Gathana the satyr

And here is my protagonist for my character design project at school. This was my attempt to give satyr's a fighting able edge. "Gathana"is her name, I want an 1980's approach with the theme. I always hate satyrs in movies. They always seem weak and lame, just not appealing a lot of the time. I really thought about their key features which are their legs and instantly reminded me of Final Fantasie's Dragoons. I instantly revolved my character around that idea and really went hand in hand for me. I normally do not color like this and actually content on how it came out. I still know I can do better! I will definitely use this piece in my board game.

Matharuk

This was my Villain that I did for a character design project I had in illustration class. I was inspired by the 1980's dungeon crawler board games, The Shining serie's Dark Sol,  and wanted something that felt similar but still entirely different. I really did want to show more as far as interior of the cloak and accessory's. I totally forgot to showcase his massive overshadowing wings (major fail) but I do plan on using him again and will show his massive wings next time around.

Ren, one take out of couple.

So I finely finished "Ren's" line work and took a shot at the rendering. I re-worked his head and gave it more unique shape along with the addition of a pot-mark on his cheek. He does look a little older then I intended, but not enough to be close to Ioz's age. I really want that contrast in age between Ren and Ioz. I honestly had no intention of taking this to a finished state since at the moment I am a little blind to some painting methods I have used long ago. I will however take another shot at Ren with a different approach.

Castlevania/Steampunk

I have always been a big fan of the Castlevania series and even dabbled extensively with the imported versions of the series, Dracula X being my all-time fave!

A few years back Konami made efforts to capitalize in the hand-held market with the Castlevania series and released some really good renditions of the game on the DS.

There was one very major thing that bothered me and that was who the games were being geared towards, young teens!

The series had taken a major Down-fall in terms of the output it once had art direction wise. Ayame Kojima’s beautifully mesmerizing Gothic paintings was no more the icing on the cake. Instead it was brightly colored characters and displayed very minute and average detail. I understand why they did that but can’t say I fully agree with it and then again I know that at that time Nintendo’s user base for its DS

was mainly teens and kids. So I thought a lot about making my own vampire hunters and how I would give them a much more serious edge. Aside from that I thought about a strong setting which Castlevania never really exploited, which was Steam-Punk. So I began with my first character. Tight black leather, white fur on the collar and buckles and chains were the call of the day on this one. I love insignias a lot and so I gave him one on the right shoulder and made him feel as if he was part of an order and there also would be a good opportunity to play in some extension there.

The other character on the right was being designed for a game I had in mind that takes place in a steampunk setting and also deals heavily with dealing with ghouls and the undead. I really wanted to play in a Victorian/Aristocratic look, throw in a nicely decorated chain sword inspired from Final Fantasy 6’s Edger. Now my decorated character is ready to shread through the ghouls and attend lavishly Gothic meetings at night. I still plan on making analog and digital versions of that game.

The last one has more of a Belmont feel. I did this sketch right before Order Of Ecclesia came out. I wanted to really push a front leather piece that covered Belmont from color bone to the mid-section. I wanted a few pockets on it and eventually worked a relic cross bound to a small chain on his chest armor and that has to be my favorite touch to the whole piece. I will eventually redesign these guys now that I have a lot more knowledge on design and definitely have some more appealing faces. I still would like to push that 80s industrial glam rock the hunter on the far left has.

Ren, almost done.

I have finely come to a satisfactory state with Rens look. I canned the Aladdin vest and gave him a more closed jump-suit look a lot like what he originally had in the cartoon. He feels more important and more like the main character of the series then before when he had a more rouge like look. I also played in thick trims with curves to them in his shirt and his pants. I played in more of the thick animal armor over his knees and made a spiny bracer over his arm. As far as the face goes I am still indecisive. I played with the idea of having more feminine features as I mentioned in my previous Dark water post. In the original series Ren had these almond shaped eyes with eyeliner and from the nose up could easily read as a female. So I thought about, what if he had those female features but just a little bit stronger and used it to his advantage, mostly in cases with subterfuge mattered. I like the idea of him really fooling a lot land starved scoundrels and then lashing out and taking a lot of them by surprise. I also wanted to push his silhouette a little bit more, so I played with his hair style and gave him a “swoosh” type of look that can convey some swiftness. From here on out I will focus on the main bad guy which I have started and the female Lead who I have also started. I will finish Ren, I just couldn’t help myself not to start those two since I had all these ideas I wanted to get down.

