MTG Alter: Seige Rhino to LOTR Elephant

Here's a Siege Rhino who's got a bit lost and wandered into the LOTR universe.

She's also wearing an elephant disguise, like you do.

Yellows and Purples are notoriously difficult to match so I'm very pleased about how this one came out. I've been uing a wet pallet lately and thats helped a grest deal in colour mixing, it also gives greater control over paint thickness and preserve colous between sessions.

With hindsight I should have changed the logo into the eye of Sauron, at the time, focused on the art I didn't even see the text box.

Frodo and Sam are going to have a long walk with this new desert in the way.

Cardfight Vanguard: Double Sided Power Marker Tokens

Last time I mentioned we were going to take a look at digital art in this installment. I originally had another piece in mind however I think this is a more interesting story so today we are going to look at a set of six images that make up three double sided foil Cardfight Vanguard power level markers.

We will be exploring the concepts behind each pair and looking at how I took those concepts from initial sketch to final piece.

!. Setting the Scene.

Three foil tokens, double sided, with six unique pieces of art.

The three pairs will consist of:
Ichigo & Kenpachi (From the anime Bleach)
Deadpool & Judge Dredd
Nero & Dante (From Devil May Cry 4)

The Characters on the left will represent 5,000K and those on the right 10,000K.

It's, a lot of work to be honest. Not only do I have to create six images I have to develop a way of making two sided foil cards and sure it's just sticking two regular cards together but the important part is making sure they are the same size. We wont go into that today but like many of the challenges I'm set this one definitely resulted in a number of improvements to my process.

2. Whats the Story.

On top of all that I wasn’t just going to draw six characters with no thought of where they are or what they are doing. Each pair would be a story and the set as a whole would be tied together by an overarching theme.

And! Just to complicate things further each pair would use a separate art style but a not completely unrelated colour pallets.

As with many card game stories these are ones of power and conflict. Easy for people to quickly understand, which is good since I have two panels to explain everything. We aren't expecting to squeeze Shakespeare on here.

3. Ichigo vs Kenpachi.

This pair's conflict is a head on collision both combatants rushing towards the viewer and each other.

Ichigo's pose came quite quickly, I've drawn him before after all. 

I'm going to be sketching all of these characters digitally, there will be no paper involved in this process. This has been made possible mainly due to finally finding a set of digital brushes that allow me to draw and paint as I would with their physical counterparts.

Here in the first image for example I'm using a pen brush, this pair of images will stay close to the anime style these characters come from so I figure I may as well start as I mean to go on. Its sketchy for sure but thats sort of the point and not having to scan anything in means I can rapidly move on to the second phase (making sure the character is actually 3D and sorting the proportions) and the third (blocking in the background)

The first colour pass is all airbrush brush. Not something I use much in the physical world but highly useful here for laying down large areas of colour and smooth gradients. 

At this point the lighting is a bit generic and all over the place something to remember to fix later. We also need to draw more focus to the center of the image and come up with a way to tie the image into Kenpachi's. 

The final piece takes everything we have done so far and refines it. The lines are slimmed down and have weight added and removed (see here for more on that) The light source moves behind the figure so all the highlights and shadows have to move also and all the rocks get lightning connecting them, a hint that something or someone is causing them to be sent in Ichigo's direction. 

Originally the final image had the sunset in the background mirrored in the ocean but it looked rather like he was flying through space so I added a green tinted curve to the lower half suggesting the ground.

In contrast Kenpachi took much longer to pin down. Many sketches using everything from a pencil brush through to charcoal. It was always his sword that was the issue somehow it kept finding ways to escape the page. Like Ichigo the later stages of line-work use the pen brush, there are many types but the one I prefer works much like a cross between a fine-liner and an ink pen, good control with variable width and opacity.

This image was much more traditionally blocked in, flat and with few colours. The ground beginning to break up gives us our connection to the other image but there's going to be a lot of work needed with the airbrush to get from here to the final piece.

Like the other image the light is behind the character. But then it would be the ground has gone all explode'y (technical term) with lightning. I'm really happy with the way the skin turned out on this one the airbrush is very good at skin and by swapping between a very large broad brush and a thin detail one you can build up the image quite quickly. The last thing I did was go back and check my reference, a good thing too because I had almost forgotten the little diamonds and circles on his cloak. It can be the little details that solidify the final image.

4. Deadpool vs Judge Dredd

The Dredd vs Deadpool conflict is one of chaotic irreverence vs stoic order. Dredd looks down out of his image and towards the highway bellow from where Deadpool smiles back up at him, clearly having done something knowing it would wind Dredd up.

