Luffie in 2012: Angels Dragons, Demons and more!

[luffie]

And so another HunterXHunter Fan art. Its another member of the Phantom Troupe/Genei Ryodan! This time its the infamous Fei Tan (the name should be separated as if it is written in chinese), complete with his umbrella sword surrounded with nen!

I am aware he has another form in battle armor, but I am not too convinced of the design yet as its appearance was very very brief, also the colors has yet to be finalized too.

Ps: painting this wasn't that difficult but coloring it from greyscale is still a pain, I wonder if there is a tried and true method for coloring greyscale images without utilizing so many "color" layers..?

will post some WIPs soon



cover mock up version

[luffie]

Feitan Work in Progress image, as usual I created in in black and white, concentrating on values and shapes first, and making sure that 'hair' always remain in separate layer.

Then I move on to the most difficult process in my opinion, that is coloring the image using 'color' layer, laying down layers of colors one by one by trial and error. After which, I brush through the entire image using golden yellow in 'overlay' mode, to represent the overall lighting. Then I simply add on minor details like buttons and skulls on his face using 'normal' layers. The background is made of juxtaposed images of buildings, blended using various layer modes and layer masks, then color balanced to yellow. Overall, this image is pretty straightforward to create.

[luffie]

Again, another new addition for the new year 2012. This time its Femto from the manga Berserk, depicting the moment where he was reborn as a demon lord, hope it does him justice

Will post some WIPs later

[dmccombs3]

That is some nice work and impressive colors.

[luffie]

So here's my promise of WIP for Femto guys



I wanted to show the calmness of Femto yet still evoking a sense of dread among viewers. My primary concern was to have an angle that shows his trademark helm very clearly, leave some space for armor decoration and yet have his 'bat-like' wing shown as the original, not like some superhero cape.

The mask and armor was pretty easy to do, but for the wings it is a little trickier. If I show all of his wings, then his hand armor will be covered, his pose will be pretty limited, if I try some action pose with his hands, then the wings will be pushed behind and it will end up like some superhero cape. So I opted for a little movement/pose on one hand, while the other one is covered to showcase his wing.

The first composition is pretty cool, but in the end it looked a little too superhero. The second one was more elegant and calm, but the composition allows for too little information about him, or, simply too little space for the demons that I wanted to include, hence I pushed him a little further to allow more space for the background.



Next I simply layout the positions of the rocks, demons, and tighten up the shape of Femto. Changed the position of the giant beasts behind him to allow more space, and trying to lay down details for his armor..... Femto in one layer, rocks all in one layer and the beasts and clouds in one layer.



Once the details are all done, i began putting down colors using 'color' layers, i used several layers of it and flatten it when it gets too many, but remember to make layer masks of each subject eg.femto, background etc before flattening.

From here on its all about intuition, use 'overlay to enhance the lighting, used hue/saturation to pump up the colors, used levels to enhance the contrast, and used color balance to tweak the colors, darken the foreground with gradient set to multiply. And that pretty much sums up my working method. I hope I can create a more detailed WIPs next time, but no promises :p

[luffie]

It the year of the Dragon in the Lunar New Year calendar for asians, so here's my dragon for all of you, except its a little demonic..hehe.



Demonic Dragons can be so bad ass. Another dragon addition to my ever expanding gallery. Got the inspirations from Monster Hunter game, I thought it will be a good idea to have a dragon whose horn is facing the front so it can skewer anybody that crosses his path, rather than the usual backwards horns.

It is also an exercise to paint "less detail" and concentrate mor on the shape and volume. While there are still a number of details, but it was done only at the last and they are really quite manageable than my previous works. So here you go, my dragon needs to ram something now...XD

WIP shots coming later....

[luffie]

First I lay down everything in broad strokes trying to define the proportion and the main details of the dragon. Once everything looks more or less accurate, I began to focus on the main shape of the dragon, trying to be accurate as possible, this is on pic 2.

Look at the left hand and wing of the dragon, those are what happens before I place any details on them, only shapes and values, the right side is when details are placed on them. After most shapes are done, I began adding details on the belly, arm etc. Right now, the dragon and the background is on separate layers. I work mostly with 3 layers only, with the 3rd on top, for adding new details, and merging it with the 2nd one once in a while.



At this stage, the design of the dragon is more or less final, some final details can be added later at coloring stage, but the shape and proportion of the dragon is already final, the background is also considered ok.

So I proceed to coloring stage again, with some trial and error. I mask out the dragon (since it was on separate layers) and began laying down the colors for background, and refining the mountains along the way, as well as adding color variation. I use "color" layer mode as usual, you should add another layer when adding the variation.

On a "new" "normal" layer, I blot down the main color palettes for the dragon body as well as the highlight and shadows, so that I can get consistent colors when coloring them using color layers, as the colors appear differently on "color" and "normal". I also add minute details and sharp highlights straight on "normal" layers. Add some levels and color balance and I am done

[dolmen]

This is some incredible stuff! that last one from HunterXHunter is really great. I enjoy the series and I think you really hit the nail on the head with his stance and attitude.

