Team CHOW II: RANDOM TEAM #3

[Gominoid]

RANDOM TEAM THREE: Liz Edwards, blau, Gominoid

(http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...&postcount=173)

Team CHOW II - Topics and Main Thread:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=164934

Let the discussion begin!

[Gominoid]

Let's use this thread as sketchbook.
As our first step I think we should select the character we want to create. Each one of us will have to make 1 character with 2 portraits to achieve the total of the 6 required portraits.

We must use this information, given in the main thread:

Gender: Male / Female

Race: Human / Elf / Half-Elf / Dwarf / Orc - (and anything else you can think of!)

Class: Fighter (Barbarians, Knights, Dark Knights, Brawlers, etc) / Thief (Assasins, Rogues, etc)/ Spell Caster (Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, etc) / Healer (Priest, Cleric, White Mage, Medic, etc) - (feel free to make up something for this, too)

Alignment: Good / Evil (please do both for each character)

In my case, I would like to go for something like a warmage.


Of course this is just my opinion, if you think that maybe we must start discussing about other stuff then let's do it.

[Gominoid]

Some stolen pics for INSPIRATION!

[Liz Edwards]

Alrighty, awesome

I've been going through an OH MY GOD KNIGHTS ARE AWESOME phase so I already started a male human knight as a bit of a warm-up. I'll finish him off and post him up a little later tonight. He's a bit generic so he'll probably not be my character, but I'm just trying to get into it

[Gominoid]

Cool, I can't wait to see that knight!
I think I will start my mage to explore some concepts right now...

[Liz Edwards]

Cool, post up your ideas

Here's where I got to with my dude:

[Gominoid]

Yeah! looks great!
You re very good with colors.

This is what I've been doing:


The armors look quite different in some aspects that maybe we should modify but at least we have some coincidences (giant shoulder pads lulz and neck protection)

[blau]

Great! my partners are good, fast and motivated. This is going to be fun

heh, I was making a google image search for baldur's gate portraits and found this thread, didn't know that was Jason Manley's work! Thats awesome. From all the games I've played, these were the images that stuck with me.
But anyway, I have been trying to do some master classic studies lately, and thought it would be great if our final pictures have this same type of classical portrait, at least for their color and lightning... and overall mood?

I'll think what I want my character to be, I'll post some sketches tomorrow.

How are we going to work as a team? I've never done anything like this, never got my hand into someone elses work, it would be fun if we swithed characters at some point and help and learn from each others work no?

[Gominoid]

Hi there blau!
I love your idea for the portraits, the colors look quite dark and realistic, I really like that.
About the team work thing it would be cool to experiment with each others characters to see the results and get new ideas.


And I also have some ideas:
I was thinking that it would be cool to design some kind of military logo to use in the armors of our characters, like they are part of the army of some kingdom and also if possible design a single armor for the 3 characters to make them look as a team, of course the armors will have lesser modification to give each character different customization. Also they will share some clothes with the same color, like the RTS videogames where all the units from one player share the same color, what do you think?

Logos:

[Gominoid]

hmm... I was analyzing the Icewind Dale portraits and i got to some general conclusions that I think will be useful if we want to get that mood:

- Faces (specially eyes) are full of shadows
- The weather in the background is always set at sunset or dawn, with lots of clouds.
- The character poses aren't violent or fluent, they are just standing, like resting.
- And the colors is like you got a great contrast, like lots of shadow in one side and lots of light in the other.

Maybe this is quite obvious, I don't know, but it seems interesting for me.

[Liz Edwards]

Gominoid - lookin' good. I'll do some more sketches and armour designs, see if I can come up with something that looks like it's from the same world as your guy

Blau - I like the classical portrait idea a lot. And I'd be up for switching characters at some point - it'd help us unify all our designs I think

[blau]

Hi there blau!
I love your idea for the portraits, the colors look quite dark and realistic, I really like that.
About the team work thing it would be cool to experiment with each others characters to see the results and get new ideas.


