Theme chosen by previous winner CBinnsIllustration
In honor of the New Film Wicked recently released let’s pay homage to the infamous Wicked Witch. Be as creative as you like and take any liberties you see fit with this character. Is she good or bad? Old or young? human or not? The choice is yours. Perhaps she rides atop a feathered monkey shooting acid filled sacks of death, or lingers in the shadows controlling an army of marionette creatures like a sinister puppeteer. Like the example above takes a Wild West approach, let’s see how you think this iconic character might look.
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.
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.
Cool! It's actually interesting how in the original wizard of oz book she looked like this I guess. Might be worth going back to the source on this one.
Also congrats on the last contest Cbinns you killed it on the mage.
Great inspiration Joseph, bringing it back to the original text could make for fresh new piece.
I had some doodles today taking on a few different angles. I really liked the puppeteer idea, but I’m also liking the idea of a bat-out-of-hell doom-broom rider screaming at the head of the flying monkey flock
There just something about cutting the bottom of a character that just give the right composition to something.(I must not be a fan of portrait or empty scene).I think it the getting up close and personal without the getting in your face type of composition if you catch what i mean... it just leaving the room for the subject without the environment taking over the character. If anything you could probably slightly tweak the proportion of some of those thumbnail to feature less of the environment and yet have more of the figure show it just about placing the camera a bit closer sometime so the balance is a bit more unbalanced then balanced which can be a bit boring to look at. Nothing worst than a subject matter that as alot of detail but everything is to small and fighting for attention.
CBinnsIllustration Really great topic again and I really like your concepts! Everything looks really visually nice, especially that first one.
The Mystic Witch: Although The Mystic Witch looks really good, I feel the overall idea and composition is a bit generic and doesn't really feel like she is a witch aside from being more of some type of beautiful enchantress. I really do love the flow of the piece with her hair and the magic curving through the piece. I also really like the lighting setup on the character in this piece along with how you did the dress and even gave her a very cool and detailed choker around her neck.
The Puppeteer: This is a really interesting concept and feels a bit like it's out of the movie Nightmare Before Christmas. This character really looks much more like a witch in comparison to The Mystic Witch. I really like how the lighting is emphasising focus on her face and the overall idea of her puppeteering the flying monkeys is definitely cool. Although this has a lot of potential and I definitely know it could fly, I seem to be more fixated on the third concept, Those Socks.
Those Socks: I really like this thumbnail concept a lot and it is very Frazetta-esque to me, with a really nice fantasy art feel. I do however have to agree with what Darktiste mentions about the environment taking over the character. These briefs are really supposed to be about the character as possible, not doing landscapes. I feel strongly that cropping this piece would make an incredible world of difference and allow you to naturally be able to focus on the character more with much more emphasis and detail making for a really great and epic fantasy style piece.
Bat Out of Hell: This concept is really funky and I do like it a lot, we basically have a motorized broom machine that the witch is riding instead of just simply the broom; I really think this idea is brilliant, and it has a lot of potential! Again, the environment totally competes with the character here though and although this might work great for a book style illustration piece, it really doesn't do justice to emphasising the character. This is more of an industrial design of the week, or landscape design than it is character design.
So to conclude my input here I would have to say that my favorite is Those Socks and it really just needs to be cropped in my strong opinion to be able to manifest into something really functional and wonderful. Great work again on all these bro!
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"
So I don't have a lot of time this round to explore that many options but have come to a conclusion with a strong idea that I would definitely like to follow through with. What I'm posting here is a just a volumetric rough idea just for the sake of getting my idea out of my head. I plan to go back and re-draw this in line work which I feel works for me better and is more expressive, from there I will be able to go and paint everything out.
The line version.......
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" 
