Mace's Paper Blog

[Mace]

Hi everyone,
I'm Mace and i'm studying concept in Vancouver.
I've been drawing since a long time ago but decided to turn it into a carrer 3years ago, and so i've been studying digital painting since then.
I'd like to share some of my works with everyone here and hopefully we can motivate and give feedback to each other's works.
I just started my final project at school a week ago and kind of excited to share my process until i finished it completely. I'll start posting all my progress and some studies as well as practice that i will be doing onward (maybe some old works too).

I'm looking forward to have a good time..
Thanks everyone

[Mace]

Hi,
I'm trying to create a new race that live underwater in an MMORPG. Here are some thumbnails that i came up with.
I want to keep this new race humanoid because i want them to be 1 of playable character, and i think human figure is more familiar to most of us. They can go to land to fight the human and to do some hunting in the night (that's why i'm trying to put some human features). They will wear armor from coral and will have 3 jobs/classes (tank, dps, and support)

What do you guys think?

Thank you for dropping by

[Firathion]

Really cool concepts.

I like how some of the heads resemble sharks and other aquatic creatures. You can also try to get some inspiration from deep see creatures if you haven't already. That would result in some really interesting characters.

The figures are great aswell but i'd loce to see some more variety. Maybe go crazy with your proportions on the tanks. I'll keep an eye out for updates.

Great job so far!

[Mace]

Hey thanks for your feedback.
I think one of my concern is that i've been trying to design them as a tribe of alien who live in the abyss, that's why i didn't go for lots of fish or underwater creature. But i think it's a good idea to bring something that most of people already familiar with. I'll look up some more references about deepsea creatures and thank you for reminding me that i have to play with proportion as well., lol.

[Mace]

Here's some progress for my final project. Still doing some iterations to figure out the best design. Put more underwater features to them.
After i settle on a fixed design i will begin to give them different proportion for each classes.
Feel free to give me some feedback and thoughts.

[Mace]

I finally make some progress for this character. After narrowing stuff down i did these sketches and favor the ones with tail rather than the 1 with wings (i think the tail will make more sense so they will be an expert at swimming whereas the wing only help them glide in the water.
If someone stumbled upon this post, your Feedback and opinion would be more than welcome.

[Mace]

Some updates for my final project. Made alternatives for the body type and try to put some armor.
I want the way they wear the armor is different from normal human. I might try to put some little pieces of armor on the torso or some parts of the body.

As usual feedback would be great
Thanks for stopping by

[rokdem]

Hey there!
The evolution of these seapeople is really cool to see!
I would suggest more difference betwen male and female characters-especially head design.
Concerning the tail, the first and the fourth from the initial tail sketches were my favorites.
The legs-the first post with the body ideas... The third iteration in the top row is something i haven't seen before and i think it's brilliant! They could use the feet as fins in the water but pull their fingers together to walk/run on land.
If they will fight humans, consider their fight style and design the armor that would be needed for that kind of battles (in tight formation, hunter type, ranged or melee etc.)
You might add something that would sugest they are in aggressive stance-like the collar on beta fish.

I hope this is the kind of feedback you want and is helpful.

Anyways, this thread looks great so far, keep it up!

[Mace]

Thanks for dropping by.
And your feedbacks are really great man. I like the beta fish idea the most. I agree they have to be more difference beside the tail.
I'm designing the armor right now and will start to clean the rough sketches a little bit. At the moment, i'm thinking about the male will be more like tank class and the female would be a DPS class (i reference mantis shrimp for the female fighting style).
I will post the armor concept design tomorrow. This is my first time designing something hybrid so i kinda struggle a little bit, but i think i'm getting there.

Thanks again for your feedback and i really appreciate it.

[Mace]

I'm trying to do some armor design for my characters while developing the species a little bit more. The armor could change a little bit in further development.
I tried to incorporate turtle shell for the male character and crab, lobster, and shells for female as DPS character.