And I also have some ideas:
I was thinking that it would be cool to design some kind of military logo to use in the armors of our characters, like they are part of the army of some kingdom and also if possible design a single armor for the 3 characters to make them look as a team, of course the armors will have lesser modification to give each character different customization. Also they will share some clothes with the same color, like the RTS videogames where all the units from one player share the same color, what do you think?

Logos:

Well, remember they have to be of different races and classes, and both good and evil. I'm not sure if the both of you could work on knights, maybe we should ask daewesten? I'll probably work on a mage or an assassin, so the design of the symbol would have to work on different types of cloth, armor, or even on a pendant. And maybe there should be two of them, one for each "team", good and evil?

We still have time to decide on a style for the final images, lets work on the character design first, but there are many different styles in classical painters, and its better to study the source anyway. I hadn't noticed how they unified the backgrounds in icewind dale portraits even if they are very different environments, thats cool, we could use that.

[Gominoid]

As you said, we re not allowed to make the same classes and races, but my character is not going to be a knight, I was thinking of a full armored mage used in combat. And about the race I used the same design on an elf:



I am also considering to switch my character to be a female, and maybe I will have to add some additional robes to make him/her look more like a spellcaster.

And about the symbol, I was thinking the same thing about having two symbols, one for each side, like in Arcanum, where they have the "Aligment-meter"



As you can see, the symbols are quite simple and one is the opposite of the other.

[Gominoid]

So this is the female version of my character:



EDIT:

Useful link for the future:
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials/7714

Some color samples I took from the Icewind Dale portraits:

[blau]

I think your other symbol examples were better. The animals used already have some meaning. This ones mean nothing, and this work doen't have enough weight to fill them with any meaning. Hmm, I hope you can understand me, words are not my thing and english is not my language :/

Be careful with the borrowed palettes, the colors only work with each other, and may seem too dark, or too blue, or too desaturated, or too something on their own. The palette of each image should be chosen on its own.

Here's my first sketch. Regular thief. For the two version I'll probably go with an assassin on one side and a regular semi-ranger robin hood type for the other
She's a shapeshifter. Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone has any idea for breaking them for all the pics it would be good.

edit: look at what I just found

[Gominoid]

I think your other symbol examples were better. The animals used already have some meaning. This ones mean nothing, and this work doen't have enough weight to fill them with any meaning. Hmm, I hope you can understand me, words are not my thing and english is not my language :/

Yeah I understand you, so it would be better to design our own symbols or maybe just forgetting about that, mabe is not THAT necessary. BTW my main language is Spanish

Be careful with the borrowed palettes, the colors only work with each other, and may seem too dark, or too blue, or too desaturated, or too something on their own. The palette of each image should be chosen on its own.

Yeah you're right!
I tried to paint the armor using this palettes and I got some ugly green not steel-like thing...

Here's my first sketch. Regular thief. For the two version I'll probably go with an assassin on one side and a regular semi-ranger robin hood type for the other
She's a shapeshifter. Speaking of stereotypes, if anyone has any idea for breaking them for all the pics it would be good.

Cool stuff... the only thing I don't understand is what do you mean by "shapeshifter"... like a werewolf?
And about stereotypes I think they must be broken with a radical and strange design, weird magical weapons with unique form and that kind of things, in your case for being a thief class it would be cool having some gadgets, like nightvision googles with a rusty-medieval-bronze look.
In my case, by putting lots of armor in a spell caster and with the gauntlets like weapons I think I break the stereotype, maybe I am wrong, what do you think?

edit: look at what I just found

Yeah, that's the same link I posted above, you probably didn't see it, it looks useful.


