BA3a Creative Practice

My Week 9

- Details, pattern and symbolism

- Further Art Inspiration

- Marya Tonal Iteration

Further Art Inspiration

Before I start working on the tonal iterations of my characters as well as colouring them, I wanted to take some more inspiration from artists I admire.

Wei Wang

Wei Wang is most infamously known as one of the lead artists working at Blizzard Entertainment, where he produced some of the most recognisable World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo artworks and promotional pieces. Recently he posted his concepts for the Warcraft movie, which were in a very different style to what is usually seen within his work— which was much more realistic than stylised. I already loved his work but this new style he posted was everything that I aspire to create and want to work towards, as I adore character art which is first created tonally in black and white.

Charlie Bowater

Charlie Bowater is an artist I have always been inspired by and has continued to influence my artwork ever since I started university. I adore her tonal and colouring skills which is why I have bought many of her tutorials and process videos she has posted for sale online. I have learnt from her how to colour tonal drawings using Photoshop, which consists of creating a new ‘Clipping Mask’, colouring the base of the image and then changing it to the ‘Multiply’ layer type. I will be using this technique while colouring my own designs which will be a great help with enhancing my technical skills and knowledge of digital art.

Mike 'Daarken' Lim

Mike Lim, or commonly known as ‘Daarken’ on the internet, is another artist I will be drawing inspiration from when it comes to my character designs—most notably his brush work and how he adds texture to his characters like with skin and clothing. I am used to working with a single brush which has its limits in terms of easily painting a different texture onto a design. His work will become a focus of mine throughout the later stages of my project when I tweak the overall aesthetics of my characters to see how much I have improved.

Marya Tonal Iteration

These were my tonal iterations, which I will say that I’m very proud of! Although I am aware of the anatomy issues I’m still shocked that I’ve drawn these and they definitely turned out much better than I expected them to! I have also added a priveski which is in the shape of a horse, acting as a cloak buckle since it was possible to extend upon the detail in these tonal variations. I decided to complete these tonal drawings after my sketches instead of colouring those in because of how I wanted to push myself with learning tonal values and creating more realistic concept art which had depth and shading to it.

Close - Ups

Favourites

After much deliberation of narrowing the designs down to three, these were my favourites. My favourite aspects of each being of course the fur—pictured in all for a reason! Secondly the plate armour, padding and tabard. But there can only be one! Which is why I chose the first to go forward with, mainly because of how much I like this style of armour.

Final Decisions

Even though I had chosen the main basis of the design, I was unsure of the length that I wanted the cloak to be, so I created these similar iterations as a guide. Out of all of them I prefer the middle, because it seems just the perfect length -not too short or too long.