So me and Lyraina decided at the beginning of the year to resurrect the bloodsports challenges for some new practice and to challenge ourselves to be better. After we did the first one privately we thought it would be a great community activity for everyone to join in.
Bloodsports 3 is next on the list. This was the first bloodsports I saw when I first started to draw and started to watch Dan and Daves livestream. Feels like forever ago, but it was only really two years.
This will run from the 3rd of March until the 17th of March. If it is already late and you are only looking at this post now, I would still recommend giving it a shot as in most cases you can get some feedback and it is really beneficial to push yourself to the next level. There will be no judging at the end, or any winners, but everyone should finish with a reasonable portfolio piece.
At the end of the two week period I will update this post and my final post with the vid for the judging of the contest, so that you can see what the other winner was, compare your entry and see if any feedback could be applied to you. I recommend not watching the vid first, as you don't want what has been done before to influence your design now.
Good luck everyone!
Bloodsports 3: Gauntlet
Created by: Dan Warren
Requirements:
- ALL FOUR original gauntlet characters must be present WITH respective weapons!
- image must be designed as a cover, formatted to a vertical rectangle, with a well thought, eye catching composition.
- Studies pertaining to finished illustration MUST be shown with the piece in order to be eligible to win. Studies MUST include compositional comps and thumbnails
- Studies must be relevant to the character design and elements used in the illustration.
Challenge is to redesign the cover for the original 'GAUNTLET' video game! all four characters must be present with their respective weapons. they are:
THOR- a male warrior using an AXE
THYRA- a female warrior (valkyrie) using a SWORD
MERLIN- a male wizard using MAGIC
QUESTOR, a male ELF using a BOW
Have fun with this challenge and try to BE ORIGINAL! these character archetypes have been done thousands of times- your challenge is to make them your own, and bring a unique flavor to a tried and true fantasy genre.
video of the game for those unfamiliar can be found below. contains all original character art.
Here's an early draft, trying to figure out composition and lighting.
Edit: small update. Learning how to apply refs that dont have a similar pose at all. This one is a real challenge.
Edit 2: more progress. Went ref hunting and found some passable refs. Also hammering the composition. Got an idea for composition that involves 1 point perspective in the middle and all the characters radiate from the middle.
wow, nice job cracked. You should just post individual posts for updates :P I had no idea you updated after the first one. Looking good, once things get a little more refined it'll be easier to give you some advice. I find though, when combining refs, just keep the horizon line in the same place and they will all work together a lot better.
For mine, I have this comp, which came from a group of comps that I no longer have becausae for some reason my computer deleted the file and I can't find it anyway. Gypsy magic I tell you.
I want to go with a sort of satirical direction (Barbarian is an old man, the elf is not the 'fantasy elf' but instead a pixie kind of elf with wings and probably bright girly colours and the female barbarian will be wearing hardly anything at all, which I hope will come across as satirical instead of sexist..) Not yet sure what to do about the wizard, I think I want to make him hella nerdy and overweight, or otherwise make him look like he has a god complex.
But this is basically the composition. Let me know what anyone thinks. I still am not sure about style or anything.
You have a pretty good idea. The composition is not bad either, putting in lights and shadows will tell if it holds up.
You're on the right way on making the characters unique.
Give the wizard harry potter glasses and make him blush as he looks at the valkyrie's backside :D
I relooked my comps and found this one is the strongest. Built upon it with lineart, then added some quick coloring in the end(thus the crappy result).
Barbarian is a hard guy to draw, that dynamic pose is crazy. Captured the archer well I think. Got a nice ref to build the wizard up. Valkyrie needs major work aswell, got some nice curves in though.
Lookin good so far guys! I like how you're twisting the original characters Jaik, pretty creative.
And Cracked, I like the new comp! The only thing i'd suggest is making the warrior larger, and also to straighten him out a bit, he looks a bit off balance atm.
I decided to stick to the generic archetypes... i've got a few comps, and I did a zero pose char sheet thing to use as reference to refine the outfits and to practice textures on and what not before beginning painting on the final piece. I'll do more comp pieces for the next few days mostlikely.
