Sketch & Lineart
Like most my sketches, they start out pretty rough. I'm not a perfectionist in that stage, but then comes the lineart... and that's when the transformation starts. :)
Bases & Shading
Laid down the flat colors and then went to work painting the main shadows in Photoshop. Since I didn't know the colors of my background yet, I left it neutral. Played a lot with the new brushes, including the mixer brush!
Lights & Spell
Using the layer blending modes, I put some golden lighting on him for the main source, and then a blue reflective light. I went onto sketching out the spell, just laying out the ground work for how I wanted it to look. After rendering the water, I created the spell circle in Illustrator and then applied some more effects and lighting in Photoshop.
This is the spell array by itself:
Since Nox was finished at this point, I moved onto my background.
I chose a Gothic Cathedral for Nox, because that's what his character's style, and somewhat his personality, is based off of. I associate him a lot with the grandiose nature of these buildings, along with the fancy detail work and the overall dark feeling that aspects like the spires give off.
I used two refs for this, for the most part:
Namely, I took the pillars from the first shot, and the idea of a balcony from the second.
Not really many WIP shots for this, but I do have one.
This was when I had finished my foreground and started in on the background. It shows the sketch and some beginning linework, as well as my one-point perspective lines. For the lines of the arches, I used the pen tool instead of drawing it out; far easier and precise.
After lots of freaking out and thinking I wouldn't get it done in time, I did it... and here it is!
I ended up simplifying a lot of architecture, and taking a lot of shortcuts, but overall I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Added just a bit of a blur to separate the foreground and create the focus. I think I'm most pleased with that marble floor!
But, as you can probably guess, Nox would not fit in this environment anymore. Personally, this is exactly why I prefer doing my background first, or at least getting a sense of the colors. In any case, I went back in and edited his coloring to match.
Nox is my main character for "Midwinter". Not really the hero type, though. He's arrogant, but his confidence stems from his abilities, which separates him from the typical stuck-up individual. He's rather selfish, however, and can come off as insensitive... just not on purpose, usually. He's very logic oriented and blunt. Despite not having a high moral standing, he values honesty and equality in his relationships.
He's a powerful caster, with years of experience under his belt. His specialty is offense, specifically strong area spells. Unfortunately, because those spells also affect friendlies, he can't use them as often as he'd like. On the flip side, using defensive spells sap him of energy, especially barriers.