Feel free to give your opinion if you have some ideas and thank you for stopping by.

Cheers

[rokdem]

Nice work there with the exploration of armor!
I love all of the shields (also the red one). But that's not very helpful is it;)
Armor design-the middle black for male is my favorite. Weapon design... The last one is kind of too sketchy to be understood-the other two are cool looking tools for piercing enemy's hearts. If they fight in a tight formation like a phalanx, this is great but if you want a tank, that jumps into the frey and just damages everything round him, these weapons are too slick imo. Something for hacking/slashing/smashing would be more apropriate. True, a shield could be used in such a fashion...
Head from the first and second black characters look great, i would describe the third as a bit goofy.
I think something is a bit off with the anatomy-the males seem to be missing knees or they are being bent in the opposite direction. There is no such issue with the female character. I guess it's just the pose of the males...
As for the females, the middle one seems to be the best but i think that is simply because it's the easyest to understand when looking at it. There are so many lines that it's hard to make out what is what. Using different line thicknesses would help i think...

[Mace]

Thanks for the feedback. I'd been busy to prepare for my presentation and went through it quite alright.
I changed a couple of things and came up with this design for a while.

I'm still stuck with the head design. lol. But after the presentation i've got some feedback that i could add some distinguished fish/sea creature feature to my character. I think that's a good idea but i've been trying to avoid such things because i don't want my character to be recognize as human+fish/sea creature, i want them to be more like alien that can swim and go to the surface and fight.
I also clarify what their armor would look like.

Thanks again for dropping by and give your time and feedback

[rokdem]

I'm glad to hear it went well with the presentation.

The idea of giving your characters some more destinguishable fish/sea creature feature is not bad. I think it's easyer to change it more alien-like after you have the base than start into the wild with no boundaries...

The head designs you have for the female and male are really cool-the larger ones. I like how you managed to add that collar to them, it looks natural/believable. But since this is game design, you could experiment with the shape a bit more (maybe making it more spiky), to make it as clear as possible that it is dangerous to be round that one when the collar is spreaded.

I know you are not focusing on rendering the image but it would be easyer to read the image if it wasn't as bright, if you would use darker values too.

Anyways, it's cool to see your characters go through all sorts of metamorphosis and fashion styles:)

[Mace]

Thank you for your feedback as always. I was doing some work on my characters on my summer break and i already settled on the design for this project.
Here is the base design and some starting armor ideas as well

Couple of weeks later i decided to do the max level armor design (ignore the gauntlet on the male character, lol)

As usual some feedbacks would be welcome as i move on to color these guys.
I'll keep posting any updates about my final project and also i already done some progression for 2 other races.

Thank you for stopping by

[rokdem]

What are you eating man!? They were good before but now, they are so much better! You can make such progress in just couple of weeks?

Show the other races too!

The head design is really cool. Female looks more threatening and the male is more threatening:)

[Mace]

Hey man,
I'm glad that you like my progress.
These are the other race. I already settled with them but i will post some progression along the way. Also i will be designing a male character for the flying warrior.

As always feel free to give me your opinion or feedback.
Thanks for stopping by

[Mace]

Okay, this is gonna be a long post.
I just finished my final project and finally graduated !!

These are my character concept art for my personal project MMORPG 'Rendezvous'

Shade

Crimson

Skyrider

[Mace]

Details and Armor Progressions

[Alboba]

I would say that the disigns look bomb, and congrats on your graduation! You rendering is also very good. Maybe you should look at some basic anatomy stuff, some of your figures look a little bit stiff, and the lasts creatures torso (with the green wings) looks a little bit too long to me. But this is really looking bomb! So just continue I guess ^-^

[Mace]

Hey, glad you like them @jilltonic . I made the torso longer on purpose but i think i'd gone too far that's why it looks out of proportion.
And thank you for your feedback, and yes! i'm working on my anatomy and gesture right now.

Here's more art that i've been doing