Zia (Bastion) Fan Art Process

Working on Griffith and Zia prints simultaneously so when I get bored / confused / overwhelmed I can quickly switch on to the other! (Running away from problems for the win!) 

Zia was designed and drawn by the fabulous Jen Zee !

Style references, classical lighting reference.

Image on the bottom left is from Jungah Lee (sp?) 

You can find her brilliant work on dA : http://jungahlee.deviantart.com/

I need posing references cause it's just getting stiff and awkward (Ha ha)

The more I do these posts the more I realize these are kind of like rationales I used to do during my time at ACAD... Some habits die hard I guess (although I never did a rationale in 4th year,)

So obviously this has a long way to go before it's going to complete, I might play around with adding in some of the pets you get in Bastion, but I think generally this is going to be the concept of it. Stark black background with stark bright lighting like in the classical image. 

I also might do a post about studies and photo references, I think it's way more acceptable these days with artists showing their process but it still is a common misconception (in art school anyways) that using references is bad and to be really amazing you have to do everything from your mind (not actually the case). Although I would like to eventually be able to pour everything from my mind to the paper much like Kim Jung, but that requires just a shit ton of sketching, and years of studies and memory studies.

More to come for this one!

Griffith Fan Art (Process)

This is a process post! 

Wtih Animethon and Anime Revolution conventions coming down the line, I've begun making new prints!

I had a process filled with alot of tracing paper and different colored leads when I was making the past year's prints, but this time around I wanted to cut corners and fix things a lot quicker through the use of the photoshop, but always bringing it back to the traditional media touch after everything has been figured out. 

This sexy motherfucker, Giffith

Original art from Kentaro Miura 

Can I first begin by saying how AMAZING THIS SERIES IS??? I read this series back in junior / high school days, and it's been on hiatus for god knows how long (during / after his mini series release) and I've never done a fan art for it till now. 

People rage about the movies on netflix cause they cut corners with the CG models, I honestly don't care / can see why they did that, those movies are damn good and do the series justice. You heard it here first, folks! 

And now for process (more of a record for me than anything to how I approach things currently):

After a series of sketches / thumbs I come up with this sketchy thing

Tonal Plan for the image along with references

I always have photo references on one side and a "style" reference on the other.

So that's where it's at right now, I switched up him holding reigns instead of his helmet cause I figure that'd be more dynamic and talk about him riding by the viewer. instead of a dead-on glance he'll be looking off to the side, for a more majestic, holier-than-thou appareance. Granted this is all in the rough stage, which is what makes digital so useful, where I can warp / transform the image to fit what I think looks best, and quickly place down what I need to change the image without worrying about ruining it / pages of tracing paper (mounds of tracing paper). 

More to come for this piece! I'm excited for this!