Final character key art

 Katya -

After the meeting with Mantic and getting some feedback on how to improve my designs to better fit in with the company's IP, I got some feedback from my tutor on how to improve the anatomy of the soldier's face. My tutor showed me a technique of drawing a skull over the current drawing and then viewing it separately from the drawing, from here compare it to the anatomy of a realistic skull and it should highlight the issues with the anatomy. In my case I had quite a few issues, the eye sockets were too big, nose too low, the zygomatic process was too far back and chin far too small. 

Once I had drawn my more realistic skull over the head, all I had to do was lasso select and drag the features into place, this meant that I did not have to completely redraw the head. To colour this piece I originally tried the gradient map method in which I placed my colours underneath the drawing, placed a gradient map over the value drawing [with orange tones for highlights and dark blue tones for shadows] and then placing the new value layer on a hard light. In theory this would make rendering the piece much quicker, however I found that the result it gave me was just not what I wanted, so instead I opted to select areas and use a mix of the gradient map method, layering colours, and manually going in and rendering details in colour. This took a little more time to do but I think this extra time spent certainly paid off. I also used firealpaca's built in gold and silver gradient maps to add the specular lighting on the chain and cuff which I think helped this piece lean more into the semi realism genre I was going for. 

Another technique I used was using fog to separate my figures from the environment, once I had added in the environmental gradient maps and made some alterations to the levels to improve the contrast on the piece, I noticed that the characters seemed to blend into the background. To improve on this, I decided to add in some fog with the cloud brush on luminosity which when I placed the gradient map over the top gave it an eerie almost ethereal feel to it. Also to tie this piece into the key art piece with the hogg and swine, I added in some rain effects as this piece is supposed to be set in the same setting as the Hogg and Swine. 

I'm very happy with this piece and I think that with all the improvements my tutor gave it really made my initial sketch better. I was given some additional suggestions to add some stringy gore to my piece which I think I will add to just give this piece a bit more drama. Considering the game that I would make these characters for, I think it would be aimed at an older teen/adult audience and so the levels of gore in this piece would not be an issue, I think this age range would be good as the route themes of Katya and the Hogg & Swine are of a more adult nature and not suitable for younger audiences.

The Hogg & Swine -

For this piece the feedback given to me was only to remove the spikes from the head region of the Hogg to give it a greater range of motion at the neck joint. From here I followed a different technique to how I did the Katya piece, I first put a gradient map on the background [hiding the smoke elements at first as it affected how the colours looked], i chose a salmon and lavender looking gradient to imply an overcast sky that is perhaps at sunset with how the buildings look in the background, i thought this would give a very bleak and dull looking setting for the Hogg to be in. 

For the Hogg itself, I layered rusty orange tones over my value sketch on multiply layers to give me a base colour to work from. I wanted the metal to look rusty and unkempt, so i used a range of techniques to put in this texture work, I used the FireAlpaca Acrylic sponge brush to add some dirt to the legs and body of the mech, then went in with the marker tool and drew out some lines from these splotches to give that streaky rust look. To really take it further, I used the same free to use photo i downloaded from Pexels to photobash onto the metal, adjusting contrast and brightness and then placing it on a multiply layer to make the rust patterns look more realistic. 

For the goblin, It was very easy to add the colours on a multiply layer, as the environment is already very muddy and grim looking, the darker colour pallet the multiply layer offers fit very well with the overall colour pallet of the scene. Some other details I am particularly happy about are the slight rain splashes on the Hogg and the crates, and the smoke billowing out of the mech which i created using the cloud brush. I also placed in some atmospheric fog to push back the crates into the background a little, just to better frame my subject. 

The glow of the eye was made by using the Acrylic sponge brush again and alternating through several layers of Hard light, Soft light and Add to build up that glow effect, which is supplemented by dragging the highlights into the falling raindrops, and adding in some dusty elements which i feel always helps the glow pop a little more.

To finish off this piece and all pieces I do, i always like to use another gradient map on a hard light layer and low opacity to harmonize all the colours in the scene, for this piece i used the same salmon and lavender gradient that i had used for the sky, which just ties all the elements nicely into the scene. I am very happy with this piece also, and i think that I blended the 3D model blockout well into my own style, not only did this technique allow me to tackle a subject [robots] that i struggle greatly with, but also helped me better understand how to render hard surface objects and texture them in a more realistic way.