This week's theme and brief by previous winner, CBinnsIllustration
Crimson Character of the Week #44
Mermaid Infantry Unit
"Not just your run of the mill infantry soldier, this mermaid unit specializes in the operation of the __________, a highly dangerous long range weapon of great renown. It takes years to master but even longer to forget, should you ever face the wrong end of it."
The best of the CHOWs will be picked by an anonymous poll in the Finals thread and the winner is given the opportunity to pick the theme of the next CHOW's design, as well as becoming the title banner for that week! So go hard, design something interesting and unique!
Guidelines:
No photograph paint overs, must be 100% original work. (See next rule for exception)
3D is permitted and renders MAY be used as whole or in part of a painting, as long as YOU created the work. Pre-made and/or purchased, online, assets are forbidden.
There is no restriction on the character's gender, time period or culture.
Studies are recommended, but not required.
There is no restriction on image formats (horizontal, vertical, square).
Environment backgrounds are optional.
Keep in mind you are not required to stick to what is in the passage. It is more of a guide in terms of mood.
Rules:
You must post at least one WIP in the WIP thread to be accepted into the final poll.
Finals must be posted in the finals thread before the deadline.
At least 3/4 of the character must be visible (minimum from the knees up).
Only ONE submission per person in the finals thread.
No fanart. We want to see your original, unique interpretations!
Voting will be held for 5 days after the deadline.
In an event of a tiebreaker, a winner will be chosen through a randomized name picker.
"It takes years to master but even longer to forget, should you ever face the wrong end of it." - LOL, you killed it with the wording, Chris!
At first I conveniently swapped infantry for artillery and pictured a giant water bomb launcher, but let's be reasonable, it is more like a harpoon or anything that travels far underwater. Can it be a dart shark from the Bermuda Triangle, these are so hard to tame.
(05-03-2023, 08:37 AM)Leo Ki Wrote: Thank you for hosting these challenges, PE!
"It takes years to master but even longer to forget, should you ever face the wrong end of it." - LOL, you killed it with the wording, Chris!
At first I conveniently swapped infantry for artillery and pictured a giant water bomb launcher, but let's be reasonable, it is more like a harpoon or anything that travels far underwater. Can it be a dart shark from the Bermuda Triangle, these are so hard to tame.
People of the forum, join the challenge!
Lol I literally thought that, too! I was gonna start drawing like an underwater nuke launcher or something.
(05-03-2023, 08:37 AM)Leo Ki Wrote: Thank you for hosting these challenges, PE!
"It takes years to master but even longer to forget, should you ever face the wrong end of it." - LOL, you killed it with the wording, Chris!
At first I conveniently swapped infantry for artillery and pictured a giant water bomb launcher, but let's be reasonable, it is more like a harpoon or anything that travels far underwater. Can it be a dart shark from the Bermuda Triangle, these are so hard to tame.
People of the forum, join the challenge!
Ha! Sometimes you just gotta get a little poetic with these briefs! Now bring on your barracuda bazookas and oyster pearl gattling guns and let’s get crazy
Hey what's up guys? Just getting back on here and liking the topic, very cool @CBinnsIllustration. I'm definitely going to work on putting something together where I can for this. I hope you all have been well.
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
I hope things have gotten better for you, Legend, and I can't wait for your mermaid.
I won't be around the week of the deadline and I need to press forward. Unfortunately, all I'm doing these days is comics. And trying animation, so here are some choppy frames for a dart shark:
Looking like you’re having some fun with those Leo! I hope you get to being one to the finish line! Loving the SPLOOMF lol.
Thanks Lege1! It was a necessary topic this month and still pretty unique and a good challenge for the imagination. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I loosely sketched out my idea tonight, I’m envisioning a giant eel like created that secretes toxic or radioactive pearls, the mermaid infantry train for years to control the beasts and learn to utilize them to bombard their enemies from a distance.
The monster eel could double as a mount for the cavalry unless its peculiar anatomy makes it less nimble? It would make a horrifying animation if done super realistic.
Alright all, please let me know which of the 4 ideas I've posted that you like so I can narrow it down to doing one of them. Click on the image to see them bigger! Thank you!
@Leo Ki: Thanks man and it's been a journey for sure. Settled in Atlanta right by the Battery where the Braves play. Learning the area and lots of do's to settle in more. I'm literally re-building my life from scratch here and of course still trying to stay creative etc.
Still try and produce something if you can, you'd be surprised how much you can actually get done if you focus and put at least an hour or so in. My concepts here I'm posting took around an hour and a half to get together and they are all from imagination and just roughs of what they could be; just let go and produce no doubt. That's great you are doing comics! What kind of comics; newspaper, marvel / dc type stuff? The animation is great, that shark thing is very cool.
@CBinnsIllustration: Thanks man, and very cool concept again, definitely allows the imagination to run wild for sure. I like your rough and the concept is looking very cool with the radioactive pearls. I had to offer a couple beast concepts after seeing yours for sure. Great work!
