The Kryzalida Project
polycounter lvl 15
Original post: Hi guys. I'm tired to be a sucker, and I really want to go pro on concept art area. So, I wrote a kind of average fantasy story, to serve as background to me. Then I can focus on produce elements for my story, such as characters, environments and props.
I haven't translated the plot yet, and I'll give more details later. But anyway, I'll be posting things as soon as I produce them. I hope I can count on your valuable feedback. Nowadays, PC and Conceptart.org are the only respectable artist's foruns on web. All the others became clones of DA...
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I'll be following this thread! keep on going.
keep up the good work, will be following this. curious to see how it will develop
the croco, YES!!!! hehehehe feels like ready for work :P
And here's the final version of the Gharial. Now I can move back to the old man.
No critiques from me atm, just keep going!
I would say that your concept for The Winter is good but does not capture "winter" very well. When I saw it I immediately thought of wind, not winter or ice or snow. I am unsure of exactly what your goals are for the character so that may actually be what you want but otherwise I would say you should keep working on it. The biggest issue is all of the long pieces coming off of him. Because of how smooth they are and how they sort of sweep around his silhouette they sort of remind me of speed lines like you would see in a cartoon or a comic.
I don't know if you were trying to cr4eate an icicle effect but if so I would make them rougher and less horizontal. Make it so they are pointing down and they will probably work better for that idea.
Keep working on it, it has a lot of potential. I think you really just need to get the ice/winter them embedded more clearly.
The spikes emerging from the char should rememeber both stalactites (because of the winter), and bones (to remeber death, because the boy is dead inside the ice creature). The char lives in a frozen desert, with low temperatures and constant snow storms. And he's there form some centuries.. so I believe it makes sense to consider the effects the wind make over him.
These are my reasons for him being like he was. Does it make sense for you? Or it would be better to point stalactites down? I really reluctant with the idea, because if they point down, the char will loose the dynamic feeling he has now... *shrug*
I would say if you ever ended up bringing it into 3d or wanted to do a really high detail image, you would want to give them a slightly less even feel.
You can see in that images how icicles are almost kind of "ribbed" because they are formed over time. If you could incorporate that aspect you would probably be golden.
In any case the colors on the new concept really help sell your idea and make it look great overall. I am really interested in the project and I cannot wait to see The Summer and The Spring so keep up the good work.
Unfortunately, I realized that altough the rendering part of these chars is good, they are lifeless, dull and boring. At the moment they look more like models or dolls wearing uniforms than live creatures that represents in fact what I want. So, i'm doing some research, studying some more things about gesture, story telling and so on, and when I feel I can do a better job, I'm gonna start this again. Thanks for everyone who has posted here... I hope I don't disapoint anyone next time.
I can't wait to see how you improve from what you have done here. Keep at it!
However, I'm not sure about this new direction for winter. This may come across as harsh, but honestly, this new character seems forced and not very interesting. It may not have gone the way you wanted, but I thought the last concept for winter was much more interesting. I'd suggest trying that basic idea but taking it down different avenues. What if there was a more visible face worked into the design? Another part that could be more expressive? I think there's still more options for it.
Also, when I think winter and solitary, I think more of a wolf than something feline, but that may just be personal preference. Either way, I would suggest going back to the drawing board on this one.
This is all just my opinion though, and meant to keep you moving in the right direction and not get discouraged. Good luck, and hope you keep on with this project!
I thought a bit more, and changed the concept a bit. I figured out that if the boy was trying to be a hero, maybe would make more sense if his last thoughts before his death were related to something that represented courage, determination and good things to him.
So, I thought the ice figure, instead of a skeleton type, could be the figure of his father. Maybe he never had the chance to know his father, but heard a lot of stories, about his braveness, and how he was a great warlord, helping a lot of people with his abilities with sword and magic.
And, at the moment of his death, his will to help his people was too intense, that he managed to make his magic to turn him into what he really want to be, a hero like his father.
This is just a preliminary sketch, but I think it gives a good idea of this new direction. I made a second version with some metalic parts, to help to guuide viewer's eye. This metalic elements could be the only tokens he carry of his father.
I hope this make some sense