To cement that mentality in the early, I'm pushing myself to finish and post one commission a day for 30 days. I've suffered from chronic lateness last year and my goal is to fully catch up on my commissions sooner rather than later. As an added bonus as I post these daily commissions I will be doing breakdowns of some of my thoughts behind the pieces. I'm already at Day 7 over on facebook, so I will post 3 of the pieces here back to back to get you caught up. Let's go!
Day 1: Glyphx! This was done for a client by the name Ced Pharaoh as a promo piece for his illustrated novel Urban Mage, which is a project on Kickstarter. URBAN MAGE is aimed at science fiction & fantasy lovers and is labeled as an Ancient Urban Sci-Fi Fantasy Adventure that mixes action inspired by African Mythology & other cultures.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/348619251/urban-mage-the-legacy-chronicles-book-1-0.
For this piece, Ced (who I'm also proud to call a friend) wanted something showing Glypx in that classic bad-ass, coming out the shadows, no fear pose. The important thing for me when I do a piece is to show some sort of motion, and there's nothing I love more than swirling energy or smoke. Glyphx channels 2 form of energy, one more of a flame emanation, and the other an electrical like charge, so I tried to show contrasting line forms. The only thing I would like to alter is how old I made him look-- he's supposed to be around 19 or so, and I feel I made him look a few years beyond that. The original challenge of this piece started way back when I first designed the character. Ced asked for a futuristic dashiki, so I had to do a lot research of African designs, but the crunch was how to make it look modern AND have a wider audience appeal yet still keep certain Afrocentric elements. The good thing about Ced is he has pretty clear visions on how he wants his characters so it was a great collab.
Day 2: Omega! This is a reinterpretation of one of my students characters.
I have been teaching my Character Design Workshop Course now for a few years now around Philly, and my latest class just ended at the Lenfest Center in Hunting Park. The curriculum of my course focuses on having the students come up with their own original character, then I take them through the basic steps of writing and drawing using their character as a foundation on which to build on. I really like the look of this character. As anyone who knows me can tell you I love ninjas and scarves (sound familiar), and the mohawk is the icing. So this was fun...and easy. My students already did all the hard work.
Day 3: Shadow Catcher...Reinterpretation of one of my students characters..
I don't know why, but I was having a hard time coming up with a comfortable pose for this character. To be honest, I'm still not all the way happy, but sometimes you gotta move on. One of the other things I don't like is how skintight I made his shirt..looks like he's naked. lol Someone mention my student having a Naruto influence, and yes the mask has that swirl effect, but I like the face he gave it his own spin.
More to come tomorrow.
Peace
"Brainstorming insane thoughts to form a bloody reign/rain"- Geist
Much Props to you on my GlyphX image. Too AWESOME & I can't wait to see this in color. The Dashiki is SO EPIC! Nothing like it in the hemisphere..Just what I wanted. More Collabs are coming..starting with..........:)
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