Painting 2 - Matt Painted Tower

In order to get the perspective correct on the second painting I built a low poly model of the scene, rendered it and will composite it into the final painting. The polygon edges will also help in figuring the paving pattern.

Final Painting 1 - The Temple of the Master of Darkness

Revised Thumbnail

Having spoke to my lecturer I found I had the wrong end of the stick...
I need to show more of the environment in the images so needed to zoom out. The final painting may go further out to show more of the tower theyre fighting on.
Time permitting I will also revise the image of Deathdealer fighting the the Kitzaak army.

Coloured Thumbnails

Taking the thumbnails further and ran some colour tests on each one. With the fight between Deathdealer and Klang (top) I was unsure with which one to choose to take further. I chose to use the side on scene as this shows both characters in full view as well as more of the surrounding area.

Composition Thumbnails

On to development. These are the thumbnail sketches that were produced in order to work out the composition for the final paintings. From these I will choose the final 3, refine the images, run some colour tests then start the final paintings.

Realistic Style

These 2 paintings were done using some photographic reference for the anatomy of the animals, looking into the workflow of Stjepan Sejic. Typically I produce a lot of line work and flat colour or limited rendering to achieve a more graphic style (like the previous study) to my work but really want to push more to a painterly style of art seen in work by the artists I mentioned previously. 

Initially I had intended to take the characters I had started designing previously but to be honest this is such a different workflow to how I normally work and I felt that working on something more familiar for which I could find reference, this would allow me to focus more on the techniques rather than the designing the subject matter.

The aim of these paintings were to try and push myself to paint more using shape and tone rather than spending a lot of time on line work. I limited myself to 20 minute sketches, not going into too much detail with the initial drawings as seen in Stjepan Sejic's workflow. I found this a difficult workflow to follow as I am used to having the detail already drawn in before moving forward with a rendering. However I found that having a more detailed made me restrict myself too much.

This was the first time I have attempted to make or use a texture brush in Photoshop (though I didnt think to do so until about half way through the Gorilla : / ) 

Though there are a couple of areas in each painting where the values are not spot on I feel that this has been a successful and very educational exercise. For me this workflow seems to be far more suitable when working digitally when compared to the workflow explored while looking at Grant Gould's work and aesthetically I do prefer the more realistic style that it produces.

I would like to go further and produce a series of studies on animals like these as I found this not only very educational as far as learning more about tone, lighting and texture but also as I am a big animal lover found this very enjoyable.

Could do with colour though.... 

Visual Research and Reference

Going forward I have been collecting a large selection of visual research for the project. Everything from horses to volcanic regions, ancient Mongolian warriors to the some of the baddest men on the planet today from the UFC.

A few examples of portrayals of fantasy warriors by artists such as Adrian Smith.

Varying body types of MMA fighters in the UFC. Contrary to popular beliefs, the majority of truly successful fighters though highly athletic don't look like they're aiming to compete in Mr Universe. Given that Death Dealer is written to be around 6 foot 4, tanned with dark hair I will be looking at fighters from the heavyweight division such as Cain Valasquez and Junior Dos Santos for reference.

One of the final paintings will portray Death Dealer on horseback taking on the Kitzaak army. For reference for the horse I am looking at Shire, Clydesdales and Draft Horses for their sheer size and heavy set set proportions.

 

The second image will protray Death Dealer taking on the Warlord Klang who has been transformed into a huge lizard man by the Master of Darkness. Looking Having a look at lizards with interesting features to take influence for the design.

The final image I intend to produce will portray the volcanic region where the Temple of the Master of the Master of Darkness sooooo..... volcanicness.