CHoW#286 :: Aoife & Her Mechanical Guardian

[mcreation]

one more wip. a little more solid, what you guys like most, the more transparency feel of the first wip, or the more solid feel of this one, some progress on aoife,

[Andrusiak]

Just an early thumbnail, hopefully I can get it done in time. C & C please!

[Bnoch]

Lots of nice contrast between the guardian and girl in the sketches.

Some slick style from Johann. Nice shapes and edge quality.

Drayner- nice simple design. It has a big bold read. incorporate some smaller scale additions to balance it's size against the little girl (wiring, plates, bolts, etc.), and you've got a great big metal protective silverback. you're on the brink of goodness.

F**king penguin bot... like a transformer from my youth, but with happier feet. Classic.

My fav topics are the ones that end up with a ton of wacked out interpretations. nice.

[ded]

update, finally

[Firith]

Got a bit carried away with the whole mechanic feeling I started getting from
Aoife hope its acceptable!
I liked the thought that it's just her and the guardian living always on the run
to avoid attackers and to learn about the world so that she can decide which
side to join.
That thing she s holding is a staff-wrench.
If I can make it I ll make a transformation to vehicle mode for the guardian and definitely a weapon made of the exhaust and such.

[daniorrr]

update on mine.

the girl is much tinier now! and also shes a ginger.. the orange hair makes her stand out more

[GEB]

I don't know why I'm taking so f@cking long on this but here's me so far...

[GEB]

daniorrr: Nic esolid design. Like the painted on face. ARe you gunna colour the BG look a bit strange greyscale

Firith: Sweet! Though I don't think she should lean on the bot, it's likely to fall over!

ded: Crazy design! I really like the metal on the arms and legs.

Bnoch: What can I say... Awesome as always

Andrusiak: Looking forward to where you take this. Took me a moment to figure it out

mcreation: That's a pretty unique bot. Does it move about like tetris blocks?

[Incinerated]

bnoch

[Melyse]

Bnoch: The hair on your girl looks fantastic!

Don't know if I'll have time to finish this up, but I'll give it a try.


Really leaning towards the gorilla arms design.

[kingkostas]

dan liimatta- as usual very interesting roughs mate .
GEB- i like the way you work mate. Cant wait to see how this will progress.
Pixeltuner- I like the design and coloring of the guardian. nice vibe. Also the colors of the girl, produce nice contrast. Keep up the good work
Grumbleputty- Nice idea mate. Technically you should use less black, and i actually did a paintover to express what i wanna say
Lucassie- eheh thanks mate. Nice work on the face so far. Keep up , its still early to see it as a whole.
Kwshutt- THanks for the comment . The idea looks interesting. I could imagine the robot-guardian being a reflection of her own self (since it seems that they look similar to each other). So if she evolves the robot in a evil way it would present her evil seft etc.
Danior- Thats very interesting mate. Love the robot design and the scale
Incinerated- heheh lovely design of the penguin guardian mate!!!
Intothevoid-Very strange piece and original design in the guardian. It look sureallistic. But maybe in the long run, it would be harder to pass the message of a guardian etc.
Christoffer- Nice dynamic scene there mate. An alternative would be to limit the composition to the key-chars of the artorder. Sometimes before i start a piece, i think to myself, if i had the chars infront of me, and if i was going to photograph them rather than paint them, what would be my composition?It helps me focus sometimes
Stinkfist- The guardian looks tough . The emotion of the girl , provides nice space for story and life in the composition. Keep refining it and work on it as a whole in the beginning.
Dranyer- Nice guardian design mate.love the eyeball head.
Tamirespp- Hey thats a very interesting guardian here. Unique . I would place the Aoife more towards the center, because she is the main character of the description.
mcreation-hello. Thats a strange and interesting design.Nice black and white based design to show the both sides.
Andrusiak- since its in the beggining i cant say something. just keep up
Bnoch- i immediately fell in love with this one mate. Love both characters.
ded- heheeh that could be a great guardian in an animation
Firith- Ela man, polu kalh douleia . I like both the execution and the design. Again the element of modification can aid the concept since it offers something flexible (either bad or good).Keep up the good work

ok here some more work on mine. I will probably leave it unfinished since my time is limited and i have to be off home for the next days.
Good work everyone

here the paintover to explain some crits.

[elephant´s stroke]

@Bnoch amazing! your sketchbook is both inspiring and a great resource for learning.

so, i started over with a more dinamic idea. the robot is in the distance breacking some undesirable creatures, and she is floating close to "the camera", effortlessly beating a biomechanic creature while watching other way (to us, bot that might change).

Different tatoos in the forearms (i guess later they´ll have some weird wacky explanation to be there) , white pupil for her left eye....dragon scales (yeah i know) in the costume, a talisman in her belt....who knows what else, jeej.

I know is very rough as to give C&C but fell free to do so.

[Grumbleputty]

Grumbleputty- Nice idea mate. Technically you should use less black, and i actually did a paintover to express what i wanna say

Can't thank you enough for that, kingkostas- this is a great example of the sort of guidance that makes these contests so helpful! I'll incorporate your feedback this afternoon and post an updated WIP tonight.

(The fact that your quick paintover is about a hundred times better than the image I've been agonizing over for the last week is something I'm choosing not to think about at this time)

[Incinerated]

Bnoch The girl comes across as a off slightly better character, but all in all i think you nailed it

Hey thx for the feedback Kingkostas, like yours so far

Peng bot is pissed at me for being undecisive.

