Chow 157 :: The ENDLESS

[Elidee]

I might not get to finish this, due to end-of-the-semester-workload, but I really wanted to try my hand at Destiny.

I wanted to play with the idea of the book as a burden, as well as the idea of 'the hands of destiny' being altered by contact with the book. I tried to keep some of the details, such as Destiny leaving no footprints (I love that), and I really wanted to draw his hedge-maze garden.

Toying with making the book a little bigger, but this is the rough version so far. Hope the snow looks decent!

[MichaelNoel]

Sooo... I was tinkering with this for Desire, but eventually felt that I was rushing it to completion (when I still have time to make it nicer), so I think I'm going to scrap it and revert back to stage 1. (more like stage 2-3ish) It got to the point where I was disregarding way too many things. <_<

Thought I'd post the "rushed" version for fun though. T_T

[Majenkus]

Oops. Didn't read 3/4 rule. I didn't really design this with that in mind, so this is as far as it goes. If you want to use this for an idea (or draw some legs on it and call it your own ), I would be happy.

[MJ_Alcazar]

Wow four pages!

I'm trying my hand at this with Death, though I'd try to challenge myself with coming up with something different. I love her the way she is though, so it's hard!

[Nightblue]

Mercuralis: absolutely love how Dream is coming along. Having him hold the Ankh is very clever, and the colors work very well.

Calling it a night... Worked a bit more on Delirium while watching mavs game. Go mavs!

[feifeicreate]

Here's a color comp. I want to stick with red and dramatic lighting. But not sure if this red theme would make image too monotone. throw in a bit yellow and blue, don't know if it works.

[IIKII]

Delirium. just some poses.I going for the first one at the bottom

[Uglyographer]

I had to draw something up for this one. I changed majors after reading Sandman, yeah, that's right. Life changing shit. I enjoy the idea that the endless change in appearance based on who's viewing them. I tried to keep this in mind as I started brainstorming but these characters are so etched in my memory. I had a hard time not sketching a cutey Death or a wild haired, pensive Morpheus. And the huge Frank Quitely Sandman poster above my dresser was not helping.

I decided to draw them as I would see them. I chose to revisit Despair. I drew inspiration from an article I read maybe four years ago about Pro-Ano (Pro-anorexic) websites/forums. At the time, I couldn't believe that something like it existed. I visited one and it was really disturbing. It's mostly young teenage girls (boys too though) supporting each other not to eat. There is post after post of utter self loathing and many discuss cutting themselves. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it.

My Despair is similar to the original in that she is naked. She is followed by pigeons rather than rats. It would not be wise to call them friends. She feeds them continually and never stops to feed herself. As she wastes away, they grow larger and heavier and more aggressive as time passes. They dig into skin when they use her as a perch and tear at her skin when they fight each other for seed.



This is the WIP and hopefully I will finish. I need to pull out an anatomy book with a skeleton in it, and fix any of the issues. I would gladly take any help from you guys. I may draw one of the other characters too, because honestly, I bummed myself out with this one. Maybe a very merry, colorful Delirum.

[hungryan]

