Sunday, 10 May 2015

Sub-Zero Fan Art (Part 2)


The second time round with this Sub-Zero fan art I tried to go for something quite simple. This is why I started off looking at a bust sketch initially. This quickly changed when I realised going digital would allow me to explore ideas better, because I didn't have a concrete idea/design down.

Thoughts
Similar ideas are present such as the ice being conjured and his body being corrupted with power. I wanted this to be a raw, ravaged sub-zero. The design probably looks like it'd fit better in Street Fighter. But to be honest, I just wanted to do something that was different to the MK style. Usually the characters are quite over the top with unnecessary design choices, not often deviating away from how they look from game to game. I changed the shin guards later on in the process because it fitted better with his style. I tried to add some story to the image, even though it is basically a character illustration. The idea was that he is in a dark gloomy place, possibly about to engage in combat after a pause. I kept some of the green magic looking stuff but toned it down.

The green magic stuff is present quite a lot in the Mortal Kombat universe. It could very well link to a variety of characters - Shang Tsung, Reptile, Ermac etc. I didn't want to put too much thought into that as I was mostly concerned with it just looking good. Compositionally I was trying to work with what I had. Again, this is an area that I should have sorted in the beginning. I should have done thumbnails! Anyways, I tried utilising the environment to have structures leading in to Subs. I may have over done that, it might not even have worked but whatever. I also thought about complementary colours with the red above his head in the Background. Warm Background, Cool foreground was the idea. The main thing was to make Sub pop, so I kept well lit using the whole light on dark malarkey with his ice ball. Obviously that's the focal point, and I was careful in making sure that the ice ball was the brightest area of the image, to draw us to it.

Part of the reason for the way Sub-zero looked, is because I was half doing a 'draw this again' meme, and half doing a bit of sub-zero fan art. With the 'draw this again' you draw the same image (or sometimes re-do it) and post it with your older one to show the progress you've made. Although I'm actually not that happy with the new one, I still did it anyway. Some aspects of the design where the same, but obviously I changed a lot because I clearly didn't have a clue back then!




Although this image turned out a lot better than the previous one, I am still quite disappointed with it. Mainly because I fell into the similar traps of not pre-planning enough and also not having good enough reference for the pose. It came to a point, once again, where I had to just call it done and move on. I believe the phrase is: "you can't polish a turd". On that note, here are the work in progress images:

Final Painting






Initial sketch

Re-initial sketch (digital)

Working on anatomy and pose

Change to illustration, adjusting still

Initial block in and mood

Warm/cool. Adjusting anatomy

Further rendering, blood added

Playing with ice effects and shin guards.

Further exploration

Changed shin guards, further tweaks

Reduced ice effect on the torso

Playing with the Background

further tweaks on bg and ice.

Bringing the mood back in.




Sub-Zero Fan Art (Part 1)


A little while ago I had the idea of doing some Mortal Kombat fan art since the new game was coming out - MKX. It went through a lot of rough iterations and I'd almost given up altogether because of how frustrated I was getting. This series of images here is basically chronicling the failed version of this idea. I originally started with a sketch, but in my haste, I didn't give it enough time and thought - resulting in a half arsed painting.

The idea was that I wanted sub-zero conjuring ice. It was originally going to be a character design but I ended up deciding to make it an illustration, which is where it went downhill. If I was doing an illustration I should have planned it better and thought about composition, mood, colour etc. Basically I tried to make it work and it didn't. The design was meant to be minimalistic and the Idea was that Sub-zero was being consumed by his powers, possibly due to dragon medallion corruption. there'd be some backstory there I'm sure. 

I found myself going round and round in circles with this image. The anatomy was kicking my ass in every way and it just came to a point where I looked at it and thought "it's not dynamic enough, it's not successful in conveying the idea, time to leave it"





Original sketch. Much too rough. More ref needed..

Starting to block in and find a mood

Changing the colour scheme and mood

Further rendering

Figuring out anatomy

Continued...

rendering up ice, trying to work a better comp

Tweaking anatomy...again..

Adjusting hood and anatomy

More effects. Painting scrapped at this point

The next post shows how I started again at a later date. If there is a lesson that I should have learned from this, it would be to plan better, much better. However, as you will see with the next post, I still fall into the same trap to an extent.

Thomas Moran - Waterfall in Yosemite (Master Study)

After doing some master studies I thought it would be best to do a fully fledged study. Put a little more time into it! I really enjoyed this. I don't really know why I picked this painting in particular, maybe it was the colour palette and the fact it was a landscape. Those two things I needed to brush up on quite badly.

Thoughts
I learned a lot doing this. Things such as the dark saturated reds in the foreground rocks, along with desaturated reds and blues for the cool colours. It's all about the contrast! It was interesting working with the lighter background colours as well. They tended to be bright but desaturated. One thing I did find tricky was achieving that grainy effect that a real painting has. I tried using brushes but it tended to muddy things and make the values unclear. Turns out that a noise filter does the trick, just made it look that little bit better and finished.

Two things I will do next time I look at the old masters:

1. do basic lineart to get proportions

2. go more in depth with the study. Not just copying but actually breaking down the image.


Finished Painting





Blocking in

Continuing, adjusting proportions

Further rendering

Almost there, water needed some attention!

Master Study Thumbnails

These are just a couple of master study thumbnails I did after watching a Noah Bradley video on the subject. It was one of those videos where you watch it, and then you realise how you've been doing everything wrong! But seriously though, some of the best and most worthwhile studying you can do.


Black and White. keeping with three tones.

Working small means you can focus on general colour

Some of the artists:
Thomas Moran
Federic Church
Albert Bierstadt