Looking good everyone.
Cracked I agree with the doctor. Though I am not as sure about the solution. If you have him upright it will make the composition very symmetrical and therefore kind of stale. I did a quick rearrange. Calling it a paint over would be giving me too much credit.. But you could use the asymmetry in the elfs pose of offset putting the barbarian and mrs barbarian back to back and just basically use the weapons and magic to lead the eye around.
Looking good Pyrox, I like the barbarian. The designs look pretty sweet, I think after you nut out the composition it will make for a good piece :)
Okay heres my update. pretty much worked out the characters 'feels' I think. I have a couple of references in mind for each face but am still unsure of the style I want to follow. I think a mobile game style will work, with cartoony, exaggerated forms.
And yes.. that will be a chain mail bikini. Because nothing protects you from zombies like metal covered tits. High heeled leather boots should also be in the inventory of any female hoping to survive such an event.
Not sure what I am going to study this time round.. I have kind of just been charging ahead trying to get back into the swing of things.. And the style doesnt really lend itself to the need to study much. (because I am just winging evverrytttyhhhinnggg)
Jaik, I don't think you have to actively search for something to study.. just look up if anything gets problematic while painting. I don't think studying anything just for the sake of doing a study would be very beneficial.
I continued with the girl today, and encountered some interesting (?) design challenges. I didn't hit the barbarian-warrior-like feeling which I was aiming for (as a counterpart to Thor). I wanted it to have metal and maybe fur/chainmail/leather which should work, but the main problem is... I want the armor to NOT be a chainmail bikini or boobplate or similar non-functional clothing for the woman :P But all dressed female barbarians seem to wear mostly leather, and all metal wearing barbarians are half nude. If I use metal AND dress them fullbody, it looks like a standard knight again. I think I will have to think about this a bit more or re-adjust my mental images/definition...
Diggin the designs Lyraina! How long does it take you to get through all 15 you think? And Jaik, It's coming together nicely, do you have a plan for the negative space?
Liking the indepth design workflow you got Lyraina.
Im sorry to announce that my band of adventurers got defeated by an evil lich. Instead of letting the heroes die peacefully, he revived them as monsters.
I'd say you're on the right track Lyraina, I'm really liking 5 and 10 for the Valk designs! And all your Thor's are rockin, I like 9's belt, 1's shoulder and 10's necklace... Cool designs!
Cracked, your piece is coming out very Metal, I like it!
And Jaik, for yours i'd suggest fading out the bg a bit. I'm diggin the humor though, I'm looking forward to the finished piece :D
I've been bad about posting my progress, but here's what i've got. I wasn't liking my Questor's outfit, so I re-did his outfit. I tried my hand at Lyraina's concepting style and came up with a design I like.
I then picked a composition I liked from the previous comps I did, then did lines, flats, and today I played with the lighting.
Nice, DrPyrox! See that you keep your light sources consistent, and maybe pick one you want to be the strongest from the two. Or play with color temperature - warm light from the right and cool light from the staff? Could bring in a bit of drama :) I don't really know how long they took me, I would guess around 4 hours per character? It is hard to tell because I also spend time looking up lots of inspiration and reference, and worked on them kind of 'on and off' over about 1,5 days/each.. and forgot to set a timer, again. I'm also very much not used to this process, so I hope to get more efficient with time because so far they are not really polished or anything.
You guessed it: Here are my designs for Merlin. He's the one I'm least sure about because most of them don't really feel like wizard anymore. Today I will start the final illustration.
Starting very loose this time to try out a less linework-y approach than usual, as was suggested in my sketchbook... not sure if this will work out. but I'll see.
DrPyrox: Looking good, I would try and use some more opportunities to add depth, not sure how, maybe some over lap, forshortening etc because at the moment it is a lil flat. But coming along nicelynonetheless.
Lyraina: Loving it. Keep pushing it. Keep in mind Tom Cruise xP
![[Image: Gauntlet.jpeg]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pgfGdCdqlXI/Tv6NKN6n7II/AAAAAAAAALA/OxDzBOFpQwI/s1600/Gauntlet.jpeg)