Uglyographer: It's pretty gruesome, but otherwise I like it. I think there's something weird going on with the legs, the placement and shape of the knees.
Feifeicreate: Somehow on the linedrawing it looked better, I think the perspective is just a little bit off? Maybe it's the floor itself that makes it look just a little bit off for me. And he/she looks too much like a girl, so there's nothing of the double gender thing in this, which might be a problem.But it comes along pretty well.
Nightblue: It has nice colors, and delicate style. Isn't cutting the picture somewhere right at the ankle a bad idea? Also the lowe hand and arm might be a bit strange.
MJ Alcazar: You've also cut the picture at the ankle, same as above. And the design seems to be very close to the original, you could try to put something crazy in it maybe.
Majenkus: I like that it's an original thought about the character. The jacket looke almost like it's rendered with 3D. Maybe you could make it a bit less like that, more painterly? I like this picture pretty much, and not caring about the 3/4 rule even helps it.
MichaelNoel: Really nice stuff, but why her/his knee and fingers just touches the right border? The figure looks crammed there. If you want to use this as a conscious effect, then it's okay, otherwise it feels pretty random. I very like the mood, the face, I hope you can finish it.
Elidee: I don't know if it's because it's just a sketch, but quite alot of stuff is just a strange blob here (for example the hands). Something with the perspective seems also off for me, but it's a hard perspective. It's also very close to the original design.
Mercuralis: Nice picture, but I think this is also pretty close to the original design (if I understood the challenge desription well, I'm still a bit puzzled)
Pyroclasm: I'd choose the right one, with a cape.
KayOnim: It's a little bit spoonfed (if that's the word) Her head looks a little bit too adult.
mechasiva: I like the pose, and the thoughts behind it. How will you make him different than the original idea? It looks to become a really nice picture when it's ready.
baxter: nice pictures, I like the cooler colored Destruction, it has more variation in color.
Darthmarsh: coming along nicely, but then will it have hands?
spaztastic: It's very different than the original one, which is I presume a good thing. Her head seems a tad big. And the way the legs connect to the torso seems to puzzle you a bit.
agnostes: interesting sketch, and very different.
jpedro:this Desire is also too girly. prbably we have to stick with the double gender thing. It's a really nice sketch otherwise. Maybe if you make her/his hair shorter, more boyish, or something?
Nadiamoon: This is also close to the original design, isn't it? Not that it's a problem for me.
Dream sear: I really like this picture, but here Desire looks too much like a boy. I don't get the gender ambiguity that much. Maybe if his jawbones wouldn't be so strong? or the same face and breasts? Ugh.
Avisnocturna: now, that's a Desire! It's so puzzling what gender it is. I like it.
JaneM: I think it will be good picture.
Scottmcd: I like the cartoony approach, but that face maybe doesn't work with it, as you've said. I think it could have a bit crazier look if the eyes would be sad. Now it just looks like it has so much fun that it's laughing so hard it cries.
fersteger: your painterly style is really nice! And I really don't have anything bad to say about the picture, I like the crazy colors as well.
DecayingLolita: this is the best picture I've seen from you so far. Seriously. Finish him! hehe.
KuGu: I like the headthing, it's pretty different from the original, good job.
brewin: there seem to be some anatomy issues. Is the middle drawing Death or Destiny? Or is Death everyone's Destiny? haha. I think you should finish the Death on the right, concetnrating on making her a little bit different than the original. Maybe.
Heliux: This Death/Destiny though seems interesting.
Dimagyan:Nice sketch, it's too close to the original blabla.
Amber Alexander: Now that's far away from the original! The arms/legs look a bit too tubular.
Pheike: A bit too sketchy, so I don't see how it will look at the end.
RichLyons: That's also quite close to the original design if I dare say that. Nice sketch.
daestwen: nice gender mixup, that's also close to the original, or isn't it? I start to get confused.
Ghostbursh: really nice ideas.Me likes.
dirkvadulmen: very funny sketches. I think this is also pretty close to the original but I don't care in this case because it's so funny.
Mara644: she could be a bit more delirious. now she is just a jolly girl.
Arthur Two Sheds: I like your pissed off, ugly Morpheus.
Poshspice: Now I see! This pinky girl is really different than the Death from comics. Nice.
darknight: hm. Somehow I really like these. I don't say they are pretty pictures in a conventional way, or anything, they remind me of child's drawings. I can feel the rotting innocence in them.
Sorknes: I think it's different enough. Maybe.
Kleewyck: finish it, it's a different and amusing idea.

Phew. Now someone write a lot of bad stuff about my picture. Or anything.

[Amber Alexander]

I really like all the different versions that people are coming up with, very interesting to see the progression day by day.

Nightblue: yours is my favorite, I really like your painting style. I took a look at your portfolio and that last scene in 3ds max made my jaw drop, beautiful work, some day I hope to be at that level.

