Character Design Challenge 1 - Legend of Zelda

   I stumbled upon the Character Design Challenge community about nearly several months back whilst surfing through Tumblr. And for the time being, all I really saw it as was reference and inspiration for my own works in other modules, before finally realising that it would actually be an enjoyable challenge to participate in as well. Looking through the site's basic guide, it was incredibly simple to join this group (All you need to do is simply join it's Facebook group, where you will also be submitting your work there during each challenge). Aside from getting to enjoy the works of others and finding new artists, the very same could be said if you should so decide to participate. You will not only be able to build up your portfolio from this challenge, but will also have the opportunity to share your work with others from around the world. And so there are most definitely other perks aside from winning when joining in on this challenge, though winning would also be a plus considering the fact that a Special Guest judge is invited every month to look over everyone's works.

   I initially thought of skipping last month's theme (That being "The Legend of Zelda", seeing as it would require for us to work on something more related to fanart than original, and to add to that, I really was not particularly familiar with the series), I eventually decided to participate to better familiarise myself on how to submit my work and perhaps how to better improve when it came to my next submission for the theme that would be announced the next month after. Also, I always was a sucker when it came to fanart (More so a curse, than a blessing, especially when I REALLY need to get more original works done). 

   Choosing a character was simple, I absolutely adored Princess Zelda's design in Hyrule Warriors (As did many of my cosplay friends), and so decided to do some sort of illustration based on that outfit. The rules were pretty simple from what I could see, and they were:

1. Stick to the theme of the month
2. No environments or overly detailed backgrounds
3. Design a full figure (Not just a head or a torso)
4. One single character (Additional characters and creatures like pets are acceptable)
5. Only one design for each challenge

   And while there are more rules when it came to this challenge, these were certainly the main five to abide by should you wish to have your work accepted into the challenge. I was certainly relieved to know that this challenge was kept as fun and stress-free as possible for all of us. And so, after rereading the rules at least one or two more times, I decided that it was time to get on with my first ever submission into this challenge before it was too late.

   For this submission, I was aiming to create something a little more stylistic than my usual works, and so played around with several brushes and made heavy use of geometric shapes whenever possible, while of course basing it on the original design itself. This probably took a lot longer than it should have (About 1 and a half days worth?), and so I hope I can learn from this experience to create next month's character design with more efficiency. A lot of design elements were simplified (Such as her shoulder pads) heavily from the original design with very basic if not textured shading used (Based on some of the stylistic artworks that I absolutely adore from some Disney concept artists). After believing that my work was ready for submission, I then included my link (I wouldn't really consider it a watermark) at the bottom, so that others would be able to find my site. While there is a chance that the group could still share my design on Tumblr, they don't necessarily link each work to their respective artist, and so this was a pretty important little element.

   By the time I decided to submit in my first 'character design', I realised that my monitor tablet was not as closely colour calibrated to my laptop as I thought it to be. And so in the midst of my submission, the colours were incredibly off (Too light if not horrifically saturated) from what I had seen whilst I had been working on it. After trying my absolute best to tweak it the best I could, I simply told myself then that I would learn from my mistakes and simply submitted it into the Facebook group after... it took me an entire day before I was able to calibrate that thing the best I could, but at I won't have to keep switching between screens to check and see if the colours are decent enough now.

   I wasn't too surprised to see that I didn't get as many likes as compared to the other submissions (And yup, I shared it on my page), though I did get more notes when submitting it on Tumblr than I did on the Facebook group. While the winner would not be judged based on the number of likes they received, I still knew that I wouldn't have any chance of winning, it was still a good trial and error sort of thing for when the next theme came along, either way. And, speaking of that...

   This month's new theme is Heavy Metal, so expect updates soon on that submission!

Commission

   I finished up my last commission on Monday, so I figured I would do a slightly more detailed write up on this somewhat simple process. While this art commission had been agreed upon months back, it was put on hold until now due to me wanting to focus on Context of Practice 3 and Extended Practice. And now that Easter break has started, I also decided to break in my new tablet monitor. After checking with her to see if she was still interested with this commission (Seeing as I hadn't asked her to pay first as I foresaw that it would take me some time to get to finishing it), I then continued lining and colouring the sketch I had done way back (And let me just say that lining is so much easier now with this tablet, thank the heavens).

Rough sketch that was done months back and
shown to her for her approval.

Lineart.

Base colors.

   I normally use a messy sort of painting style for most of my works, and so I really wanted to get a more polished piece done so that my commissioner could get her money's worth. I don't often line my works first and normally paint over my sketches in blocks of colours instead (Or even better, just paint in blobs of colours before actually shaping them into something recognisable) before painting over some more delicate details over them. But as I wanted to be much more precise on the details this time round and wanted to keep it cleaner, it was necessary to get the line art done first. After that, the base colours are painted in on a multiply frame before I did my usual painting over the lines to cover them up.

And this was actually something I hadn't done before until now,
while I always signed my works, this was the first time I added in
a little watermark in the corner when posting it on my site. As I was
going to reblog it on my other blogs, it felt right to show where
it was originally posted from.

   And in the end, I was actually paid extra as I was told that I was actually charging a lot less than I should. It was overall an incredibly satisfying commission that I had enjoyed working on and I was just so glad that she loved it!

Commissions

   During my free time, I had opened up for a few simple art commissions on my Tumblr in hopes of earning a little bit more money for myself. Seeing as this would be the final year and that it would be inevitable for us to spend more money than we usually did in the previous two years (Heck, we will even be given a budget for our end of year show), it just seemed right attempting to earn a little money for myself aside from saving what I had. Getting commissioned to draw something for others have always been difficult to obtain for me, unless you were incredibly well known and have a style that would highly appeal to others, it would take ages before your promotions would even catch the interest of anyone.

   Through my other hobby blogs however, a few new friends I had made in the past year had kindly commissioned from me a few simple pieces. The process was somewhat informal (With no invoice or contract put together), but I had still made sure that a sketch would have been done first before they were paid, and allowed them to pay in installments, especially for one friend who had wanted to order more than one piece from me. Due to how crazy my schedule got as the deadline for Context in Practice 3 drew nearer, it is only now that I will be able to continue the second batch of commissions I will be doing.

   Seeing how much effort I needed to put myself out there for just a handful of commissions however, I will be also be working on some more new designs for my Redbubble and Society 6. I have noticed how incredibly well my Batgirl and Spidergwen (Which I had done for Responsive) tee design is selling on Redbubble, and so I just might try to focus more of my free time simply working on designs that hopefully the public would be interested in purchasing. It really is just figuring out what it is exactly that they like (Designing for a particularly unknown series like Lollipop Chainsaw (AS MUCH as I had loved that game) had been a complete waste of my time a few years back, as sad as it is to say), else well as what sort of design... I already have a number of ideas for Samurai Warriors, Sengoku Basara, Grand Theft Auto V and Mortal Kombat to work on! Hopefully I can actually get a few of them out over the next few months!