Team CHOW II - Team Thundercats are GO!

[JessiBean]

Adrian... I need your speed, you MACHINE I love some of the clothing pattern detail you are incorporating, let's be sure to get that into the finals, too.

Sentinel, I said so on MSN, but I also think the top left is PERFECT, the composition is stellar. Excited to see how you work out the rest of this.

My thoughts on composition for the Evil Human Knight (the King) based on traditional royal portraiture. His robe would be all trimmed in animal furs and his throne will have various skulls and monsters carved into it and a deer head mounted on the top. And the Good Arachnea Assassin... in a church! The evil clergy doods will have a bound lynx or some other animal they are about to molest, and the spider assassin is coming to the rescue all quiet and stealthy-like.

[Pixeltuner]

F**k me, you guys (& gal ) are on fire Shit's gonna be awesome!

[Adrian Wilkins]

damn!! thats uber awesome jessi!!

here is the attackboard of the evil deer elf
Soul Raid

[Carnifex]

waooahoahoahhh!
i love those attack boards.
jessi,who'd have thought spiders could be so sexy. infact this is the first time i've found a whole sketch sexy.
next time i wanna be on your team!

*indulging in inspiration*

[Adrian Wilkins]

haha thanks carnifex !

Second attackboard of the evil elf
description
I. let the enemy float
II. smack the enemy through the wall
III. if the enemy isn't dead yet, pull them down to the ground

[Mat Kaminski]

Epic overload!

[MoHog]

kewl, i love this sb.
your making a whole world! please form a studio together and make this into a book or movie or game or something
keep on going for the win

[Sentinel.]

Jessi - those are PERFECT! The one of the Arachnea assassin is going to be so badass with all that stained glass and how it casts light. And on the one of the evil Knight - from your sketch, it gives me the impression his cape is a quilted material. I don't know if that's what you were going for, but I think it could look really lush if done right. Super excited to move on with these!

Awesome attack boards Adrian!! That second one is especially vicious - and would be a really cool move if we ever got to see this turned into a game I also agree with Jessi about the detail in the evil elf's costume, we seriously need to do some embroidery and elaborate fabric patterns.

I'm currently working on some thumbs for the good and evil version of the Fennec Fox, but I took a short break to try out some lighting on the evil elf thumb. I know you were going to try working from the sketch Jessi, so I didn't get too elaborate. Was just trying to figure out how the bowl as the primary light source would affect his face since I'm not 100% comfortable with this set up, and I'm all about the faces

[smokenmirrors]

yowza..... you guys are a production powerhouse...... fantastic characters!

[Mark Tarrisse]

I'm a shame of working so little, I'll do my best to work more !

Adrian : You already know that but these attackboards are awesome !
Sentinel : Must see that finished !
Jessi : Love the assassin ! But not sureee of the king.

Here's my try to a sketch for the barbarian yeti, I'll try to do some more soon I hope ^^

[RBeek]

you guys are rly sick XD awsome work peeps! very inspirational!

[Troubadour]

ahem, excuse me i need to go change my pants.

[Moai]

Very impressive and elegant work, guys and girls!

[JessiBean]

Mark - you have NOTHING to apologize for, this is AWESOME! He looks VERY menacing.

Adrian - I REALLY like these attacks, I think you have the character of the deer mage perfectly incorporated in his powers. I love the glowy fingertips, too... good addition.

Sentinel - Sorry for slowness! I did a little doodle, to give him a place to be in, but I didn't change much, I love the values/position you have going on. I had a brain wave that our evil Elf/deer was making evil magiv out of souls in an old temple with occult-ish banners and dead things hanging around him. That is a broken stained glass ceiling at the top, if it didn't make sense. In the alternative, it could be overgrown with dead vines, too... to symbolize how he has taken his nature-magic and used it to kill/for evil purposes...?



You guys are rocking SO hard... I think we have a few more thumbnails we need to tackle -- Making a quick list of inventory so we know where to fill in still...

