MAGD 487
This class was geared towards creating a portfolio (which you now view) and a project to go with it; this would be that project. For it, I teamed up with my twin sister, Tessa Joyce, and we set out to design a party of fantasy adventurers, each tied to an either benevolent or malevolent spirit. We decided to design four characters, with each of us doing thumbnails for all four followed by one of us taking on two of them to the end of production. I took on the Sorcerer and Monk while Tessa advanced the Ranger and Hexblade, although due to time constraints, she was unable to finish her two characters with reference sheets.
Software Used: Procreate
Reference Sheet
With the final design chosen, I experimented with colors. I thought cool analogous colors would be a good way to express his calm (but not unflappable) disposition and his link to the ocean. The third option reflects sandy shores rather than water itself.
The Sorcerer
A young noble who was the first in multiple generations of his family to be born with sorcerous powers. As a child, he was sent to a monastery to learn how to hone and control his arcane talent, and the tutors that came with him taught him of his social position and responsibilities. After a couple decades of study, he began to travel back to his family’s estate before hearing that an important heirloom was stolen, and now searches for it to fulfill his familial duty and to put off reuniting with a family he knows little about.
The Sorcerer’s magic comes from the blessing of a powerful water spirit that takes the form of a massive white serpent. His magic focuses on controlling water in all of its forms and on poisons, both using and curing them. He has a natural affinity for snakes, and during his free time at the monastery, enjoyed roaming the beaches below in search of colorful shells to make into jewelry. The fishing float he carries is another heirloom that helps channel his power, and it is filled with divine water from the serpent spirit’s pond.
Thumbnails
The Sorcerer wears loose, flowing robes and shawls, and here I was experimenting with layering his clothes and the rich embroidery that would signal his station. These became two different wave patterns based off of Japanese textiles that, with the shells, showed his affinity for the sea.
Refined Sketches
After choosing designs from my sister and I’s thumbnails (Tessa’s is #3), I made more detailed sketches to help us figure out which look we wanted to go for. Sketches of netting for his fishing float are at the right of the page.
Color Tests
With the final design chosen, I experimented with colors. I thought cool analogous colors would be a good way to express his calm (but not unflappable) disposition and his link to the ocean. The third option reflects sandy shores rather than water itself.
The Monk
A martial-artist raised in a mountain village by her ex-adventurer mother and ex-outlaw father. Her fiendish appearance comes from her father, an oni who left his warband to live life as a simple human cobbler, and her mother passed on her martial training to her and the other villagers. After a paranoid local noble sent a small force to eradicate the village, believing that the commonfolk were conspiring against him, that training paid off. The Monk and her mother donned oni masks and her father assumed his true oni form to hide their identities and successfully repel the noble’s men. Her father thought it was best for her to leave the village for a time until things cool down, and now the Monk roams the high mountain roads, homesick but excited to see the world beyond her village.
Reference Sheet
The reference sheet complete with a front and back view of the Monk, along with a shot of her face without a mask. The metal squares on the back of her kote (armored sleeves) were challenging to draw, but I’m pleased with how they came out.
Thumbnails
The heavy set Monk’s main offense comes from powerful kicks and punches, so armor on her shins and forearms was essential. Although she wears armor, she enjoys showing off her hard-earned muscle. At this stage, her masks ranged from humanoid to tiger-like, from mirthful to menacing, but all were meant to evoke a fierce, fiery warrior.
Refined Sketches
I further developed the Monk’s look after reviewing thumbnails sketched by both Tessa and myself (Tessa’s are #2 & #3). Outside of refining the clothes designs, I also began to try out hairstyles, trying to keep the hair out of the way but still have that wild look oni are well known for.
Color Tests
After updating the hair and giving the mask itself a matching mane, it was time to try out some colors. Oni are commonly associated with red or blue, so I decided to make those the two main colors for these tests.
The Hexblade
A castellan of a castle who was tasked by his lord to procure him a rare magic sword that had recently come up on the market. He purchased it successfully, but accidently unsheathed it in a conflict on the road, and in doing so, the spirit attached to the blade stole his soul in exchange for some arcane power. The Hexblade, now bound to the sword, researched the blade’s storied past and found that the spirit who stole his soul resides in an abandoned graveyard on another continent. He quickly set out to confront the spirit, but his journey has been plagued with bad luck; he’s been waylaid by brigands, weather, or freak accidents almost every time he sets out with the intent to visit the graveyard.
Thumbnails
Being a halfling, the Hexblade is a very compact and small fellow, and he must wield his ancient longsword as a greatsword to use it effectively. He’s donned the old armor he wore when serving his previous lord for his adventure. The bottom left includes a sketch of an alternate way he could carry his oversized blade.
The Ranger
A githyanki who was trained from childhood to be a soldier, but escaped that fate when an enemy githzerai troop attacked the barracks when she was just ten years old. The child wandered the wilderness as a thunderstorm raged above, and found a friend in black direwolf who growled like thunder and eyes glimmered with lightning. She learned how to survive in the woods with the aid of the direwolf, and eventually found a city. Now an adult, she lives on the streets with her oversized “dog,” affectionately named Dork and guides people through the wilderness in exchange for coin.
Thumbnails
Because the Ranger has lived a majority of her life in the city, I wanted her to feel more like a rogue but with an outdoor touch, hence the heavy cloaks, hats, and tall boots meant for travel. Her collection of throwing knives is always at hand in multi-knife holsters or a bandolier of blades, and her bow is kept with her direwolf companion, Dork.
