Dice of Pirates - Play Mat
polycounter lvl 12
Another successful kickstarter, another play mat to draw. This one has been a pretty solid concept from the get go, it had to be a treasure map, but how to make it something more than any old nautical chart? The "here be dragons" cliche has been done so many times that the creativity of it has been atomized, but it's still a serious touchstone. I decided to double down on it in the end, but rather than a single weedy sea serpent off to one side I would fill the entire sea with life and monsters. If there was an open space, there was room for another monster. Or fish as t turns out.
Here's my initial concept pitch:
Blue Line:
Red Line:
The ink pass on the Compass Rose:
And the first set of inks adding in the coral and shoreline line around the land masses:
Tomorrow I start inking fish for the rest of my life...
Here's my initial concept pitch:
Blue Line:
Red Line:
The ink pass on the Compass Rose:
And the first set of inks adding in the coral and shoreline line around the land masses:
Tomorrow I start inking fish for the rest of my life...
Replies
awesome job, can't wait for finished version!
Calling it a night at roughly 80% fish. Still a long way to go, but I'll get to move onto the kraken soon.
Anyway, well done!
There's lots of room for ornamentation here. Coconuts, palm trees, big flags and sails, nets, barrels, rum bottles, keys, chests, sabres. Even just signage, rope and tackle with that particular feel to it. Man, you'e really channeling my inner pirate. Keep rock'n on this thing!
@zachvance I absolutely agree! And I did actually make a fish brush with some generic vector fish, but those were just to give me a scaffold to keep my direction and scales roughly where I want them. I'm doing double the work but it's slowly paying off.
@MykulJaxin thanks for the compliments. I'm going to get more added as I go but the important thing right now is spending way too much time blocking out all the fish. I'm joking, they're done thank god. It's kraken time now.
@EricElwell Hey man, thanks for the suggestions. I really do appreciate you always going out of your way to offer help even though I only post like once every six months or so. As for the ideas I really like them. I honestly haven't given a huge amount of thought as to what I'm going to do on the landforms themselves. I was mostly focusing on just doing an ocean take on that European map made of animals. There's going to be a huge pile of gold and gems under it but that's no reason I couldn't also add a pistola and other pirate parifanalia around the edges. If you have any specific ideas feel free to do up a napkin sketch or two.
I've got nothing to show for the last few days, after that fishing marathon I've gotta give my fingers a rest. I should be back at it Saturday.
I like the temperature that you got. You harmonised all the elements with colder tints.
I wanted to ask, what is the print size for the play mat? Because if that's a large size, maybe it's worth looking into scaling the trinkets down (or up) to be life-sized when they are printed, like having a life-sized pistol etc.
Good luck!
At this point I'm gunning to wrap this up by the end of the weekend. I'm going to port some of the layers to photoshop where I have more tonal control. I need to dim the treasure layer up so it's not as overwhelming, and play around with the caustics more directly than the simple color burn I've got it on now.
This has been a rocky project, but I've learned a lot, exceeded some of my expectations, and have the thumbs up from my team, so I'm taking this as a definitive win.
What would you suggest?