Update: I really wasn't satisfied with how my character was turning out, so I reworked alot of it and gave her a more magical look and turned her ankh into a staff. I still have alot of work to do on the clothes but I'm very new to painting digitally so any feedback would be appriciated

[Majenkus]

hungryan - I'm glad you can see it is all a part of my artistic statement. My painting is so punk that it is banned from participating. Now I will cover it in drugs and lighter fluid, light it on fire, and throw it off a bridge. I see what you mean about the jacket. Thanks

About your drawing, it is hard for me to make a criticism because it is still a sketch and until there is some color it can be difficult to know what some of the lines mean. Like the squigly lines could be floating in space or a pattern on a wall, but hopefully they make sense to you going forward. When I make a sketch like that it is more to remind me and indicate what is in my head rather than resemble the finished thing. So, sorry, I can't really say anything bad It does remind me of Pan's Labrynth, and that is good.

[RichLyons]

holy crap!!! This thread rocks, so many cool ideas... Mine seems way boring in comparison.
Anyway he now has a new model Harley in the background and a talking dog....
Might try slapping more explosives onto his bike....

[NicHolS]

Holy crap, some amazing ideas so far people... i feel somewhat underwhelmed at my own ideas now and will try and push to develop my ideas further tonight and post again tomorrow the one i go with. the following are the sketches i did late last night in a brain dump. i did pages of sketches but my scanners broke so these will have to do for now. im leaning towards either death or destiny atm as the others are too shrouded to be classified "characters" by the definition of a chow (esp dream) but i figured i may as well post the ideas all the same, let me know which one is your fav... these are just the initial basis for the ideas which ill be elaborate on in the final compositions:


(In order of images shown below)

Destiny: an entity of light at the end of a book which holds the past the present and the future, he is seen to be scripting the present as it happens atop of his perch of solitude. only he was there at the beginning, and only he will remain at its end.

Desire/Despair: half beauty, half beasty they are twins (conjoint) which are so beautiful and yet so shocking you cant look away


Destruction: his mere touch is enough to make ashes of whatever he sees fit

Dream: lives his world in a bubble, small artifacts and dream sequences refract through his sometimes merky and sometimes crystal clear waters

Death: her red hair blends into the blood like tears in the rain, she stands muted and unwavering as her decisions are final. she is death.

Potential combo: the endless

cheers
adam

[Cloud-Yo!]

@ Mercuralis: Love the outfit and the idea of the "dream globes" or am I way off? :0

@ AvisNocturna: Thanks ^_^ your piece reminds me of TLOTR...Not sure why..but thats not a bad thing at all...great colors.

@ MichaelNoel: great start...but careful with her back...she's sitting one her lumbar region and it looks painful @_o

Nightblue: Wow..really nice pic...the colors are so vibrant. I love her pose too...but make sure to push that "delirium" on her...it's a tough one

@ hungryan: WOW! on behalf of EVERYONE, thanks thanks for taking the time! where are your updates? :3

@ RichLyons: Dang! thats all kinds of cool, man! can't wait to see the finished piece!

@ NicHolS: Very ambitious...looking good too...I think my favorites are Desire/Despair...but Destiny is coming in a close second...I hope you can get them all finished

Here's my update: I decided to trash the pose and go for something a little more iconic to describe the character design. The idea of the bird over the eyes is that I see destiny also as a messenger...the branches behind him will be representing spring/summer/and winter to evoke the idea of past/present/future. I still have some work to do: fix his belt, add the chains work on the drapery etc...and then Ill begin on an "action shot"
crits are required U_U

[IIKII]

I have some problem doing the background but here's the char first.

[quickreaver]

I'm REALLY diggin' the designs of RichLyons and KuGu! Chock full o' character....

[Iliada]

An early sketch.
Destiny

crits very welcome, especially anatomy

[Ramza]

There are some sweet looking entries already!
Arthur 'Two Sheds', RichLyons, Nichols - slow down, would you?

I've gone with Despair.

