Background no.3 complete

Speaks for itself really. This is the progress I went through with this image, including the greys scale images that I used to check if there was enough tone and value in the piece.

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Still going

Even though I'm absolutely shattered I cannot stop drawing.
I got "the Crafting of Narnia, the art, creatures and weapons from Weta Workshop" with some money from Christmas, and my god has it inspired me. Just flicking through it helped me understand how armour works better. I plan to do a lot of in-depth research into armour design, and I think this book will be one of my primary sources.

So yeah, very much inspired by this book, I gave Aimme a suit of armour. I've been wanting to do more illustrations of Aimme, and still plan to do turn arounds and more in-depth designs on certain aspects of her character (her pack, pots, pans, sword belt, etc.)



Not coloured yet, and I'm not sure if it will ever be, but I'm quite proud of it and so wanted to put it up here. The only part that I'm really unsure about is her helm. It's too Norse; too rounded compared to the sharp plate armour that covers the rest of her body. If I come back to this particular design (I'll be doing more designs for armour soon), then it'll definitely be something I'll change.

Finished backgrounds so far

Just to tidy things up and make for quicker viewing, here are the two finished backgrounds done so far.

This one will be for the centaurs.


And this one will be fore these guys (third head down) , which will be quite an oriental looking creature.

On a roll

I seem to be on a roll today as I've completed another background. I'm really pleased and very relieved to be honest as I've felt stuck in a rut for ages now and was starting to get quite nervous of the work load that I've given myself. But things seem to be shifting now and I'm confident that I'll be able to get my first 6 pieces done by assessments.
So here's the step by step of the process that I went through so far.
This is another piece that I did when I started this project and then cast aside in frustration. I nearly deleted the whole image, and needless to say I'm really glad that I didn't.

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And the grey scale tones and values. This one still needs some work done to it to make it pop a little more, but I think it's getting there. Starting to loosen up with my brush strokes and venturing into using texture brushes. Quite a brave step for me considering I can be quite obsessive with perfection and detail. I've got to say that I've enjoyed using them immensely and plan to make my own custom brushes as soon as I read up about how to do it.

Background for the Centaurs

Just thought I'd post my progress so far on my centaur piece. For once I'm having more fun working on the background than the characters/creatures. I'm going to have stop myself from working on the bg now though otherwise I'll never get the actual centaurs done.
I had drawn and started to paint them once, but they really don't fit with the image, so I think it's going to be a case of completely planning them out. Although before I start on them I think I'll do the backgrounds for all my other pieces whilst I'm having fun with them. I usually struggle with putting character's in environments so I may as well take advantage of my current enthusiasm for them.

Really rough sketch that I started with (this is actually a really old piece which I had thrown to one side thinking I'd never use again. Good job I kept it).



And what I believe to be the final version of the background for this piece.



Whilst I'm at it I thought I'd throw in what the centaurs were going to look like, thus being able to explain better why I believe they don't fit. As you can see, they're just "there". I want them to interact more with their environment and make it clearer as to what they are actually doing (hunting). As I said before, I'm going to come back to these guys later on. Partially because I work quicker on creatures than on backgrounds, and mainly because I'm getting way too frustrated with them.



And finally, last picture, I promise. I just thought it would be nice to show the tones and values in the image. I'm usually quite fearful with using bolder shades, shadows and highlights, but I think I'm getting there.

Saga

Ok, just one last thing before I carry on with my creature concept pieces.
Just a really quick face study of a character that would feature in the religious cult/sect. Saga is rather deranged, believing that she is a messenger from the gods who will help restore humankind to it's former glory.

I had force myself to stop with this because the more I looked at it the less I liked it. I still don't really like it now, but for a quick speed paint, I guess it's ok. Her cheekbones and jaw line were a nightmare to do.
I do feel that this was a really important piece for me to do though, as it's highlighted what my biggest weaknesses are, and I can now focus on improving them. I think my biggest problem is fear of using really bold values and tones, which is why it doesn't "pop" as an image. Definitely something to keep in mind for my future pieces.
How ever, I really did try to push myself out of my comfort zone further by not using lines to paint to. I started off with a really rough sketch, which I then deleted once I had the initial areas of values blocked in. I also didn't use a reference, purely to see how far I could push myself. Clearly you can see that no reference was used as her anatomy is quite bad, but I still learnt from it.

Doesn't really fit, but...

I wanted to stick this here because of the background. I think that my background skills improved quite well in this piece, and want to continue experimenting with this style in my concept pieces. I know the subject doesn't exactly fit with her background, but her surroundings really do fit into my project. I can really see some areas of the planet looking like hell.



And now I'll try and promise to stop procrastinating and get back to proper work!