After weeks of getting used to digital painting using Photoshop, it is now a chance for me to put what I've learned into creating my own digital artwork. Last week, I playfully designed my own dragon, something that's not a particular interest of mine, but I enjoyed the process just the same. Using the moodboards and research I've already started last week, I decided to continue this subject and will now try to redesign "St George Slays The Dragon" painting.
So week 7 is all about thumbnails and brainstorming. Quick and dirty, just laying out ideas about what the story will focus on, and how it would look like. Here's the rough thumbnails I've came up with... ( click to enlarge)
I haven't decided on how the dragon would look like at this stage, but just playing around with composition. I've decided St. George to use arrows to fight the huge dragon, riding his white horse. He needs to be able to get away from the dragon fast if he needs to. I'm also adding light as a symbolic element, to represent God or Grace to help him win over the dragon which is the symbol of evil.
So the first two panels, the dragon would have wings, and the lower two panels, the dragon would be huge but wingless. I'm focusing on the main characters in the scene first, and on how to stage the story. The background at this stage isn't clearly defined yet.
The first panel is a direct face-to-face confrontation. The second (top right) is the ending where the dragon is already killed, and St. George gratefully looks up in prayer. The third (lower left) is another version of the confrontation, where the dragon is bigger, but wingless, and St.George using the horse's speed, tries to outrun it while aiming his arrow for a shot. The last panel ( bottom right), St. George, with a torch in his hand trying to lure the huge dragon, also wingless, to chase after him, probably to a trap.
After this, I decided to add some colors to these and see what I can come up with...
Adding colors can be fun and intimidating at the same time. It's a very unfamiliar territory for me, since I've never done any original painting before. So this is a real exploration and experiment. My choices here are probably very amateurish at this point and only time and experience will tell me later, whether these choices are any good or not. And I suspect, I'll probably cringe in embarrassment, of how terrible my choices had been. Haha...
My color choices at this point relies heavily on what that color feels to me. So I'm keen to learn more about color theory. I'll probably read up on that subject later on.
After submitting these, the consensus was to focus on the first panel, where the height of tension and action is the main story. I got some feedbacks regarding the size of the panel and it was suggested that I can still lengthen it horizontally, more like a cinematic 16:9 camera ratio. I like that idea, and will definitely do that on the actual painting.
Another note given was to create more studies on different poses for the horse and the dragon. I focused on the St. G and the horse first and came up with these.....
On this first set of thumbnails, I was trying to convey movement and fear on the horse, so I had it facing away from the dragon, trying to get away, while St. G is aiming his arrow to the dragon. The feedback I got for these said that the horse seem weak.
And so, I made another set of thumbnails. This time, I had the horse facing the dragon more and less body twisting. I got favorable feedback for horse 10,11,13,and 14.
At this point, I still haven't decided which one I will go for. The final look and design of the characters will be decided upon as I go. The background would be secondary and it would be designed around these characters. Things can still evolve later on. Then finally the colors. That would be all done next week....I hope.
To see previous weeks, click here : Week 1, Week2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6,
To see previous weeks, click here : Week 1, Week2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6,
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