Naked as naked can be, shards of mirrors floating around her (supposedly uses the mirrors to look at people in despair....or something) - not sure if i'll have the shards tied to her body.

She is supported upright by the hands of those who are in despair - she is literally the weight on their shoulders (ouchies). And she's got that hook held in her left hand.

[Franna]

What a round.

A Rockstar Desire. Decided to push the androgeny thing as far as I could. Hope it's far enough.

As for the human heart being crushed in the hand... well, that's Desire's job isn't it?

A strange creature indeed.

[scottmcd]

Franna: The legs need work, which you're probably getting to. Maybe shift weight to one leg or the other - the current could be more interesting. Get a good line of action going through the figure.

Ramza: Nice start - it looks underwater even it this early stage.

Iliada: I'd focus on concept. I see that Destiny is sitting on the giant book, but is he happy, sad, or otherworldly? What will be unique and interesting about the clothing? Should the non-chained hand be supporting his weight, and how would that affect the rest of the figure? As for anatomy, the legs are too thin horizontally and you should see some indication of foreshortened thighs.

IIKII: Good start on the character. The bubble wand suggests weird shaped bubbles, something done in the comic in the Brief Lives arc. One of Delirium's trademarks is the blue eye and the green eye. Doesn't have to smack you in the face, but it should be in there. Maybe have a more pronounced curve for her back and pelvis transition.

KuGu: Quite symmetrical at the moment, but you mentioned re-doing the pose. The belt is way cool. It's not clear to me what you're going for in the lower part of the picture.

NicHolS: Up to you of course, but if you go with Death I think that black hair is almost always one of her trademarks. I don't associate blood with her, either.

RichLyons: Nice start. Something about his right foot looks off to me, like he's rocking back on his heels but is actually off balance. Nice work on last time's demon btw.

AmberAlexander: I like idea for the pose, but I think you should exaggerate it a little more. Make it clearer which hip the weight is on, which would therefore be higher. I like the facial proportions in your sketch better than the more recent version.

Uglyographyer: Very cool and sad concept. We've always seen Despair as overweight, so taking it to the other extreme is effective. My wife calls pigeons "rats with wings." I don't know about the expression on her face - it's almost scary whereas my reading in the series was that she did feel compassion for those in her realm and felt a certain amount of depression herself.

feifeicreate: Nice start. The draped curtains effectively frame Desire and are just enough off center. You are making the background pillow a heart, aren't you? To me the cowboy boots don't match the rest of the outfit, but I'm pretty fashion unconscious.

Nightblue: Really like this so far. Of the Deliriums so far, you've really got her "not all there" look and expression. Be careful of the potential tangent between the goldfish and her finger. The interaction there isn't worked out yet, but it's a pretty important part.

MJ Alcazar: The imperfect arch on the window is really distracting. If you're going to frame her with the window be sure to spend the time on it so that it looks good. I like the pose - calm without being stiff. Make sure you flip the image - she might be just so slightly off balance to her right.

Mercuralis: Lovely work so far. The crotch may be a little high, but it's not distracting or out of the realm of possibility. For the back hand, maybe he could be holding one of his three tools. There was the bag of sand, the weird alien looking mask, and the ruby (which I see around his neck). I like the jacket.

That's all the time I have for now.

[darthmarsh]

Wow, far to many to crit, sorry! lets just say that I like all of them and be done with it.

Progress, been playing with the idea of Dream appearing as Brahma, the Hindu god of creation because of th line from wiki 'Dream seems to have some power to shape reality, as seen in The Sandman (vol. 2) #18, A Dream of a Thousand Cats, in which a large number of entities, dreaming of an alternate reality, create said reality'

C&C always welcome

Tim

P.S Hungryan, yes he will and here thay are. I hope you like

[hungryan]

OK, so I think I will try to finish this Dream thing, otherwise I will not finish another Chow, like many times before . Instead of going with that graphical style which I've had before I decided to go more plastic/surreal (after all dreams and surreality isn't far away from each other). I keep the stars on the clothes, but the clothes will be like clothes and not a black mass. I also didn't like that I didn't have any contrast on my picture, dark on dark meh, so I've changed the contrasts. Hope it will turn out to be something bearable.

