Ed Tchen -Enemies

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been able to make the meetings, but I figured I could just live vicariously through all the posts. I did a few sketches for bad guys in a dark fantasy (thinking along the lines of Dark Souls/Berserk).

First up: Bumby 2.0, just a big ol fatty.


Next up: Slug girl, pretty self explanatory. Thinking angler fish like lure.


Third: Dick hand? Just messing around with mixing various body parts, for a grunt like enemy.


Last: Mother, basically Voltron made out of human beings, probably against their will.

Bumpy 2.0 is the greatest thing I've seen.

I really like these a lot, they definitely capture a gruesome, dark world. Well maybe less so with Bumby 2.0. The slug chick is my favorite. Do you plan on finished renderings of these characters, or exploring these designs further?

To be honest I was just planning on following you guys along the way, and using it as motivation to do some art at home. What would you recommend as a next step? Continue exploring some ideas or refining? I'm open to whatever!

These are great sketches Ed. Like Jason, my favorite is the slug girl, such cool contrasting shapes. I would say pick the one
you enjoy the most and make some orthographic sketches like a front, side and 3/4 view. Really get in there and
flush out the proportions and the detail on say the face and also the texture that you want to use on the character.
Of course play some more Dark Souls for inspiration also. =)

I ended up doing a few more sketches. I'm still bouncing ideas around before I settle on something to refine.

Chicken Knight: I've never really done an armored knight type character, so the prospect of it is somewhat appealing to me.


Possessed: Now that I look at it, it reminds me a lot of "the darkness" (not the band). Basically some symbiotic monster that controls bodies.


Queen SpyDoor: I got this idea from takeaway notes from Kanaan's piece. Basically a NPC or boss that has a reveal at a later date (trapped girl>monstrous spider face).
In the cave:

Uh oh!:


Out of all these so far I think I am leaning towards the "mother" badguy for a next pass. I think I can flesh it out a bit more with a more detailed sketch.

I like the Possessed sketch also, but the Mother design is pretty great. It will give yah a chance to practice your flesh tone painting, well decayed flesh that is.

I definitely like the second group of sketches better. Ya definitely got the darkness down. I find myself even a little disturbed by a couple! Ha ha!

I like Bumby (Bumpy? IDK, both ways in this thread), Mother, and the Chicken Knight best. I would love to see the knight fleshed out more too since you never did something armored like that. All about trying something we haven't done, right?

If we're voting, I vote for mother and chicken knight. Mother reminds me of some of Goyas work in tone and feel, I like that. Chicken knight just looks interesting and promising to me.

It might be worth doing a finished drawing pass for feedback before diving into final painting. This way you can resolve some of the ambiguous areas (how do the bodies flow and connect on mother for instance) and get extra input before diving into finals.

Good stuff, I'm enjoying these.

Been slacking over the weekend, but I started looking more closely at the chicken knight design, just sort of playing with how he would "work" as a bad guy.

I ended up going maybe more armored than the initial sketch portrayed, I think I probably need to break out his individual parts to get something I'm happy with. Still just seeing if he would look compelling enough as an enemy, or if he just sort of is something to look at.

Wow. So the left is unusual, but I am loving the silhouette on the right. I feel like I can imagine how he'd walk, and attack, and such. I like your style of concept too, very neat!

I love the inverted legs, seems like you could impale some Kaiju on them. Sweet design dood.

ok breaking it down chunk by chunk. Doing some head and leg breakouts. Painting over old pose with new elements.

Next up probably refining the breast plate and maybe arms. Then I guess time for an actual painting.
Chicken eyes are actually damn scary when you google search them!

Coming along really nicely, I'm enjoying this guy.

I vote for helmet 6 and leg 2 or a combination of legs 2 and 3

I love helmet 6 because I almost imagine that his beak was sheared off to fit, and I love the exposed eyes and feathers. It's all kinds of wrong, in a good way!

Helmet 4 has the most character to me, I really like that one.

Thanks for the input guys!
Jason: Yeah when I got to helmet 6 I was thinking of how they shear off chicken beaks at the factory, and if I push this "chicken" knight, it is kind of dark to remove a critical feature of the animal. I think depending on which way I go with the helmet will help make the legs arms etc easier (an actual chicken like thin inside, vs just some chickenish proportions). Helmet 6 and legs 2 would def go together in a more "trapped in the armor" chicken Knight.

Max:Yeah helmet 4 was playing with the mash up of the beak above the eyes with that skin hang down thingy being the armor in front. The only thing I didn't like about this was I wanted a very "bucket" looking helmet, a lot or armor seems to focus on the helm, I wanted it to be read as just a silo shape in silhouette, like you can't really tell what way he's looking, and also sort of gives the idea of a "dumb " creature (small head/small brain/chicken brain)

I realize the overall shape is very reminiscent of Robocop 2, that was totally unintentional, but it is pretty apparent.

Doing some sketches of a pose for when I finalize everything else:

Just getting generally more comfortable drawing this guy.

More of the same implementing a more animalistic look/pose

his high chest piece looks like it would be great at deflecting arrows up out of his eyes, I think an image of him charging down a legolas-esque archer would be a pretty awesome visual

I like helmet 4 and leg 2. Leg 2 just has that meld of monster + machine/armor - I totally dig it. I love the concept of helmet 4, but I wish it had more ferocity.

I think I prefer the second pose because it's more aggressive and dynamic. The other one gives a less malicious vibe, to me anyways.

So I decided to get back to the core design a little bit, which was more armored. I took some of the design cues and incorporated them into the armor, but kept the armor mostly on. I also decided to go with the more static stoic pose, simply because it showcased more of what makes the chicken knight interesting (the legs and chest piece). Working on a painting, and playing with colors.



My inspiration is mainly an enemy that would appear in a dark/demons' souls game:
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/346/3/a/dark_souls_a_knights_story_by_giovannimicarelli-d4ixttr.png

Some of their knight designs for ref.

Ok last one for the....knight?


And I'm spent.

It was great to see this progress, as well as the other works from everyone. Are you submitting it?

Also it was good to have someone, who was not at the evening sessions still participate.

Sorry I've been so out of the loop, when is submission, and what does it entail? I may go back and tweak some things on this but I'm prob 90% done.

Yeah unfortunately all the sessions fell right in my daddy day care time, hopefully this is something we can keep doing as a studio, as I really enjoyed it, even just watching from the internet sidelines:)

No worries, and no apologies needed! Mommy Daddy stuff always comes first. I'm glad you were still able to participate.

The deadline is August 1st, tomorrow. I never saw a cut off time so I am assuming that entries should be in before midnight tonight. below is the official site.

http://www.autodestruct.com/substrata.htm