This week's theme and brief by previous winner, Lege1
Crimson Character of the week #54
-=Solara The Summertime Fairy=-
***This is a really great challenge topic to really lock in on leveling up your female anatomy skills. The goal is to try and take a finished piece to the finals for voting, but what's more important is to learn something and improve your skills. Gather references of all sorts from photos, past illustrations, movie screen shots, etc... and put in some work on the study end to use this topic to better understand the female figure. It really does not take that much time and energy to post a few quick gesture sketches or speed studies. To take things even further, use this prompt to explore lighting the female figure as well and strive to use reference where possible to make it convincing.
Working from imagination is great but if we constantly try to do everything from imagination we are just recycling and regurgitating what we already know and not expanding our mental visual libraries with new programming and content. This is a challenge to really focus on the female figure again, so don't get off the track with the topic by getting side tracked with pretty Summer time backgrounds and environments; where adding some environmental to ground your character is welcomed, DO NOT make that the focus and purpose of this assignment.
As always have fun and lets see some spectacular Solara Summertime Fairy character concepts!!! You can work ANALOG or DIGITAL for this challenge and all skill levels are welcomed!
APPEARANCE:
-Small and delicate with a radiant glow -Skin tone of sun-kissed gold -Hair a vibrant shade of golden wheat, often adorned with wildflowers -Eyes a sparkling turquoise, like a summer sky -Wings made of iridescent gossamer, shimmering with colors of the rainbow -Dressed in a flowing gown of sunlight yellow, adorned with tiny flowers and leaves
PERSONALITY:
-Joyful, exuberant, and full of life -Loves to laugh and play -Has a mischievous streak but is ultimately kind-hearted -Deeply connected to nature and all living things -A born leader with a magnetic personality
ABILITIES:
-Can manipulate sunlight and warmth -Controls the growth of plants and flowers -Can summon gentle summer breezes -Possesses the power to heal minor wounds
STORY IDEAS:
-Solara could be the guardian of a magical summer forest, protecting its inhabitants and ensuring the seasons change smoothly. -She might be on a quest to find a missing piece of summer magic that has caused an early autumn to arrive. -Perhaps she is involved in a rivalry with a fairy of winter, leading to a magical battle of the seasons.
Take flight into this hot Summer topic and design your best version of The Summertime Fairy known as Solara.
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.
AI may be used in the ideation process, but the final image must be 100% hand-drawn.
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.
-+|| WIP THREAD ||
Deadline is Friday, August 23rd @ UTC: 23:59
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"
The piece is looks great Lege, some things I like are her face and her “who you lookin at?” Expression. The overall pose is nice and flowers are a nice touch. Should look great when colored. Some things I might want to see tightened up is the shoulder and breasts area. The left shoulder looks a bit off and her breast could do with a bit of a lift, or perhaps it’s the bikini style that is giving her some low hangers.
Did a quick and dirty PO just to show how I might tackle that area, hope that’s cool and is helpful at all. Great start!
Started to work on rough poses, ideas for details and dress design, and some color tone tests renders. I’m liking the flower healer pose best at the minute. Might see how she fleshes out first.
CBinnsIllustration: Much love bro and thank you much for the paint over. I like your version much better than the original, very good call my Crimson brother! I'm not sure if I'll go with this one or not man, I'm just trying to run up a lot of practice sketches, concepts, and studies. I might wait till the last week to really get started on whatever I'm going to attempt to bring to final.
Pure awesome start on your concepts and studies. I'm def a fan of your bold color work! Flower healer is a dope concept and I like that visual, I like the other two black and gray ideas as well, the poses. I like the crouching pose a lot, that is something different; kinda give me 1986 LEGEND movie vibes with Una the fairy. Keep up the great work! Loving your energy put it in to all this!
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"
Nice briefing as always, really fitting for the last sunny weeks before autumn arrives.
I really like the "sassy, joyful" nature of the pose on the right of your sketches lege.
Personally I think it would be a good fit for the briefing of the challenge.
@Cbinns, its pretty impressive how much routine you have in nailing designs and ideas
down that fast. Im also a big fan of the healer / fairy design!
So here is my first rough idea, I have to fix a lot with the pose, specially the right arm and
the foreshortening are a pain in addition to the hand pose.
On the environment I have to plan a concept for the tree design so far I dont like the shapes in it.
In my concept I want to design some type of fairy mage who is growing back plants and trees
so more sunlight is presevered.
So I ended up painting this out like a maniac last night...lol
Doing a lot of experimenting with the painting style overall, this render is loose and smooth, but I think I'm going seek something with a little more roughness and grit, with areas of smoothness. I actually started the coloring process with this one using gradient maps which was pretty cool, but I still think I might like creating my own custom color palette; none the less some really nice cools and warms to fulfill the Summer time mood.
TrashPanda Thank you so much man and great start on yours. I would suggest maybe zooming in with your camera view and making her bigger, this way the emphasis is more on the character and not all about the background. Also, the neck seemed a bit long so I made a quick adjustment for that.
Darktiste Lmao! You got me there man! 80's hair style for the win! lol
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"
Ha! Gotta love a good homage to the Goblin King! Nice work on the color Lege. She looks great!
