I decided to carry out research and look at different depictions of the main characters that are in the story of my game. As in other games, there are only one or two main characters in the storyline and the others are interactions. In contrast my story/game has two main characters, God and the Devil (Not Satan because of the differences I have set in this universe). I researched these two characters and found different depictions based on history and thoughts of other people and using this I will first sample the research (draw a copy) and after a bit of sampling I will create my own concepts.
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At first it may seem like the drawing of a car is random and doesn't fit in but taking a closer look at the base story that I created, the main character is on Earth and lives in a city. Therefore he had adapted to the city lifestyle as a human just with extra ordinary powers and abilities.
I took that picture of a car called 'Comet' from the game Grand Theft Auto V. I drew it on paper with pencil at first and then darkened the lines and areas with a pen.
Character Sampling/ Referencing: Evil
In order to create a devil/evil character concept of my own, I first looked at all the current and previous styles and looks the devil is portrayed in.
Cartoony: I decided to go with 3 completely different types of portrailes of the devil as this would help me decide which one of them is the best suited and would be the best fit for me to use a base to create a concept from. This version is the cartoon devil.
He is colored dark bright red with a spikey tail and a fire breathing mouth. Not as realistic as I'd want the devil to be but its a very well known depiction and art style for the devil therefore I sampled this drawing and referenced it:
The reason why I chose to research this character is because he/it is a real part of history and has a very strong belief and story behind the myth/story. He is also depicted as the main look of the devil besides the modern cartoony look we've given him which is a human body with horns and a tail.
Main villain in the game 'DMC' or Devil May Cry (Reboot). This character , from the start has been shown to be a very human character but with extreme power. After having drawn a traditional cartoon type devil and a pagan historical one, I decided to add this character to my research too just so there is diversity in the possible 'versions' of the devil that I could base my concept off of.
Character Sampling/ Referencing: God (Good)
This is an art piece I found on the internet of a search result for 'God'. Although I cannot find the exact link, we can still see some distinctive things on the version that I have drawn of the picture. I drew the picture exactly the same as the original meaning it would be the same as reading the sampled picture.
The drawing there shows an old Greek like statue face with proportional facial features, perhaps this is how they portrayed God?
Kratos, the good god gone bad
Kratos has one of the best storylines made by Sony. This character is from a game called God Of War which is exclusive to Sony and only Sony Playstation devices.
I chose to put Kratos in my research because of a few different reasons:
His story is that he was a mortal under attack and in arrogance this mortal, in the face of death screams out to a god (keeping in mind this is all set in a Greek Mythological world where calling out to a God means he will hear you and can come to you instantly) called Ares, the God of war. Kratos says that if Ares destroys all his enemies, Aries can have Kratos as his pawn, puppet. Aries listens to Kratos and accepts his wish and in return Kratos becomes Aries' solider. He fought fights and was a good solider (did not kill outside of war) and this behaviour led to him being given the power of being a God. Kratos now became the God of war , one day Aries forced him to kill his own family and this is when this good God turned bad.
The idea of having good character turn bad is the reason why I chose Kratos as inspiration of my art because it is not seen often in games.
Here I begin to make very quick sketches of the character in pencil just to get the feel of his body shape and the posture he is stood in.
Being a concept artist means trying different clothing, armor, colors, environments etc to pick the best one and just to sampe that slightly, I drew two different versions of Kratos both in the same posture but in different clothing and armor.
After the hand drawn work, I decided to start learning digital art and to expand my skills. I decided to start digital art on a Wacom Bamboo tablet, the first few pieces I did were not as good because it was the first time I had ever used a digital drawing device. This is my first sketch / doodle ever with a graphic tablet:
First doodle - Play around on a Graphic Tablet
Environment
The main environments I had to create were boiled down to three types. These types were:
1. Paradise, Heaven
2. Hell
For every environmental piece, I had to research many aspects regarding the setting of the place. For the hellish place, I already had an idea on how I wanted to make it look and therefore not much research was required for me on this piece because I had the idea in my head. However, it is good to reference images that may / definitely helped me create the vision I had in my mind.
Hell
In mythological and religious traditions, hell is seen as a dark place filled with nothing but pain, torture, punishment and torment in the afterlife. It is the very opposite of Paradise and this is portrayed (by humans) as a place for those who did wrong and evil in this world/life.
The way I wanted it to look was dark, blank, empty yet sinister with a touch of the traditional idea of hell as we know which is a place filled with fire and lava. So I wanted the mountains to be dark maroon like solid ever rotting flesh frozen there. Here is an example of something that shows the kind of look I was going for:
http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/f/fd/Survive-in-the-Nether-(Minecraft)-Step-9.jpg/670px-Survive-in-the-Nether-(Minecraft)-Step-9.jpg
(This image does not reflect the art style I want to go for, this is only an example of the colors and the theme/tone I want to give to my piece)
The minecraft picture here does make the reader think hard about why or how it resembles my own piece. The reason behind me picking this picture because of the tone and theme this game has. The Nether in Minecraft is a world that is made to be hell in the game. It has dark red colors on the ground it has dark maroon moutains and caves and there was lava everywhere. The color that this world has is why I picked this picture and now that you think of it that way, you see the resemblance and the point of this picture.
Hell as the humans and/or 'holy' books perceive it, is a place full of fire and lava and a pain filled environment where all damned souls are to be tortured for eternity. That however, is not the focus of my project whatsoever. I only need the idea and images and research on the topic so I know what to draw that will instantly click as a negative place in the viewers' minds.
Focussing on the environment of hell itself, I found that there would be a lot of lava in the picture I had envisioned. I searched textures and liquid states of the things that I would be drawing for example lava for the massive pool of fire that I would create.
http://celebratedivinefeminine.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Lava-pool1.png
Because I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the hell scene to look like, after referencing the look and feel of the environment, I made it myself the way I envisioned it originally.
Paradise, Heaven
From Hebrew word gan that means garden in reference to the Garden of Eden, Paradise is a religious term for a place that holds positivity, harmony and peace for all eternity. Its a safe place promised to those of the Abrahamic faiths (including Christianity, Islam and Judaism) who have lived a life of righteousness and obedience to God.
Going off the knowledge we have of how 'Heaven' is perceived and the researched image above, I now knew I needed to draw a heaven that would best relate to the young audience I am targetting. With first hand experience of finding this out; I knew that most teens of the ages 17-25 (My target audience ) think of an island somewhere with beach and palm trees to be a 'holiday' and something that is happens when its time to relax. The beauty of the place and the thought process of being relaxed (just the thought of it) has a resemblance to the idea of heaven. Here is the environment concept of Heaven that I came up with:
Although this reflects my very sure ideas and factual knowledge of what people think of has heaven, I still wanted to do some more research on Paradise and find out things like I did for hell like the Pagan perception of hell and the devil and how history's view of such concepts / beliefs have changed.
Heaven, the heavens or seven heavens, is a common religious, cosmological, or transcendent place where heavenly beings such as gods, angels, jinn, saints, or venerated ancestors originate, are enthroned, or live. It is commonly believed that heavenly beings can descend to earth or incarnate and that earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or in exceptional cases, enter Heaven alive.
Heaven is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to Hell or the Underworld or the "low places", and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply the will of God. Some believe in the possibility of a Heaven on Earth in a World to Come.
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| Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest heavens; from Gustave Doré's illustrations to the Divine Comedy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven |
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