FINAL | ARTWAR 2 | 2D | Raksha | frankcauthen

frankeometry 2018-01-12 05:41:36 UTC #1

These are my final submissions for ArtWar2! Thanks for your consideration. I hope this character brightens your day ~
My name is Frank Cauthen
my email is frankeometry@gmail.com
I don't have a website but I'd love to hear from you on Instagram @frank.cauthen

Now let's go back in time! (I hope I'm doing this final submission process correctly. It's a little confusing.)
...

I'm so glad I found this contest in time to participate!

Raksha is a nature avatar of the Sunbro persuasion.
Fluff: A divine spirit of Light that manifested itself to protect life in a time of desperate peril. He sometimes gives rides to adventurous woodland sprites.
Crunch: Channels light into photosynthetic regeneration and fibrous growths. Zaps naughty shadow baddies with his moonlight staff.

mdashow 2018-01-12 14:54:51 UTC #2

Great start to the challenge, and great initial design. The silhouette is really strong. I can't at all tell which side your character is on, light or dark. The left side of the image looks like light, the right side, darkness. The description sounds like light (although I only see one main character here: If your warrior is named Raksha, then who are Fluff and Crunch?) Anyhow, that probably doesn't matter, as the judges will be looking at the image, not the description... but better make it really clear from the image which side he or she fights for!
Anyhow, great start, wonderful design work so far, good luck with it!

frankeometry 2018-01-13 17:19:33 UTC #3

Thank you for your encouragement and conservative feedback! I'll be sure to spruce up the right side with some light vibes. I've got to rework the composition since it's flat as is. I will definitely take your advice to heart! 👍

Fluff/Crunch is just RPG terminology for ability descriptions. Fluff is like world building, back story, the how and why for people who are into that sort of thing. Crunch is strictly business, no-nonsense "tangible" effects of an action. For example, "attack with sword does 6 damage."

mdashow 2018-01-13 18:04:57 UTC #4

Thanks for the explanation! And good luck with the composition!

frankeometry 2018-01-13 20:46:30 UTC #5

Sorry, I mean constructive feedback. Phone posting 😧

frankeometry 2018-02-18 19:05:06 UTC #6

Holy moly it's been a while since I updated. Honestly, I've been embarrassed about how long it's taken me to land on a satisfying composition. That and I had to shelf it for a while because... excuses? Life stuff, side jobs, family delights. Good times all around. Needless to say, I'm super grateful for the extended time period of this contest! I've also seen a lot of people's work for AW2 on Instagram and it's just mind blowing what people come up with for this prompt. I hope I can track down some of my faves in the forum like a good citizen, lol. Meanwhile, here's a digest of my explorations and missteps in finding a decent composition.

Lots of noodling and experimenting with different features while trying to figure out a way to define this dude as a giant forest spirit. Most of these just ended up taking away from the focus of him being a light-based character that happens to be huge and have other attributes. I ended up going with the bottom-right thumbnail and focusing more on what this rascal does with light, rather than the light features taking a back seat to other characteristics.

frankeometry 2018-02-18 19:15:00 UTC #7

Between fiddling and struggling with the splash image, I worked out some of the costume details from my initial sketch. This was my first time using Sketchbook Pro, and it was very breezy for the most part. I'm looking forward to delving deeper into it.

This part of the assignment was is so fun, to me. Backgrounds give me the sweats, lol. Moving forward, I'm going to let the splash determine how that Swamp-Thing-ish arm is going to work. It definitely won't be as loose as the sketch, since I want him to be able to hold things with it. I'm also thinking about only drawing his cape on one half of the back-facing image.

And here is my progress on the splash image

I had to move that monster pinky last minute, so that's why it looks weird there.
I hope whoever sees this enjoys this image. I appreciate you giving it your time and attention! If you have any comments, concerns, criticisms, etc., lay it on me.