I figured that to get things started with, I'd begin with something fun. This is a larger version of the image found on the front cover of Wings of Fate. I somehow didn't manage to save the entire image in its non-text form, but I did manage to retain this one. At some point I might like to go back and attempt to re-create the effects of color and detail seen in this one, as I still have the raw digital file for this (ie, the one without all the cool lighting and blurring effects)What I did for this style of art was to first do a crude sketch on paper to get the gist of flow and form needed for the body, then scanned it in and went around using the path tool in GIMP (aka the pen tool in Photoshop) to select large portions and fill them in with a base color. After that I duplicated the layer twice and altered the color of each. I believe the colors I used for layers 2 and 3 were sky blue and black, since they contrasted nicely with the original navy blue. These two were then merged together and blurred using motion blur. The gold sun spot in the corner was easy, as it was one of the Gflares available as a default. The background of the image was done using the lighting effects option, and I really hope I can replicate this if I go back and redo this image to get the complete thing again. Did that make any sense??
This particular image took a murderously long time to do, mostly because I was still new to the idea of using multiple layers and hadn't learned how to group things yet, as well as the fact that I was being super detailed with the path tool. I think I had it zoomed up to 200 or 400 percent for the majority of the time I was working on it. Still, I have to admit that the final result was extremely satisfactory and I love looking at this image. It is intended to be a semblance of the character Kuma with his spirit flames moving around him, though in this image his eyes are white, not the customary red. I did this to help it better blend with the background and try to give it something of an ethereal look.
Edit: Rough sketch added for reference :)
Ooo! I really like the design of this! The swirly, lacy lines are so cool!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I think the lacey effect is one of my favorite features, too, particularly the wings.
ReplyDeleteI always thought this picture was really cool! Did you do all the intricate swirls and stuff in the original sketch as well?
ReplyDeleteI had to go back and find the rough sketch to check. If you look, you can see that I did general swirls in the areas where I wanted the flame-looking affect to show up in order to get a feel for the size of the image. I had forgotten that when I did this, I didn't have a working scanner, so what I ended up doing was taking a picture of the sketch and then converting it to grayscale before working on it.
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