Milestone 5

On Milestone 4 I was nearly done with the computer concept art of Tanwen, below are more work through steps leading to the finished results.

Computer Concept Art

Painting in Photoshop went by a lot faster then I thought it would once I got the hang of the paint tactics I used in the image. The more time consuming part was the finishing little details from things like the shiny surfaces on the skin to misplaced pixels. As a result, I ended up adding more details then I had originally planned, below are some of the results of the intended details and the extra details that were added in afterwords. The eye and lip shading and lighting along with a few more background details however were intended to be added in either way I hid the layers they were on though in the "Before" results below to show just how much some of the minor details can enhance the artwork in the end. Details are a very important element in artwork after all.

Before

After

Below are the results zoomed out to see more of the image.

Before

After

Finally, below are the end results. I admit, I underestimated some of the things you can do in Photoshop seeing as this is the first piece of art I've ever made in Photoshop that didn't involve any photographs to work off of. I was also surprised by how much faster I could color in Photoshop than in Illustrator. There's no such thing as perfection although always room for improvement but I'm satisfied with the results now to say in the least.

Additional Character Concepts

Up until now, none of the other characters I've illustrated and posted on these blogs are full time crew members with Tanwen on the Black Phoenix ship. And a multi purpose over 300 foot long ship couldn't be looked after from just one person alone nor had I ever intended it so as Tanwen has her number of friends and allies, some which have already been illustrated and posted in previous milestones before but aside from a few, most allies live elsewhere and come and go during certain jobs. It's like in Bioware games, most especially "Mass Effect 3" where some of the crew members and companions abourd the ship are not permenint members and come and go as soon as their jobs with Shepard are finished. Below are 2 OC's, (original characters), of mine that have always accompanied Tanwen and made a living on the ship along with her ever since they've crossed paths.

Ra'seth

Ra'seth was actually originally a character I made in "Skyrim", because I've always liked the khajiit the most in the "Elder Scrolls" games and had a lot fun playing Ra'seth in "Skyrim", the idea of making him into a character in my own sci-fi/fantasy world setting soon came to mind and those that's where the whole idea of Ra'seth came from. "Skyrim" belongs to Bethesda but Ra'seth is my own character in making. Below are some photos I took of Ra'seth in "Skyrim" so you can see how he originally looked.

Ra'seth ended up something like a monk/mage during the process of playing him using a number of spells  like armor, paralize, healing and elemental cloack types and those nice claw attacks khajiits get that make them the best race for fighting unarmed. Ra'seth is a mountain khajiit as far as exact species of khajiits goes from what I thought up and is True Neutral as for alignment. Below are the concept art illustrations I did of Ra'seth, he looks mostly the same but with a few changes to make him fit in more with my own portraying.

Zalexia

I felt like I needed at least one other character that was always accompaning Tanwin and wanted them to be very unique, try out a race, gender, class combanation I've never tried nore much anyone else for that matter would have thought up either as I constantly strive to make very unique characters. Eventually, the idea of a female astechique caught my attention as most astechiques I had thought up before in the past have been males and where more ruthless, power hungry military background types so showing as not all astechiques follow that path with a whole hate for all other races just as I've done with orcs in the past those I ended up with a female Neutral Good aligned scion astechique named Zalexia. Part of the idea of Zalexia came from one of my favorite "Mass Effect" characters, Tali, as a high tech alien girl kind of had an interesting ring to it. Zalexia is inteded to be something of a divine cleric/samurai much like some of those shrine maiden anime characters like Tomoe from "Queen's Blade". You could say healing and defensive magic are some of her strong points and she's intended to be more like a D&D portraying of a cleric, NOT like the cloth wearing priest classes in many of those MMOs you see as I've always preffered portraying clerics in more protective armor with decent skill in weapons and physical combat. Portraying clerics in just cloths with almost no combat skill just makes them seem well a bit weak in my opinion those is why Zalexia is dressed in more medium looking armor with various weapons. She has facial tattoos and uses a samurai type weapon, a naginata, (not a katana as swords are WAY, WAY, WWWAAAYYY too over used on characters in general these days), along with some natural astechique tech weapons, a plasma assualt rifle and a plasma pistole. In the long run, think of a futuristic, high tech shrine maiden alien girl and that pretty much explains Zalexia. Kind of several aspects in one if you want to think of it that way.

Tanwen Character Model in Progression

With all else done, I'm now currently working on modeling Tanwen in Maya. I started by modeling some of the more simple things like her weapons, most were easy to do aside from her FMG-9 for that I wanted to model and animate it unfolding from box mode to the actual gun mode. Below are the finished results of her duel Kamas, Baselard and Automag 45

Duel Kamas

Baselard

Automag 45

As mentioned before, I'm currently working on Tanwens' FMG-9, I'm also currently working on her body, specificaly her head and torso. Images in progression below.

FMG-9 (in progression)

Tanwens' Body (in progression)

For the next Milestone I intend to have both the FMG-9 and Tanwens' body done along with her eyes, teeth and throat and possibliy a start to her clothing. Her hair will certainally be the hardest part so I'll be saving that for last.