This time both sketches start with a blue pencil brush. The blue is a throwback to a time of analog animation but we tend to still use it as it makes it easier to tell original sketch from more finalised work in black. Both sketches are quite close to their final pieces too, not necessarily in terms on exact pose but at least in layout.

I'm going for a graphic novel / western comic style with these two so back comes the pen brush, this time slightly broader and more ink'y to fill in the blocks of black. The Dredd blocking in was essentially a redraw as you can see from the massive jump in detail. The best way to do this is to make the previous image transparent and use it as a guide, that way to can focus on the details.

As you can see there was originally a car in the Deadpool image I dropped it for two reasons. Firstly while the angles were right it was a little flat, it needed to be taller but then would have taken up far to much space. Secondly it distracts from the main image, the white lines on the ground tell us its a road so we may as well remove the car and have the blood splatter more dominant there.

When it came time to colouring once again the airbrush is the primary tool however once we have the initial colours in place I start using a series of pattern brushes to add textures. Deaadpool gets carbon fibre armour for example while I add brick, stone and metal layers to the areas of both images that seem most appropriate. At the same time a gradual process of upping the detail occurs until I'm happy with the results.

5. Nero vs Dante.

With this pair I was trying to capture them mid combo. Originally Dante would have been focused on the right attempting to shoot Nero down but I didn’t like the pose, it seemed odd that he was ignoring , over the course of the sketch it gradually evolved to be front facing and shooting both ways. This probably leaves it the weakest of the connecting stories but it does mean if Nero tries to attack from either side he's getting blasted. Nero's pose changed a bit too, in the end I wanted to have a nice C curve to the pose and the leg on the left was really disrupting that line of motion creating more of an X and a static pose.

Sketching starts out the same way as the previous pair but quickly moves away from lines in favor of a more artistic style. Usually both images would have been done in grey-scale first but for some reason I started in colour on Nero and just kept working that way. It's quicker, you just have to be more aware of you colour choices.

I'm using the finished cards here as the last images because these are the two that needed the most typography work and editing after their images were finished and for that I had to switch to another program where those edits could be made more easily.

Also here's a bonus image of the city background stage for both pieces. 

You cant actually see it on the Nero piece, I pushed it right back to focus on the foreground, but the idea was there would be enough room for both of them to share it.

6. All and Nothing.

With foil being a hard effct to capture here's a quick video of the finished cards. 

As for the link 'that ties them all together? Well I've mentioned it a few times already. Front-Back, Up-Down, Left-Right, yup they are all pairs of directions. Why? Well when your doing double sided cards any Easter eggs should be three dimensional right?

And that's all we have time for today, next time, well we'll see but it's likely to one sided.

Jiraiya Custom Playmat / Colouring Line Work

Last time we focused on line art and a number of ways to make your lines more dynamic and interesting. We continue where we left off, with the lines set out on the mat itself and ready for what we are going to be talking about today, how best to go about colouring.

…

But first, a slight rewind.

Before we dive into colouring I just want to mention our starting point this time around. This image should have been the final sketch before moving onto the mat proper, it's the one I sent to the person who asked for the mat at least, all the elements are there but after moving from pencil to pen the fact the proportions of the body are all over the place was bothering me. A large stack of revisions later and Jiraiya is looking more human, more 3D, and ready for prime time.

There are many ways to check to see if your design looks right, from mirroring and flipping to changing the media your working in. It's best to figure that out before laying the lines out on the mat though, since theres no going back after you have.

Which is one of the reasons I tend to leave any lines until last. Something that may have happened this time had I not done the Rarity mat just beforehand.

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Line and colour don’t mix

That heading is misleading, lines and colours do mix thats sort of the problem and another reason I tend to leave lines until last.When we do decide to start with the lines we have to understand how the two are going to interact or find ourselves having to waste time redrawing the lines at the end.

If your anything like me your going to be using Fine-liners for the lines. Brushes are great for large areas of colour but for complex designs or small details you want control and crisp spread free edges. There are plenty of options for this phase, sharpies will do the job if that's all you have access to but I prefer to have access to a verity of nib sizes so use something more specialised.

The main thing to make sure of is that whatever you use is going to have some resistance to water and wear, a players palms resting on the mat is a good example of both.

What you wont be able to do is find something that resists water and the colours we tend to use. Sharpies for example will resist water but not wear or other sharpies.

We still need to know how the colours are going to interact with the lines so heres a handy picture.

Different colours have different quantities of pigment.

The light colours: Yellows, Pastels, etc,

Have the least pigment so if you brush them over a line they are the least likely to cause it to fade or spread. That doesn’t mean you get a free pass yes you can be less careful but press too hard or build up too many layers and not only will the line spread it will be really obvious and is the hardest to fix.

