ChOW#300 :: THE MONARCH OF DUALITY

[Rhdnor]

JPerols: While I totally get autumn, your spring is just a green male version of it. I don't mean Bambi spring, but may be a little springier? Unless you planned to add something anyway.

[Caio Chagas]

Hey guys! Nice entries we already have here. This is going to be an awesome match, hope to finish in time, lol.

Here is my first WIP. I'm going to the "Angel/Demon" stuff. Critiques are very much appreciated.

[jPerols]

Rhdnor: Oh yeah, lots of stuff to add, to both of them. To me he kinda looks like a man made of sallad or that vegetable gremlin from Gremlins 2 atm.

[kliest]

A rare image of the monarchs of quantum physics

standing together for a billionth a of a second before

they annihalate each other.. the queen is

created of matter and the king is anti-matter..

after destruction they appear in another part of the universe

a billionth of a second later..

and so repeated forever... until the collapse of the universe..

..they said it was a difficult marriage..

[David Keen]

Hey guys , awesome stuff going up so far! I've been working on my first character today who is a fire monarch. Looks like Christoffer and I had a similar idea with the fire and ice monarchs

kliest Love the idea man, the composition is looking interesting as well. I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle paint and colour.

Caio Chagas Looking good. Maybe try working with some silhouettes first to create some more variety in your designs.

Dread Reaper Cool ideas, some really killer poses will help express their traits.

Christoffer My flame brother, I really like the bottom right one as well. The smouldering skin should be a great effect to paint. As Dread Reaper mentioned adding some of the clothing from the other designs would be worth experimenting with. At the moment she is looking a little bit plain.

jPersols Yours are looking fantastic! The main area that I think needs attention are the hands, both sets are the weakest part of the paintings at the moment. You've done a great job on the designs and detailing, as everyone else has mentioned Spring kicks so much ass!

Kupun Nice sketches so far, I especially like the guy picking his nose with the sword.

Pixeltuner Killing it as always! What's the bird Dystopia is holding? That thing looks fucking scary!

BozoTheClown I like your idea for order and chaos as opposites but at the moment the designs both look a little scary to me. The spiky plates on the order knight look a bit sinister so perhaps explore some designs that have some more curves and less sharp edges. I'd also suggest getting some reference for your figures poses. It makes things much easier to have an accurate figure drawing to build your costume over, it easy to get into confusing anatomy trouble when working off the cuff. Great stuff though man, Chaos looks like a nasty piece of work!

Sony Cool sketches man, I love the textures you use in your sketching process. I'm looking forward to seeing you push the extremes of feast and starvation as the pieces progress.

Rob Powell Beautiful lines dude! can't wait to see more.

Jaik Nice start, the queen of death is looking great. I reckon you could push the design on the king of life further, at the moment he doesn't read as being very organic of life bringing on the first glance.

JanJager Awesome sketches, I especially like the tribal pair. Can't wait for more!

Dranyer So many great ideas here! For your silhouettes my favourites are 15, 16, 18 and 26. Of the sketches as with everyone else the tree woman bottom right is great and the little kid is pretty cute.

Nim Really cool idea. It's nice to see someone going for something less obvious than my cliched' fire and ice. It might be worth trying to work out the designs separately then do a final illustration that includes the intwined pose you're working on. Should make it simpler to work out all the details.

ChaosTheory Good stuff man, I like that you've used a contemporary setting rather than going straight fantasy.

jsn Cool drawing so far. Could you push the materials that land is made up of further? Maybe some more bark, dirt or rock? At the moment he looks a little like a sick dude with green hair. Sea woman looks tough as shit though!

NickyBeats Looks like your figures are coming along well man. As a couple of others have mentioned I think you could push your designs further to help the concept read more easily. The rich woman in particular needs work in this regard. Think about the symbols and motifs that express wealth and poverty and look at incorporating them into your design.

Suneater Great idea! The design is looking cool as well. She is really stretched at the moment though which may be intentional but worth mentioning anyway.

ChromaticCodex Great sketches, challenging idea to try and communicate.

[gerezon]

Great stuff in here.

I went with a master & slave idea.

[nim]

gerezon: strong concept!

