Okay, so been working on some stuff from term 5 and I really enjoy the concept, though, admitedly I am not used to working on sillhouettes first and I feel my inexperience on this front shows (plus, I have been distracted on other art projects I needed to work on for other people) but some updated progress:

Starting with my hero shape, I admittedly loved the concept of this without having ever done this before. Not sure that my shape completely captured the idea of the assignment, but its somewhere to start and definitely gave me some shape language to work from for sillhouettes and beyond.

From there i moved to actually making the sillhouetted figures, though hindsight tells me that I didn't pick an ideal pose, as i lose some interesting shapes when working from these

9FB326EF-C43D-4235-81EE-7E1F9E06D9F9.jpeg4096x2732 125 KB

71146250-4C32-4594-A78A-8BA05DA855AD.jpeg4096x2732 341 KB

1023CB44-5022-4EE8-8499-E3E7A0BF43C3.jpeg4096x2732 364 KB

I feel like the second set of these are definitely improved, though could use some more work. Would love some input/feedback of any kind here. Like I said earlier, I am not really used to working from sillhouettes, so any pointers or suggestions go a long way.

From there I actually worked on the character's arm specifically, as staying in line with what Marc outlines, I have detailed ouy what I want my character to be:
A cyberpunk (not necessarily the game) style assassin character with a mechanical arm. The character will have scars reflecting that the arm is a replacement for having lost his arm rather than choosing it. Personality is meant to be cocky and a bit reckless, reflected in the outfits that are more flashy than stealthy, but still have some utility. Intention is for the arm and use of many different weapons to be the hook into the character, however this may always change during the creation process. He is a smoker and has very relexed subtle actions/poses which are meant to show a casual lack of interest/effort in the straightforward parts of his work.

As i defined the arm to be a key part of the character this is the next part i decided to work on designing specifically, as this might provide me some better context for going back and making more engaging sillhouettes later.

I realized that i often make me hanical limbs in a style reminiscent of automail from FMA, which I wanted to try branching away from with the 2nd and 3rd designs. I plan to make more detailed ref images on how the arms would move/function when I decide ok a more finalized design for it. This tends not to be a style i branch into much (which is part of why i am practicing it) but would really like to, as I tend to work largely on fantasy/ medieval characters and don't do more mechanical work unless its a modern and not futuristic character.

As i know its a specialty of Marc's and I am sure many peopke here, this also would be great to have feedback on I have done a fair amount of practice on it, but always struggled with certain aspects so learning more about how to make a more futuristic character especially with the mechanical arm has been fun so far and takes much more effort than some of my other works.

Aww thanks 😄 very happy if it gives off a professional quality feel to it. And I am assuming you mean the first of the three arms? Rather than the sillhouettes. I definitely appreciate the feedback either way. Hoping to elaborate at least a bit on all of these designs.

Alright, I know i went a while without posting here, so i plan to dump a fair amount, though i have also been working on some other projects so my progress has not been grand either, but thus far i have 3 pretty finalized concepts for the character i have been working on individually and together. I decided to spread them out into new poses and angles to make them more interesting and reflect the designs better for each one. Plus, i am more efficient when working from new line art, rather than painting over silhouettes. Its probably largely just from the way i usually work, preferring the sketching and lineart approach to blocking out color or form first. anyway, would love some feedback on these:

assassin design board1.png4000x3200 1.77 MB

All 3 are not in color as i really wanted to be certain of the final designs and hopefully get a few bits of feedback regarding these before going into color to really balance out the designs. I only plan to really flesh out and shade 1 of these, but i also plan to do a full build for the arm and weapons, as well as their accompanying holding materials, etc when a design is decided. I was really trying to stay focused on the silhouettes still, hence the darker grays on the left two, though i decided to block out material separation on the last one, more than darken it too much to focus on linework. If this is too distracting to get a good read on the designs for feedback, please let me know and i can adjust this to a more readable palette for the other two.

