IOW #9: Lava World

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Illustration of the Week #9: Lava World

This is an open topic with a two week deadline, make use of the extra time!

Topic
This weeks topic is Lava World. Your picture has to depict a scene from a lava world.
This is not Environment of the Week, so you do not have to create a big landscape illustration (it is allowed though!).
Your illustration can be whatever you believe happens on lava worlds, from lava-men fighting lava-dragons, lava-worms swimming in lava-lakes, lava-city, lava-mountain, lava-buggy race... you get the gist.




This weeks requirements are as follows:
- The picture must depict a scene from a lava world



Deadline
The deadline is Sunday 13th of November, 23:59 GMT

[Nele Klumpe]

I need a task this week, so:
Yaaay lava men fighting lava dragons!
I wanted to do a lava-mermaid first, but then I ended up with this oO
This is going to be a very disturbing perspective. I catch myself turning my head into weird poses constantly while drawing, as if that would help D:



Update! Lines and figuring out my palette



Lineart! Now follows the part where everything looks shitty XD

[Dreoilin]

Wow this is perfect!! I'm sitting in the airport now on my way back from Hawaii (honeymoon Woot Woot). After seeing the volcano I decided I really wanted to do something Pele/volcano/lava inspired as soon as I got back. So this challenge is super awesome Still have to move once I'm back, so here's hoping I get stuff together in enough time to finish!! (I've missed IOW so much- been too busy to draw last couple of weeks!!)

[Dahlia]

Avis Nocturna- that's looking awesome!

I wanted to do a lava sea creature, but lava is opaque, so I had to do research... Sulfuric acid has a high boiling point, is clear and non-flammable, and could (theoretically) exist in pools on a 'lava world,' so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it

Here's my rough start. He's chasing a little underwater boat thing, if its hard to tell....

[Blankstate]

Hmmm... maybe a bit too on the enviro side?



a crazy buggy race might be fun.

[Aksel Ludvigsen]

Blankstate, enviros are totally fine. It´s just not a requirement. Both look promising, I really like the look of the lava worm in the first one, I really want to see that one fully rendered. The second idea is more original though. I feel I want to see both finished!

[Jaunay]

https://plus.google.com/photos/10710...21537057348514

Here's a set of awesome reference photos. I had no idea real life could look like a mtg card. Perfect reference for us me thinks.

Sketching out some thumbs now.

[Rob Powell]

wow great topic! Hopefully I'll finish this one. Will wip up a few thumbs soon, and get some stuff going...

[Mhugo]

Awesome topic this round, love it=)

AvisNocturna, you have a really nice start there. Love that perspective and dynamic, but i like the colors of your first one a bit better, think its more intense and dramatic. Maybe you could keep some of these strong red tones. Looking forward to see more.

Dahlia, very interresting start and cool colors. I d love to see it progress

Blankstate, as Nyctalgia said...would be great to see them both finished Well, i like the first one a little bit better But i think you could improve your composition there. The left side has much more weight than the right, everything is happening on the left one, its a bit imbalanced...hope you know what i mean

Jaunay, man that link is great, unbelivable pictures, thanks for that

Had a very quick start on this one, wanted to go with some lava-lake-monster-thing...but not sure if i ll continue with this one, maybe i need a few more sketches before i continue.

[grenogs]

quick rough, going to take the sci-fi/future route. large cityscapes aren't really my thing, so this could prove to be a major disaster,
this may now get scrapped, just thought of another idea, lol. Lavaworld holiday, the adventure with a difference.

[Blankstate]

I tried adjusting the composition some, raised the canvas a little and cut some off the right and added to the left.



Mhugo Thanks for the feedback! Your worm/creature is looking good, much more original approach than mine. Peas let me know if the changes on mine look like it's working better.

Jaunay Man those pics are Amazazing! Yeah MTG artists are great. I had to try and turn one of those pics into a lightning elemental. Menacing, Scary Lightning Elemental? maybe not so much.


and here's another sketch just for fun after looking at those pics. Some sort of Halo/Quake-ish thing.


Nyctalgia Thanks man! I'm definitely going with the first one, hard to resist a good classic fantasy pic. And yeah, not really going for anything to original, just having some fun.

AvisNocturna That's looking really good. Great perspective. Hope sideways head neck cramps don't keep you finishing.

Dahlia Cool idea. Nice start.

grenogs Good ideas. I like both. The city would be a lot tougher to pull off, but what's the fun if it isn't challenging?

[grenogs]

thanks blankstate, you could be right, but at same time i think the city version will also be quicker to do.
blankstate: looking good so far, though unless your planning to add something extra to right hand side of your image, i would instead crop off that empty area, my eye keeps wandering over to that area, taking my focus away from your main characters. As for your new image, i think for that to really work, you need to change the angle, a worms eye view would really give it some impact, plus giving such an angle could let you add a really dramatic sky effect like the photo you have above.