Excitement/Apathy: So my 5th try to make something that works compositionally.... always start out that way. doesn't fit a CHoW very well but I find ortho concept work so tedious x) will just have to work on their costumes and concepts when I've nailed pose and composition. prolly a recipe for lose but oh well. it's most fun.
EDIT:
redid the guy a couple of times after last update cause he looks more "what the...." than apathic but went back cause he was just better looking this way...
EDIT2: next up: painting!

[delightful_piffle]

Comedy/Tragedy: Working on composition. Tragedy looks more like he's sleeping right now XD

[Noctisette]

My idea for this was a mash up of night/day and sun/moon, but after few days I feel the idea was not that special for me so I thought of another. After several brainstorms, I settled for the classic black/white that somehow has an offense/defense undertone cos I picked chess as the design inspiration.

I may change the Queen's weapon to a morning star cos her halberd doesn't look very Mordor-ish compared to her spiky armor..

[sony]

david keen: thanks for suggestions

gerezon: cool sketch liking the energy in it, just thinking about slave as monarch, will be tricky though,

delightful_piffle: currently the composition is saying look more of a "acceptance/deny concept. its more of a pinup pose for female, look at some of comical poses for comedy, from charlie chaplin, clowns, animated movies posters as well, and keep up the energy

noctisette: nice start

[iclairedonaldson]

well here is what I'm thinking for the first half of the challenge. I'm going to try and design the monarchs of teaching/answers and learning/questions. I'm not set on the phrasing just yet, but I'm hoping to iron it out as I develop the characters. This is my design for the monarch of learning. I was aiming for simple and youthful. The second monarch's design is next, any words of wisdom? This is my first challenge, so bear with me.


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[jsn]

...updatingism!

...more things to add, when I have time(naturally)

Thanks for the comments!
Will reply and comment soon!

[marko markovic]

here is mine start , start with palette and one female character nude
and than i put another character demonic type ...
so i am thinking something like beauty and beast, angel and demon.....
girl represent love and life and demon is pure rage...for now...
anyway very interesting chow...for illustration

[Metallurgist]

I believe this is my first chow. I saw that it was #300 and figured its as good a time as any to start doing these.
Going for a war and peace sort of theme.

[Forrest_I]

Haven't entered a CHOW in a long time. I saw it was #300 and thought I must enter it I'm going for a fire/water sort of an aspect.

[Sseal]

Very cool topic and some great art here already. I was able to at least get one concept in. Heaven and Earth. Real, tangible "Earthy" Vs. ethereal, intangible etc...

[Metallurgist]

Updated. I think my peace chick is kind of generic :/
Also I'm not sure the blood and bone aspect of war will read as war.

[Rhdnor]

Updated. I think my peace chick is kind of generic :/
Also I'm not sure the blood and bone aspect of war will read as war.

Is your final going to have war and peace facing away from each other? Because they look like they're afraid to face each other, both come across as weak (speaking purely about the body language), when both (one as destructive and powerful and the other peaceful yet powerful) can be powerful I suggest full front faced body language, with peace encompassing (or above) war or whichever one you want winning, unless you play around a bit more with the body language to convey conflict.

[jsn]

...ideas generating ideas!

New sketch!
Similar characters, and after more sketching, I'm happier!

Keep the updates coming!

[Sulk-Sal]

Gonna try this one, hope I can finish in time.

The idea is civilization/nature, east/west kinda thing. Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic.

[Rhdnor]

Life and Death, both reaching out across the divide, because life and death are cyclical opposites, death gives rise to the new and all that. I thought of them circling each other but then I thought that would be a fairly predictable yin yang composition, so I thought I'd just do a classical painting type thing. I want the whole thing to look a little medieval and macabre (not overtly horror, just a underlying thing)

I want to know if Death looks silly not wearing any underwear, is it relevant or am reading too much into that?

[JanJager]

David keen
Nice start I think you can make her hands a bit smaller to give her a even more feminine look. Perhaps let the light from the fire affect more on her upper body. Maybe ad some small folds on her upper body to of show the material in the cloth more.
Sulk-Sal
civilization/nature interesting take on the subject.
Rhdnor
As you say looks a bit medieval. Can bee very cool

Going for the duality between an open mind and a suspicious mind.

[Dranyer]

JanJager: Those are looking awesome, keep it up! the little monkey head dress is great!