Lynx - Good: I did the one pose of her a few pages back, I think she needs a more dynamic composition. I will knock out some thumbs, anyone else who wants to tackle her, she needs some sketch love. Evil: I really liked the pose Sentinel drew up based on the painting of Napoleon, I'm cool to move forward on this one if you guys are. we need to flesh out the scene she exists in, first, tho.
Deer - Good: I liked the sketch Hygami had with the fawn helpers... maybe a variation or two where we can see him performing a good/helpful deed; Evil: I think Sentinel has this one sewn up.
Bat - Good: I liked the rooftop pose idea, maybe we need to do a couple more variations to get this right?; and Evil: I think Adrian had an awesome pose of the bat sticking her wing through someone's throat that worked for me on this one, do we have others?
Yeti - Good: I dunno, have we done this one? Evil: I think Mark did a great job on this one (it is the evil one, right? he looks menacing), I think it works for me for a final with minor tweaks- make sure 3/4 of his figure is in the image make sure he looks like he is a bad man (like the kickass facial expression Sentinel had a ways back)
Spider - Good: I kinda tried to tackle this one with the church thing up there, need to tweak it some. Anyone have any other options? Evil: I think Mark was working on this one on the last page, and I like it lots. Maybe try some variations to make her look like she is doing evil deeds/killing innocents/making mayhem.
Humans - Good: This is one of the ones I don't think we have tried at all... I am going to give it a whirl, I would encourage anyone who feels inspired to try him out, cause I think we forgot him so far. I've been thinking about him like he is the story's hero, leading out intrepid band of rebels ; Evil: I added the thumb at the top of this page, has anyone worked on other options for this one?
Fennic Fox - this is the other one I don't think we have concepted out at all for final poses. Sentinel said she was going to try it out, anyone else want to give it a shot? Both good and evil. Sentinel and I talked on MSN about him a little, how the good version is kind of like a short, round, jovial fellow, who maybe likes good beer and goes around to people offering herbs and magic remedies... maybe this sets off some ideas? The bad guy was going to be a bureaucrat type, I think...?

AAAAAAAND, once we have at least an option or two for each one, we can pick and get on to the finals! Can we do that in the next day or so? When is good to meet up and make sure we are all on the same page?

GO TEAM, GO!!!

[daestwen]

Since sentinel asked about fullbody/etc in the thread, I wanted to come in and say they all look fine to me except maybe the assassin, who looks a little too crunched up.

[Adrian Wilkins]

thanks for the sum up Jessi! omfg where do you get such epic reference the idea and all is awesome!!!

and thanks for clearing us up Daestwen!


uhm, sketch for the final.. shes gonna be diving towards the king who's going to stand on the balcony

[Sentinel.]

Thanks for taking the time to look through and let us know, Dae!

Mark - that looks amazing! His face and pose are perfect, and your values are spot on!

Adrian - Great start! The only thing I notice is that she looks less like she's diving/landing and more like she's jumping backwards off the balcony. The position of her body itself is fine, but I think her arms and wings would have more of a backward motion than they have now, like so:



That could be your intention anyway, so if that's already what you were planning ignore me



Jessi - it looks so much more kickass with that background!! I absolutely love all the ideas for it, we can cross this thumb off the to do list. Thanks also for the summary, I'll try to tackle any holes we have.


I ended up getting sidetracked most of yesterday, so I didn't get nearly what I wanted done. I was also having a really hard time coming up with anything for the fox, even after we had talked about it. I'll keep plugging away at it and post a few good versions before I have to go to work tonight so we have some to choose from.

Here's the only evil version that came out halfway decent yesterday, inspired by the following paintings. It still needs some work and feels a little cramped, but I think it gets the general idea across. Let me know if you'd like to see a few more options and I'll see what I can come up with.

I'll also try to pick up the pace and generate thumbs for all the remaing characters by the end of tomorrow. We should have all the final compositions squared away before the weekend hits so we can get going on the rendering.

Keep up the awesome work, team!!

[JessiBean]

Sentinel, I think the fox is just awesome... I told you this earlier, but I really like the basis in classical paintings, it helps reinforce the time period subtly, which is great. One thing that jumps out is from our earlier talk about how this character is greedy and conniving (in contrast to the gentle, jovial, helpful nature of his good counterpart) perhaps we should show more of his ill gotten wealth around him (sacks of money, or something kinda like that) And we can be sure to keep the fabrics and furnishings looking really rich and lush in contrast to the grittiness of our "good guys"... awesome stuff.

Adrian - I really like the idea of her mid-air about to attack, and I can see where Sentinel is coming from about being backwards maybe making it awkward. Maybe if she was twisting, with a weapon out? Or maybe a view from below the balcony looking up at her? Oh, and I would maybe cut off some of the canvas on the left and right sides, keep it more vertical since most of the other pieces we have seem to be that way, we might as well go for continuity in these "main" images... GREAT work... keeep going

I scribbled some on the Evil Human Knight after Sentinel pointed me to some awesome portrait reference from the period. I think this is getting closer... and I would be keeping the metal hand and leg that Mark added, and incorporating them into the armor in this kind of design, cause those were cool and I didn't want to lose them. The chair would have tortured looking animals and dead things carved into it, the dead head mounted on top (maybe dripping blood from the neck, like it was placed up there on a pike?) And a latin inscription about Humans ruling everyone....



And I got two more coming for the good lynx and the good human knight. woot!

edit: brain wave! What if I step the king back a hair and show the painting (maybe the painter?) he is posing for in the compositon too? To show he is vain, as well as evil...?

[Sentinel.]

