Diablo III Fanart contest

[Amit Dutta]

Hey Daggers. The Diablo III fan art contest is 16 days away from ending, and I thought It would be a good idea to put up a thread where anyone who is working on this can post their stuff (development wips and finals) for general help, ass kicking and crit.
I am going to try and get a finished illustration in myself...but I'm working with a really really old crap laptop so it may never get to the decent render stage. Anyway here's a link to the contest rules...

Contest Info:
http://moonbeam13.deviantart.com/journal...-433277359

Asset Page:
http://www.da-files.com/creative/contest...ssets.html

Quick links to Character Class pages:
Barbarian : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/barbarian/
Demon Hunter: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/demon-hunter/
Monk : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/monk/
Witch Doctor : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/witch-doctor/
Wizard : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/wizard/
Crusader : (New class) couldn't find a page for this dude

Contest Submissions So far : http://www.deviantart.com/contests/2014/diabloiii/

Please start posting your stuff right away (don't wait for me) and let's have a daggers troop contingent attack this thing. Let's go to it people!!

[Amit Dutta]

We looks like I'm alone on this one. So finally here are some sketchies. Some are duplicates, some totally abandoned. I think I like the top right one the most so far.

It's painful working on a machine with 500mb RAM. I don't know how far along the process it will hold up for.

[EduardoGaray]

i like both, but feels like the top right could have the most impact.
Also damn 500 mb or ram is a nasty limitation. But, it could also be a chance to try something different. Like for example, something like frazetta with comic book like values but minimal rendering.
Just an idea, and good luck on the contest!

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks Eduardo. Yeah it's reeeeeeeally slow. Almost like traditional painting, I really need to know where my strokes will go before otherwise it's painful to undo. I like the idea of frazetta style, or maybe see if I can work with lighting and implied detail only.
Definitely not sold on any as they are, probably a few more sketches and then take one or two a little further. Probably need to build in two extra days for rendering due to speed of the machine haha and only 8 to go.

[meat]

I feel like the top right has too many bright spots that are equally the brightest, so the focal point isn't feeling like it's in one place, but almost half the picture. And uh... I guess some foreground stuff too, like if it's a stage something on the edge of the stage. Man I feel weird trying to give you crit, lol! Just my 2 cents

[devinn]

Sorry that you feel alone man! I haven't played any of the diablo games, so personally I wasn't really interested in the art contest.

I like the bottom left thumbnail in the second row; the dynamism is really cool and a bit frightening given the theme.

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks for the feedback guys!
@Meat, yep totally agree the values need much more refining and some foreground. I totally half assed these, like they are half thumbs.
@Manny, Well we all paint alone anyway so heh, no biggie, thanks for the help. That was my choice from the 8, but it still needs something else narrative wise, may play with it to see if I can push it any.

[Adam Lina]

It helps to think up a back story for the image even if you dont tell anyone what that story is. I dont know anything about d3 but it looks like hes summoning some kind of spirit from a camp fire? What possible purpose could he have for doing what hes doing? What events lead up to the image? He looks kind of sad and lonely sitting by a small fire. Perhaps hes summoning a ghost to keep him company? :D

[Amit Dutta]

@hypnagogic, Yup he's summoning spirits from the "unformed land" a spirit world of ancestors, to help him prepare for battle. The witchdoctor class is an african/voodoo inspired shaman warrior from the jungles.

So yeah I guess I got some of the elements of narrative in there. I'm definitely keeping a backstory in mind, it's getting clearer with each sketch, as I focus more on it (top ones were most recent) so thanks for the reminder to keep working on it. I definitely need to add more narrative into my work as a general. I feel more will come out in the details, and yeah I will have to push away from sad or lonely vibes. :) thanks!

[Amit Dutta]

more sketchies. Not proper value studies though. I find working just with black and white helps me think of shape and design much easier. Values are easy to add anyway.

The wide format one, is basically meat melting and floating off the carcass of some sacrifice, and within this are the ancestor spirits of the shaman.
The Bottom left one is the Shaman throwing metacarpals onto the ground which erupt into the grabbing hands spell that is in the game.

I need to pick something and just go with it now. I find this step when doing thumbnails to always be the hardestdue to second guessing. Must be out of practice after not painting for almost a month now. Any comments welcome

[Amit Dutta]

and picked one. It's probably the most straight ahead boring approach in terms of the contest, but I don't really care about the contest itself much. I need to work on more dynamism in my figures so hopefully I can push that a bit further along as well as trying to get some interesting design in there.

[Finnjamin]

Face looks a bit off, so does that rightmost foreground hand. And the details are indistinct. I prefer the wide format one, more balance between detail and atmosphere.

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks finn, yeah these ink style sketches are like shorthand for myself, like pre value sketch and design phase. All issues anatomical will hopefully be sorted out and fixed in the development.

Lol I always find it funny how there is never any consensus with the thumbs I do, which always makes asking for crit at this stage hard for me to get a steer on. That means I'm either good, or really shit. Either way I guess it means I shouldn't feel so bad about not knowing which way to go myself. Guess I'll just plug away anyway. Thanks for the comment.

[Amit Dutta]

Update. Did a bit of ref shooting to iron out pose and hands.
I'm trying a different workflow this time. I worked more on design and comp in the sketch phase, and now I'm building in values and palette as I go. It's kind of against what I tell everyone else to do, but I'm trying to try new things and create a bit of novelty to the process. It's worked ok, and I seem to be enjoying this starting to render phase a lot better than I would have previously.

[Amit Dutta]

update
2 days left

[EduardoGaray]

whoa, its looking awesome already!, so much movement and the design of the character is great too.
I would be playing diablo 3 myself if the designs looked in this direction and not that cartoony cute wow bullshit.
Loving it so far, stay strong you can do it!

[Amit Dutta]

Thanks Dude! I think I played the original Diablo a bit when I actually played games. Haven't touched one in ages though.
Besides the slow machine, my stupid day job is getting in the way, but if I only sleep 4 or 5 hours next couple of nights hopefully I can put in another 8 hours to finish it up :)

[Amit Dutta]

uppity-date
another couple of hours

Gonna take a day off work tomorrow to put more time in AND actually get some sleep. Pure luxury.

[Amit Dutta]

I missed out on entering this in by a couple of minutes, due to the crappy old laptop I'm working with that crashed on making the jpg!!! What a waste of frikkin time. Oh well here is what would have been my entry. Sigh

[Jaik]

Dude, that sucks so bad. Looks baller though. So cool. I spy a tangent with the forward leg and the arm coming out of the ground though.