The Bakery (CCThrom, Blackcherry, Arttorney)

[CCThrom]

Heya,

Here are some more thoughts... getting myself over to a more stylized mindset...




Some thoughts for Protector


You've already worked on the Sage a lot... but here anyway


More Shadow... pay no attention to how I've done the parachute straps... they should be on the OUTside of the coat if he's in pilot duds. A pilot would wear a short coat because of those straps. I was trying to smoosh together late 19th century style with early 20th century aviator stuff.


And for possible reference, a kickass WW1 flyer pic...


plus a couple shots of Amelia Earhart for Hero reference...


And this guy has a great face for the Sage (though you might already be done with that)

[arttorney]

Those are cool. We're gonna do this. We just have to keep driving. I'll do a bar based on the Palace for the Rabble Rouser so just think about the image in that link when you pose him. There'll be the backs of a few guys in plug hats at the bar or something, but not enough development to distract from the main character. I'll redo that boiler room because not only did I freehand some pretty wobbly lines but I don't like the tangent of that door in the back against the side of the boiler. It's confusing. I may make the firebox/boiler combination be a little more sophisticated.

Here is an entrance area out of my head but largely based on that of the Palace. I'll smooth it up and present it by Wednesday morning.

Here is a rigging area for the Technician. This is watercolor pencil and I haven't gone over with the wet brush yet, but I want to give you guys an idea of these as soon as possible to help guide your posing decisions.

[blackcherry]

CC, I really like your hero designs, she's great! It would be cool to use your design for her. Do you think our styles would work together for it?

Here's a some more rough sketches for the technician and shadow. I've developed the shadow sketch a bit since because it didn't look right to me, but just so you have an idea of the pose/look i was going for. Oh and i'm going to add a robot in for the technician too. I'm in the process of drawing the protector now so i'll post him soon too.

Any comments/feedback on changes, alterations or developments for any of the character designs i've drawn, let me know now cos i'm going to be working on finalising the drawings from this point onwards. With the exception of the sage as i've finished him. Funny enough CC he looks very much like the old guy in the photo you posted, except he has a longer moustache, hehe

My shadow seems to be quite different to yours CC, so what do you want to do? Mines got more of a western feel, which is why i quite liked the idea of Arttorney's saloon backdrop. But I could work him more to yours if you'd prefer.

[CCThrom]

I'm a pretty good mimic... how 'bout I start work on Hero and Protector for now?

As for Shadow, yeah, go for your guy... he'll fit well in that scene Arttorney just posted.

[CCThrom]

If I get into a bind next week, would either of you be able to pick up some of the color need be?

[arttorney]

I can try. Do you think it is Tuesday we are talking about?

Current schedule: Besides finishing out those environments I have to go to Arizona to do a traffic school class Saturday (I got a ticket a few weeks ago). Sunday was when I was aiming to make sure there is nothing further I can do in traditional on the backdrops. Monday I have one or more client meetings followed by drive back to CA. Monday night and Tuesday is for digital clean up on the backgrounds. Since the deadline is at the end of Thursday, I could push a day worth of digital environment cleanup down to Wednesday if need be, and then we get into crash deadline mode on Thursday. Thus Tuesday possible for some coloring (or Wednesday if I finish the environments by Wednesday morning) I am PMing around some email addresses to you folks.

[blackcherry]

CC, That would be great! Here's my sketch for the protector anyway but I'm happy to go with your guy. Post your designs when you're done, i'd like to see

I planned on doing half of the colouring anyway. I figured if we took 3 characters each that should make it easier for us. If you're really stuck I could try and do a bit more but I'm going to be quite busy next week too. If needs be though i could colour all 4 of my drawings. We'll see how things go!

In regards to the colouring, are we going for any particular sort of style? because we'll need our designs to look consistent. We can deal with that when we come to it though.

I got your message with the email addresses too Arttorney.

