Animation 260 Milestones

Milestone 2

I decided adding some background info on Tanwen along with the artwork would help in showing just how far I go when creating characters. When I think up a new character, actual character and not just a misc figure I'm drawing, it's not just a simple drawing or two I'll do of them then forget about it but I look to go in depth with them thinking up a background story, their gender, race, class, general weapons and clothing they wear, combat wears, casual wears, likes and dislikes, fetishes, history, exc. And of course, thanks to the inspiration of D&D's character building guide rules, character alignment helps define an individual, alignments include Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil. Below I inserted an illustration of Tanwens' weapons, I always equip characters I make with several weapons to cover different situations like melee combat, medium range, long range, exc rather than just a one defined weapon like what you'd see on many anime characters. I also wrote up a brief biography on Tanwen, well brief in comparision to what I might generally do, although bear with me when I say I'm no professional writter to any degree, this is simply an example to show what kind of process I go into when making a character I intend to stick with.

About Tanwen

Most who come to know Tanwen can never truely figure her out as it seems like she doesn't even have herself completly figured out. Many would say she is plane crazy though those whom know her best would say she's just ahead of herself. Tanwen is something of a both organized yet disorganized, cautious yet bold, kind but cold individual. Sometimes she'll be serious and think long and hard before making an act while at other times she's sarcastically humerous and willing to gamble everything even when the odds are not in her favor, those it's somewhat of a mystery as to how any of her closest friends or companions manage to put up with her.
Tanwen grew up having a rather rough life after losing what family she knew from the after effects of a war that took place and was forced to learn a number of dirty work and skills to get her by. She was eventually taken in by a small group of outlaws whom had use for her and helped her improve in the skills she learned to defend herself or what could earn a decent proffit from stealth, stealing, prostitution, smuggeling, exc. Because Tanwen spent a number of years prior to then like a begger on the streets, she more than less only likes to steal a few things wealther individuals wouldn't miss and has sometimes been generious to give to the poor which may sometimes seem out of character for her since she usually denies having feelings.

To make a long story short, Tanwen and a few others eventually hit a jackpot in their findings when they were hired by a crime organization known as "The Silver Fist" to track down a lost highly advanced ship reffered to as the "XGP-2", (note the original idea for this ship was actually an inspirational following model to the XGP in the anime series Outlaw Star). Things however took an unexpected turn of events when Tanwen and her companions found out the Silver Fist had no intention of holding up on their end of the deal with the payment after locating the ship but instead disspose of them those Tanwen and the other betrayed adventures managed to steal the ship and put a big dent in the Silver Fist those have also made a bounty upon themselves by the Silver Fist as a result. After a number of following events Tanwen became the owner of the ship and made a number of custumizations to it along with nick naming it "The Black Phoenix" that her and a number of other adventures made a home out of and making a continued living as hirelings.

Although Tanwen is unpredictable, she's not completly at random and does always follow on some guides and morals. She believes in freedom and is heavily opposed by slavery, governments and laws. Tanwen also hates double crossers as she's sickend by betrayel although she'll ironically always prepare to betray almost any client she works for in advance in case she finds herself backstabbed, "Why not play someone by their own game?" she'll often say. Overall though Tanwen is the sort whom has no long term plane or goal, she just simply wants to get by in life and live by her own terms with no one telling her what to do. Not allowing one's self to be pushed around is exactly the kind of lession she'd be willing to beat physically into anyone whom questions so.

Colored Pencil Illustrations

I've been working with prismacolor pencils for about half a year now and have found them nice for making medium quality colored illustrations, (I use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for higher end ones). I've experimented with a few other brands of coloring utilities before such as copiic markers, exc although favor using prismacolor pencils, one reason being the vast amount of colors avialble to work with. Below are some earlier examples of past works I've done with them.

Above is one of the earliest illustrations I did with prismacolor pencils of a succubus.

Above are some quick portraits I did of some of the characters I made based off people I know, you might reconize some of them from the black and white concepts in milestone 1 post.

Above, a female common orc/white human hybrid paragon, (also in the heads illustration above), to left facing a male mountain troll deathknight to the right, (yes I'm aware my version of trolls looks like Warcrafts' version although Warcraft is not where I mainly got the idea from).

Finally above is the colored illustration I did of Tanwen for ANI 260. Originally I was thinking of doing a large portarit or scenory image of Tanwen looking out on a balcony but then decided I wanted to challenge myself more and illustrate an action scene. The scene is of a bar fight of Tanwen dashing out from behind the flipped over table where two others characters of mine you may reconize are taking cover. In the background you can see part of the lower floor where people are running left and right in a panic over all the firing taking place on the floor above. This was defenetly the most time consuming prismacolor illustration I've done yet but I'm fairly satisfied by the results to say in the least.

The Races

Below are illusrations of the differant races I've had going in my own sci-fi/fantasy world I've thought up. Note that not all of these races share the same planet, Humans, Dwarfs, Gnomes, Halflings and Orcs are all on one, Mythra, Khajiit and Sahuagins share another, Elves, Fairies, Trolls and Goblins on another and Astechiques and Voljerahs are on another. Also these are just the basic races as wholes and not all the specific types of each race like Humans for example where there are White Humans, Black Humans, Asian Humans, Native Humans, Hispanic Humans and Arab Humans or Elves where there are High Elves, Wood Elves, Moon Elves, Blood Elves, Dark Elves and Sea Elves. Not all of these details are finalized yet. Each illustration below has 2 races and shows both the males and females of that race, (male always on left and female always on right). When making a race or my own version of an already existing one I try think up as much in depth as I can on that race not only as a race but as a people, more specifically what I mean by is many differant features that difine individuals of that race like eye colors, hair, (or the closest thing to hair for some of the races like the Sahuagins, Astechiques and Voljerahs), facial structures, cultures and societies, technology, architecture, exc. just whatever I can. It seems like a number of movie/game races have little effort and creativity put into them when all the individuals look the same, have the same beliefs, speak the same language, exc. I mean look at Humans here on earth!