Persian King WIP

[CrashPoint]

Hey so I'm doing a character design based on Daniel Warren's little mentorship on crimson daggers, and the goal is to design a King Arthur type character based on persian myth/culture. I painted up some rough ideas for the character, let me know which one's you like and why so I can explore those ideas! I've never really done this kind of thing before so any advice is welcome! Thank you!

[arenhaus]

Very rough. These thumbnails could probably work for you, since you drew them, but I find them rather hard to read. In any case, I can see the differences in costume, but you have given us nothing to know about the actual character! So how could I tell which ones are better than others, if I don't know whether it's supposed to be a noble king, a weak pretentious king, an evil king, for instance?

I prefer to go about character design by thinking about the character. Costume can suggest itself as long as you know what your character is like and what he does in life. For the same reason I tend to start with sketching faces, not costume.

[Stoat]

Well, he's a king, so I'd be inclined to go with the more static, less dynamic poses. Dignified, don'tcha know. Let lesser mortals hack and slash. So that's 4, 5. I think 8 is my favorite, though it's a bit dynamic.

[JCartdecker]

The one that feels the most King like to me is 4, though the one i responded to first from a shape design point of view was 5. It feels the most unexpected from a design/character archetype stand point..

[CrashPoint]

Thanks for the advice guys! Most definitely noted. So based on your suggestions and my preferences I've narrowed down my selection. I added a little bit cleaner sketches just to give you an idea where I might take each one if selected. Feel free to chip in as I try to make up my mind! Thank you!

[keremcantarhan]

I like the first one the most in both pose and weapon choices. The weapon makes him look like a strong, warrior king who achieved his status by fighting more than he did by politics. But I don't really dig your choice of clothing.

[CrashPoint]

Alright so I decided to go with the battle axe variant. I believe the next step is to decide on a pose and then start going through a bunch of different costumes and design details. Advice welcome!

[keremcantarhan]

Do some variants of the first one, it looks better. Also don't you think the battle axe is a little too big for a man to carry?

[CrashPoint]

Thanks keremcantarhan! I went ahead and selected the first guy as you said. I started with the pose and built up the costume to create the basic idea I'm shooting for, as I didn't quite like the original drawing. I agree the battle axe is waaaay too long and I think it still is in this drawing. I'm going to go ahead and throw this newer design into photoshop and try to fix some minor things I noticed and then do variations of this design.

Once again thank you all for the responses! I'll try to get some new stuff up here pretty soon!

[JCartdecker]

Nice exploration, I look forward to you next post.

[CrashPoint]

Alright, here's what I got so far. Just throwing a couple changes on each character to see how they would look. Let me know if you see anything you do or do not particularly like about any of the designs. All crits welcome!

From this I most likely will take all the positive components and then do a little more exploration and then start experimenting with colors.

[CrashPoint]

Here are my selections of the variations, the only real difference between the two is the weapon. So the whole idea behind this character is that he is a persian version of king arthur and I wanted to play with the idea of the mythical creature the huma bird (some depictions are similar to that of the gryphon) where persian kings would wear their feathers as signs of kingship.

Please let me know your thoughts on the current design choices or if there is something previous that you may of liked, and if you see anything blatantly wrong don't be shy to let me know! All criticism welcome .

[CrashPoint]

First pic is my design choice, I then realized that the pose was uber flat so I completely redrew the character into a pose I like a lot more. I'd like to get this drawing as finished as possible before I begin my foray into color, so could someone please critique this? I've been staring at it for too long >.<.

[CrashPoint]

Color variations.

Note: Will do dangerous stunts for critiques.

[CrashPoint]

This is how far I've gotten on my value study. I got to this point the other night where I hit this mental block. It's funny this is the first time I've ever done anything like this so I can't expect it to be perfect on my first try, but on the other hand I don't want to cut myself short and do a sloppy job. Basically what I want to do and what I can do are on two very different levels which is leading my brain on a never ending death spiral of unproductivity.

I think I'm going to go back and do more studies. Thoughts welcome.