An Empire Reborn part II

Indio Lyrico

Here's a look at the next aspect involved in the art work for Indio Lyrico. In the layout you can see a large figure looming over the landscape, this is where Indio Lyrico will be portrayed as a lyrical warrior. The sketch only shows the pose and some basic key elements that were discussed, the rest has to be developed.

The warrior will have armour of some sort and other details and be in keeping with an indigenous feel and look and concept.

I came up with a design for the warrior mixing various aspects of North, Central and South American indian culture with a look tailored for Indio Lyrico. Using the decorative aspects of the curved blade in hand and headgear and staff, I incorporated this lyrical aspect of his character into each one.

A page from my sketch book.

These decorative details are very important, such as on the headphones making it feel part of the head dress and the face mouldings on the blade and staff, as well as the type of microphone used to be in keeping with this old world meets new look.

Now the drawing can begin. Starting with a sketch of the warriors pose I began adding the armour and details and making any corrections on the way. It was decided from the start that bold dark outlines were wanted.

I now start adding washes of colour and adding light and shade to the picture. I begin with skin tones and then start rendering the other aspects of the costume.

 
The next step now is to bring these two images of warrior and empires together.

An Empire Reborn part I

I wanted to share a little bit of work I've been doing recently for London based Bolivian rapper Indio Lyrico (myspace page). 

The concept is a mix of civilizations or cultures, London in ruins along side the ancient Aztec/Mayan pyramids. It's not meant to be anthropologically or geographically accurate, just a little bit of fantasy. I'll be showing you the full image very soon.

This is a bit different as its a combination of traditionally hand drawn work with digital painting and rendering. I wanted to show you a little bit of the process involved in the making of this image. The abilities you have for drawing or painting are transferred to the digital canvas using a digital brush as its basically the same. In this case I use a graphics tablet and pressure sensitive pen and software called Corel Painter. This program simulates all types of traditional art mediums and the possibilities are up to you and your ability in using them. A bit of getting used to is the eye-hand co-ordination. I prefer drawing traditionally on paper, so thats where I start.

This is the initial composition sketch to use as a guide to start from.

After thinking about perspective and proportions etc, the idea and layout develops a bit further, but its basically the same still.

Spatially it continues to take shape and become more defined... Also good visual references are a must. This is now the base for the entire picture.

I continue to draw and then add a bit of tone and scan it.

Once scanned I open it on my computer and continue to build it up and make adjustments by painting digitally. Adding light and shade and continuing to render the image with the digital brush. 

There you have it, a very quick and brief overlook at some of the process involved.

more to come soon.