Jaclyn Stuard - Heroes

Here's the sketch I shared with the group at last night's meeting.


Long way to go on this one. May adjust her horns substantially. Feel a little like an afterthought to me (they kinda were - eep -).

Would love some feedback, and thanks to those who gave feedback last night.  

Sketch time: about 5-10 minutes.

That's a great sketch, especially for 5-10 mins. Overall I really like her stance and the outfit layout. There are lots of lines for the eyes to follow which brings the viewer to her face and all the way to her horns. I'm really curious with what you will do with the shoulder pads.
My advice is to continue this idea but switch things around, like the horn placement and how the clothing parts start and end. Nice start!

great start, just to echo some of what we touched on in the live session.

Explore the character in a full pose.

Think about the characters personality and attitude and how that relates to the pose.

You mentioned if I remember correctly that she is a fawn, it'd be great to see that fleshed out more.

I actually have some great reference coming together for this character. It's on my home PC, so I'll try and post it over the weekend. I'm thinking more Gymnast in build, and got some cool posing ideas in my search.

Got some sketches coming soon. Mobile version of this forum has very limited functionality. Lemme get to a pc and we'll be in business

Are you going to go full-fawn and do goat legs? That would be pretty great

I had some trouble posting images via the mobile site too. It did work, it just didn't function as fluidly. Looking forward to the next post.

Gotta tweak my photos, lighting was way wonky. :s But I originally was not gonna, but then I changed my mind, so the sketches I'm gonna post wont, but I'll post the revised versions too.

Before deciding to go with the goat legs:

Some posing ideas. I'm favoring the leaping pose for the final picture of this character.


Some horn ideas. Still not sure. I'm kind of digging the long horns like you'd see on a gazelle.

Did some sketching, trying to get a feel for the character. Just phases of the sketch as the day progressed.

The long horns are pretty cool, but you might try and keep them as slender and graceful as you can. In that last sketch they started getting pretty wide at the base, but that could just be because of the camera angle you snapped the pic from. Something I might be tempted to try is figure out what culture in our world you imagine she is going to come from, and find some horned creature from that geographic region to lift the horns from.

Yeah, I'll check that out. I was definitely feeling gazelle-like features. Was thinking she'd be quick, probably wearing natural sorts of armor - plant and animal based, very little metal. I'll look at the geography thing...could find something cool. Thanks for the suggestion, Max.

This is coming along nicely. I really like the horns that are wrapped with the flowers at the end. I think that could fit nicely with the rest of her outfit.

I'd love to see you explore the leaping idea, and I would encourage you to do a bunch of loose thumbnails to keep the freshness and fluidity of the leap. Ballet or rhythmic gymnastics might be a good place to look for inspiration.

https://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=17&gs_ri=psy-ab&tok=jj7lcM8C_BdwJ8sjw6-MFA&cp=9&gs_id=y&xhr=t&q=rhythmic+gymnastics&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48705608,d.eWU&biw=1226&bih=863&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=2iPSUcWEN4vC9gTCgIHQAQ

I actually have a bunch of gymnast poses for her in mind. I'll post some of the ref pics I found. I wanna keep it that she's visually aware of where she is leaping to (Which I know gymnasts are, but you know). Maybe something where they are looking more forward or perhaps to the 'camera' would be good. I'll post more soon.

Glad ya like the floral horns. Charles enjoyed them too, but thought they could be more interesting, so I may try scattering the placement/type of flowers on some sketches, see if it makes it a little less repetitive.

Thanks for sharing the vid. I will totally look this through...Even in the first 20 seconds there's lots of cool pose ideas.

Cool, can't wait to see the next pass.

It will be really cool to see her veil trailing in the gymnasts pose. Also please keep the flower on her shoulder, I really like that.

Sorry I haven't been able to make the meetings, but from reading this I have gathered she is going to be a fawn as opposed to an elf? Is that idea no longer going to be explored? It could make for some interesting action poses. Apart from that the concept here looks great, but maybe a bit "safe"? I could be way off.

Yeah, Ed...I actually said to the group the other day that she's a little...generic forest magic. I wanna push what I do with her. I got some updated sketches coming, and I think I got her pose about where I want it. Gotta share the pose references I found at some point.

She's definitely going more fawn-like than elf. I saw this image and it's really drawing me in, so I might try to work some of the more fawn-ish features in:
http://www.elfwood.com/~pixiwillow/Fawn-Girl.3122857.html

I do think she really needs to push a little further into this 'dark fantasy' vibe. Thanks for the push, Ed.

I think she will keep the flower shoulder armor. I also intend to add some armor formed from branches and tree bark. She will be wearing natural armor, so mostly leather, plant life, bone, etc. to keep that earthy vibe going. I think it'll be a good counterpoint to the enemy character I have who will be very fiery, metallic, and sharp!

Posting some inspirations I've collected for this character - I keep meaning to post this, but time gets away from me! LOL

Posing/build Inspiration - Since the mention of Russian Gymnast, I couldn't get that out of my head!



Armor Inspiration - Natural Armor of Wood, Leather, and Bone.



Fawn - Chose to take her in a more Gazelle-like direction.



Other Inspirations - Kind of the fabric-y part draped behind her.

Latest Sketches - Started some digital too, so I'll bring those tomorrow:



Sorry about the color craziness. Trying to do a quick adjust to make things a little easier to see.

Oh very dynamic, I like it. I know this is more of a gymnast pose but for me it
seems like she is leaping up for an attach so her head would be facing her
opponent. That's just what my mind goes to first, either way it's a great pose.

Selected Thumbnail Sketch for My final piece:


Hero Progress at last week's meeting:




Got more for tonight! Took a lot of last week's crits into consideration (Seung + Tangents = Mind Blown) and I think it's really coming along. Will post after the meeting tonight. Hope everyone else's are coming along.

Although reviewing my work for tonight, her leg wraps are still wrong-ish! :0 Dang it!

It was good feedback though, and I think Richard's suggestions will help strengthen this piece. Looking forward to seeing it finished... in time for the deadline so you can submit it ;o)

It's amazing to see the transformation from the first piece on this post to the current sketch. Great work, and I think the new look is much more dynamic and exciting. Nice linework and I love the solidness of the character. I could be off on this, but it looks like maybe one of her hooves (back one maybe) should be turning in, maybe above the second knee.

Haha, Ed! Are you sure you didn't make last night's meeting? That's pretty much the frontrunner in my mind from the crits from Richard and the rest of the group. I'm researching to make some tweaks, presently.

Here's what I presented last evening to the group.




I'll be tweaking and updating this weekend. I really wanna try to get it done for the deadline.

Planning to have this picture, at least, ready to submit for the deadline. I may also try and clean up some of the concept photos, per Jason's suggestion, and try to submit phases of each character. I just need to do a drawing of the finalized, updated Villianess. (at least lines, if not greyscale.)