[Mhugo]

blankstate, it does look a bit better, but everything is still happening on the left side. I think grenogs is right, cropping some of the right side could help.
An other idea could be to make the worm larger and closer to the viewer and to mirror the guy and the rock he stands on to the right side, to give the viewer a reason to look there and to balance the composition a bit more. Just play a bit with the different elements...maybe worth a try. Hope this helps a bit.

I like your new idea, but as grenogs said too, a much lower horizon would make it more dramatic and interresting.

[Blankstate]

Mhugo & grenogs Thanks for the suggestions but yeah I wasn't really intending to have any main character(s) as a focus in this but more of a sweeping world overview with character/creatures in it. I don't know, a composition like this

while it does make more sense in a traditional manner, wasn't exactly what I was going for. As for the other, yeah just a quick sketch (Sorry for spam) If I were to go for a comp like the lava worm above or the scifi-ish one, I think some some more dynamic action would definitely be an improvement and would try for something more like this.


Thanks for the feedback guys! Very helpful, I'll figure something out.

How's this for cropping the right side? Mwahahaha. just experimenting.

[grenogs]

blankstate top one is much better, also like the bottom image, it really does say lava WORLD. I think at the moment though it is slightly unbalanced, if you add a broken section of the bridge to the right side(coming from the bottom) that would help to balance the image. Also your main focus would then become the center of image, but give us a reason for us to want to focus our attention to that area, even something as simple as a tiny distant battle on the bridge could work.

[Mhugo]

Blankstate, yeah, the cropped one really looks better now. The bottom one is great too, but as grenogs said, there should be something going on in the middle to give the viewer a reason to rest there for a moment.
I really like that piece with the monster too, i think you could improve the pose of the guy shooting at the beast. A bit more exaggeration could help. Might be worth to have a look on some classic superhero-comics to get some inspiration for nice action-poses.

Some more sketching...i am totally unsure what i want to do with this nice topic

[Ofidian]

Sorry, Don't have much advice, more just praise XD.

Mhugo: Both those images look great. A lot of action with the lava worm while the tower has this impending doom kind of feel.

Blankstate: Love the cropped version. The wide version could look great with some more details in it.

Grenog: I know how you feel with cities ;_;. Hope to see what you do with it.

Dahlia: Love the concept and I feel it could be a really great piece.

AvisNocturna: I agree that the first images reds looked really great and I would like to see them in your newere one.

[Bergy68]

Okydoky I saw this today and jump right into in Artrage3 and started drawing like a madman...My hand is sore now. So thank you very much Nyctalgia!!! And I mean that in the most possible kindest way. Cause of what popped in my head.

I'm going with a Lava Ape yup you heard right. No fur (duh) Instead his skin will be cooled lava rock.

Here's my Initial illo

[Bergy68]

Some more work done...Hope I can get this done in time I have a lot of work to do for this one. But alas its time for work work. Blah!!!

[skMOP]

Here's a sketch inspired by the theme!:

I don't think I'll finish for submission though because it's looking a bit more like volcano land than lava world. :/

[tylerbsr7]

no kidding. somethings been born here... but what.... I need to add in some complimentary colors to make things pop and so some more refining in the lava or something like that.

[Artfix]

I'm not sure if I can reconcile this one. I really am terrible at architecture and mechanical things. I wanted to try it tho. That damned perspective is such a pain in the ass! lol

[Kafka Dreams]

Here is the concept I've been very slowly working on.

Fire dragon hatching from an egg.

Not terribly happy with the colors- not glowing enough.
Also just realized I had an idea remarkably similar to Tylerbsr7. Dammitsomuch

Still going to try and press on to finish this, since I haven't completed an entry since forever.

[Bergy68]

[Cyberman]

Hey guys, I just thought I would do something real quick because it looked so fun, probably wont post in poll though.

[Androno]

Hey everybody, here is my rough sketch, I get started in black and white:

[tdbsr7]

Here is a different angle of my concept.



feel free to do a paint over of it or what ever you must. I like the idea and i want to see where it could go. I'm just stuck at this point.

Thanks!

[Cyberman]

tdbsr7 You said the magic word, "Paintover" I love that word.

adjusted the hue to more red, and turned up the saturation levels.

if it is going to be stronge reds you probably want
to use greys in the bg instead of blue, because in contrast grey will look blue,...it's all about warm cool.


the bg did not look like it was going at a distance well enough, and it was also a bit boring.

Atmospheric perspective could be worked on a bit.

I moved the dragons and put in some smoke to give the composition dynamic linear movement, so the eye goes through the peice in a zig zag.

copy past the image over itself and run blur tool over all of it and erased out the area of focus to create a stronger focal area.

used turned up the saturation and using the mask that comes with the new layer I masked out the area outside the focal area, then I turned down the saturation and masked out the focal area.

I stopped there because I didn't want to change it anymore than I already did.

[Blankstate]

Update. Thanks for the suggestions and feedback!

[PJTamayo]

Hey there, first post in this forum. Here's my WIP