In Painting for the Illustrator class, we were assigned a series of three paintings. The paintings could be on any subject, they just had to be linked in some way. At the time I was running a DnD campaign, and since I had three players, I decided to create an illustration showcasing each of their characters. It was important to me that I worked on the paintings simultaneously. I figured that would be the best way to keep them linked stylistically, so that is what I did.
My players did not have a clear idea of what their characters looked like, so a large component of the project was character design. I worked with each of them to figure out a design that they liked. I did not spend as much time as I would have had design been the focus of the project, so they are not too complex or original. The players are satisfied with them however, so I am as well.
As the project progressed, it naturally turned into a series involving each character's backstory, which is something each of my players requested independent of each other. The illustration process I am showing here is of a former mercenary, Diablo, who has lost his memory and sense of identity after a traumatic event. The illustration portrays a snapshot of his time in his mercenary group.
Left to right: digital sketch, sketch with line art, and clean line art for printing and tracing.
I did not plan the colors out before I got to the painting stage, so I feel very fortunate that they did not become a muddy mess. I would like to say that I planned for each of the illustrations to contain accent colors that correspond to the other's main colors, but I cannot. I knew from the beginning that the main colors of Diablo's illustration were red, purple, and yellow. As I was painting, the green felt like a necessary addition to add some interest, so I went with my gut.
Finished paintings
One of the many helpful critiques I received was that it needed more clarity, especially to distinguish between the character and the tree trunk. I completely agree with this, and I would like to add more rim lighting to the character to help achieve it. I originally intended the lighting to have more contrast overall, and I hope to go back and work on that someday.
This is my final blog post on Where Creativity Works. It has been a pleasure to be a part of the blog, and I would like to thank you for reading. I wish the next animation blogger the best of luck!
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