ARTWAR 2 | 2D | Candy Land Butcher | chriswestart

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:17:31 UTC #1

Hello everyone, my name is Chris and I'm from South Africa, I'm fairly new to digital art and don't expect to place top five but I am rather treating this competition as a powerful learning experience. This is the first competition I've ever entered and its in a medium I'm not familiar with, so any and all critique is more than welcome as it will only improve my skills as I spend day after day practicing. Hopefully I can finish something that I can be proud of by the end. I'm excited about the journey in front of me.

Good luck to all of you entering in this experience alongside me!

Welcome to my creative process of the "Candy Land Butcher"!

Personal Details:
- Christiaan van der Westhuizen (Chris West is easier to remember haha)
- chriswestart13@gmail.com
- Instagram: @chriswestart

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:27:28 UTC #2

Okay so to get my creative juices flowing I started with basic thumbnails and brainstorming of ideas for both Light and Dark.

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:29:54 UTC #3

Then as I had the basic idea of what I wanted to go for I moved over to the next step: references and inspirations.

alphawubwolf 2018-01-17 11:30:57 UTC #4

That's so Cool! Love the idea or a candy land butcher

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:32:15 UTC #5

Once that was completed I jumped onto Photoshop and started doing some basic sketches - focusing mainly on silhouettes and some composition experiments.

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:33:35 UTC #6

Hahaha thanks a lot! I'm excited to see how it comes together as I improve haha

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-17 11:37:52 UTC #7

Okay so by now its Day 3 of my progress and I'm slowly moving towards "fleshing" the character out. I'm still not sure how I'm going to incorporate the candy aspect into the character (if at all) as I'm thinking of trying to create a contrast between the grotesque "butcher" and the joyful and colorful "candy land" and, perhaps, its residents Sinister Grin haha

alphawubwolf 2018-01-17 11:55:56 UTC #8

Haha I know that feeling xD

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-18 15:40:10 UTC #9

Okay so Day 4, I started fleshing out the bottom middle sketch and added some candy themed weapon silhouettes to the character. Next ill be working on weapon designs - will see how it goes haha

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-20 07:36:45 UTC #10

Okay so heres some designs for my character haha Chocolate Lance, Lolipop Staff and Gummy Bear "Smasher" haha Weapon names are a working progress haha

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-20 07:38:21 UTC #11

I included some experimentation with using photo's to create the basic idea - not sure whats that called in digital art but oh well here it is haha

alphawubwolf 2018-01-23 15:11:11 UTC #12

Its really coming alone now

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-26 06:32:31 UTC #13

Haha thanks a lot for the comment, I'm probably working slower than everyone else not too mention I'm probably not "concept-ing" as much as I should be, but all in all I'm enjoying the project

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-26 08:34:35 UTC #14

Okay, so I decided to move onto the different views of the character, just to better familiarize myself with the space she would take up before moving onto any compositional sketches. I spent a while digitally inking the frontal view, trying to refine it as much as necessary, and then inked the side and back views in a rougher fashion. I'm thinking I should move onto some concepts of the background next or maybe the candy lands residents but not too sure, will see what comes when it comes.

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-26 08:36:43 UTC #15

Looking at it now I see I had forgotten to add the tail to the rear view haha

ranarh 2018-01-26 11:30:16 UTC #16

This is really scary. Maybe play up the candyland theme a little more? Maybe frosted arms or ears... candystriped tail? Perhaps too silly. I'm sure you'll figure something out for that. The belt is okay, but I wish for functionality.
Scary, but cool.

ChrisWestArt 2018-01-29 05:42:48 UTC #17

Thanks for the critique! all of the points you made are valid, will see what i can come up with. I was thinking of scary v.s. the cute and cuddly, but i think the character itself definitely needs more work. Thanks again!

ChrisWestArt 2018-02-01 14:07:15 UTC #18

Okay so its been a while since I did some work on this concept, i wanted to let the character concept settle a bit, anyway, here's the first part of the composition.