EDIT:

hmmm... I had the idea of adding a "setting" or "background theme" or something like that to unify the characters, the first thing that came into my mind were vampires, yeah, imagine this: our characters are vampire slayers from the same party, the three hunt vampires but they use different methods (for example: the fighter kills them with sword and shield, the spellcaster with magic and the thief with his cunning blades and gadgets).
The "vampire theme" is just a perfect example for some reasons:
- It will help us to unify our character designs (to make them look that they are from the same universe)
- Vampires fit perfectly with high fantasy and medieval/dark age.
- It will be easier to make the evil version of our characters (imagine that our characters are biten by vampires and they become part of them, the only thing we will have to do is make portraits of them with a vampiric look)

This is and example but we could apply it if you want, or maybe looking for another setting, I don't know... maybe pirates? lol

Another edit:
I was bored and I have no life, so I made an alternative character:
some warrior-assassin-vampireslayer-revamped-orc-guy in black leather armor:

[blau]

Yeah I understand you, so it would be better to design our own symbols or maybe just forgetting about that, mabe is not THAT necessary. BTW my main language is Spanish

ah tambien? bien

Cool stuff... the only thing I don't understand is what do you mean by "shapeshifter"... like a werewolf?

Its shifter, without the shape. They are humanoids with a little animal blood in them. A little bit like furries, but more human looking and not anime-looking

And about stereotypes I think they must be broken with a radical and strange design, weird magical weapons with unique form and that kind of things, in your case for being a thief class it would be cool having some gadgets, like nightvision googles with a rusty-medieval-bronze look.
In my case, by putting lots of armor in a spell caster and with the gauntlets like weapons I think I break the stereotype, maybe I am wrong, what do you think?

I was thinking of a more conceptual thing, but since I can't think of anything, that will do for now

hmmm... I had the idea of adding a "setting" or "background theme" or something like that to unify the characters, the first thing that came into my mind were vampires, yeah, imagine this: our characters are vampire slayers from the same party, the three hunt vampires but they use different methods (for example: the fighter kills them with sword and shield, the spellcaster with magic and the thief with his cunning blades and gadgets).
The "vampire theme" is just a perfect example for some reasons:
- It will help us to unify our character designs (to make them look that they are from the same universe)
- Vampires fit perfectly with high fantasy and medieval/dark age.
- It will be easier to make the evil version of our characters (imagine that our characters are biten by vampires and they become part of them, the only thing we will have to do is make portraits of them with a vampiric look)

This is and example but we could apply it if you want, or maybe looking for another setting, I don't know... maybe pirates? lol

I think the vampires idea is too restricting and stereotypical. With the shifter and symbols talk, I thought about each side having characteristics of an animal, but not necessarily the same characteristic, so each of us can decide. Could be the pose, or the face, or the armor etchings, or the weapons or anything.

Another edit:
I was bored and I have no life, so I made an alternative character:
some warrior-assassin-vampireslayer-revamped-orc-guy in black leather armor:

hahaha good. I would like to see how you would make a good version of him.
His hands look huge compared to the tiny waist.

[Gominoid]

Its shifter, without the shape. They are humanoids with a little animal blood in them. A little bit like furries, but more human looking and not anime-looking

It's the first time I hear about Shifters, I found this in Wikipedia:

Shifters, also known as the weretouched, are a fictional race in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game's Eberron campaign setting. They are an option Dungeons & Dragons players can choose when they make their game characters. This race is featured for their ability to act in a bestial or close to nature manner, doing such things as running on all fours, climbing trees, and fighting with bare claws or teeth. Their sense of smell is also heightened, when compared to humans, but they are suggested to have worse social manners, as a race,because they are used to living 'wild', outside of the villages most people settle in. In terms of genetic derivation, they are commonly thought to be the result of crossbreeding between humans and lycanthropes but have become a true-breeding race.

This reminds me a lot to Wolverine from the X-Men lol

I think the vampires idea is too restricting and stereotypical. With the shifter and symbols talk, I thought about each side having characteristics of an animal, but not necessarily the same characteristic, so each of us can decide. Could be the pose, or the face, or the armor etchings, or the weapons or anything.