Rhdnor: Your death concept is looking a little bland as just a skeleton in a cape maybe if he was dressed up in regal finery that was worn through and tattered.

Sulk-Sal: A neat idea, i'll be interested to see how it develops.

jsn: Your latest sketch is reading much more clearly. Since you're going with an elemental theme try and really push the concept, you can make your water figure much more dynamic and your earth figure much more abstract rather than trying to stick with human anatomy and static poses.

Metallurgist: I think your war concept is a little to abstract to really come across as war, you might consider giving him like a suit of armor something jagged and aggressive looking and then sticking him full of arrows and swords and spears etc.

Sseal: I like the kind of playing card-esque look of your composition, although at the moment the position of her leg looks pretty bizarre in relation to the rest of her body.

Forrest_I: I'm digging the fins and the shells and the sea-life on your water figure but the armor on your fire dude feels a little detached from the concept itself.

Dranyer I love those silhouettes. How quickly do you draw one of them?

I try not to spend more than a couple of minutes on any one silhouette.


more sketches... narrowing it down a bit. (1-4 Magic/Science, 5-8 Fauna/Flora, 9-12 Physical might(body)/Mental fortitude(mind), 13-16 Past/Future)

[Jussslic]

Holy crap Drayner, those sketches are fantastic... number 13 is working for me in a big way, but then again so are the rest of them. Also loving 5, and 15 looks like he could wrestle a grizzly bear.

[Forrest_I]

Forrest_I: I'm digging the fins and the shells and the sea-life on your water figure but the armor on your fire dude feels a little detached from the concept itself.

Thanks, I'll see if I can't change that. I was trying to go for a whole like fire forges metal and armor for war kind of a feel. And a water is more calm and natural kind of a feel, but I see what you mean.

[Dread_Reaper]

@Forrest_I
I gotta agree with Drayner, the fire guy's armor seems really divorced from the central concept. What if you make his armor out of some kind of like igneous rock? Or obsidian? Or magma? Keep playing with it.

@Jsn
Definitely an improvement. Before it looked like two monsters trying to duke it out Godzilla style, but this very much brings across your ideas in a less distracting manner.

@Metallurgist
War is looking pretty beastly. He seems like he could definitely benefit from some metal blades or something coming out of him somewhere to really liven up his silhouette and add some violence to him. As for peace... I don't know, maybe some doves? A bunch of broken arrows?

@Sseal
I LOVE the pose. Its so elegant and so brings across your point. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

@Sulk-sal
I like the concept but the design isn't really coming through for me. Just a thought: how about you add some industrial elements to the "civilization" guy and maybe remove some of the civilized garments from nature girl? I'm not saying make her nude, but maybe look to some Native American tribes to see more "natural" garb? A thought.

@Rhdnor
Looks like we've got the same concept! I really like the classical painting way of bringing it together, so cool.

@Drayner
Holy well-developed-concept-through-sketching Batman! I really like all of them except the flora/fauna concept, and the only reason I say that is because they're both very "nature" oriented themes and aren't really opposites (also I think conceptually it won't be as interesting in the end). Other than that, go nuts! Great work!

So here's where I'm at. Definitely done more work on the king than the queen at this point. Still got to add her vines and so forth. I like the juxtaposing of the poses, both reaching for the viewer, one with grasping claws and one with welcome hand. The concept hopefully is coming through well enough. Your thoughts? Really going to have to hustle on this one since I won't have the weekend to do it... Yikes!

-Dread_Reaper

[Jaik]

Sigh, needs more creativity, pretty cliché everything lol.

Everyones elses is looking great though, cant wait to see the final thread, going to be such a good read lol

[Rhdnor]

@Rhdnor
Looks like we've got the same concept! I really like the classical painting way of bringing it together, so cool.

Damn I shoulda paid closer attention to everyone's concepts and done something different. Thanks for being so cool about it.

[scatch]

hi
it has been some time but i finally decided to enter another chow.
really intresting topic these weeks. i choose the line "im a lover not a fighter"
so here are the lover and the fighter.

[Christoffer]

Crap! I have no idea if this is going to look good or not. I haven't even started designing my frost diety yet.

David Keen/Dread Reaper - Thanks guys. I'm currently adding a charred effect on parts of her body, to sort of give the impression of some type of outfit, but it's experimental at this stage.