Forest Scene

A tiny bit of inspiration from Assassin's Creed. 1.5hr sketch.

Snow White ~ Continued

More Snow White & Rose Red stuff! Mostly was testing out a style here. Her pose I think is a little too stiff, but eh when you're designing costumes the pose tends to be a secondary concern. I think in terms of design, it's ok, but could be a bit better in concept. Since both the sisters are named after roses, I think I could make the armor a little more shaped to that of a rose perhaps. Adding some hidden spikes somewhere could be cool, as even roses often have thorns.

Simple Silhouettes

Did these in about half an hour at 2am! :D

Snow White - Portrait

I think I am liking this style better than Rose Red's in my previous post! Though this character is human, I wanted to give her an elvish face, so I took reference from Russian model Ruslana Korshunova.

Rose Red

A drawing of Rose Red for my concept project.

Continuing Ideas

So I've been researching Russian culture and iconography, and found that patterns are a huge characteristic of Russian identity. My reference folder is filling up nicely!

Here are some sketchbook drawings that I've done recently, trying to figure out how to draw dwarves, bears and heroines. Struggling a bit on the style of the artwork, but I think once I start into colours it will become more clear in the direction of the style.

Snow White

Here's a doodle of the character Snow White for my Grimm concepts... trying to make her more aggressive and yet gentle. I've barely started on backgrounds, but here are some sketches. Not wonderful yet.

Fairy Tale Concepts!

So I've begun a concept project, and that is to re-invent an existing character or story and make that new element work. So I decided to turn Grimm's Snow-White and Rose-Red into a dark action-adventure game... haven't quite decided on the twist genre yet, so here I just stuck with a typical 18th century-Russian-German fantasy style. I've been wanting to explore more possibilities with the russian costumes and landscapes... not too keen on going sci-fi, but a sort of steam-punk eclectic style might work.

More posts to come on the environments, creatures, villains and weapons! These are really early sketches, so the final designs might not look anywhere close to this, though I am liking the cuteness of the heroines. Sorry girls, you need to be a bit more badass...

Sketching

Not totally sure why I drew this. Probably to loosen up and get back into painting.
The Chimney Woman is something I came up with as I was drawing her... a painted lady in Victorian England who happens to live on a rooftop... perhaps.
I don't really like it, but for an hour 1/2 sketch not too shabby.

Demo Reel complete!

Cecilia Daude ~ Character & Concept Art Reel 2012 from Cecilia Daude on Vimeo.

It's done! Here is my grad reel for character and concept art! :)
Please feel free to check it out!

Inspired by a Wet Day in Vancouver

Bam. Half an hour, here's a sketch of waves hitting a rocky shore.
This will be the basis for my next painting. ;)

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EDIT: Since I haven't posted too much lately, I thought I'd share some process work for this piece. I am planning to use it in my portfolio. Sketching in the charcter... :)

Getting Close to Graduation...

Apologies for the hiatus this past month. I've been working on my portfolio in Game Art & Design, and realized I have not posted anything since the middle of June!

Here are some business cards I'm designing for myself... I haven't quite decided on the orientation of the text yet, but I'm leaning towards the one on the far right. I like the idea of the flipped image (like a queen of spades), representing the two sides of my art, 3D and 2D. I may have more than one variation for the artwork side with different characters. :)

Peter Pan!

Two days ago, I had the privilege of seeing my work up on a live stage! The concepts shown here were for a production of Peter Pan—in the style of flamenco dance! Big thanks to my friend Ines who made it possible! It was a great show! :)

Check out some of Karen's future shows!
http://karenflamenco.com/

Audrey Hepburn... in 3D!

Wouldn't mind turning this into a project, but for now it will have to wait. This quick sculpt of Audrey Hepburn took about an hour and a half. She's got such an unusual face which made it a ton of fun to sculpt. Brought it into photoshop for a quick colour and hair placement, so there you have it. :)
Below is the original quick zbrush sketch.

Kiyohime's Lair

These sketches represent how I originally imagined the setting for Kiyohime to take place, just as she reaches the other side of the river. I did these in the morning to try and come up with a good mood.

Though I doubt that lights actually hang on temple gates, I put them in to give the would-be player a sense of direction. Plus, this is a fantasy, and anything goes as long as the theme allows. :)

I'm afraid I haven't updated in a while! Many apologies, and I hope this was worth the wait!

Here are some eerie concepts for Kiyohime... still in the works. I tried to make her look as ghostly and villain-esque as possible.

