every single day, seeing your effort and attitude towards though is really nice and admirable.

I think it's looking lovely so far and I enjoy the design, I hope you can sort out the problem soon and properly get back into it!

[Oceane_Roh]

I hope you will overcome your trouble
The tribal paint are a nice touch to your design and it's very original !

[obsidanite]

Finished the concept page. Going to start doing thumbnails for the final illustration soon! Let me know what you think.

[josierichmond]

This is looking super nice!! Shadow of the colossus vibes for sure. Can't wait to see where your final illustration goes!

(Sorry to hear about your computer troubles )

[obsidanite]

@josierichmond thank you! Having a bit of trouble with the final illustration thumbnails as I need the pose to display the emblem on her belly but can't come up with any good poses, and not sure if I should downsize her a bit and maybe put the emblem on her head somewhere instead.

also computer crisis averted! Friend helped me out :>

[nesokaiyoh]

Well she's massive, so a good port of call is to use a lower perspective or even a worm's eye view to give a good shot of the belly! That's just one idea though

[yazziixx]

Very cool concept! I really like the skull mask, gives a very eerie and strong feeling, good luck with the illustration

[josierichmond]

Hmmm. A low angle shot is definitely a good idea, or even putting some of that war paint on her mask? Or even at the bottom of her legs where humans could have painted it on?

[obsidanite]

Now for the part I struggle with the most... illustration thumbnails! I really struggle with values and composition so any suggestions are much appreciated. <3

[obsidanite]

So during the thumbnailing process I kept asking myself if the design felt good and I kept feeling like there was something off about the character so I decided to go back to the design and fiddle around with it. Doodled up something I love a lot more than the current design that feels more like nature/earth element than the first design.

Aaaand some color variations:

[obsidanite]

Thumbnails I made before the design changed:

Going to use the far right one as the final image, just going to expand on the force attacking.

(also fun little edit, my favorite song to listen to while working on her creation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNzbwP4UaBE )