ART WAR 4 | 2D | War of the Elements | Râ, Heliomancer | Back_to_Bapt

Hi everyone !

This is my first time in that kind of competition so I'm both excited and stressed out ! My character is Râ, element of fire, capable of controlling even the brightest stars !

It's also my first time putting so much effort in an illustration, although I'm a very hasted person that likes going with his first idea for design and colors, so I don't have much to show before the final illustration !

Here is my concept art for the big boi:

I really wanted him to look almost inhuman, I wanted the viewer to question what's under the armor, by showing no skins, no eyes to look into, just a head with mechanical features, and a single hand coming out of his cape. Under the cape, only faint lights and machinery would be seen, again "what's under this?!". The sun in his hand is mostly here to show trick the viewer in his dimension.

My big migraine was for the pose. Especially the background. I wanted to put a gigantic sun, again to further emphasize the size paradoxe with the sun in his hand. But how do I show that the character is actually able of manipulating or controlling stars? That's when I thought of a gigantic ship that would just suck out a star, giving the impression that the character's way to attack was quite extreme and... pretty OP.

I like that half-profile pose, but I ended up going for a more frontal one, just to keep the fun of drawing what's under his cape! But the illustration I'm doing is close to the bottom pose.

I've still a long way to go before finishing, and time is running short T-T !!!
Good luck to everyone and thank you for looking at my entry !!

Ok so far I've been having a blast drawing the boi. My main inspiration would be from Jak and Daxter, I've always loved the design and colors of the precursors' statues and machinery since I'm a little kid, so it's only fair that I give them credit. Another inspiration for the blue highlights on the torso are the Zealots in Halo:Reach, their armor design has the same kind of chanels.
I really had a blast putting as much little details as possible to reward people that would try and zoom in on him. Hope you enjoy it so far, next is the background!

Next step was the sun and the massive space ship behind the character.
Painting the sun was really fun, I really wanted to do it by myself and not get a texture online, and I'm really proud of the result!
The space ship was a bit harder to do. I was wondering how I could show the immensity of the ship without sparing the details. The progressive lighting from the sun "sucking" made for great lighting material to give depth to the ship. I also applied some shading around the edge of the ship to make the lights darker and add depth.

Overall, so far, I'm really happy I took the challenge !!

I'm planning on leaving that question open for the sake of the god-like feeling I want him to have !

Alright, here's my final submit for the competition ! I believe I could have done better in giving progress or detailed processes, but I was really discovering everything on the go, especially using a tablet for such illustrations. It was a really fun adventure and I hope other occasions to challenge myself and improve will come!

The last part was just doing the starry background and the color/contrast/luminosity balance of every element so that they'd fit with each other. I especially noticed that my character was looking to bright compared to the rest, and since he was supposed to be back-lighted by the sun, it didn't give the depth I wanted. I also decided to add a planet, upon which the ship's shadow would appear, to better emphasize the size paradox!

Hope everyone will enjoy it, have a good 2020 <3 !

Thank you for the message !!
I had loads of fun doing it that's for sure, I'll 100% compete next year too if I have time !