I really like the idea, the only problem is that I've seen some sketches from other teams were they were making something similar, specially the Team Thundercats:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=164566

EDIT: I have just re-read this and I think I misunderstand you, you were talking about the symbols and I was talking about the characters I think, so forget about I wrote above

And yes, the vampire setting is too stereotypical, we shall invent something new... the only thing that comes into my mind right now is inventing new races and classes, but really strange and crazy things... and also I was thinking about the concept of a post-apocalyptic era but in the middle ages, a zombie apocalypse maybe, like in movies like Dawn of the Dead. Or maybe like in the videogame Arx Fatalis were the Sun has dissapeared and people are forced to live in underground kingdoms. Or maybe we can make a huge combination: new races and classes in a post-apocaliptic medieval world were the Sun has been destroyed and the surface is full of frozen flesh-eating zombies lol

[Liz Edwards]

I'm absolutely up for giving our characters a bit of a twist. I kinda like the medieval post apocalyptic thing, especially if zombies are involved haha high fantasy isnt my thing, so sorry if I'm not pitching in much on the ideas front. I need to do some research really

Anyway I thought about my knight's armour some more, I've not finished it but I'll throw it up. We need to decide on our setting really, I'd like to make him more interesting but I don't know which way to take him yet

[Gominoid]

cool, that knight certainly looks better now. It's okay if we stop making sketches now, we must define the setting for our characters so they look like they are from the same world.

One idea then would be the medieval zombie apocalypse thing.

[blau]

sorry for the late reply

I really like the idea, the only problem is that I've seen some sketches from other teams were they were making something similar, specially the Team Thundercats:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=164566

EDIT: I have just re-read this and I think I misunderstand you, you were talking about the symbols and I was talking about the characters I think, so forget about I wrote above

I wouldn't worry much if we have a similar idea to other groups. As long as we keep our ideas ours, some overlapping doesn't matter, and with this many groups it will happen. You didn't misunderstand me, I was talking about the symbols, but also about physical traits, stances or any other ways you could think about showing an animal through a person. It doesn't have to be in every way possible, just an unifying element expressed in different possible ways.

And yes, the vampire setting is too stereotypical, we shall invent something new... the only thing that comes into my mind right now is inventing new races and classes, but really strange and crazy things... and also I was thinking about the concept of a post-apocalyptic era but in the middle ages, a zombie apocalypse maybe, like in movies like Dawn of the Dead. Or maybe like in the videogame Arx Fatalis were the Sun has dissapeared and people are forced to live in underground kingdoms. Or maybe we can make a huge combination: new races and classes in a post-apocaliptic medieval world were the Sun has been destroyed and the surface is full of frozen flesh-eating zombies lol

Ever played Planescape Torment? another one of the baldur's gate and icewind dale series... but the main character was a dead guy ... good game

Anyway, I think the zombies are as steretypical as the vampires, but I'm not as tired of rotting walking corpses as I am with bloody fangs, so I'll go with this idea. Especially if it will get Liz more enthusiastic

I'm not looking forward to think the setting, though. Did I tell you words are not my thing?

[Gominoid]

Cool, so our setting will be the medieval zombie apocalypse. I have some ideas in mind for the clothing and accesories for all the characters, good and evil, I will post em soon for you as "tips".
Feel free to invent new races, or weird concepts, or whatever.
Ok, here is where we start to work seriously

[Gominoid]

Some ideas:

Possible character backgrounds:

Figher
- Good: former paladin/knight from some holy order, now in the zombie apocalypse he seeks to protect the unprotected. He kill zombies only to avoid being killed, he don't like killing them because he understands that in fact they are infected people.
- Evil: secret member of the cult that released the plague that convert people into zombies, nobody know of his real identity. He is a blood-thirsty warrior that love killing lots and lots of zombies.

