Male character final design.

Here is my final design for my male morphine addicted character. I made his eyes tired, deep and haunted and his cheek bones and facial features high and gaunt. Now both my main characters are done I am going to move on to the main illustrations of the pair. So looking at body shapes and stances is the next step. 

Man character design

I have concentrated a lot on creating my Dagon character as he is very detailed and needed a lot of attention compared to the main male character in the book. 

Main characteristics of the male described in the book (not a lot so once again a lot of freedom)

Quick sketches

I layered tracing paper adding more and more facial features to show his move from healthy young male to haunted morphine addict.

More sketches

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

An awesome book. The classic amazing novel Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen that has been changed up and mixed to make this unbelievable book by Ben H. Winters. Having this around my house I decided to take a look as it relates to what I am drawing.

The following images are some pieces from the book, the pieces are by Eugene Smith..

I love the calmness of the monster as it chows down on one of the crew.

The shape of mouth and squinted eyes adds so well to the ferocity of the beast. 

When giant lobsters attack

This is my favourite piece from the book, the gigantic monster with all his claws and tentacles, all the makings of an extremely scary monster yet his face is calm, some what bored or not bothered? I love it!

Aquaman!

As I am looking at a water beast and also toying with the idea of maybe setting the art work out as a coming I have decided to look through some comics of mine. Aquaman is one of the obvious to stand out. 

Brilliant colours! 

I love the effects on the water here 

I chose these pages so I could look more at methods of layout 

Interesting method of layout here! 

Monsters!

I was recently borrowed a bood called Monsters: A bestiary of the Bizarre by Christopher Dell. I have been looking at the amazing images of classic portrayal of monsters throughout time.

The illustration of this female dragon is amazing, I love her stance and the way the artist has chosen to but scales in some parts such as the legs and arms but not in others such as the chest and stomach. 

This piece is very intricate and detailed and pulls you in to look at every different feature and character. 

This page shows us how humans have used astrology and monsters together through time.

I love this piece! The grey tones set a solemn tone yet calm but still sinister. The dark eyes make the piece complete and scary.   

Sea monsters!! A wonderful brightly coloured Kraken/Octopus creature.

I love the piece on the left page, it shows us chaos in the waves and the face of the sea monster yet a sinister calmness of the stance of the man looking at the monster, maybe a stunned or shocked pause, makes an extremely interesting piece. 

Adding Brusho scan to Dagon

As I liked the colours of the Brusho tests I did I decided to scan it in to the computer and digitally edit it to become the skin of my dagon...

Here is the scanned image added to a layer behing my final Dagon face.

I then edited the scanned image to fit to the face then played with brightness and contrast to make the colour paler in order for detail to be able to be added without looking to lost among the dark tones.

I also played with curves until I came to a final tone that I liked the most, but I found that some patches seemed darker than others, I like this but I want the dark patches to be in relatable places, so in wrinkles and more darkened areas. 

To make the dark pieces in the face look right, I decided to use the burn tool to add more shaded appearances in the darker areas of the face.

My next step is to fix the teeth, eyes, mouth and horn then add a layer of detail which I will sketch by hand. 

Scooby Doo!

Scooby Doo, as silly as it may seem, is a brilliant place for me to look when looking for features that would work well with my Dagon. As the childrens show is something we all grew up with and love it can shape many inspirations, so why not? Looking at the sea monsters from the show has helped me come to some ideas, simple things like the position of the scales, teeth and extra features is demonstrated in the programme many a time. 

Pure awesome. You cannot deny it.