Portfolio Class- Character Development!

[emooi]

Great work everybody! Tons of cool idea's in here.

So as I'm still working on mine sketch i came up with this.
I have tried to set him up with animal and human feet. Think i'm going for the animal feet.
As for his haircut/facial hair i don't like it! i like it way better with no hair. So have any tips, crits for me?

[PTimm]

Awesome stuff goin down here! Finally got off my lazy butt and put together some ref, made some adjustments to my arthur, did a few merlin sketches, and a small study to help me with cloth since i just can't do cloth to save my life











a quick sketch for my merlin, for whatever reason I'm having an extremely difficult time on this one. found out some info on slavic myths about 2 different gods, one which was a lighting god that wielded a hammer or an axe, and another one which was a tree, so i tried to incorporate that into the design, still not entirely satisfied with it tho

[KyTran]

I think yoru design has some good things going on but it seems like that weapon was used by cavalry/ foot soldiers so i think it sort of makes the design visually confusing.


EDIT: did some sketches for the Witch-Doctor-Merlin thumbnails. feel free to comment or give advice. Thanks!

[ImSkeptical]

Tried to apply Dan's critique.



I still am sad about having to remove the staff head, because i have no good ideas for a inca weapon. But i guess he does have to be a "warrior" king :(. As soon as I do get a good wep design, and if Dan doesn't give me any more crits to point out problems still there, I'll probably tighten him up and be happy I did something xD.

Here is my stuff for merlin. I am trying to push a puma/large cat thing, while introducing alot of jungle animal and llama symbols. This was a strong theme in Inca art, sort of animal shaman transformations, so i was trying to push that idea. I need to work on the medium and small shapes to reinforce this, but its been so much harder than i expected :(




I rejected the sitting on a log one because it was looking too regal. I feel like theres probably a better solution out there, im not really feeling where im at right now. Hopefully i get a good idea, otherwise pushing through with what ive got to meet deadline!

Everyone elses stuff is looking great! Too bad you feel the dollset merlin wasn't working Zipfelzeus, i thought it was looking interesting :D.

[JakeB]

ImSkepitcal - I wouldn't be so hard on yourself man. Arthur looks great. Came out pretty sweet :). If you still wanna go for the log thing, might be able to make it look less regal by popping on leg behind the other, kinda relaxed. Think its just the totally upright, hands on knees that make it look regal. Dno though. All looks good :).

Got a black and white Merlin just about sorted. Need to work on the hands and feet, course, but figured I'm gonna have to repaint them anyway when I go to colour, so haven't worried too much.


Keep it coming guys.

[Thomas Mahon]

I know the face is still mostly filler. Here's my final for b/w merlin sketch


quick edit: heres one of the reference photos i just took, just to get a little bit more informed about the pose and costume. i took these after the final sketch above, probably should of before, but hey. they don't match up great but oh well. and excuse the shit hair, i recently shaved it all off


and here are some studies i forgot to post

[Tadas]

Good work everyone!

my sketches

I based my Merlin on Khnum. He's one of the Niles gods and has a rams head. I still haven't decided about the ornamentation so I just scribbled some random stuff to indicate where it will be. I'll probably do some major changes to the character after critique anyway
I'm also not sure whether I should give him a real rams head or just a golden mask or something

[malan]

So, I had a very busy week, and couldn't push my character as much as I wanted... but I did as much as I could with the concept I had the other day, however, I'm not very pleased with it yet, I think there's something missing, so, I did hope this sheet with the different pose variations could work for today's crit! Big sorry for the lack of work, but I will finish everything I missed for next week, promise! :)

So, which one of these would work better? :)
1,2 and 3 are based on the same idea, just had different poses for the arms, and on 3 I tried a dark skin color (maybe some type of grey?). On number 4 he is supposed to be sitting on the smoke, and I tried to give him a more mystical idea with that pose. 5 and 6 the same idea on both, just different type of clothing for the feet, and the thing on his hand is his bottle, the same Arthur has with him (to push even more the genie idea) and the last one just the reference from the previous front view sketches.

