Lady Blade Gwuenevere - Updated for Artfight

Very late for Artfight, but here's updated art of Gwuenevere with her magic Thread and her Woven Blade.

Gwuenevere prepares an attack with a flourish of magical splendor. Sprouting from her fingers are thin thread, flowing together into long cords of crystalized ichor which is then molded into a blade. Woven by thousands of magical Threads, the blade takes on a piercing shape. Like that of a sewing needle, it displays an eye by which Gwuenevere's Thread flows through.

It seems to be made with precise attention, but it is short and deceptively brittle. While Gwuenevere 's Woven Blade does not cut well, it is made to puncture. To quickly dart and dig into the enemy's core and out again. The blade carries her Thread into their wounds, which its strands then burst into a painful cluster of metal crystals. With their interiors made from Gwuenevere's ichor, these crystals bleed themselves deeper and grow more of themselves from within. 

A devastating sight to witness. Yet many witless War-Fitted would find themselves bearing ichor scars from their battles with Gwuenevere. Some, if very unfortunate, would face their demise by her blade. Those crystals creep deep, damaging the integrity of one's ichor structure, leaving a wake of destruction that corrodes throughout. 

A ruination that finds no cure by any measure.

THOU ART BLADENLESS!!!!

 

It's over rendered a bit, but I like this comic! Please enjoy!

Loving the ichordic hair texturing, though a bit inconsistent with lighting in the scene. I didn't have an idea (yet) on a background, so I just borrowed some inspiration from the Byzantine mosaics of golden backgrounds for this. The border was from this photo of an interior of a basilica in Hagia Sophia by Raimond Klavins.

Image ID below:

A four panel comic of two siege-status war-torches, Thermite (the five horned torch with reddish toned ichor) and Caelestis (the two horned torch with purple toned ichor). The comic is set within a worn decorative blue and gold panels with golden background behind the two brother torches.

Thermite just flown into the first panel, teasing his annoyed brother on his low mood. 

"Oh, my dearest hatch-brother," Thermite said with sly smile on his wooden face and a finger upon his chin, "Thou look so glum!

Caelestis makes no response to his brother's jest, but Thermite continues, turning to his brother with his fingers interlocked.

"Hast thou lost someone important? Mislaid a lady blade?

Caelestis seems to finally take note of his brother's incoming joke as Thermite, struggling to keep back a laugh with a squirming smile.

 "Thou appearest...

His face breaking into a exaggerated cartoony smile, Thermite lands his punchline.

"BLADENLESS!!!"

"Please cease talking to my sword wyfe," Caelestis retorts with an angry glare as his ichor shifts from a cool purple to a harsh red.

Details update goofy ahhhhh

 

Colors progress! Trying to keep them looking both similar and different at the same time.

EVERYTHING IS COMPLETED AND DONE-ISH!

Eightenate Character, Sword prop, and callout sheets are completed!

 

 

 

 

I can finally move on to finalizing her character model in Blender and adding her sword as a model, too. But before that, I need to work on some 3D animation and hard surface modeling practices, which might take most of March. The completion of the character model itself might be around June or July.

For anyone who was here when I started on this saga last year, remember that this project was to create a style guide for future World of Relics 3D comics. I know this model, the first of three characters for the style, took about a year to get to this point. This is mostly because I'm relearning a lot of things related to 3D character design for NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) styles, including building my own shaders, style matching between 2D and 3D, sculpting and retopolgy, UVs and texture baking, and so on. So, yeeeaaah, kinda taking a long time for this style guide.

The good thing is that the more I learn, the faster this 3D character creation will be. Also, most of what I learned will become second nature, so no like three or four weeks of learning how to do proper topology so the model won't look weird if shaded the wrong way (no I'm not kidding). I still have 3D (and 2D) animation, advanced character sculpting, and character rigging to learn, however. This year will be all learning!

I have no start time (aside from a trello reminder for 2027) for starting my Rise of Relics comic. I'm thinking about while developing the character models, just start traditionally with drawn characters and environments. Then eventually added the 3D characters and environments as I go along, especially for more complex scenes.

Anyway though, this was an enjoyable process. Hope to have Eightenate's character model completed soon!

Credits for the stock images used in the above callout sheet:

1. Photo by Alex Suprun on Pixnio
2. Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash
3. Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
4. Photo by PDTillman on Wikimedia
5. My own example of a crystal blade
6. Arpit Sahani from Pixabay
7. Photo by Andreas Haubold on Unsplash

The Power of Sketches

In the world of art, the most basic form of any visual artwork is sketches.

Composed of just a few loose lines, sketches allow an artist to quickly draw out ideas, record life, and help plan artworks.  It is also an excellent learning tool and can be used to experiment on any style and subject.  It works as a second eye, capturing a moment in life or a fleeing idea with a few strokes of an artist’s pencil.  Sketches are raw.  They are sometimes graceful and clean or wild and messy.  Sketches are glimpses of the artist’s imagination and within them there are a million stories, artworks, and new ideas; dreams waiting to be realized.

Artwork begins with a sketch.  Artworks evolve through sketches.  Completed Artwork is the finalized version of a series of sketches.

And now sketches (and artworks) from the archives:
Sketch to Completed Art for "Bring Me Home":

Sketch and Finished Art for "Warthog":

Finished Artworks and WIPs

I just got finished with two artworks this week.  This one...



"Bring Me Home" done in Photoshop.

  Took me almost a month to complete in Photoshop.  This piece...

"Warthog" done in graphite pencil and charcoal.


Took me a day and a half to complete.

Both look great and I'm proud to create such beautiful artworks. I saw how my skills in art develop over time, how years of practice and study become second nature, and how it all comes down on pen and paper...

And now dragons!!!

WIPs and artistic Links

I've been around blogger and found a large arts and animation community. Check some of these out:

Academy of Art Character and Creature Design Notes

by Mike Corriero and Jennifer G. Oliver

This blog features character and creature design, tutorials, interviews of concept artists and illustrators, and more. I found their posts helpful in inventing my own creatures.


Thinking Animation

by Angie Jones and Jamie Oliff

This blog focuses on all forms of animation, including traditional, digital, stop-motion, and puppetry. The blog have videos of these animations.

Cartoon Brew

by Jerry Beck and Amid Amidi

Cartoon Brew reviews cartoons, upcoming animated films and TV shows, and animated shorts. Like Thinking Animation, this blog show case different forms of animation including commercials and experimental animation. They even have a their own BrewTV, consisting of animated shorts from different artists.

And now WIPs (warning, last one is NSFW):

These are for a portfolio.  The first two I nearly lost because Photoshop froze on me and I didn't save the picture before I had to force stop the program. Luckily, majority of the art was outlined in blue and I screen-captured it.

Before Photoshop froze.

After Photoshop froze. (bad quality due to capture)

Need help on the hands, but everything else looks good. (no more freezing ok, Photoshop?)