[luffie]

Glad to find another HunterXHunter fan!

[luffie]

Just another additional WIPs that might be interesting. (I hate how flickr now disbles even the owner to download his own original file sizes.. I guess I'll be moving things to deviantart now...)

[luffie]

The latest one so far, initially I was inspired by Games Workshop's Dark Eldar's Incubi illustration. The pose was cool and graceful so I wanted to create a simple painting with that pose. Slowly and slowly, I got carried away and it got into a full blown illustrations with a cruel character surrounded by 3 red imps. The imps were almost inspired by Slaneesh daemonette's designs. So here I present to you, The Blood Prince

[merl1n]

nice stuff.
Just colors could be more both interesting and harmonious. And incorrect anatomy pops up here and there.

cheers

[luffie]

The last was a demon, this time its an angel!



Redeemer Reborn

What started as a simple fun sketch in the beginning ends up into a complete illustrations :p. I simply wanted to try out different way to do a painting, I used to paint in black and white straight into the canvas, using shapes and values and figuring out the details on the go. Overtime, I find that my method has its own flaws. Firstly, the colors are really hard to pin down, unless I have an exact image in my mind or a very good color reference, otherwise I will have to start form laying muddy looking colors layer by layer and do some trial and error too. Secondly, figuring out details on the go and painting it straight with shapes and volumes is hard, some times its just easier to draw the outlines first, just like when we are using only pencils.

So this time, I actually start by drawing the lines first rather than blocking shapes, laying colors underneath the lines to test the colors without worrying about painting over the details. And paint straight using colors rather than with black and white. I could say I was pleased with the results. Painting details was definitely much easier if I drew the outlines first. I am not sure about the colors, with black and white I could concentrate on getting nice smooth values, it was a little harder with colors, but it definitely results in richer colors. (There are 4 demons on the background, the other 3 are miscellaneous but you might find violator familiar..)

Overall I am pleased with the results, I'll just have to find a balance between this new approach and my old habits, or... I could just work harder :p. Hope you love Redeemer and may you spread his angelic love by commenting

Might upload some WIPs later

about 3 days on and off

[luffie]

A WIP for the "The Blood Prince" image above. It a large image because of the text in it, Ive placed the text together with the image so that people can download it and read it by itself without going to the forum again. So hope you enjoy e process







Next would be the Redeemer Reborn

[cg-monkey]

good stuff man,thou some of your paintings look a bit flat.

[Dahami]

Hellgate: London + Anime + Comic Book Superheroes = Art of luffie

[luffie]

Azazel Unconquered

"And with a wave of his arm, an Inferno of poisonous demonic flames burst forth into existence. Brimming with fierce powerful energies, the fires circle him in never ending cycles, and malevolent spirits began to gather and coalesce into draconic forms, emerging from the flames greeting their creator and ready to do his bidding. Azazel could do this effortlessly, infinitely, and he will send forth endless waves of draconic abominations, till the whole kingdom is devoured from existence."

This piece was pretty difficult to do, it took me quite some time to figure out the design and composition. I wanted to upgrade his look but make him still recognizable from his previous rendition. At first I never thought of including any dragon, I just wanted to portray him alone conjuring mighty eldritch spells. But after a while, the painting seem a little empty, yet I was too lazy to render another army of minions or monsters surrounding him. So after much delibrate thought, I decided to include 3 dragons encircling him, its the least number of dragons I could include.

Coloring him was also a pain, since I was actually clueless about the best color scheme for him (this was designed on they fly, so there was no concept art to rely on). After much trial and error again, this is what I ended up with. Perhaps there are somethings that can still be added but I guess I just leave it at here and put my effort on the next piece, this one is good as it is for now.

Close up wallpaper 1920 x 1080 :



This is previous version :

Close Up

[FowlerIllus]

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing more.

[luffie]

A warhammer fan art, I present to you perfection, Fulgrim the Phoenician, Primach of Emperor's Children.



This can be considered quite an old work, the sketch was done way back in 2010, I can't believe I only manage to finish it now, but thankfully, its done. The design was actually based on the Warhammer 40k Horus Heresy trading card game, they have a glimpse of Fulgrim in it. I like the design, yet I find the one on the cards are too simplistic, but obviously the design cannot be too intricate either as it was still on the 30k era. (The sketch is in my sketchbook thread)

So I went to add a bit of extra flair too it, without going too intricate in details. I envisioned the Slaanesh blade myself as I have no reference. The weapon has its mark on it, and is emanating an eerie glow that is supposed to be Slaanesh's essence. The blade shouldn't look too demonic as well, as I'd like to think Fulgrim wouldn't exactly use an 'extremely' demonic sword, but he would definitely use a lavishly crafted one, so designing the balance between elegant and demonic was slightly tricky. By the way, on his left hip, there's a bolt pistol, for long distance attack just in case

Hope Games Workshop can hire me to do another Fulgrim, then I'll promise and do a legendary one

[StrikeCommando]

The Okami one looks amazing.

