Friday, May 6, 2011

Rosie - top student of Necromancy

I wanted to show a little bit of my process. I haven't taken any of these beyond thumbnails. I tried to create a more solid sketch without photo refs, but failed miserably. Those refs are sooo important.

The concept was taken from the Character of the Week (CHoW) assignment at concept art.org. Here is the original post from conceptart.org:

Rosie von Kreuzberg is top student in Necromancy at the University of Dark Arts. This school has been around for hundreds of years and only the most talented students are accepted! With her talents and skills, Rosie could easily become the most powerful Necromancer in history...

Design Rosie in her student outfit!

- Setting can be anything; from modern age to high-fantasy worlds.
- Maybe she’s arrogant because of her powers, maybe she is very shy and modest, it’s up to you to give Rosie a fitting personality. Show this in your design!
- Age should be fitting for a university student, around her twenties.


I made a few of my own distinctions. I approached it as it it was for a young adult book cover, so saw it as an illustration and not just a character concept. Because of that anything too gruesome, dark or horrific was out of the question. Also, I really wanted to focus on Rosie, her studies and the amount of time she puts into it. You don't get to the top by being a slacker. Other than that I tried to stick to the (loose) parameters of the assignment.

Here are three of the thumbnail sketches I did intially.


I took the third one and believe I improved it by going a little further with it, changing camera position and making the dead guy really dead.

I showed a bunch of friends and we all agreed #2 was the strongest image. So I reworked that one into a tighter sketch, still without references.

The hand coming out of the ground could be a little better, and the gravestones in the background could be less b-movie cheesy, but overall I like the mood of this piece. Rosie seems to be a girl that you'd like to hang around with, yet also a bit of a nerd and loner.

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