[CCThrom]

for the colors, I figure a cell shading approach will be easiest... check my "puss in boots" ChOW entry for what I'm thinking.

[blackcherry]

Hows everyone doing? I lost two days recently with some other things going on so I'm only now going to be starting the colouring.

CC, are you ok to colour one more design so we have three each? I'll post or email you my final design of shadow later if you think you can manage it.

Oh and looks like the deadlines been moved to May 2nd Awesome!! Now i think we should definately have enough time!

[arttorney]

I am still intending to finish my part, and probably send around stuff Thursday morning. I have a WIP of bar.

Here's an update

[arttorney]

More environment updates. I'll continue working. No sage place yet. Rough tomorrow morning with coffee. (and, of course these will only get better with time.)





Notes for draft Description:
(based on Daestwen's) SUBMISSION GUIDLINES

The Final Burning Thread will go up ONE WEEK before deadline. The deadline will be April 30th, at 11:59 pm GMT - 5, Eastern Standard Time. I will accept submissions as long as it is April 30th somewhere in the world, but after this I will close the thread. I am going to give myself 1-2 days to then sort out the poll and the voting, so please be patient.

1. One team member will be in charge of submitting the final entry. How the entry is presented will be up to you, but keep it consistent and coherent. In other words, all our frames and labeling have to be the same on the six images. We should probably add a bit of text to the effect of, "This is a group of adventurers in an alternate steampunk universe. They have a large airship and at least two auxiliary air vehicles. The Hero and the Shadow are experienced pilots while the others fulfill other various roles about the ship. When the group "makes port" in a town you can usually find both the Shadow and the Rabble Rouser in the shadier establishments.
2. Remember that you will need to submit wips. If you decide to make a group sketchbook for this activity, a link to that will suffice. We have done this. Ours is an active group sketchbook. No worries. We just toss a link into the final burning post.
3. Also sumbit a list of Team Activity. I want to see how well you worked as a team - who was in charge of what and what each member did. Starting of WIPs thread and giving out workload info in this post-arttorney; Mood Board-CCThrom, Thumbnails-All; decisions-All; Shadow, Hero and Protector finals-CCThrom; Rabble Rouser, Sage, Technician, and perhaps a different pose of the Shadow finals-blackcherry; cel backgrounds-arttorney; assembling of final images/thumbnail-probably blackcherry; framing and labeling probably blackcherry
4. All other ChoW rules apply. If you are not familiar with the usual chow rules, please read the guidlines thread sticked at the top of the subforum. Including, 3/4ths rule, no paint-overs, etc.
5. Please submit files with this naming convention: TeamChow_TeamName_Image001.jpg TeamChow_Crumpets and PAIN_Image001.jpg etc.


I know the work description may change if CCThrom takes on a third character. If not, or if the group otherwise is in a jam, let me know, preferably by Thursday evening. I can take my tablet to Arizona and try to fill in some work Friday afternoon so we can get all this done by the end of Saturday. If there was a character in grayscale for me to do colors on for example, I can probably do it OK in a pinch.

Here is a draft of the Sage Place:

[blackcherry]

I like how your backgrounds are developing arttorney

I just had a thought though, which would probably save you loads of time if you like the idea. I was wondering what you'd think of a sort of vintage, old look for the backgrounds? kind of like an old photograph effect. You could probably achieve it with some effects in Photoshop and some texture overlays etc....I'm not sure but it might work with the whole steampunk theme. Might be worth a quick experiment if you think it could look good? Doubt it would take long.

Just a thought anyway, let me know what you think. Could save you some colouring and touch-up time and still produce a good end result.

Back to colouring for me!

[arttorney]

Well, I was going to suggest something like that if it became clear we wouldn't be able to get all six colored in the right time frame, because I think black and white is allowed. I didn't want to be negative though. (get it? Old photos? ... negative? ... Oh I just crack myself up sometimes.)

I know how to do something with filters and stuff. It might come to that but I think there is still time remaining to get them as nice as possible.