Kugu: I only had time in my workplace to either comment or go on with my stuff, so I've decided I will comment.

[dragon4lunch]

This round should be quite promising! We also have Poshspice in da house! Pull your socks up folks for some tight competition

Hey Posh, I've been wondering this for a while now - are you a guy or actually a girl, who excels at painting girls?

[spaztastic]

reworked despair some more. hopefully it's looking less mangled this time around. any advice or crits are highly appreciated.

[hungryan]

Took out the tangly lines in the background. The picture just loses focus with those. He doesn't really look human anymore for some time, don't know if it's a problem... is it?

[jpedro]

some observations:

KayOnim, i really like your idea with the toy and balloon and then changing all that in the shadow. i think your giving the shadow a bit too much weight in the picture,i'd like to see more of the girl really.


Pyroclasm00, i think it's a great approach, the last one works best for me.


Mercuralis, i think your own judgement on the legs and such is correct, i dunno if he could be holding sth. like a mini dreamcatcher in his other hand? -.- just an idea...

Elidee, book-burden idea is cool, maybe you could even chain it to the foot? kinda holding her prisoner too...


MichaelNoel, quite like the face on her, the skin tone is also very cool, her right shoulder seems to be a bit far down and her right leg would be too small in comparison to her left i think....i like the pose as such though, it looks a bit disinterested which is actually a nice opposite to what she represents.


MJAclazar, couple of small drawing issues in the BG the arch on the window, and also on the girl, on both her hands i'd recheck the way they rest on the hip and how the thumb goes into the pockets... but dood, you're improving fast. hope you can finish!


Nightblue, looks really promising, the only mini crit is that i'd clarify a little better the way the lower of the thwo fish is situated behind that hand, the overlap you have there is creating almost a bit of an optical tangent with the index finger, but i think this is going to be great!


that's all i can do for now...

great stuff folks, and lastly, i just want to throw sth. out about Desire and the topic of "it" being androgynous...looking at the Wiki text:

Desire: Desire is beautiful, slim, and truly androgynous, capable of appearing as a man, a woman, neither, or possibly both.

so in my understanding of the text, the chracacter CAN be drawn as a girl, or boy, or as many have chosen, sth. in between. But "it" looking androgynous is not what actually MAKES the character truly androgynous, as stated in the text, it is the abiltiy to appear in any gender as needed.

[Sekino]

I always was intrigued by the 'first' Despair, the one that died and got replaced by the one we see in the series (I keep hoping Gaiman is sitting on a script about the story behind her death and replacement... Surely he knows what happened to her!?? ). From what is seen of her in Endless Nights, the old Despair is wise, knowledgeable and eloquent so I'm trying to reconcile her monstrous appearance with that of an old wisewoman with a bit of a Native American feel. It's tough since she's naked

WIP- 1



WIP- 2

[audit]

Hm, first post in ages. Anyway I really wanted to give this a go as I've read the Sandman and loved it. I tried Destiny. The concept is pretty simple - I wanted to emphasise his blindness rather than hide it, and I then just modified the book and chain motif a little. He's gone a bit Dr. Manhattan but hopefully it's not too screaming. His dress-thing is meant to be swirly bits of paper/scrolls. Symbolic, y'see? Colour and so on will follow, most of the linework will go.



Sorry no crit yet, but I have to briefly congratulate KuGu, RichLyons, feifeicreate, Nightblue, and Mr. 'Two Sheds' on already crazy good-lookin' entries.

[fersteger]

Right on people, these new entries are looking dope. Hopefully Posh doesn't finish his so someone else has a chance lol just kidding...

Mine's getting weird..all it needs now is a lens flare...

[darthmarsh]

Hmm, blue background or black?

fersteger- love the Topgun sunny's on the dog!