[bobtail]

Aah some of these entries look so good! Particularly loving yours, Kingkostas!

Quick update for mine. I've only done some work on Aoife since I last posted. Not much time this week so it's all a bit rushed (excuses!).

[IntoTheVoid]

Intothevoid-Very strange piece and original design in the guardian. It look sureallistic. But maybe in the long run, it would be harder to pass the message of a guardian etc.

Er, surrealistic? Damn, that's... not what I was going for at all. I figured it was wonky, but didn't think it was completely unreadable
*sigh* well, it's a bit late for me to scrap the design now, so I'll push this as far as I can and try to learn from that

[derekdedgell]

This is epic. Great work all around.

Pixeltuner - love it! Great contrast between the bot and girl

GEB - Oh man, that's gonna be epic when its done! Keep truckin

daniorrr - Great work! I adore your bot, that drawn on face made me smile.

Firith - Great take on it! Love the mechanic feel of Aoife too.

bobtail - Nice Aoife, she looks so innocent.

ded - that guardian is bad ass!

Bnoch - Wow man, thats great. Your Aoife is creeping me out. Dunno if that is intentional, but its definitely her smile combined with her head facing down and her eyes looking straight at the viewer. I think the pose contributes to it too.

Grumbleputty - That's one way to keep Aoife safe. I like it!

jon n - great sketch. Very animated.

ok, gotta post my stuffs. Will comment more later. So, I wasn't sure I'd have enough time to finish this (as always) but just could not resist trying. Just some initial sketches for Aoife and her guardian bot.

[Ironbyte]

Lots of awesome work, been busy but inspired to do something by this thread.

[Hideyoshi]

Here's a sketch! I am not happy with the girl's design. Wonder if I will actually finish it.
There are so many killer entries here! o_O

[Pixeltuner]

Bnoch: Awesome. She looks way too evil though and the lack of value on her dress makes her look oddly flat.

[MartinC]

kingkostas Love the colors

Bnoch How did you done this, the rendering is awesome.

IntoTheVoid I would add a unfocused environment and remove the wired shadow behind the girl.

bobtail nice design, the right shoulder looks wired, maybe you have too much contrast in value there

daniorrr nice picture, are the stereotypical three dots needed?

ded awesome


here's my next step, worked on the robot and environment
Aoife can sit, rest between his shoulders, while hi is moving
need to create more distance in the guardians body

[Stinkfist]

[Trolljack]

Progress is slow, BUT it's still do'able.... I hope.

Concept here is that her legend is based on celestial control. She has the power to shift the stars and planets, but due to her age she is unable to make any significance change just yet.

I want to capture the image of the guardian relaying the sky above as a virtual map for Aoife to play/ponder with until she is able to fully utilise her powers to either help shape habitable worlds or... ultimately destroy them.

She has also apparently scribbled doodles on her guardians chest piece.

The hardest part for me at the moment is still getting the robot design sorted, but we'll see:]

[mcreation]

yeahh Geb, it was tetris like in the begining but since i dont have the time to thing of all 24 pieces i imagined it to be, since it would close down around Aoefie to protect her, i will go to a more sci fi crazy thing, the idea is that the mecha is made from a inert cubes found on aofie planet thats a raw material, but when combined with enchantressess life energie, it can be shaped to desired forms and shapes, and its the only energie this material reacts, so only she can manuipulate it to her will, either good or bad...something like that!!!
thanks kingkostas, yeahh with so many amazing ideas around here, and starting already late, some crazy ideas must come to the plate, so one must not fall behind hehehe, yours by the way loos amazing, shame you cant finish it, but present it in the finals threath after so we can admire it finished.
Bnoch i love your image, not only is well rendered, but the whole simple concept about it amazes me...keep going and refining, about the girls dress i kinda like it that way, its almost like a overexposed realistic old colour photo, where the whites really popped out, but i imagine that even if correcting the values there, i will still like it hehe

About mine, one mor upgrade on it, maybe not to much, changed her pose, what you guys thing about it? still feel is kinda awkward the way her upper body conjucts with her lower body, will treat on that later.

[Ian Barker]

Getting a late start on this, here's my sketch so far:

[mcreation]

Hideyoshi i love your mecha its really amazing, and the perpective makes him so massive, about the girl try going with the stripes all the way up her body, or use some design of the mecha and aply it to aoife maybe those massive horns, or wings may inspire something in aoefie clothing, like a headset, or a shoulder stuff, i dont really know whats on your mind, but think about it

[tamirespp]

Update on this one. Thanks for the help! I dessaturated the red on the robot and poped out the girl more using the light. I've changed the orientation and placed the girl more closely to the center of the composition

[Trolljack]

Just wanted to share this sketch of my Aoife. One of those quick sketches that turn out better than you anticipated
I love this thread, so many awesome designs:']

Aoife the Enchantress.

[Grumbleputty]

Sigh...

I realized the reason I was struggling so much with my last piece was that I didn't start out with a strong idea of what the guardian was supposed to look like. So I started over this afternoon with a variation on the same idea, and worked up a reasonably detailed pencil drawing. A few hours of work, and I'm FINALLY starting to get excited about this version.



Thanks to everyone for the advice, encouragement and criticism

p.s.- Trolljack- absolutely adore your latest Aoife sketch!

[SnailsPace]

FN' A! Grumbleputty, Niiice Improvement!

If you have the time, play with that pincher, its wonky. Nice rendering on the spheres man!