Concept Art for Character

Diego de Almeida is a concept artist and illustrator from Brazil.

I thought this image was spectacular down to the fact it takes something that looks so brutal and gives it a heroic pose - which to me looks like he has been swapped and is now the hero - or the hero to his people. Making the bad guy - look good and it is this that I thoroughly enjoy about his particular piece.






6 Credit Card Concepts

after asking a few people which of the sketches they preferred it came down  number 2 ,3 and 4.
These were due to the grotesque figure looking 'cool' in number 3 - the appeal of 'energy ball' in number 2 and then the proud look of an evil figure in 4.

From these comments I then chose my favourite which was number 4.

A5 refined sketch.
on this refined sketch I only wanted to draw the torso, with possibly the addition of arms and the beginning of the waist but as n                                                                                                                                                                                                                                I believe the torso to be the most important part of the image and to be completed first so that I would know what to add to it later - the reason for this being that I wanted to set myself a challenge to portray a powerful or heroic stance with just the torso and head - this would be a difficult but achievable goal, one of which I was looking forward to completing.

This is my A5 refined sketch scanned in, however I have traced the armour and amended it - the purpose of tracing the armour is so that I can get a better feel for the image and see it clearer and make it easier to start to colour and shade the image in - along with this it will also allow me to amend the image if I have found or feel there is any mistakes and didn't have enough time or ability to correct them in my hand-drawing.

Part One - at this stage I had almost completed the head, having coloured and shaded all of the main features within the face - I done this first so that I can get an idea of the colours to use for the rest of the features                                                              

 Part Two - At this stage  I have added the eyes, lips and teeth, I feel it is small features like this that bring a picture together and make it look refined and finished and so I made sure to take care and time when drawing out and colouring in these particular items of the face.                                                

Part Three - At this point I have just added the horns and the hair, I found the horns rather difficult purely for the fact that I wanted them to show depth and not be so flat and 2D, along with this I wanted to show the back part of the broken horn, but as it turns out it took something away from the image and made it look tardy and so I removed this. But as far as the depth goes I believe this to be a success.

Part Four - With the face now completed and shaded I moved on to the armour,  the neck/collar amour came first and it was first piece after the face. I found this first piece quite challenging as I need to convey depth, curvature and a metallic feel to the image. I  believe this was achieved with the use of shading and lighting and I an pleased with the outcome.

Part Five - The next thing I added was the shoulder armour, I didn't feel this to be as much of a challenge as with the other armour I need to show depth, curvature and make it look metallic but as I had already done this I felt more confident and believe I had achieve it.

Part Six - The breastplate. For the breastplate I had to take more care as it was was larger in size which therefore meant I had to be more careful with shading and colouring to keep the overall effect of keeping it rounded and showing depth.

 Part Seven - Stomach plating, I found these fairly easy to do as it was almost repeating effects, and I had become familiar with what I had to do and so it was easier to do. Although I did have trouble with the tone because it was underneath other amour it needed to be darker and more shaded but trying to get this right and so it wasn't too dark from the rest of the amour and stuck out was tricky - along with this the lighting to show curvature couldn't be too bright as it was shaded but needed to be light enough to portray the light hitting this. Although it was difficult I think they turned out okay.

Overall I feel that this image has worked well. The use of shading, highlights and colour make the image look realistic to a certain degree and look effective. I believe that I could work more on this image and add more of the character so that this image feels more complete such as adding arms and a waist, or at least enough of the limbs with a blur effect to make it look as if it were painted and give the image a proper finish.
I think that the armour looks very effective more so than the face, as it was easier to colour metal armour to show depth than it was the face. If I was to do this again I would spend more time refining the face to make it look more professional but in saying that I still believe the face to looks quite good.
I were to change anything within the picture I would change the effect I gave the horns and hair so that they sit better and blend better within the image.