[Hemispheree]

Awesome
I like your style

[luffie]

The Okami one looks amazing.

Thanks, the Okami one was really a fresh way of painting style. Bye the way, can anyone teach me how to multi-quote a msg on a post? Thanks in advance!

[luffie]

Again its Femto, with Zodd the furry beast. I feel there is much improvement in this piece compared to the last, for one, it feels more creepy, evil and enigmatic, it is not overcrowded as well. This image is my take on Kentaro Miura's "berserk" tankabon/manga issue 34, and I think I did the picture justice. Femto design is based on my previous Femto art on the earlier post

Femto's pose was also changed a bit to convey action and some movement, but he is usually calm and poised, so there's a limit to what i can pose him. Zodd is pretty much the same, no change in overall design except for him showing some fangs to make him more ferocious, I also modified the fangs, the ones in manga are not the same. The empty space on top is for the title head. Click here for the version with titles [link]

Now, Femto demands that you spread the love/evil

Haven't have much luck in pageviews and comments, but never give up posting eh?

[luffie]

Just a single wip for the image above, since it was a fairly straightfoward process i didn't save many iterations for it

[luffie]

01. As my as I would like to paint on the go, I don’t have a good grasp of Fulgrim armor design. The best reference at that time I could get was Horus Heresy collected visions, his character rendered by many different artist inevitably led to some variations, and I wanted to nail down that design firmly. I was also trying to try out different techniques to paint over a drawing, there are pros and cons to that and in my experience it is best to paint over a “clean” drawing. I didn’t have a light box back then, so this is obviously not the best sample. It is also worth noting that some details need not be present in the drawing itself, details like texture and small intricacies are best left to be painted straight. Major shapes and big details and straight lines gets easier to paint when you draw it down, knowing what to left out and put in comes with experience, I can’t really explain it accurately. At this stage, the right shoulder has an incorrect design too, Fulgrim was supposed to have a big giant eagle wing in his right shoulder, I only knew it after I finished the painting and some viewer pointed it out to me, so I added it only at the final stage.

02. Here I set the drawing layer to multiply and used the lasso tool to follow the shape of Fulgrim and create a fill layer from it. After that I make a selection from it, reduce 2 pixels, invert selection, and delete the outline layer. This is important, because it removes the very external outline surrounding Fulgrim, it is easier to remove it this way than painting over it near the edge at later part of rendering. Now after locking the fill layer, I started to paint in values using hard and soft brush without worrying about painting over the lines and so on, I am just trying to nail down the right values. The background was also rough, I am only trying to nail the value of the background at this point. Background was of course on another layer at the most bottom.



03. Now I actually start painting neatly underneath the outline and above the outline layer. When the rendering was more or less more polished and very little previous outlines were seen, I simply merged the top painting layer, outline layer, and the bottom layer. Now if you did not remove the outline layer like I did in step 2, you will have many white areas outside of Fulgrim, this is due to the outline layer becoming “normal” mode again when you merge, if you do delete, everything will look fine and similar. Then I continue rendering him and tidy up the background a little. Overtime I also create separate selections for the sword and capes etc, it makes it easier to paint this overlapping elements.

04. Like usual, I added a layer in “color” mode and start putting colors for Fulgrim. Overlay layers was also added whenever it was needed in order to enhance and correct colors. A normal layer on top is also used for opaque painting to tidy up and bring out details like those golden trimmings and gem highlights. As you can see some of the design like the knee guard were not the same as the sketch, this were design on the fly because sometimes after painting, you will realize you can make better design than the sketch, and so you improvise. The details on the sword are also painted directly on the word. Drawing it on paper first and painting it over would be so much more difficult, drawings are not very good for miniscule details. The background is a mixture of textures and paint overs. And the marines was also added later on and painted in the same way as Fulgrim, outline drawing and shape making, except that they start in colors straight away. Now the painting seemed more or less done, but things are still lacking, focus, lighting, and mood are not yet there.

05. I did say that I’d only realize my mistake with the trademark giant eagle shoulder at the final stage didn’t I? So I draw the design on paper, because as mentioned before, straight line are easier to do on drawing, after which I colored it as usual like the marines. I added Damask textures for the cape to represent the lavishness of Fulgrim, and also glows to the gem on the sword. I refined the volumes by adding more highlights and shadows using a soft brush over “multiply”, “overlay” and “color dodge” layers, color picking colors from the background. I darken the background using gradients on multiply layers. As I have made selections of the buildings previously, it was easy for me to darken the buildings without affecting the skies. I added more warmth to the painting by adjusting color balance, now the painting can be considered done. There are always areas that you can improve on, but as they say, the difficult part is knowing when to stop and I decided this would be it. Fulgrim is now more focused and defined, so my mission is accomplished.