Here is an update on that sage one and a version featuring a little fiddling about with filters and grayscale.

[arttorney]

I've emailed the six environment files to both other team members. Let me know if I can help with other stuff, though the day job definitely needs attention now.
Daestwen says we have to put a group photo in there of our characters as well. Hopefully we will be able to fit all of them into one of the environments so there will be something for the Shadow to be leaning on besides the Protector.

blackcherry's emails bounced back to my hotmail account. I seem to have the email address correct. I have re-sent with the yahoo account in case this is because of an overzealous spam filter.

[blackcherry]

The fault was due to the amount of emails in my inbox. Seems I got quite a few emails with large files tonight, very strange! I've cleared it out now so it should be ok

The only thing I think I may need help with is getting all the images ready to be submitted and sorting all that out. Will post about that when I'm near the end of the colouring. Still got loads to go, and i've got a really busy day tomorrow O_O eep!

[arttorney]

OK I have CCThrom's finals and I think you do too. will take my computer stuff to AZ and check in Saturday to see if you need help. I am kind of a dork when it comes to digital and so I am not sure I can get characters installed into those environments I made (and if I did there is no guarantee they won't be misplaced, like hovering in the air or something). Same goes for assembling a group photo. I know I can resize for posting, make and label margins, make a thumbnail, and type whatever words we need to type. I can re-save final product with correct filenames. I know all that stuff is the easy part though. Just let me know if you need help.
Here's the thumbnail I just made for the team using using one of CCThrom's creations:

[blackcherry]

Just updating this before I post our work in the Final Burning thread.

Here are CC's final designs for the Hero and the Protector, and also his final colour of my drawing of shadow. Thought I'd post them as he's not availiable to post them.

[blackcherry]

Here are my final designs for the Technician, the Rabble Rouser and the Sage. I would have liked to have done some more touching up on them but ran out of time.

[blackcherry]

Ok I've just finished everything off now. I realise there's lots of posts but i've had no time to update here until now.

Arttorney I liked your thumbnail but it has to be 300 x 200 so I've had to make a new one if thats ok. This is what I've got.

I also put together a character composite. It only has a plain grey background though no time to do anything, and we didn't really plan a background for the group shot. Having one with an airship would have been cool!

Going to post all the finals and the composite on here now too and also post it all in the Final Burning thread.

Hope you'll both be satisfied with how I've put everything together

[blackcherry]

And here are the finals with the backgrounds.

I adjusted the backgrounds to suit, altered some colours and things.

Some of characters could have done with some touching up around the edges but I didn't have time to do it I'm afraid.

Hope you guys are happy with the end result. It's been good fun working with you, we should stay in touch and stuff. Post here when you've seen these posts so i know what you think!

[CCThrom]

I'm really happy to have just contributed to a completed effort... happy that we didn't have to bail out. Sending a big THANK you to Blackcherry for pulling together the final composites!

[arttorney]

Thank you both. We finished thanks to a great effort at the end by blackcherry. The early comments seem to be that our characters mostly fit together and have an identifiable theme. Mission accomplished.

[CCThrom]

Blackcherry had asked that I post these... (not the full size pencils though, those are kinda huge)

[blackcherry]

Glad you're both happy with the end result

Yeah I've seen the comments on our characters fitting together, yay I'm glad! I guess we managed to pull it off.

[arttorney]

We're obviously not going to win, but at least we are getting a few votes and "almost votes" here and there. In several years around here I only ever got one vote in the CHOW subforum, and usually do not even make the poll. I attribute the votes to those characters you two made and I am pretty proud of you.

[CCThrom]

Same here... though I attribute what success we've gotten to good teamwork and process in spite of life getting hectic, and a cohesive concept rather than individually awesome images. We held together as a group and I think the good foundation work we did made up for the crazy rushed ending.

Good jeorb y'all!

[blackcherry]

I think all did a great job as a team Go team!