Recently I've been inspired by the recent video game Alice: Madness Returns, and I love the art book for it. These are some subtle facial/eye designs for the Kiyohime concept (she kind of reminds me of Megan Fox a little here... haha). She's got to look like the jealous type, and be able to convey anger, lust, and vengeance. I like the idea of red circling around the eyes, so I have pretty much kept that for each one, and I'd have to say I think the 3 designs on the top row are my favorites. I like the slight creepiness in the top right, especially. I'm thinking of making her into some sort of boss character.

Full body designs and hair styles to come!

Ziah

This design was visibly inspired by Mursi and Karo tribes from Africa. The cultures there are simply gorgeous. I was particularly fascinated by the white paint they use to create patterns all over the body—even blotches and smears of paint look great!

Character Sketch

Here's one more quickie!

Cliffs

As of late, I have been working on some landscape paintings and studies. The jungle one is a style study based on concept work by Andrei Riabovitchev. The other is my own concept.

Classical Studies ~ Duveneck

A quick painterly style done in photoshop copied from a study by Frank Duveneck.

Weapons and Warriors

Hey there! Some more progress on the native american warrior. I was doing some light research on the clothing, and am trying to come up with a good back story for the character. I'm still not sure if I should take this on a fantasy route or a realistic one.

New Concept Sketches!

Here's a sneak peek at some new concept work! More to come!

Ant Bot

Stretching my wings a little and trying out machine designs, which surprisingly turned out to be interesting for me. :)

These were done in about 2 hours.

The Dragon Girl ~ Continued

Yet another Kiyohime sketch! I'm liking this design a lot though I think it needs much more work. But the colours read nicely and it looks a lot more powerful than the first one. This was just a 2-3 hour sketch, so I kept it loose.

Her kimono might go through several revisions, and I might add some more scales/colour transformation onto the face. All in all, looking better. :)

Happy Valentine's Day! :3

Now for some Life Drawing...

Thank you, models, for giving us some great poses! These were all done this past month, and I'm pleased to say that my sketching style is finally starting to develop into something I enjoy (and something that makes sense of the anatomy)! (...I need so much practice...)

This also marks my 50th post on Cecilia's Little Sketchblog! It is near to the 1st anniversary since I started scribbling on here, so thanks to everyone who has supported me throughout this year! You are all full of awesome! :)

Light & Shadow Study

I think this guy looks like the Disapproving Meme face, so I put him in as "reference".

Happy New Year!

Today was the Chinese New Year, and seeing as it is now the year of the dragon, here is a dragon-related sketch!

Continuing on the Kiyohime drawing from my last post, I've been trying to come up with a look that will have her looking both angry, scary and beautiful all at once. Quite a difficult combination... :S

I'm considering this as a final showreel piece. I'm enjoying it just the same. :)

Deadly Kiyohime

Well, I got too carried away with this one... but since it turned out pretty cool I decided to keep going till 2 in the morning.

Initially, I was working on thumbnails for Kiyohime, a character from a Japanese folk tale who, out of her rage upon not being able to marry a monk whom she falls in love with, transforms into a dragon and kills him. Pretty haunting tale, actually. I started off doing her face and profile, and the painting grew until I eventually came to this. I quite like the design, although she might be a little too mermaid-y... I still need to do thumbnails. Thank goodness I have till friday.

Lesson learned: do not waste time with high detail before you've reached a final design! :P

Thai Designs

So here are some final concepts for my Thai dude. It's kind of an Assassin's Creed inspired look, but hopefully a little more cultural. I wanted to come up with more, but alas I have to hand a final concept in by tuesday. I love the tattoos he has here. The Sak Yant style is pretty interesting and has a pretty rich history, and I think it definitely gives the character some background. Check it out on google!

Step by step

One of my instructors noted that I don't really show my process. It's a great idea, so I'm now saving my projects in stages. This here is practice for a headshot for a character.

Tribal Inspirations

The thumbnail drawings and the larger african character have nothing to do with each other, but I just felt like putting them together to make a more colourful image. The smaller dudes are quick character concepts for a fictional indonesian/javanese/possibly indian character for one of my concept classes. Loving the colours!

The african girl is for an anatomy project, so this was just a quick (very 2d) thumbnail to see what kind of costume she should wear before I go into intricate detail for the final piece. She's a mix of different tribes, so entirely fictional and the costume is not completely accurate, for now. This is game arts after all! I figured since she won't be weighed down by too many garments, so perfect for anatomy. I'm working on some random tribesmen as well. Need to explore more shapes and body sizes...