cyber assassin 2 sillhouette fin.png3200x4000 888 KB

This one is kind a similar to the middle design, but was supposed to be less focused on the armor aspect to bring focus to the mechanical arm and hopefully the weapons when they are added to the design. Its also supposed to be the most functional of the designs as the coat is more functional than the others, the main outfit hides his scars and keeps his body shrouded and protected, plus there are still bits of armor for protection as well. There is still a bit of personality in it too between the pose and the showy designs for the belt, jacket and boots.
Hopefully this still comes across despite the lack of color and separation on some of the materials here. I feel like the weakest parts of the design are the large parts of the clothes that have no interesting design or pattern or anything, but i really don't like overly busy designs and felt like this would be less boring once some texture and lighting was applied to these areas. I could be wrong though so i welcome anyone addressing this as something that needs to be adjusted or not.

cyber assassin sillhouette fin.png3200x4000 710 KB

This was the first one i started working with after the original silhouette designs on the last post and i feel like this one may be the weakest design of the 3 now, if for no other reason than the fact that its much simpler than the other two. However, this isn't always a bad thing and as previously stated i actually dislike anything that feels too busy, so this one still has its advantages to me.
This one focuses a bit more on separating each element of the design and having a bit more space between them as their own piece of his character. The idea was that keeping his outfit simple would allow me to make the weapons and tools on the character stand out a bit more once i get to them, as i plan to design them to complement the character, regardless of whichever design i end up focusing on. I feel like this one is much more sleek and i really like that this one can actually show off the scars on the side with the prosthetic as its an element of the design that is meant to communicate a bit of his background in the suggestion that something caused him to lose the arm, rather than it simply being a physical enhancement of some kind which is common in cyberpunk type stories. If i end up going with this one i could always steal another element of the others like the mask or the coat patterns.

cyber assassin new 3 sillhouette.png3200x4000 976 KB

Lastly, the newest one is alot easier to take in the visual elements and i really like that there are two items that i could potentially do a full breakdown design for if i end up liking them, as it would give me more reference sheets for the character and makes him feel a bit more complex and interesting. This one does, however, start to feel a bit less realistic in its designs somehow, between the extra short jacket and the little solar relay on his shoulder pad. The latter could probably be fleshed out a bit more to help with that, but it's also a strength of the design to a degree because it makes it more unique rather than predictable. Feels like the design was made to convey something new and the others are a bit more safe.

Anyway, I would love to hear anything in the way of suggestions, criticism etc. I am not the most vocal here and i know that makes for a bit of a weakness on my part on visibility and feedback, but anything is helpful thank you!

To give a bit more visibility to the designs previously, so that the linework can be read a bit easier and it doesn't take away from the designs I ended up using the same palette and concept for material separation on all three designs. Next will probably be a slight elaboration on some of the outfit underneath the jackets just to give better context to all 3. I don't plan to have too much focus on the under outfit for this character and the illustrations i will use him for, but it will be good to have as a guide to whatever design i end up going with.

assassin design board2.png4000x3200 2.03 MB

I absolutely welcome more feedback or suggestions on what else i may need to elabprate on for these

Haha, yeah, I will definitely have to avoid blonde hair or red in the coat with this one. I'm thing something dark for the hair color, but i do also like the suggestion of purple. Will have to mess around with some color harmonies for him when i get to that step.

alright, with the feedback from last time i decided to cut out the third design and focus more on the other two so i could get more done without worrying about making more unnecessary changes to a version that doesn't work as well.

started with adding the details under the coats to get a better idea of the character's features over all.

cyber assassin 1 undergear.jpg3200x4000 1.18 MB

cyber assassin 2 undergear.jpg3200x4000 1.4 MB

also the notes can be ignored as they are mainly for me when i start getting to the final versions of these and doing any gear breakdowns for the different pieces.

also threw together some basic color passes though i really don't know how to feel about them quite yet. I tend to get very indecisive with colors, especially without clear pallets already decided for an environment i might put them in etc, but i tried to keep the designs balanced enough to feel like he wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in this type of genre, but also feel just a bit excessively colored for an assassin.

next will probably be committing to the pieces of the design that work and changing around the arms to go more in line with my earlier concepts for them. I should be able to adjust layers pretty easily for the different parts of him with the way i have the file set up.