Alex of Viltess Empire

Recently I had the pleasure to study anime style under a close friend and skillful artist! I learnt so much that I felt mind blown every single class..! It was a very interesting approach since the focus slightly differs from what I have known thus far.

Also, I never drew in anime style before so it truly was challenging but fun experience. The design challenge was to either design a knight named Alex or a nature character named Morgan who both are from opposing country. I wanted to learn to render armor so I challenged myself to do Alex. He has 2 elements we could pick from, either light or fire.

I came up with a backstory for him being an anti hero main character. From the empire he came from he is a magnificent general and hero but from Morgan POV he truly is an arch enemy and rival that has slain many of her people. 

In my mind he is a fiery, loud and cunning character. He could be cruel to enemies, smiling in delight as he crush them but to his comrades, he is dependable and protective. I imagined that he enjoys being on the battlefield and rarely return back to the empire, thus I made his cape rather tattered. For his fire magic, I referenced Naruto and Roy mustang’s fire a lot >_< It was not as simple as it looked! It took me one whole day of fixing until I had it right.

I look forward to hear what do you think about this character!

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Following are my development stages:

1. Ideation/design

Started off with the backstory and I have a couple of keywords in mind when designing him, mainly are knight/nobility. technology. evil/antihero. aggressive.In each version I kinda change the % of the keyword influence.

2. Poses/ further designing

I showed it to some friends and they chose B E F C, the instructor chose B and F. So taking those that has more votes, I drew some poses. Then I picked three that I like and put the design on top of it. In here I am mostly just trying out to show different personality and compositions in each exploration.

3.Color

2nd pose was chosen! Off I went to try different color variations. I went back to my keyword in each color, trying out to emphasize different things. Such as evil/anti hero or nobility. Since he is fire element I also tried making that as his main color. But I tried what if instead its orange and yellow too (D) and also what if he is light element instead (E). After this stage it was just rendering.. rendering and rendering!

LV1 NOOBHERO

Enter the noob hero!

Born of peasant parentage,
in a palace we call village.
Now that he is of age.
and being the only teenage.

Wooden sword he carry
His guide a pocket fairy
He should not tarry
Lest the villagers unhappy

So off he goes to slay a monster
Or to be chase by king slime!

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I grew up playing RPG and stuff so as I thought of what would the young me would love to draw, I decided to do some fantasy rpg influenced design.

Hero Exploration sketches.

The Hero is a village boy (since most hero always start off in a village o_o).. the only young man in the village, the moment he grew up he was made to help out around the village. From slaying slimes to gathering legendary herb that grow on the top of a charging bull dragon.

I started the design with thought of a beginner hero.. but later on I went a bit too far and made him look a bit too advanced. Then I thought of armor that they could make from surrounding materials and thought of acorn armor (Too much monhun in my life :x its awesome tho)

Companion Exploration sketches. 

In then end I went with companion E since in my mind she has similar personality as Olaf in frozen. Would be fun to see her saying very very innocently inappropriate things. In my finished version above, I imagine her eating the last healing herb in the hero's pocket and when he was injured she would hand him the half eaten herb while saying

"Master.. I think  you need this!"

(updated the image after some feedback!)

Beautiful Poem

Today I saw stephen silver shared a beautiful poem in FB together with 2 part video
https://vimeo.com/84022735
https://vimeo.com/87448006

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean. 

Constantine P. Cavafy

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I like the poem so much that I want to share it here so I could remember it in the future.. It came just in time because today I felt rather down due due to some feedback about my art. Made me realize I have been living too long in a glass bubble that I forgot some feedback could be very painful to hear but its like bitter medicine that I have to hear. Anyway, no art post for today because I have to fix it up. :)

Jackal D Butcher

Just posting up and old piece of work that I did last year.

Was originally done for client work but later on the client had some financial issue and decided to abandon the project.

The brief was to do a medieval knight unit for a mobile game.

My idea was a butcher knight, the type that become a source of conversation among the enemy troop. Sort of an urban legend that they share around the campfire...story passed down from the older soldiers to the younger ones.

Little did they know he truly exist!

I was imagining how jack the ripper x sweeney todd be if they live in medieval era.

Banana?

Too much crazy turbulent emo inducing news? Burntout from social media drama? Here have some banana!

Owley Scarface

Naval Commander Owley Scarface

As scary as the scar on his face!

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I thought it would be fun to share my Owl dude thought process.

Let me know what you think about it :)

Recently had some talk with my friend ca-tha-na (not her real name :p) about the importance of design. 

So I thought I will try my best to put in more thoughts into the design. Which was also the reason why I had another steps of design polish..

Step 1:

I started researching after having overall idea that this dude has to be someone that Ratty Cheesybeard is truly scared of and he has to be kinda like an arch enemy or villain to the story. My key word was pretty much intimidating discipline and naval captain..

I quickly Sketch in rough paper. Just vomiting out as many ideas as I could. Before settling down to some silhouette and design language I like. Square. Trapezium. Heavy Top. 

Step 2:

Just polishing the design... and while doing that I also try to put in something I truly enjoy which was character development and back story. With that in mind, as I was refining the design I also try to simplify and push the pose and design language. There was so much of erasing and trial and error here x_x 

Step 3:

Just inking and coloring.

Tried several color but I like this two best. I keep stressing to myself that it must be different color from Mr Ratty! Perhaps a color that would feel like they are antagonizing him. 

Purple since it has poisonous/venomous feel and green since its complimentary color to red.

Last Step: 

Enjoy!