My tribute to Sega's Shinobi

Ninjas have always been some of my favorite characters since childhood, Sega's Shinobi being my all time favorite. I have always wanted to design one but was never satisfied with my results. A while back I actually got serious and went through several iterations and finally got something I am happy with. I toyed with weapons other then swords (I still gave him one, but my ninjas main weapons are bombs) and designed my ninja around the idea of flinging sticky bombs. I really like the idea of moving swiftly and planting bombs on various things, living or not O_O. In the the end what makes my ninja mine, is his helmet and bomb approach. I know bombs have been used by ninjas in previous media before, but sticky bombs or attached bombs is the main kick my assassin has. I would love to design a game after this guy.

 I did the final in one shot with ink pen and painted it digitally.

Pirates Of Dark Water fan art / re-design

I have been thinking about Pirates of Dark Water for a while now, and how unique it was when I was  a kid. recently I have been thinking of ways of pushing those old designs. I took the first most memorable character, "Ioz" for his roughness and "Han Soloish" traits and tried pushing his design. One thing I noticed is that there wasn't a whole lot to suggest that Ioz belonged to unique world like Dark Water, or read like a pirate. Ioz had this Mongolian trait which I think was for some smart thinking for the time in which Dark water was made and the intended young audience and I really admire that a lot.

I made efforts to give him a very distinct face in terms of the silhouette and push a Mongolian/Middle Eastern feel to him, hence the Arabic boots. After that I designed everything to have that Dark Water feel, giving most things a bony or pointy look to them.

Next was "Ren", the male lead, which I will get to in my next blog since there are a few more design images of him I would like to elaborate on. 

Dita! the sniper

This was the funnest character to work on out of the four here at the bottom. I based his design of a desk lamp. The instructor wanted us to make a "gadget guy" and to me a mechanical-armed desk lamp is nerdy,mechanical and analytical, so I based his frame on a desk lamp. I originally had kids picture viewer as his night vision goggles but once again my instructor didn't know that people back then had picture viewers that looked like archaic night vision goggles if placed over a tanker cap. So I didn't fight it and just went along with fold down lenses. I know there were no night vision goggles back then, but once again this is a cartoon and I am trying to push the limits.

I still like the idea of a "nerdy sniper" Persis calculations plus a deadly weapon make for a potent mix.

Frou

This was my leader for the goons, a bossy firecracker decked out in desert gear. Generally I would have had ll the characters in Olive green but I wanted to show a little more variety. 1940s Germany had some of my favorite military uniforms.

Hamelstatz

This was my comedy relief for the four characters. His dirt-daisy covered helmet is his trade mark and those three elements really sum up the character. I still would like to flesh out that MG-42

Patterworth

This is my design for the villen for my class excersize. I  had a few discrepencies with the intructors changes he wanted me to make, which I did to keep my grade up. I originaly had him wear a white cape and gold trim to play up on the whole Romenesque feel of the character. Sadly my instructor did not know who Patton was, which is who my character here is hugely based on (George Patton was OBSESSED with reincarnation and ancient warefare and he himself believed that he was the reincarnation of a great general) sadly art instructors at "reputable" ninety thousand dollars schools don't keep tabs on thier history. I did however keep the wreath on his helmet.

Conceptualizing

Conceptualizing.

Lavitheah

This was one of my first rendered images showing mass and volume.This was conceptual work for a pals game which was canceled, but ended up being good practice for me. Looking at it now, I would push the the rendering even further and add some tints of blue and green. Aquatic creatures have always been fun for me and its due to there more alien look as oppose to mostly anything above sea level.

Desert warfare

This was a class project where we took various images and merged them seamlessly as possibly. This image is composed of the fallowing, a ground plane, sky plane, mecha walker model kit, a broken tank model kit and one real tiger tank in the far back. The images were all color corrected and some of the shadows manipulated to build a cohesive piece. I do no own any of these images nor  am the photographer of any. I am just showing I have the ability to merge images together and show a great deal in care with cohesiveness.