BA3a - Christmas Break Summary

Over the Christmas break I continued working on the sheets. I decided to start out working with the bubble fish pet with putting it in a scene. For this one I wanted to just draw out the feeling I had for the scene, instead of working with sketches and thumbnails. I wanted a dark scene, and the fish would be floating whilst following the owner, and the glow of the bubbles would be one of the only light sources.
Below is the final image, the first being the original and the second having a dark blue filter pulling it together. I'm still not 100% sure which I prefer but I think one with the filter helps with the dark feeling of the drawing, but may darken the overall feel of the piece and not allow for parts of it to be as visible.

Original

Dark filter

Even though I kind of went with my instincts and the flow with this one, it turned out as I envisioned and the vibe I wanted is clearly present. I couldn't spend long on the piece too, so I'm very pleased with what I achieved. 

I decided that for the boss, I wanted a piece that felt ominous, and definitely feel like a boss battle was about to happen. I also wanted a character on one of the mounts in the piece, perhaps in the foreground to show the huge size of the boss being far away. I decided for a piece like this, and also because I had many different ideas in my head of the location, I would thumbnail the piece beforehand. Below are the thumbnails:

I started with the top three as landscapes, and decided that that orientation would be too restrictive especially as the boss is a tall creature and its size would be more complimented in portrait. I also wanted to incorporate the mushroom idea that I started this project with, as it worked in the lightless environment I wanted the creatures in. In the end I decided on the bottom left, with the large mushrooms and the character on the mount being in the foreground closest to you and the boss being half hidden by mushrooms in the background.

Below is the sketch I drew from the thumbnail:

And the final piece before and after I added bridges. I decided to add the bridges so that the character had a path to the boss, and I think it pulls the piece together more especially with the bright yellow lights on the bridges to light the way.

I'm still not 100% sure its finished yet, but so far I am relatively pleased with the piece. I think it seems somewhat messy due to the different light sources scattered around (bridge lights, drips on mushrooms, the boss' antlers and claws, deer heads), and the dripping parts on the mushrooms don't look quite right. I haven't had a huge amount of practice with backgrounds and big pieces like this however so all in all i am very pleased, but things like the light sources and the overall colours could be improved with more time and knowledge. The colour of the mount was difficult as I was trying to keep its original colours but also add blue lights to make it fit in the scene, and the boss' lighting was difficult too as there is light coming from its antlers and claws so i was trying to use that to make it seem more dramatic by having this light on its chest, however its difficult to replicate on the mushrooms too so it may look vaguely out of place. I may try to get some guidance on this piece before I call it finished, but for now I am pleased.

I decided to use the deer as the mount in this piece as it felt appropriate given the boss also being deer-inspired, and the mushroom forest felt like an environment you would see it in. I'm not sure the deer stands out enough in this piece still, so I may end up also making a character sheet for it.

The lion character sheet was only one I hadn't drawn anything for yet so I moved on to that. Below is its sheet with sketches, lineart and final:

This one was a little difficult at first as much of its design isn't sketchable due to the large pixels, but in the end I am pleased with how it looks. The top left shows the lion in a relaxed pose, showing its glowing paws, and the top right is the head shot with the glowing teeth shown. The bottom two show the lion running and the paw prints being left behind similar to the other creatures. The pixel size is a lot larger in a closer shot such as the face of the lion which i enjoyed working with. The pixels can be difficult sometimes as its a challenge to make them all similar in colour when pixelated, but it does show that the pixels will be moving around like static on a TV at any point. 

Below are reference images used.

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And i also used this video as reference for the running (link also here)