[Zipfelzeus]

Here is some more progress. I already started with the colors because I had so much trouble wiht arthur the last time. But I added the grayscale as well:

Quick changes on the colour one:

[emooi]

Hey all,

Made a new sketch, because i could t get a link with my Merlin sketch or get excited to paint him.
So i tried some poses and to add some facial hair to keep as close to the Sojobo as possible.
The cloths, belt and shoulder pad were the only things i was happy about so i kept those.
hope you like it :)

[Dan Warren]

Merlin reviews! enjoy! looking forward to everyones finishes in a week!

[JJkostello]

Hey guys i`d love to join this challenge but im coming in late for the party,so can anyone post which character am i supposed to do next ?

[Thomas Mahon]

Hey guys i`d love to join this challenge but im coming in late for the party,so can anyone post which character am i supposed to do next ?

I think it's best to just start with the arthur character, you don't have to do the characters the same time as everyone else if you aren't directly being mentored.

[JJkostello]

Hey guys i`d love to join this challenge but im coming in late for the party,so can anyone post which character am i supposed to do next ?

I think it's best to just start with the arthur character, you don't have to do the characters the same time as everyone else if you aren't directly being mentored.

all right man thanks for answering my stupid question,well off to work i go.

[Thomas Mahon]

Here's a little update, just going through and applying dans critique. Still abit early, going to play up the rim lighting to make the the form read a little better. I chose these colours because I think it'll have a nice contrast with the earthy tones of the tortoise, pretty unavoidable, and adds a little mystical vibe. They were pretty common amongst priests too though.. The face is still very much a work in progress haha

[JakeB]

Thinking about adding a chinese dragon coming out of the sand? I rememeber in Excalibur, Merlin talks about the mist as the 'dragon' a lot. So figured if my Merlin is a chinese priest, travelling with Mongols through the desert, a sandy dragon could be a cool way to push it? I dno though. Either way, gonna work a load of chinese dragon motifs into his clothing. Classic priests are covered in ying yang symbols and squares, so might be a way to make him a bit different.





Figured I'd chuck these studies up here as well, while I'm posting. Was struggling with the hands and cloth, so did a bit. Also, trying a newish approach to painting. Trying to be really economical with the brushstrokes, and picking all the colours right off the bat, mixing less. Tough, but pretty fun, and... yeah.

[Thomas Mahon]

Really impressed with the studies Jake, good job. I like your idea of a sand dragon wrapping around him, I think the second approach works better. With the pose how it is, and now tacking on a big element like a dragon, it looks a little unnatural, like maybe he's being constricted or hurt by the dragon, when he should be commanding it. I think if you wanted to go with the sand dragon, maybe make Merlin in a more dominant pose. Nice work!

[JakeB]

Hmm, yeah see what you mean about the constricting thing. Tbh, that's exactly why I posted it kinda rough. Hoping someone would point that kinda stuff out before I go in and render it out. I'll give that a whirl then, it's only tuesday after all. ;).

Cheers man. Yours is looking sweet btw. The tortoise works well at that angle, nice one :)

[malan]

So, as Dan said on the class, I used the two different ideas I had for Merlin and merged them together, I also liked his idea of using the bottle arm on the smoke one, so here it is polished and detailed :)

[KyTran]

Thomas: I really like the colors you chose! One thing though, in your black and white version your Merlin has nearly closed, calm eyes that i though worked really well. The intense eyes in the color version takes away from the really wise look he had in the black and white version in my opinion.

Jake: I agree with Thomas. I think his pose says "I'm a wise-old-man-traveler" I think you'd have to change the pose to best incorporate a dragon such as that one.

Malan: Wow, your design looks great! I can imagine how he would act and speak as a character. One really minor thing though, it's probably up to personal preference but i liked how the bottle in you're rough was shaped. More round and wide as apposed to the more tall look in your newer drawing. The wider bottle just felt more like ancient artifact to me.


Here's where i am with my Merlin. Going to add more ornaments and clothing. also trying to figure out the campfire lighting. I'm not really happy with the direction it's going. Hopefully it wont look terrible and i'll put more into the design stage for the next one.