Thief
- Good: a stealthy guy that doesn't want to get in trouble. He prefers ranged weapons to avoid danger. He kill zombies only to avoid being killed, he don't like killing them because he understands that in fact they are infected people.
- Evil: a psycho assassin with amazing close combat skills, he uses blades with strange designs and really enjoy slaughtering zombie hordes.

Spellcaster
-Good: a cleric, former member of the same order as the fighter, he seeks to help people with his healing skills and is investigating the source of the plague that wants to erradicate. He kill zombies only to avoid being killed, he don't like killing them because he understands that in fact they are infected people.
- Evil: a necromancer, secret member of the same cult as the fighter, he uses his dark magic to control zombies for his own benefit.

Some notes:
- We are in a kingdom full of anarchy, there are small independant cities, there are no news about the king or the royal army, there is no trade.
- There is no minning activity, so is really difficult to get great amounts of steel .
- There aren't many blacksmiths or craftmen to make good quality weapons.

Sketches (they are explained below):



1) Full-body leather armor with neck protection to avoid contact with infected fluids and to avoid zombie bites.
- Good looking armor: magic runes or magic tattoos for protection
- Evil looking armor: aggressive phrases (maybe this is not useful because in that time people didn't know how to write or how to read)

2)a) Hand-crafted weapons (it was really hard to find a blacksmith)
- Good looking hand-crafted weapon: magic runes.
- Evil looking hand-crafted weapon: aggressive phrases, lots of blood and flesh, blade with teeth for more gory deaths.

b) Gloves with metal knuckle protection
- Good: in case of needing to punch zombies.
- Evil: (spiked knuckles) in case of needing to punch zombies and MAKE EM SUFFER!

3) Amulets
- Good: magic amulet for protection
- Evil: hand-crafted amulet made out of zombie teeth, bones, fingers.

4) Cloaks and stuff
- Good: some rags.
- Evil: "leather" cloak made of zombie skin (zombie faces).

5) Boots
- Good: some metal for protection purposes.
- Evil: some metal and spikes for head smashing purposes.

6) Random stuff

a) Metal wrist protection is used for blocking incoming attacks with weapons, zombies dont use weapons, so unless the wrist protection is made out of some rags used for avoid harming the wrist while using weapons, they are useless.

b) Shields are used to block incoming attacks with weapons, they are heavy and don't allow you to run really faster, so unless they have some spikes or sharpened sides, they are useless.

7) Fighter only: custom leather armor. As a matter of honor, he still preserves some parts of his former armor and uniform.

8 ) Thief only: some stuff
- Evil: he managed to attach blades and spikes in his leather armor as a way of protection or maybe to kill zombies faster. His has four or five blades with different shapes arranged in a way that he can take them out easily in combat. He uses some strange weapons invented by him, as the hook with a chain.

- Good: crossbow as main weapon, a ranged weapon that fit with the assassin aesthetics and allows him to stay away from danger. Lots of throwing knives in different parts of his body.

9) EVIL!!dfajksdkasfd!!!
a) For evil characters that love killing zombies: lots of scars because they are all the time in the middle of the battleground.
b) Some punk-like accesories to make evil characters look rebel.
c) Trophies obtained in zombie hunting.

And that's all, hope you get inspired

[blau]

Thanks for all the work you did there
The setup is good. Though I think it would be good to explain a bit more about the overall situation of the god. Not much necessary, just a basic explanation.

Some comments:
If the good guys can have runes and tattoos as protection then so should the bad ones, just different ones. The fuck off or anything similar doesn't work at all.

The cloak made of faces doesnt make sense to me. zombie leather would have to do, even if it won't be read as such in the end.

I can agree with the rest, if its taken just as guidelines and not rules. I'll put some sketches tomorrow. Good work

[Gominoid]

Thanks for all the work you did there
The setup is good. Though I think it would be good to explain a bit more about the overall situation of the god. Not much necessary, just a basic explanation.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "overall situation of the god"

Some comments:
If the good guys can have runes and tattoos as protection then so should the bad ones, just different ones. The fuck off or anything similar doesn't work at all.

