Dark-robed Dragon updates 02

Our internet service turned wonky last evening, and who knows when it will be restored. I am not too keen on posting updates via public terminals, so expect any artwork progress work to be uploaded in long intervals. Gomen ne.

Those who are familiar with my devART account will most likely recognize the character (if you don't, shame on you!). But this was the first time I drew her wearing a dark color scheme. Different, yes. But I am loving it. I actually based her outfit on the Coorgi style of draping a sari, although since I drew the borders of the cloth a little too narrow, I just let the palla hang unpleated over her right shoulder. Here's a video on how to do it:

The original headdress design was radically different from the one I ended up rendering. It was supposed to be more crown-like, but I had a hell of a time doing it, so I scrapped it in favor of a simple circlet. I am quite happy with how it turned out, though. Now for a detail shot and some of the patterns used:

The middle pattern may not be seen easily, but it's on the lower part of the shoulder drape. I have actually posted a Photoshop tutorial in devART on how to capture that glittering brocade effect here. I will try to post another version online for the non-devART users, but since my internet is... yeah, it may not happen soon.

Dark-robed Dragon updates 01

I finally got my lazy ass moving and compiled a set of images showing some artwork progress. "Dark-robed Dragon" isn't going to be the final title of this piece, but for the sake of this preliminary report I will use it. So here's the work so far (or at the part involving him at least -- he's supposed to have a companion):

Kouseikei - my first major male OC in about four years

For those who are unfamiliar with my characters, the guy was actually a humanized version of Salamence. But since he hardly looks like a Salamence anymore (apart from the headdress and the wings -- which are not yet rendered, by the way), I am counting this artwork as my first major original semi-realistic piece. Yes, that's a step to lessen the amount of fan art I am drawing.

The outfit is considerably less "robe-y" than most of the ones I have designed before (like this, this, and this), but then again, that's for practical reasons. ATLA fans may point out a similarity with Fire Nation guard uniforms (and I'll admit that I am also a fan of that series), but I guess the parallelism came out because the producers and I drew inspiration from a similar source:

That picture on the right, ladies and gentlemen, is the basic male costume of the Khmer Royal Ballet (Khmer = Cambodia from SE Asia, for those who don't know). However, I did modify plenty of aspects in the costume, as seen on the sketch on the left. Noticeably, the heavily decorated brocade panel dangling down the middle of the dancer's body was moved to drape diagonally across the torso. Ironically, it became closer to the style of the female costume in the end (see a picture of it here). Even then, I deviated from my original design sketch when I got to drawing. Instead of just letting the brocade fall freely down the back, I pulled it over the right shoulder as seen in the actual artwork preview (akin to a style of draping sari).

Note that it's actually a girl donning that costume in the picture; females often (if not almost always) take on male roles in the Khmer Royal Ballet. A drastically different case from Kabuki, if you'd ask me.

Yup, that's the pattern I used for the red borders. It's nothing more than the same rectangle being rotated and scattered semi-randomly over a 200x200 pixel canvas. I emphasize semi-randomly, because I also had to make sure the image tiled properly.

Ah, my favorite part of the costume (although whether much of it can still be seen in the final version, I don't know)! Those who have followed me in devART may be familiar with how obsessed I am with fabric textures and patterns. The last image is the basic warp-weft pattern (rotated 90 degrees) I used for the brocade. It is a rough replication of an actual t'nalak design. T'nalak is a special cloth woven by T'boli women (the T'boli are an ethnic group based in our southern island of Mindanao), and authentic t'nalak patterns are either handed down from generation to generation or are dreamed. Yes, dreamed. Down to the number of threads to be used. I will expound on this in a future blog entry, since I have been dying to replicate t'nalak patterns digitally ever since my Sociology and Anthropology teacher introduced me to them.