Portfolio Class- Character Development!

[Dan Warren]

Zipfelzeus! make those colors work for you! if youre gonna do a sunburst, make it intense, bright, and super saturated. itll set off those blues and allow the deeper values to really pack some punch. When in doubt, look to frank-





swords looking much better. keep pushin!

[emooi]

I watched the stream and thanks for the crits Dan. I'm going to fix those this evening :)

[Thomas Mahon]

For Merlin i'm exploring the elderly 'sensei' archetype seen in Japanese folklore and culture. I noticed in popular Japanese culture, a few of the teachers like Master Roshi from Dragonball Z and another character from Naruto have a pet giant tortoise, upon doing a little more research, I found these characters are based on a japanese myth ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D ) "Urashima Tarō (浦島 太郎?) is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin, the Dragon God, under the sea. He stays there for three days and, upon his return to his village, finds himself 300 years in the future."



I figure this could work well in conjunction with Merlin characters backstory of being associated with the magical realm and creatures. Dan mentioned he's also very in tune with nature and is shamanistic.



Another figure that I'm planning on basing Merlin on is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune, 'Jurojin' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jur%C5%8Djin) Who is the god of longevity and wisdom, he's also often depicted with animals such as deer, cranes and tortoises.

[emooi]

As i’m borred to death here at work, i started to do some research for the Merlin type.
i Red allot of information at Wiki and other site’s.

The thing you read on every site and also like Dan mentioned, is that he is some kind of half god. His father seems to be a incubus ghost o_0
The fact given that Merlins lives in the forest, makes forrest my toppic to search connections between Japanese mythical creatures and the forest.

I started my search to look at God’s and mythical figures in Japan. Also stumbled on spirits, demons and other creatures. Japan has the most crazy spirits and demons for everything :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_gods

But as i was searching these really popped out.
Kodama, Spirit that lives in a tree (like the little white bobble heads from princess Mononoke)
Tsurube – Otoshi, Monster that drops out of the tops of trees. He’s more a Tengu/Haruka.

And than i came across this guy:
Sojobo, high Buddhist priest, king of the Tengu’s.
for now i think this guy fit’s perfect for my Merlin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%8Dj%C5%8Db%C5%8D

But the research continues :)

[mateusrocha]

Hey guys :) Awesome work everyone. I've been following the posts for a while, and seeing the evolution of the works really gets me pumped up for trying something too!

I was just wondering if I can still do my Arthur even if the Merlin is already the assignment?

I'm also doing other mentorships, so time is short.

Also, I'm planning on doing some Indian (not native american) related, as this was not chosen by anyone and is kind of interesting to me. Need to put more detail in my works, specially in armors and clothes!

Cheers everyone.

[emooi]

Hey guys,

So here is my final version after the crits.
What did i change/added.
1. The horns on the helmet are no longer the bunny ears :) I shrink them down, and curved them a bit more. Also added more metal between them.
2. Made his head bigger and gave it a warmer skin tone.
3. Added some neck armor.
4. Added some pattern on his cloth. Also tried to add some on his "jacket" but i think its overkill.

So here it is:


hope you Daggers like it,

Erik

[Nimao]

Began to change stuff on the Arthur guy after the critts.. thanks for the critt!
i did hurt but it woke me up =). what's good. sometime i need a kick in the ass ;D
i still have to work on it but i want do some Merlin sketches today too.

[Thomas Mahon]

couple of merlin sketches and stuff. doing this and finishing my arthur, and doing work. busy! haha

[Thomas Mahon]

Here are some studies on monk/priest clothing, in the Zen buddhist religion. I think this would suit the merlin archetype because it fits into the pursuit of spirituality and mysticism. Discovered a cool looking staff that monks use for ceremonial use, and in fiction, combat. 3 of these are value studies, 1 of these is a developed sketch based on the clothing i studied. More to come soon!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khakkhara



quick edit: I did some more costume variations, thought i'd just edit them into this post

[Tadas]

I did some changes to the Arthur character. I'll leave it as it is for now, need to start working on the Merlin

[JakeB]

Just some studies and some quick sketches for Merlin. Gonna go back and Change up my Arthur as well. But yeah..

Did some more research into Mongol history, and apparently Genghis Khan had a chinese (Daoist) priest as an advisor. He basically wanted this guy to give him eternal life/the philosophers stone. So thinking I'll base my Merlin character on that. Actually, thinking about it. I guess I could pull some Mongol costume stuff into that as well, as if he'd been travelling with the Mongols for a long time, or had picked things up from them.

[Thomas Mahon]

Nice value study Jake! Remember to apply that kind of contrast and local value thinking into your imaginative work, I often see you avoiding going light or dark at all. Keep up the nice work

[JakeB]

Nice value study Jake! Remember to apply that kind of contrast and local value thinking into your imaginative work, I often see you avoiding going light or dark at all. Keep up the nice work

Haha, yeah. That's exactly why I did it lol. Gonna really push the contrast with merlin.

[malan]

This time I did some head sketches for Merlin, trying to explore ideas for what I would like to do. An issue I had with Arthur, is that he did not have a lot of personality, the face was very boring and I felt like it lacked something interesting, so this time I'm trying to fix that! The idea is to play with the Djinn concept and mix it with the Merlin character. These are some different ideas based on the same concept, and playing around mostly with the beard and hair. I'm thinking of giving him white/gray hair, but I kind of liked the black hair idea, but it makes him look younger.

So, what's your thoughts? which one do you like? which you don't? :)

[Zipfelzeus]

Russian Revolution Arthur:

If there are any more suggestions about this I will gladly change him again.

Ohh and here are some Merlin sketches. I tried to explore some ideas. I know a lot of them don't really work. If any of you like or dislike some particular ones you could tell me so I could focus on the ones that work :)


@malan: Whoops sorry malan I only saw your designs when I posted my shit.
To my mind the first one works really really well. And the left on the bottom also feels right. I like how busy it gets near head in the first ones and you could really push the details and designs in this one I think.
But that's just my thoughts.

@Nimao and Tadas: It is really nice to see guys' arthurs finished. :)

[Thomas Mahon]

@Malan - Woah, those look awesome man! I really need to explore his facial/hair features too, as well as his costume. My vote goes for the first!

[malan]

@Zipfelzeus Hey thanks buddy! :D Oh, and those thumbs look really nice! I can't decide for one haha, what's the idea with the one on the bottom? it looks funny haha :P

@Thomas Hey thanks man! I think that's the one I liked too :) and you should do it too! I think the face could be very important on this character!

[emooi]

@malan, really like your sketches man! I would also go with the first two you made.
As for the one with the black hair, you always can add some grey hair into it so he looks not so young or give him some wrinkles :)

[Nimao]

My Merlin sketches.. I think im going to do something thot
related or thot himself when its allowed to do a god? i also didn't
found clothes where they weared maskes or something ;(..
so at first i triiied to make mix between a baboon human face.. and
than just thot came in my mind.. thot looks cool but i dont know
what i should change on him that he looks more interesting..
its really hard.. am i allowed to make masks even they didn't had them?

[JakeB]

Some sketches for Merlin... Rough, but feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Kinda hard to get some interesting stuff in there if he's gonna be a monk. Everything I found looked pretty simple + plain. Think I'm just gonna have to accentuate it, add some crazy embroidery or something. We'll see. :)

So yeah, again. Chinese monk Merlin, as an advisor to the Mongol Arthur.