charaqctr #2 Emaciated Jungle Explorer

 

This is my charactr.co.uk entry for the second brief; 'Emaciated Jungle Explorer'; a Conquistador running for his life through a South American forest.  I am much happier with the final image than before, though I did not get the last hand drawn layer  done...

These are the three initial silhouettes; #1 is, as you can see below, based on Amy Winehouse [one of the first images that comes up when you search 'emaciated', god help her], #2 comes from an actual jungle explorer and #3 is based on a prisoner from a WWII Japanese camp.

As it happened Amy won, which was nice. It was clearly the most dynamic image. Next stage, lots of reference. Small selection here...

I thought I would make him look like he had gone a tad native at some point. The image below is a concept for the Nazca Warriors from Indiana Jones IV. From these I got the grass/reeds tied to parts of his body and the tattoos.

 

This is the pencil sketch scanned in. I put it into Photo Shop, copied the level and hit 'multiply'.

I was now able to draw under it and basically colour it in.

Pretty much done; I selected the outside of the figure and used it to make a silhouette, made a new level and filled in the silhouette, Then I put that behind the figure and skewed, knocked the opacity down, it till it made a good shadow. Added lens flare...

Cut it out and found a descent jungle background.

At this point I had planned to ink in the pencil sketch with a brush to give it some descent mark making skills, scan it and overlay that onto the digi-paint. But time ran out, maybe next time.

Seriously though, I will try that technique on this design soon, to see how it looks.