* Link to Amazon *

Top left image was animated for the opening sequence.

Bottom image was animated for the opening sequence.

Top right image by Roland MacDonald.

Top right image by Roland MacDonald.

.....I'd completely forgotten about so many of these! I worked in-house during my contract and blitzed through quite a few illos to meet the deadline. The brief was to create Japanese block-printing-style images with a modern twist and the AD was really pleased with the results (phew~).

I had a blast working there and was pretty sad to leave, but I'd been offered a permanent job at NaturalMotion Games Ltd. a month before my contract ended, so I left (2011). Breaking into the industry was super tough, but I couldn't have asked for a cooler first job. :) Many thanks to Kevin McDowell for giving me that chance, and to all the staff at the time for being so lovely.

I gave the client notes to explain the logic behind the design/decision-making, but felt it might give away too much to post here.

Some quick expression variations.

I didn't realise until I'd submitted it that the flute is backwards. D'oh! It's okay, she's a left-handed panda...

Cheers,
Naomi

Here are some basic sword silhouettes that started off being for Frog's Masamune but in the end I got some shapes for Chrono, Magus and Marle's weapons too (I've decided to give Marle some daggers for close-range fighting).
This is my first time designing weapons so I can't help but cringe at some of them but it's the same with everything, I guess. Gotta keep plodding along until it starts working. :)

The second silhouette from the left was later roughed out into 3 more designs:

By Sod's Law, the one I like most (far left) doesn't fit the character design! Instead it looks like the one on the far right would be worth developing.....maybe with bits of the middle one chucked in.

Last but not least, a progress shot of Frog so far. I automatically painted him green but may play around with other colours/patterns too.

FROOOOOOOOG!! Epic character. He's a chivalrous Medieval knight whose life is dedicated to protecting the queen and is easily my favourite in the game. Here's hoping I can do him some justice, eh?

Initial concepts:

I quite liked the last one as it shows more charisma so it was developed some more:

My preferences are currently swaying towards the one on the far left....also, the stick is there for placement. I'm looking forward to designing the Masamune!

EDIT: Initial studies before drawing the concepts. They're kind of embarrassing but oh well - it's only a sketchbook! Forgot to post these yesterday:

Sliiiightly unfinished but....



Here's my rendition of the starry-eyed, tomboy teen princess that is Marle (or rather, Princess Nadia). She definitely needs some bling but I haven't finalised her costume design yet so I'll add it on later.

I'm trying to make each portrait reflect their base element (her's being ice, hence the cool lighting).

Here's how Ayla turned out:



I later learned that she's referenced from another fictional character who's meant to be fair-skinned but I didn't like how it looked compared to my original vision of her, so I used Vanessa Williams as a reference in terms of skin tone, since she has naturally blue eyes.
The painting overall has gone through a few changes but I'm leaving it like this for now and will move on to a different one for a break. Been messing about with this one for long enough!

For those who don't know her character: She is a chief of a tribe and is from the prehistoric age. Statistically, she's the strongest human character and fights bare-fisted, so I wanted her to look tough and well-built. There's a rough sketch of her costume a couple of posts down but I wanna focus on mug shots first. :)

Here's where I am with Ayla's face design so far. Once I finish the details on the right, I'll play around with tattoo possibilities and slap on some colour.

I've decided to redesign my favourite game ever~ (besides FFVII) :D It's a good way to work on varied characters and play with different time periods...and add to my portfolio, of course.

I'm dying to have lunch so I'll keep this short, hahah.

Preliminary Sketches:


Marle:


Advert: Ralph Lauren



Lucca:


I've done some more sketches of Lucca but they're in blue pencil and so don't photograph very well....



Ayla:


Advert: Gucci
Proportions are way out of whack but I'll fix that later!

(Ads photographed from Vogue magazine, April 2011 edition).

This is what came out of developing one of the previous thumbnails:



There are still a few unfinished/rough parts but I'll build them in after applying colour. I'm a little unsure about the foreground atm and the inner part of the tree needs a lot of work....if you have any suggestions, feel free to post them. :)

Here's a plait I drew for reference, since I wanted some of the tree roots to be structured plaits/twists to indicate human interference:

Here are some ideas of how the mages might live. Pretty basic so far...


This one on the far right is partly inspired by Axel Erlandson's basket tree.
I bet the lighting inside would look quite interesting!
This one could do with more work in showing scale but it's only a sketch atm.


I'm liking the idea of this one, where the ground would be dug out to expose the
roots and make an entrance. The roots would be woven (somehow?!) to give it
some architectural structure and allow for creative designs.

Aaarrrgghh, I'm having one of those times when everything I draw turns out crap. Will keep plodding along and update this post with whatever else I churn out (and don't mind showing) by tomorrow since I have plans this weekend.


I started some digi paintovers of the previous figures but they were
looking too static so I whipped out the brush pen to loosen up a bit.



---------------------------------------
Related Posts:
>> Mage Thumbs
>> Mage Headgear