TEAM CHOW: The Wild Wild Weird Sisters!

[quickreaver]

Howdy, ma'am! The Weird Sisters (dream-sear, Mercuralis, Phuriedae, and Thrivis) are gonna tackle "Mythical Creatures Meet the Wild Wild West." Once Upon a High Noon? Yeah, just like that!

[quickreaver]

So! We had our first official pow-wow over Meebo, after a week of brainstorming and sketching independently. We already had our theme in place, so we threw all the critters together and picked the imagery/back-story we dug, combining ideas and filling in the blanks.

Colors and MoodBoard:




We decided on a backdrop, divvied up the characters to polish the various poses/details/sketching, and set up a second 'meeting' for Friday. We intend to pass everything around, including the background, in the hopes that all Sisters will touch and fondle and love upon every single piece. Oh! And Mercuralis cooked us up a logo...she's one hip sistah!

[Mercuralis]

Posting some of my initial sketches for various characters. We each drew two to four of the characters, depending on what appealed to us. Since we already had the time period and theme nailed down, that helped a lot.

I sketched four of the six. Some of these will be merged with other people's designs to create the final characters.

[thrivis]

These are newer than the original sketches I did... Combining some things from Merc's tech with my own. :o

[quickreaver]

More sketchery! Tomorrow shall bring a new and improved Shadow...amongst other goodies. We should have a background/setting/story cooked up, and refined critters, at that point. Weird Powah!

[Phurie Dae]

My original sketches for the Hero, the Shadow, and a half finished idea for the Protector. Now I'm working on refining the ideas for my assigned characters, having done my share of the background earlier this week!

[Mercuralis]

It's really been helpful using Meebo to chat and do a lot of our discussion... but I sometimes feel like we're leaving out info here.

So last week, after we played around with the character concepts and decided on which direction we were going with them and developed some backstories for each of them, we then divvied them up so that each character has a Lead Artist who then sketched them out more fully. We also worked together to create a common background.

That background is now being cut up so that each character can be painted against it seperately, and we'll be combining them into a group shot at the end.

This week we'll be starting the major work on the characters. Lead Artists are in charge of finishing up the drawings and developing colors etc. and beginning the painting, but every character will eventually be passed to all four of us so that we can merge our styles.

[zephyri]

Looking awesome so far girls! Not sure I'm feeling as much of a wild west vibe from the sorcereress/mage as I am from the others... but they all look pretty awesome so far. The rabble rouser's face sketch is awesome Mel, btw, he has bags of character.

[Mercuralis]

She's supposed to come from another country* (in this case, plane of being?) Anyway, her dress has some native american influences worked in, and likely will develop a few more as we go. Fringing and beading, and lots of feathers. Hard to tell in the first sketch, and harder still against the background, I guess.

[quickreaver]

I agree; the Rabble Rouser is adorable...just wait until Mel gets his hair did. I'm a sucker for red-heads!

[quickreaver]

UPDATERY! The characters are being passed from person to person , for improvement (we've got a schedule worked out), so here's the Shadow's current make-over. I LURV him! It's wonderful to see him evolve, and I'm learning so much from Melissa (Mercuralis). Yayness!

[Mercuralis]

A more full update on the Shadow, since I just sent him off to Louisa to work on for the next three days and am about to get the Technician to play with. Here's where I left off on the Shadow:

[Phurie Dae]

An update on the Sage and the Rabble Rouser. I've had them for three days, after Melissa (the lead artist) and last night/this morning I passed them on to Erika. I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked to work on these and wish I'd been able to contribute a bit more. I'm loving this challenge, but I'm finding it a new experience in that A) they will be going to three other people after me, so they don't have to be anywhere near finished - I will get my turn at polishing - and B) I have to let go after three days. I found myself getting attached to the characters and my ideas for them. It's interesting!

Next stage for me - the Shadow!

[sandeepbarot]

amazing!

[Phurie Dae]

Latest update on the Shadow. He's now with Erika. All characters are now on their final pass through the team before they return to the lead artist for touch ups and final polishing. I haven't seen my two since I sent them off, so I'm really excited about getting them back!

