11/1/2023
Finished the sketch and laid out some colors and effects to get a feel for what exactly I'm working up to in this piece. Doing so isn't exactly productive, but I had the urge and followed it.
I think between the sword swipe and blood effects I'm achieving the dynamic composition that I was aiming for. I'm considering adding the bodies of some low-level enemies in the background and perhaps deep in the foreground to add to that even further.
While I haven't moved onto lineart, I did try to limit how many lines I put down in the sketch. Admittedly, the loop of stopping to think quickly grew old and I devolved to old habits. But I think I did well to limit how many times I went over the same idea with a line more than usual at the very least. I feel like using a plain hard brush helped with that as well as opposed to one with opacity. A lesson I'm re-learning after an experiment I did some months back. It may be some small way to account for my use of digital tools and force me to think more before laying down lines. Before I lose patience, of course.
I ended up dropping extreme perspective entirely due to the thumbnail I ended up developing, so that's something I'll have to work on another time.
As far as colors go, this almost feel like cheating. Risk of Rain is such an overwhelmingly blue game. It's pretty easy to throw in a contrasting color, any contrasting color, and create a decent color comp. Still, it's more visually interesting than practically anything I've made in years, so I'll take it. I should definitely exercise this skill in a more challenging environment going forward.
Otherwise, yeah. To me at least, this is turning out pretty badass.
So, uh. It seems like I'm no the right track at least.
Time will tell.