Cheers Trashpanda, I really appreciate you saying that. I do love the conceptual design stage sometimes I wish I could just sit and doodle ideas all day and never feel the urge to push to the next step and get locked in, it’s such a more freeing stage of the process! Also your piece looks awesome so far, great pose and I personally like the idea of having her smaller in frame to build on the good storytelling you have going. I’m more partial to building the illustration than the strict character creation…whether that’s right or wrong, who cares :)
I managed to splash some color on this girl during a long flight to the UK.
CBinnsIllustration Thank you and I'd like to get another one together if possible. The mood and atmosphere of your piece is off the charts. I really love the darkness and glowing elements of this one. The lighting that you chose to go with is fantastic and works perfectly for the piece. I like the fact also that you that cool lighting setup up neatly in the shadows. I really like what you did there with the see through top and it looks convincing, and the glitter effect on those wings is very impressive. Great overall smooth rendering style and the tattoos on the face and neck of the character really give it that much style and flare. Great work man and enjoy your travels in the U.K.!
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"
Here's some sketches and exploration of this idea. The prompt makes me think classical beauty vibes, so I looked for some sculptures and paintings that capture that. I really liked the idea of her being able to summon breezes. I found this a sculpture that really depicted a woman leaning into a breeze, enjoying it, and I think I want to do more iterations of that idea. I also was playing with the idea of her being able to do something with sunlight, so I tried some poses where she is reaching toward the sun to try to suggest that she is doing something with or to it.
I made a ref sheet to get inspiration for the poses and vibe. The link painting has nothing to do with it, I just liked the painting style and kept it because I think want to emulate that with the render.
I think now that I have some direction I can gather more specific references and start working on a drawing of a pose.
CBinns, nice work so far! I really like this take and this pose. My only suggestion is to maybe switch up her clothing. I like the transparent dress on top, but the underwear looks very normal human. So together it reads a bit like she's wearing her pajamas. You could maybe ditch the underwear and give her more fabric if you don't want her to be nude.
Thanks Lege, here is updated WIP. I explored the poses of 4 and 5 a little more, and settled on one that I think works. The idea is that she is almost trying to catch the sunlight in her hands, and at the same time a breeze is blowing her hair and dress, alluding to her powers in the prompt. Worked up the lighting and color on it. I realized I only had a few days left so I needed to get a move on. I was thinking about putting her in a flower, or on a mushroom, but I'll probably just focus on finishing the figure as best I can.
JosephCow: This is coming along great. I really like your lighting and rendering and the wings are looking very nice. Yes, focus on the figure indeed, and if you can add in the flower or mushroom I think that would definitely be a most awesome add. Looking great though and keep up the good 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"
Very nice piece Joseph! Love the pose and the lighting in her face and hands. The subtle red in her cheeks and hands really sell it. Nicely done and you nailed the brief. The only crits I would give is the wings feel a tad off, maybe perspective or maybe where they are sprouting from on her shoulders. Since her hair covers the anchor points it’s hard to tell for sure but my brain isn’t lining things up quite right. Could just be me though, I have had more than a few points tonight :) and thanks for the feed back on my piece, you make a great point, I should have just left her bottom half nude and I was on the fence about it. Might revisit it later and hide that layer and see how she looks.
Managed to take part in this one! Simmered on the idea for a long while. The brief posed a difficult challenge for me composition wise due to the character design, lots of gold and yellow so I knew shape would be important. I wanted to lean into the fae aspect too to play with scale and I simply just love fairies. During my initial idea process I was left with two big Qs; Pin-up or narrative? Low-key + Chiaroscuro or High-key?
I was tempted with Pin-up+Chiaroscuro, emphasising the female form in repose but I decided I wanted magic and a challenge so I decided to go against the brief a little and choose the most dynamic one of the bunch.
Scanning my sketch in I knew immediately my anatomy compounded with the perspective was off. So I used a bit of 3d to build a good reference to draw from.
More sketching to get an idea of composition and narrative and how to make Solara stand out. Decided she should be casting magic healing a creature. Sitting her on a flower seemed like a good idea to show some scale too. Healing a honey bee? Why not? Floating pollen and magic? Sure.
At this point from my sketch I knew I was going to have problems with the wings, drawing of the flowers and time required to calculate the shadows in the scene. Since I already had a 3d model of the figure pose and the camera set I decided it was time to brush up my blender skills!
I decided to base her wings off of a dragonfly due to how beautiful and complex they are. Good for the main star and to hopefully show off the iridescence. Had fun compiling a simple shader to try and make the colours come through if possible for a paintover.
The bee I used various reference images. Seemed simple enough to hardsurface model for a quick maquette. I'll come back to this girl to add some legs and rig in the future but she was detailed enough for my current purpose.
I was stuck on the flowers for a while. I was unhappy with my simple central geometry and the slow process of manually copying petals around. This was until I decided it was time to actually learn how to use geometry nodes.... Actually had so much fun (if a little bit of suffering) with parametric modelling in blender and wish I had started using it earlier in life.
With all of this I had everything I could do in the time I had to try and solve the drawing. This took alot longer than expected, at first I deviated from my planned sketch but in the end I went back and forth a few times with reference and design till I found something satisfying and which could feel natural.
This is as far as I managed to develop the image so far. I feel it's close in thumbnail but if I had more time I might take the image further by redrawing and hitting it with a water medium (or something alike) and in the process adjusting the values ever so slightly as well as the colours in some shadows for a sense of twilight hours (for taste.)
"Everything has been done, but not by you" 
"Everything has been done, but not by you" 
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
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