[quickreaver]

Oooh, Louisa, you really punched up his contrast! He's SO tasty! I can't wait to see everything compiled...

[quickreaver]

Hero and Protector update! Wootness!

[Mercuralis]

Last progression stages for the rabble rouser and the sage (these are missing some of the final background elements like shadows). At this size it may be difficult to see some of the changes between versions (like the beautiful brocade Erika added to the Rabble Rouser's vest).

We each had three days to work on each file before passing it to the next person (that was around other work, too). Since I started the sketch and painting for the Rabble Rouser and the Sage, they came back to me at the end for final polishing.

[thrivis]

Here we go - the final progress for the Tech!

It was REALLY long with all the stages side by side since it's a wide character - so I stacked them. Let me know if I should post a side-by-side too!

[Mischeviouslittleelf]

Hey girlies, things are looking pretty good here I think. Might wanna go a little more painterly, but thus far the colours are good so just keep on this stuff and things will happen^^

-E

[Phurie Dae]

My turn - final progression shots for the Hero and the Protector! The original sketches can be seen in the line up that Melissa posted before.

[Phurie Dae]

Hey girlies, things are looking pretty good here I think. Might wanna go a little more painterly, but thus far the colours are good so just keep on this stuff and things will happen^^

-E

"Girlies"? :p

We're going to take a look at the whole picture once all the characters are back together and tweak anything we think needs it, but we're actually really happy with the style we've got so I don't think there will be any drastic changes there. Some parts are in fact more painterly while others are more detailed (who wants to waste all that opportunity for beautiful bead details and leather moulding?) but it's hard to see at these small sizes.

[quickreaver]

Louisa, I REALLY dig how you finished the Hero's face. She's got wit, intelligence, steel, beauty...you can see it in her expression. Good show!

I don't mind being called a 'girlie', but then, I'm the oldest of the bunch, so... They ARE a little more painterly, when you get up on 'em, but because of how we worked...and the fact I can sometimes finish things TO DEATH...they got pretty 'fully rendered'. We passed each character along the line, so all of us had a chance to work on each piece. It was a wonderful and educational experience. I'd work with these ladies again, in a heartbeat!

Anywho, last but not least, The Shadow.

[Mercuralis]

Hey girlies, things are looking pretty good here I think. Might wanna go a little more painterly, but thus far the colours are good so just keep on this stuff and things will happen^^

-E

Out of curiosity, why? What would de-rendering the work we've already done to make it a different style do for the characters? What purpose would it serve other than being a (at this point) stylistic choice?

One of the reasons we decided to take turns on each of the characters, instead of assigning each character to an artist, was to ensure that all four of our styles were merged into something seamless. Instead of looking at the Shadow and thinking "oh that's Melissa's work" and the Hero and saying "oh that's Louisa's" and so on, at this point it's hard to tell, really, who did what. I'm a more "painterly" artist than Louisa, Cris is even more painterly than I am, and Erika works in a more graphic style than any of us... it'd be fairly obvious if we each took one from beginning to end.

I've always thought the decision to paint loosely, versus fully rendering all the details is a personal matter. Right now concept art leans heavily towards a loose style of painting--but I've seen successful concept work that's more fully rendered. In any case, none of the four of us are concept artists. We're mostly illustrators or game artists, so that's how we approached the challenge. I don't remember anything in the rules that specified the style that the characters had to be painted in.

So again, I ask why?

[Elidee]

I've been lurking and watching your Team CHOW progression and I have to say this is my favorite so far. The Shadow and the Rabble Rouser are my particular favorites, but I mostly love the fact that all together the characters all look unified. I think the pieced background and the fact that you traded the images off just solidifies them all.

I also really enjoyed looking at how the images changed between different people. It offered a really near glimpse into each person's work and style!

[quickreaver]

Thanks! I'll tell ya, it was always amazing to me how different folks had different takes on the very same things...even after the four of us had umpteen chat meetings together! I lurv those ladies...

[daestwen]

Really nice work. And yay for being the first ones submitted!

[PixelFish]

Nice job! This one really stood out for cohesive design, style, and unique theme.