To begin the imagining of Brown John, I decided to use the tried and tested method of character silhouettes. This way I could pick out designs that I felt best suited the character without being hindered by details, such as his face or how many buttons are on his tunic.
From these 27 silhouettes, I went on to choose my favourites. Some for the posture, others for the general 'feel' of the design and some to focus on particular aspects of Brown John's character, such as the fact that he is an entertainer.
From these 9 chosen silhouettes, I picked 3 to turn into initial character sketches. It's not hard to see what silhouette became what sketch. This is something I find very agreeable with using silhouettes is that the best designs can be hand-picked with a relatively quick glance.
I decided at this point that before I move on to amalgamating these 3 ideas into the 1, I would spend some time developing a profile for the character. In other words, Brown John's face.
I focussed quite heavily on the descriptions he was given in the book and this was made easier by the fact that I had some idea as to how I wanted him to look. None of the above were exactly what I was looking for, but I knew I was nearly there, and so I did a final portrait piece to bring the ideas together.
I took a lot of inspiration from the art of Paul Kidby when creating Brown John's portrait and I am very pleased with the outcome as I feel it exudes plenty of character and fits the description given in the book. Though I am sure others having read the book might totally disagree, as we all have slightly different interpretations of characters in books and what doesn't exactly meet to our minds description, somehow just doesn't look right.
With the face nailed, I moved on to sketching out the final design for the character, bringing together my favourite parts from the 3 previous sketches.
I wasn't particularly pleased with this piece, however, I had got Brown John wearing what I wanted him to be outfitted in, and as it was only a sketch and I would be creating another final piece anyway, I decided to leave him as he is. I could now move on to the character model and accessory sheets - something I had never really done in the past before, so would make for an interesting experience. My only worry about the accessory sheet was the fact that Brown John does not carry many 'accessories'.
I was pleased with the result of the character model sheet as I had managed to stay true to my design. I found the 3/4 views rather difficult to accomplish and I don't think they add much to the sheet other than possibly lowering the quality of the image.
As I had said, Brown John really doesn't carry much, so I designed his short-sword, pouch and a small satchel for him.
At this point, I really wanted to move onto my other character, the Kitzakk soldier and come back to doing a final piece for Brown John when my mind was fresh and not so bogged down by having to have drawn him so many times.
Again, as with designing Brown John, I began with silhouetting character designs for the Kitzakk soldier. Not yet decided as to what sort of Kitzakk he should be, I encompassed all the details described in the book into the different silhouettes, focussing on the fact that they would essentially look like Japanese warriors.
Again, from these silhouettes, I chose my preferred designs based on posture and overall look.
I found it very difficult to alter the design of the armour at all, as I was essentially designing Japanese bamboo armour, which I found looked best in the first sketch that I came up with, but looked more like roof tiles in the second design. The third design, I feel the bamboo aspect of the armour was lost. However, I liked the crossbow, trousers, helmet and back banner of the third design and I liked the main armour of the first design. I didn't feel there was anything to be taken from the second sketch, as his armour looks far too roman-esque and the other aspects are better designed in the other 2 sketches. Again though, like Brown John, I wanted to develop the Kitazakk soldiers face and so produced a variety of designs to choose from:
Some of these designs I felt didn't suit the Kitzakk soldier, but they did provide ideas that could be used in the final design. So I amalgamated a number of the faces into one design.
I was not at all happy with the outcome of this portrait. It just didn't work to me at all, but there were aspects of it that I liked, that I would want to utilise. So I did another portrait, focussing on getting rid of the details I disliked and keeping those that I felt worked well with the character.
I was much more satisfied with this design. From the bandages protecting his head from the sun, should he remove his helmet, and the cracked, dry skin, I felt that I had created a good design for a desert raider of sorts.
With his portrait sorted, I moved on to creating the final design for the Kitzakk soldier, taking the aforementioned aspects into consideration when putting him together.
I was very pleased with this design, it had all the right aspects that I was looking for and I particularly liked the pose of just casually strolling with 2 arrows embedded into his shoulder armour, looking disdainfully at the bowman who fired the shots.
To complete the character, I moved on to the character model and accessory sheets.
I found this to take a considerable amount of time to do, due to slowly losing interest and my will being sapped from having to draw those trousers over and over with all the studs on them I am, however, happy with the outcome, so I can't really complain.
Fortunately, the Kitzakk soldier had a lot more accessories than Brown John and so I was able to ptoperly fill up the page with designs. I am pleased with the pattern I chose to utilise throughout the Kitzakk's design, as it adds a bit of detailed interest, almost like a spot-colour.
With the character's designed and their model and accessory sheets complete, I could then move on to painting up final pieces for them. First up is the Kitzakk soldier. Due to how much I like the posture and design that I already have in place for him, I have used that as the basis of my digital painting:
I am very pleased with how this piece came out, as I really feel it shows the true grittyness of the Kitzakk soldier. The fact that he strolls casually through a sand storm with a deft grimace set on his weather-beaten face shows what a seasoned warrior he is.
The final task was to do a rendered version of Brown John, but as I was not happy with my 'final' sketch of him, I did a new one:
I decided that for this piece I would base the style on that of the 2008 'Prince of Persia' game that was suggested in the brief. I also decided that I would make this a traditional artwork and use coloured pencils to render it.
I am fairly pleased with how this came out, though I would certainly say that the use of coloured pencils is not particularly favourable. I do like Brown John's face however, as I think it envisages his description from the book.
Lastly, the brief requires 6 evaluations on any pieces that I have done throughout the semester, which I shall create a new post for.
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