Lodal's new portfolio in the work

[Lodal]

Hello Cubebrush!
It has been a while since I last visited the forum.

Here's a sneak peek of a work for my portfolio, celebrating the awesome memories I had with my friends playing D&D for about two years!

From the left to the right:
- Kreggan, the dwarf ranger
- Li, the elf monk
- Drez, the half-orc barbarian
- Eva Thruel, the elf sorceress
- Broran, the veteran warrior
- Barachiel, the blessed priest
- Liadri, the assassin
And of course our fantastic DM, keeping an eye on us from the background.

I'm going to paint them all for my portfolio that I would like to send to Wizard of the Coast by next year. Wish me good luck !

I hope you like them, and if you have any questions, comments or critics, go ahead!
(sorry for the watermark, it is just a precaution as it is an early WIP and I don't want it to be stolen, I hope you understand)

Here are the critics/advices I received so far and taken into account:
- Work more on the pose of the Eva (the female elf in the center) to make it looks more natural like the others
- Work on the legs anatomy
- The dwarf is too skinny and has too long arms
- Play with overlays of the characters, with clothes, drapery etc between them (that was planed but not in this sketch)

See you in the next update

• Kyllian
  Freelance Concept Artist/Illustrator
  (currently available @ lodaligae@gmail.com)
  https://www.instagram.com/lodaligae/
  https://www.artstation.com/lodal

[achronic]

This looks awesome! Really inspiring, makes me want to create more things for my D&D games. Looking forward to the next update

[marc]

Awesome work so far, can't wait to see the updates for this

[Mocart]

that looks awesome. really looking forward to see what you make out of it.

[rokdem]

Woa, super cool!

Haha, i guess that is a sign you are good-when you have justified belief someone might want to steal your work:D

I wouldn't notice but i can agree with the feedback you got, i don't see what's wrong with the legs and i like Eva's pose, it's Liadri that seems strange to me.
And Barachiel's left arm... You can put an arm in such a position but it's far from comfortable. I guess, the egg should be more to the side of his body and his elbow might not be visible then.

Again, it's an awsome piece, do post the next wips, this is going to be epic in the end!

[Lodal]

Thanks everyone ! And sorry for the delay, I had no internet since the day I posted this aha.

@achronic Thank you very much and yeah go ahead, the world needs even more d&d art aha
@marc Thank you very much! I'll do my best
@Mocart Thank you!
@rokdem Thank you for the feedbacks! And in the end I redid completely Eva's drawing and pose and It is much better now. And I must agree, now that I look at Liadri, she will definetly require more rework and maybe a new drawing as well. As for Barachiel's left arm, I'll have to look and search for proper reference to make it look more natural when I come to that point. Thanks a lot!

Here's a sneak peek of what I am currently doing on them.

I started with Eva, the beautiful elf sorceress (I redrew it completely and she fits better with the other characters):
critics from myself:
- the lighting is a simple layer with a mask, I'll have to paint it properly after.
- needs refinement on anatomy and face
- she looks cross-eyed at the moment
- start working on the hair/ears
- add brighter values maybe
Drezz, the deadly half-orc barbarian lady:
- the female/male/androgyne face is wanted
- needs refinement on the anatomy and face
- maybe more expressive

And yes I have done the whole body but is not ready to be shown yet (they don't have clothes yet and it is rough, I'll keep that for later).

I'll post the progress and other characters in the upcoming days/weeks.

I hope that you like them as much as I enjoy working on them! And of course I am open to Comments and critics even at this early stage on them.

Thanks!

[Lodal]

An update on Drez, started to detail, refine, add highlights and started thinking about the costume, maybe a bit too samuraiish but that'll be fixed. Still heavy WIP. (also started my dwarf Kreggan, but not ready to show it yet )

Here's the progress so far:

Thanks!

[Lodal]

Hey!
Taking a little break from commissions work (yay). To post some preview of my dwarf Kreggan, the dwarf ranger.
I hope you enjoy him as well!

[rokdem]

Woohoo, new posts here:D

You said that Drez's outfit seems too samuraiish... From what you've shown it doesn't remind me of the samurai. Maybe there is a resemblance with the Harad people from lotr (which i think would work well) but that could be just because it's so vague still...

I can't believe how loose/shetchy the dwarf is and yet he is alreday so defined! I love it! And since i am far away, i dare to say it (i wouldn't say it to his face), his nose seems odd, as if it was broken...
Already so much detail ready for his armor and stuff! So much cool stuff in one painting... I am learning just by watching your steps in creating this:)

Really looking forward to seeing more!