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
Great to see you joining in again lege1 and the thumbs looks great. I think for me compositionally I would lean towards 3, but I would love to see how give it the mermaid treatment as you flesh it out. Glad you’re doing well and managing to stay creative, I find personally that when I can carve out some time for art it usually means my head is in a pretty stable place and I can let go of day to day stresses and just be creative. Can’t wait to see you push these more dude! Nice work
@CBinnsIllustration: Of course, man and thanks so much, I'm glad you are enthusiastic about me getting here =) It's very interesting that you also like #3 as another good artist friend of mine chose the same and for the same reasons, composition. I have actually reworked the composition of #1 to see if I could improve on that and also see if it might be more desirable now than #3 but you guys can let me know. #1 below is the re-comp and #2 is the original. The original seemed to be too zoomed in and exaggerated.
Yes, it's very much a privilege to be in the right head space and have the extra time to be freely creative. I insist on doing it because I know it's the best way to improve and that process and journey never stops. which is why I keep going. Thanks Chris, I'm definitely looking into fleshing one or more out more.
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
@Lege1 yeah the slightly more zoomed out version is better for sure. I would like to see how you rendered this out, excited to see what you come up with dude.
I had a bit of fun with mine. Just about finished but might revisit just before deadline to see if I can fix anything I don’t like.
I present my Radioactive Leviathan Loogie Launcher. These formidable and disgusting military units spread fear across any fleet that dare traverse their territory. Filled with an acid like substance that oozed a radioactive material that when exposed to air would spread in a gaseous form and quickly dissolve flesh right off the bone.
Thanks @CBinnsIllustration I greatly appreciate the helpful input and am going to totally redo this one. I started this here, but don't think I want to continue with it, and I doubt I'll have time to do both; so I'm pushing to do something new based off the one you just mentioned here.
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
@CBinnsIllustration: I really like a lot that you have going on with your piece and the rendering of course looks really good. I really like the face of the creature and the mermaid looks very cool, especially the hair. I did want to point out a few things that stand out to me that I just wanted to bring to your attention, and these things are strictly suggestive and subjective.
-I feel that the way you have done the mermaid's tail goes against the flow of the image and compositionally is crammed in the lower left corner of the image, and the tail is too long. I drew through in the light blue to show just how long the tail is. Typically, mermaid tails would be the length of a woman's legs and then some at most to not look out of proportion; none the less, mermaids are fantastical creatures, so who's really to say?
-The red drawing of the tail is just what I was suggesting, it could be shorter, or a little longer to break the page frame, but that angle, flow, and direction I felt works a lot better.
-I think the bottom of the image feels a little empty in regard to visual space, especially if you don't have the mermaid's tail down there in the left corner of the image anymore. Even a subtle mention of mountains or some type of environment down there would do piece some justice; compositionally it just seems like something is missing.
-The body of the creature is rather strange in anatomy and is visually reminiscent of anal beads (I'm not even trying to be funny here, just calling it how I see it). I think a few shape interruptions are cool to show it is developing something internally, but I think there are way too many as of the moment.
-Lastly, I think some more bubbles in the mix would look really cool especially around the creature's mouth and the mermaid's tail.
I really do like the overall image and concept and the color palette you've chosen to go with here, especially adding warms into the creature's body and face to break up all the greens and blues of the rest of the image. Putting a light overlay layer of blue low opacity over the whole image might really make it more homogenous as well.
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
Hey Lege1 great feedback really appreciate you taking the time to do that! Totally agree with many of your points! I am guilty of making my mermaid tails on the longer side, I like they idea that they are almost more half eel than fish which makes them a little less cliche, but maybe that isn’t a good idea to break that mold.
Your point about the background is a good one. I contemplated giving the background more attention then I revert back to more simple to allow the character to have all the attention. I may push this one further into an illustration and take your advice, so sea floor features would look cool and help frame the comp.
And I had to giggle at the anal beads comment, funny enough it was what thought too as I was drawing them lol. I was going for a look that this creature was stuffed to the gills with these projectiles, and some times I guess you get a happy little “anal bead”- like accident when getting creative :) thanks again dude.
Your new piece is coming along great! Can’t wait to see you splash some color down in this one.
@CBinnsIllustration Thank you so much and glad you understand everything I was mentioning. The piece does look really good and has tons of potential. I hope you have made some nice final adjustments. I have been back and forth like crazy with my entry. I've just been experimenting a lot and hope I'm getting somewhere with it.
@Leo Ki That's terrible and very sorry to know you have been so down and sick man. I really do wish you well and fast. It's all good if you didn't get in on this one, hopefully there will always be a next one =)
Here are some wips of what I finally settled with but I'm still not sure whether I like or not. The final is in the finals thread. Thanks all and look forward to seeing you all in the next challenge!
LEGEND'S SKETCHBOOK_001
To all artists struggling to create and are intimidated by A.I. (anti-imagination) "Everything has been done, but not by you"
"Everything has been done, but not by you" 