My idea was that the good guys were something like "we believe in the power of the runes so we use them" and the bad guys were something like "MAGIC RUNES FOR PROTECTION?? WTF? THAT'S BULLSHIT MAN! LET'S KICK SOME ASSES!!"
This was just a way to show a difference between the good characters and the evil characters.
If you think that this doesn't work, let's make some more "evil looking runes". Or just don't use the damn runes lol I put them just because I think they look medieval

The cloak made of faces doesnt make sense to me. zombie leather would have to do, even if it won't be read as such in the end.

My idea was using this as a way to show how brutal are the bad guys, take a look at this picture (the main guy with the cloak):

http://allmusic.galeon.com/caratulas...ssed-front.jpg

This was just a suggestion, like all the other ideas I posted.

I can agree with the rest, if its taken just as guidelines and not rules. I'll put some sketches tomorrow. Good work

Of course this are just guidelines, I was just trying to show my ideas, I'm not some kind of supreme leader to invent rules for you.
Cool you liked what I've done here
I'll be waiting to see some awesome sketches. Good luck

[Gominoid]

Some stuff



Yeah, I just modified the previous sketch, I liked the pose

EDIT:

For final presentation it would be cool using something like a character sheet where we could show the character information, also add some fictional useless stats.






I'm also thinking in switching to a gnoll cleric, gnolls are cool werehyena guys from D&D, they fit with the corpse eating thing.

[blau]

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "overall situation of the god"

I don't know what I meant either :/
It probably was about the general situation of the world

My idea was using this as a way to show how brutal are the bad guys, take a look at this picture (the main guy with the cloak):

http://allmusic.galeon.com/caratulas...ssed-front.jpg

hahaha this is the first time I've seen a cannibal corpse cover as a reference for anything.... heh, you get 5 points for that

We would have to be careful with that kind of presentation (the character sheets) to distract too much attention from the portrait

Anyway, here's my sketch. Trying to get the mood, not yet the details

[Gominoid]

I don't know what I meant either :/

lol that was funny

hahaha this is the first time I've seen a cannibal corpse cover as a reference for anything.... heh, you get 5 points for that

Cool, thanks

---

Really good work there with the sketches, the characters fit well with the background colors (ranger with the yellow thing and assassin with darkness). They have a cool anti-zombie look and they are really similar to what I had in mind. Personally I prefer the ranger, that cloak and those boots look kickass.

EDIT:

Gnoll Witchdoctor:



Good: uses voodoo magic to control the body of his patients to heal them and healing potions or healing herbs. Uses explosive potions in combat.
Evil: uses voodoo magic to control groups of zombies. Uses a bloody dagger .

[Liz Edwards]

I have a couple of quick sketches. Sorry I've not really been around, not been feeling too inspired with any art recently

Anyways I'm not sure if this fits with what you guys have in mind, but in my head my good knight/warrior guy is an unwilling protector of what is good and right. He didn't go through all the trouble of being knighted to slay the undead! Dragons are more his style, or at least the enemies of his King and country. He is doing God's work, begrudgingly crushing the devil's undead playthings.

And the evil guy, I guess he is what the good guy could have become if he fell into the wrong crowd during those awkward teenage years. Maybe he ran away and became a page to a black knight. One thing leads to another and BAM he's in a dungeon playing bodyguard to a dark wizard who is fiddling with the underworld and bringing the dead back to life!

[Gominoid]

Cool, you didn't make him look too "powerful" like your previous characters, which is good because makes him fit well with the zombie-survivor aesthetic, the torn cape/rags is a good detail. Maybe he doesn't look to "post-apocalyptical" like I was expecting, it would be cool to see some stuff like a modificated asymmetric armor, more Mad Max-like
The only critique I have to give you is that in my opinion they don't look like they are the same person, personally I will use the same pose for both versions of my character with modifications.