The Mid colours: Most Reds, Orange, Greens.

With more pigment comes greater risk one pass could be enough to cause spread and it could be quite a distance, worse these colours are still light enough that its going get noticed.

The Dark colours: Blues, Purples, Black, some dark Greens.

Spread becomes less of an issue as you get darker as your not going to see it. That doesn’t mean you can relax though since these colours introduce a new problem, Fade. If anything Fade is worse than spread since you can hide that with darker colours, Fade on the other hand is essentially the colours removing the lines you spent all that time on earlier sure we can go over them again but with care we shouldn’t have to.

The other issue should be obvious, if we are using black next to a black line we probably don’t need the line in the first place, or if we do, we need to make sure there is a gap between the two.

Which leads neatly on to the next section how do we do that? And more importantly avoid Spread and Fade in general?

…

It helps to have good eyes and a steady hand, or a magnifying glass and patience.

Here's a look at an early stage of colouring. While technically an anime inspired mat Jiraiya's design is inspired by kabuki and I'm quite interested in getting a more traditional Japanese art style into this piece. I didn’t take it quite that far in the end but after looking at the legs and red areas I did decide I preferred gradients over flat shading.

Anyway your here for tips to avoid damaging the liens so moving on. You can see in this image the green areas currently leave a slight gap between themselves and any nearby lines. We know this light green wont Fade or Spread the liens that much but when we are blocking the design in quickly we don’t want to take any chances especially around those thin lines.

The red on the other hand runs right up to lines. Here I have figured this material isn’t going to change much over the course of colouring so have spent the extra time getting it to a more finished state. You can colour as you like at the center of the space but as you approach the edges your going to want to use the way the red spreads to your advantage, you don’t need to go up to the line to get the colour there it just takes some practice to judge the distances.

Even so you can still see how reds tend to cause Spread in the corners with the most black ink. Luckily the corners are probably the places you want darker reds anyway but we will have to do a bit of a cleanup later.

…

Using the enemy to your advantage.

While we want to avoid the lines spreading or fading there are some times you are going to decide you no longer want a line where it is. Thats a bit of a problem when you want them to be permanent but there are a few things we can do if we need to.

We have seen the first way to remove the line already. Just cover it with a similar colour and it will go away. Ok now you have a large black splotch rather than a line but at least its gone and if you have planned it right the splotch looks natural where it is perhaps its part of a shadow. (you can see I have used this method to reshape the lower body of the large red frog)

But what if it doesn’t look right?

The next method takes things more scientifically, we want to use the buildup of pigment to fade the line but we also need to know how lighter colours can sometimes overwrite darker ones. In this example we cover the line with a deep blue until its faded enough to no longer be visible then use a lighter blue to cover that. We can do this because the lighter blues tend to have as much pigment as the darker ones. They wont erase lines but they will erase darker blues (which is why its easier to blend from light to dark blue than the other way) With a lighter blue in place next we can blend into other colours we have to be a bit careful it doesn’t all go muddy brown but if we really need to change things this way will do the job.

Next time a look at digital design, until then try an stay inside the lines. 

MLP Rarity Custom Playmat

The one thing I said I wouldn't do right at the beginning of all this was to make black and white mats. At the time I perceived it as a way to set myself apart from everyone else, a commitment to always do full colour.

So what do you do when someone asks if ou can just do the lines for them because they want to colour it themselves?

Like they say, rules are meant to be broken, and sometimes doing the thing you said you wouldn't can improve then things you said you would. 

I'll be going into more detail about that next time. Today since the opportunity present its itself I'm going to go over the basics of working with lines, mostly simple steps you can take to make an image more dynamic, like last time the majority of this post will be explained through images.

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Funny how discussing lines has led to a lack of colour in this post.

 

As an aside you may wonder why I went with this style over the previous one. There are two reasons. The first being that as a mat based on cartoon horses I'm aiming for a certain flatness from the style and secondly while the light source as I imagine it is in the background dead center thats not necessarily how the person coloring it is going to perceive things.

Also the vanishing point is somewhere way off the page to get the diamonds to look right so there's that.

At the office once we were set against one another to imitate someone who was no longer there's style. No one won, we pick up quirks as we steal techniques and work towards our own style you can get close but I guess to an art director the differences are glaring.

The fact I was a programmer at the time  probably didn't help my chances.

0.05's are actually thinner than the mat material threads or near enough, you have to be careful because the texture is going to throw the neat lines your trying to draw off.

next time we move from the basics to how being forced to take the path untraveled helped with the next mat. No more horses for now, no next time its all about coloring frogs.

Until then, I wonder how all these images affect google hits.