[Lodal]

Thank you very much for the support Rokdem!
Yup I thought it was too samuraiish at the time I made it, but now that I look at it, it isn't that obvious anymore. I'll have to define it anyways.

Aha, and yes I took another approach for Kreggan, this time I had the rough drawing you saw in the group picture, but I didn't decided to redraw it like the other but I tried to do a blank silhouette other the lines and see how it would work, it made him a bit more stylised at the begining but my concentration was on the big shapes. I guess he will become a bit more "realistic" with more colors and details/values like Drezz now. I'll have to flip the portrait to see what's wrong with the nose, thanks for noticing. And don't worry, he is a fierce warrior but a very kind and humble person.

I don't really have a process or steps, I just go with the flow but I'm happy it is helpful for someone else.
So far, my "process" for these was to do:
- rough sketch of the pose without clothes for all the characters
- think about the costume
- refine the anatomy drawing under it
- flat skin colors under the lines
- start painting in colors directly under the lines
- start refining the painting over the lines
- adjust with layers and masks for lighting scenari like in Eva's portrait
- sketch costume ideas over it.
- next we'll see

Thanks again Rokdem!

[Lodal]

Hey everyone,
I was blown away by Sergey Kolesov's portraits he did for the latest Dishonored and that motivated me to get better with textures, shapes and volume.
So here's an update on my dwarf ranger, Kreggan portrait. I prefer it that way. It is still a WIP but I really like where it is going.

[rokdem]

The texture looks great! You do that with brush strokes or is there another trick? I guess his hair and beard will get the same attention?

Hope to see an update:)

[Lodal]

Thank you, I did that with brush strokes yes, I use the brushes of Bastien Lecouffe Deharme and Peleng but these strokes were done with one brush If I remember correctly. And yes the rest will definetly get the same attention.

I have been working on an another character (a god) for a Dnd Homebrew campaign for someone else (I have to do 7 characters for him ) and I hope I'll be allowed to show him because he is quite cool right now.

Thanks!

[Lodal]

Hello everyone, I hope you are doing good?
I apologize for the lack of updates, I have been been busy with tons of little commissions in october and then did and completed the Artstation challenge "Beneath the Waves" in the character design category
Here's the thread for WIPs, story, description etc... Here I won't post the pictures directly there because they are quite big for the submission but all is in the link.
I hope you like them, I had a lot of fun doing them and I learned a lot.
Also I wanted to have more sci-fi work for my portfolio because I am mainly working on fantasy projects but I love both.

[Lodal]

Hello there,

I hope you are all doing fine, I have been very busy, and totally forgot this topic.
If you want to see what you missed since last year, I have a proper portfolio website now:
Here
And some on my instagram as well: Here
I allow myself to directly post the links since I don't want to drown you with 50+ pictures of illustrations, sketches and commissions. But i'll try to keep this topic updated when I can and directly post on it. I have been recently hired to 40+ portraits of NPCs for tabletop rpgs, and If I am allowed to post them, I'll do that here. I'm also working on my most ambitious personal illustration with an environment and multiple characters since it is lacking in my portfolio, I'll post some sneak peeks here as well.
Until then, thank you very much for your interest and have a nice weekend.

• Lodal

[Shia]

Hey there Lodal,
Very impressive portfolio! You did great!
Don't be scared to post 'too much'. No such thing as posting too much!
(There's a forum badge that you can earn for posting a lot too )

[Lodal]

Hello Shia,

Thank you very much for the kind words, I appreciate it. I'll keep that in mind for next time, I have lots of pieces (both professional and personal) planed for the upcoming months.
Have a nice day!

[Lodal]

Hey there, it has been a while!

A crop of a big Symbaroum (Check it out if you don't know that pen and paper RPG, it is great) personal illustration in the work inspired by a scenario we played a while ago... It isn't even a third of the complete picture for now.

My portfolio was lacking big complete illustrations so I have been busy on this one between client works.

And before you ask why the woman, Kelva, has no clothes on her top, she was a changeling shapeshifter witch who could turn into beasts and she'll have animals skulls on her belt, furs and of course arms aha. Same for the guy, Derkan, he'll have legs, he's not a ghost, this is still an early WIP but I hope you like it and that you are intrigued.

Comments and critics are obviously welcome, even at this early stage.

Thank you for your time!

[cedricgo]

I think it's coming along really, really well. I love the mood and the rendering so far. Pretty solid stuff!

[Lodal]

Thank you very much! I'm having tons of fun with, unfortunately, I'll have to put it on hold for now. I have new client work to do. But I'll come back to it as soon as I can.