4 August 2014

Custom Playmat Blue Eyes White Dragon vs Kuriboh

Today I'm going to look at the Blue Eyes vs Kuriboh mat, but a little differently from usual as it will be in the form of a conversation, the fact the conversation is between myself and I is irrelevant.

You hope. Also its technically a Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon but the title is long enough as it is.

Anyways, perhaps we should start from the beginning. 

Design brief, birthday present, BEUD (Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon) and Kuriboh / Winged Kuriboh fighting.

But was that each other or against something else?

Well looks like thats been left up to you to work out.

Fine against each other, its more fun that way.

True, true, but ah, what version of BEUD are going going to draw

What do you mean theres only one, checks google, well ok two, maybe 3 if you count anime version, four because the toys is 3D... look I'll work something out I've drawn Blue Eyes enough times now I should know what it looks like.

Quite.

Helpful, anyway lets see, I prefer the wider variation on the head, geez they can't even keep the tattoo thing exactly the same, and hmm lets go with the spiky wings, its a little bit more Red Eyes style but this thing is going to take up most of the mat already the last thing we need is no background.

Its going to be the sky, and its going to be orange.

Hush, you don't know that for certain.

Right

...Moving on, I think the dragon should be fly towards us out of the middle of the screen

Mat

That too. The other two heads can be slightly further back but I want the primary one to be after the viewer.

May as well get burst stream of destruction in here somewhere too.

Finally a good idea! one of the other heads can be doing that which leaves the other one to, ah, get beaten up by a Kuriboh, you know even things out a bit.

Embarrassing if you ask me.

I didn't, and did you want all the Kuriboh's to be exploding or something?

Well...

No, not going to happen, I'm going to have to draw who knows how many anyway I'm not making them all just balls of light. 

Aww..

I've been thinking about the layout how do you feel about the dragon in a V layout with a spiral from top left down around and up to middle right?

The Kuriboh's make up most of the spiral don't they?

More of less yes, and oh! We can have one hanging on for his life riding the dragon and another getting crushed and... 

Your getting a little to in to this, can we just start it already?

Fine...

-Some time later-


All it needs are some skulls and flames and todays mat would look right at home on a vinyl slipcover.

That wasn't really the inspiration or where I thought I would be heading with this design but I'm pretty happy thats were it ended up.

And the sky is orange I notice.

Its red! and thats only because you didn't like the yellow.

It didn't 'pop' and you know it, its also why the BEUD had green highlights if you will recall. I will allow that the chain is a nice touch.

Its good to vary the sides up a bit, don't want them getting too mirrored

I notice it cuts down on the number of Kuriboh's you had to draw also 

Thats slander my friend you can't prove anything!

...At least some of the  Kuriboh's are exploding and the one doing a Shoryuken on the right head makes it slightly less embarrassing for the dragon I guess, where did he learn that by the way?

The first rule of Fight Club...

Sure are a lot of the blighters though...

Yes, luckily the two big groups meant I didn't have to shade them all individually. Just work up thought the lights and blend in the shadow areas. Getting the lighting right on the dragon took long enough.

I was there I remember, it did seem to change quite often. 

I got there in the end, and the glow effects on the attacks helped a great deal to define where the lighting should be coming from.

Anything else you want to say? 

Join me next time... 

Hey!

...When I will be discussing another mat design, possibly something more structural 

By myself.

You hope.