Team Chow 3: Hot Magic!

[Ian Barker]

Hot Magic lives here! We are Liffey, Monika Gruszka, and skorpi! We may be open to a fourth member if you think your skill level would be a good fit for our team... just send one of us a pm if you're interested!

Well I guess the first thing will be to decide our workflow. There are going to be up to 6 characters to draw... do you guys want to do 2 characters a piece, or do you want to collaborate on all of them? If we want to all collaborate then we'll have to choose who wants to focus on what part... I would probably be best at the drawing for the character, but I could paint too. Whatever you guys think is fine with me, and we can always come up with a more concrete game plan when we find out the theme.

[Monika Gruszka]

hello Hot Magic Team!

Workflow... hmm. I think the best way for us to start working together will be talking, brainstorming, searching ispiration photos/paintings, doing lots of sketches together and again and again talking, giving honest ctits and so on.

And after that, when we define our concept for every character we may begin working on our own 2 characters. At that stage we should post our wips here and try to stay together so our drawings connect with the rest

And please, be honest and brutal guys Especially for me, if you see i'm lazy or completely messed up something in my drawing dont be shy to say to me: your piece sucks, work on it! (you can also tell me right now, hey, your english is terrible! yeeeah, sorry about that in advance...)

Sooo, my weak points are: enviroments, weapons, perspective, cars and other machines...

I think it would be easier to decide when we know something about the theme (cant't wait fot that!) And hey, it should be great fun for us guys! hope we end up with great HOT and MAGICAL characters!

[Ian Barker]

Good points Monika! That all sounds good to me. We can help each other out with our weak points... I can draw and do basic coloring, but I'm not very good at rendering images smoothly, so I may need help with that.

I can't wait to find out our theme.

[skorpi]

I agree with Monika, lets start together with a lot of sketches to find together two visual key elements.

I think it's easier, if everybody works on his two characters but with critic and help from the others.
But a collaboration is maybe more interesting.
I don't really have strong and weak pionts in a painting process, I'm good or as week in everything XD
But I suck at drawing machines and similar things

Liffey, where do you live (what time zone are you in)? Maybe we can meet at a chat and dicuss there, it's way faster than here.

My english is bad, but as long as you understand me, don't mind the mistakes

[Ian Barker]

I live in Central Standard Time Zone (GMT-6). Do you want to try Google Wave for the chat (my school computer blocks a lot of chat options like aim and msn)? It's pretty good for brainstorming. I have some invites if you would like.

[LostFayth]

Hey skorpi (and the rest of the team), I wanted to wish you the best of luck in your new team!

Let's have fun competing against each other

[Ian Barker]

Thanks LostFayth! Best of luck to Legion of Lions as well.

[skorpi]

I don't know google wave, but what wikipedia writes about it sounds good

LostFayth: Thank you and good luck as well

[Ian Barker]

Just pm me your gmail address and I'll send you an invite. I can send you one too if you don't have one yet, Monika. Invites may take a few days to arrive.

So would you guys be up for a practice round or two? The new CHOW is up here... would you guys be interested in doing that so we can get warmed up?

[Monika Gruszka]

Yeah, i definately feel i need some real practice before team chow this week topic sounds sweet!

some quick ideas:
Maybe we can all try to draw that girl and practice keeping similar colour palette, but at the same time portray different characters (for example: for one girl will be happy when she find that egg, another will be surprised, other scared, its sound kind of stupid right now, but its just a first thought)

[Ian Barker]

I was thinking the same thing.

[skorpi]

I like the idea, let's do it.
Any wold preferences?
I thought, I do something cyberpunk, but i'm open for sugestions.

[Monika Gruszka]

I'd like to draw something contemporary, maybe girl finds an egg in a garbage can or something like that...? I think it would be great we draw our characters in a completely different times, styles and enviroments, but we must connect our pieces with something. But how... well, my suggestios are:

- choosing the same face expression / girl reaction when she finds an egg - fear, surprise
- similar colour palette
- the same enviroment in different style - fo example: we can draw our girls in their rooms (i dont know much about cyberpunk, skorpi and i dont know how cyberpunk room look like, but its just a loose idea, it could be other place: street, forest, school, shop etc.)

I like the idea with the same enviroments, because we could draw in our own style and we have a clear connection at the same time.

what do you think?

[skorpi]

Same environments sounds good to me. Maybe we can work with a similar color palette or a single but important color (example: the girls clothes are red in every pic) too.

Environment: Maybe a street in the poorest part of a city, but forest sounds cool too.

[Ian Barker]

I was thinking of doing a more cartoony, expressive style. The same environment and color palette idea sounds good to me. I think the idea have having the environment being in a contemporary poor part of the city is good, it is unique and interesting. I really like the idea of find the egg in a garbage can like Monika said. Do you guys want to go ahead and do something like that?

[Monika Gruszka]

it sounds great to me!

[skorpi]

Great

Then the thing left is the color palette. Sice It's a childrens Book, I would use warm colors, something like yellow, red, brown and warm grey.

[Monika Gruszka]

Yeah, you're right Skorpi, we must definately use warm colours... I was thinking about similar colours to the ones used in this (great!!!) picture: LINK I love that contrast between warm oranges and cold blues. We could use warms to create the girl and the background would be more cold, think its a nice way to separate character from the background (and the character is still the most important)

[skorpi]

Great, I think that will work
Liffey?

[Monika Gruszka]

sketchy time! my first rough doodle, anatomy&proportions are a liiiitle bit off.

And what about that google wave thing?

[Ian Barker]

That color scheme looks good to me. I'll try to do some sketches tonight.

Also I just started a Google Wave for us. I haven't used it very much before but it seems pretty easy.

[skorpi]

@monika: I really like the scene. It tells a story

I tihnk the google wave works well, thank ou for the invitation Liffey

[Ian Barker]

Nice sketch Monika. I think the girl should look more surprised though.

I'll upload my sketch tonight.

edit:

[Monika Gruszka]

wooow, Liffey, that sketch looks awesome!

[skorpi]

@liffey: Thet looks really cool, I like your style.

I finished the outlines, I'll colorate it with wather color ( and then i have to retouch some mistakes )

[Ian Barker]

Here is my composition sketch... sorry for not being too active the last couple days. Been trying to get my finals out of the way.

[Ian Barker]

[Ian Barker]

[skorpi]

@Liffey: Looks good but I miss a clear light source. The moon is one but where does the light from the front comes from?

EDiT: I added some more yellow in the lights and la a multiplicate layer with blue shadows over it.

[JakehC]

Could i join your team after the holiday break. Check out my sketchbook for my stuff. Anyways let me know via PM.