Love the portrait idea Jessi! Like I said on MSN, I think it would be really exciting

I'd comment more, but I've got to make this fast since there's a bad storm brewing over my house, and I don't want to risk my computer getting shorted out from a power surge (damn Florida weather!)

Here's my current progress on the evil Arachnea assassin. Jessi gave me awesome advice on moving one of the left arms to hold the tip of the knife blade to her mouth, kind of mischievous like, and also gave me the idea of her holding a decapitated head in her other hand. Awesome XD If you guys like it, I'll try to have this more or less ready to render by tomorrow morning.

I've also learned that I struggle with doing thumbnails and should just stick to what I do best, diving right in

[Studio Colrouphobia]

Best. Sketchbook. Ever.

Love the ideas behind it all, quite refreshing to have fantasy/animal mix. Wish I would have seen this from the get go...

Elephant/Artisan that's all I got to say.


Bookmarked topic.

[Quike Garcia]

I follow most of your sb separatedly... but to be honest, seeing you all working together is a bliss..

[Sentinel.]

More fun with the evil assassin! I don't think this arm position is exactly what you meant Jessi, but it's just kinda came out that way. I could fix the blade so it's closer to her mouth pretty easily, so if you think it would look better that way let me know.

I need to change up her costume so it looks like she's the evil version, not just the same girl on a mean streak. I'm thinking about adding a "trophy" belt with pieces of antler, yeti horn, lynx teeth, etc. all dangling from it, as well as a few additional weapons and maybe an armored glove on her knife hand. I'll try a bunch of stuff until I find the right combo, but if you guys have any suggestions I would love to hear them! That goes for the background too

GO TEAM!

Edit: When I stepped back and looked at it, the blade tip was too close to her eye. Changed!

[JessiBean]

Sentinel - you are my hero! Seriously, everything you're making here is top notch, and I especially love this spider.
I mentioned I was gonna take a stab at some costume stuff, so here goes...



My fave is the big one... the bottom edges of her coat could be scalloped and pleated, like the bottom of the corset in this image. Maybe some jewels, rich fabrics, a tricorner hat to make her look like she has gotten rich and powerful from being someone's deadly assassin... Leather pants? I like shiny leather pants... Top right is more like this one, with the buttons, but maybe see if making it out of leather could edge it up some, make her evil... there are some nice leathery/stud/gritty looking things here that might inspire. The bottom right is more based on the corset in this image with black lace (maybe to look like spiderwebs? maybe that is too hokey)

Maybe this will inspire something?
Still working on me thumbs, got distracted last night... Will post them ASAP!!!

[Earendil]

Wow! That Fennec mage is sexy! Spiderwoman pirate? Y'guyz are soooo gud.

I feel it...wait..argh...aieee!

*turns into a fanboy*pld:

[fluorine]

Guys, your works are as good as always~~~~and I don't think I'm in any position to offer critique...but just one thing, and it's really bothering me and I just have to say it.

Sentinel, your spider girl is great, but I think it might work better if you could figure out her anatomy first, from the bone structure to muscle to skin. This is actually a problem I had for all those fantasy figures with more than 2 arms and 2 legs (so please don't take this personally). It's not like these extra arms just some how "stacked" on the other two arms. If you add two extra arms, they have to attached to something. How the clavicle works, maybe there's two extra set of clavicle either beneath or behind the normal ones? how the scapula works? how the rib cage changes because she has two extra arms? I believe if you could figure that out first, the figure will look a lot more realistic and believable.

it's just a personal obsession, feel free to ignore me~

[JessiBean]

Quick recap of MSN discussion:

Final Piece Assignments...
Sentinel - Evil Deer, Evil Lynx, Good Fox, Evil Spider
Adrian - Good Bat, Evil Bat, Good Deer
Mark - Good Human Knight, Evil Yeti, Good Yeti
Me - Evil Fox, Good Lynx, Evil Human Knight, Good Spider

Progress to be posted here in the thread. I am going to be editing this post with some color targets/mood ref momentarily. We will swap on Wednesday.

GO, Team, GO!!!

[AUG]

Mark- I'm loving the barbarian design and composition. Beautiful rendering on the good human pieces, too.

Adrian- Your elf-deer designs are great. The characters have such strong personalities.

Sentinel- The Arachnea and Fennec Fox characters look as if they could step off of the page. Just wonderful works.

Jessi- Your subjects always have a strong appeal to them. The way you incorporate the costumes with the characters is beyond me.

I can see all of these works gelling into a sweet looking presentation in the end.

Go team!

[LostFayth]

Feed me please. I'm hungry for more art...
...or could it be?...

Team Thundercars are GONE!?

[0zz0]

NOOO we want more good art !

[JessiBean]

Deepest apologies for the quiet... I am SWAMPED with work.
The screens I promised are below, with the mood/color target. Mostly, desaturated and moody, lots of ochre, gray, brown and reds, a few high pops of color. Working on finals. More from me soon.