Merv the Head – WIP 3

So, I’ve done a lot from the last post, I decided to put Merv onto a rock on the beach at sunrise, seems he’s a bit of a beach bum, and he likes going down there in the morning and singing along with the waves (he can’t go there later when there’s people around cos they just end up calling the police for disturbing the peace!) I still need to do some work on his strumming hand yet, then I can work on the colour.

Merv the Head – WIP 2

A bit more work on Merv today, mainly on the banjo after checking out some reference pics online.

I also tried a bit of detailing on the tentacles to get them looking the way I want them.

Merv the Head – WIP 1

I saw a crusty teenager and his girlfriend walking across the street a few weeks ago. He was tall, pale and lanky, and was plodding along wearing a very large, wooly rasta hat, with long dreads hanging down his back, and she was quite short. The image kind of stuck in my head and I finally got around to getting it down on paper this week.

Then he developed into this..

Thought he looked a bit like a hippy surfer dood type, I think there was a bit of Tony Harrison inspiration in there. I’m working this up in grayscale first, then colouring it afterwards. I haven’t managed to get a painting done successfully this way yet, but I’ve been practicing on bits and pieces using this method, so hopefully I can pull it off. Here’s where I am so far.

Initiation of the Baku-Rider

And we’re done. Not sure about the texture on the dragon skin, but again it was a learning experience.

Final Touches:
- Did a lot more work on the background, adding more detail.
- Defined the background dragons more.
- Tweaked the colour of the Flyer.
- Tweaked the shape of the Baku’s tongue.

And I think we’re done, here’s the final image:

“Every year five of the strongest children of the Mastro clan of the Kram continent are initiated into the Baku guard, for 12 long years of arduous training. Their prize is to become one of the elite Baku Squadron, the aerial assault who have turned the tide in the many battles fought by the Mastro against their enemies.
But before they finally earn their wings, the five cadets must fly with the wild Baku out on the desert plains of Kram. If the succeed the earn their wings; if they fail, they become a juicy meal for the young Baku!”

I had orignally planned for this to be entered for the ImagineFX cover competition, but didn’t get it finished in time. Here’s how it would have looked as the cover:

This is the highest res image I’ve done yet, I think that’s why it took so long, it was quite hard on the computer getting it finished. It’s available as a print on my DeviantArt gallery (just in case anyone’s interested!

Baku-Rider WIP 4 – Finished wings

I think that’s me finished with the wings now. Basically I painted two different feathers and copy-pasted them, scaled and skewed them around until I had a set of wings, I kept the rough wings I had done before as a background for them. Then painted over the top to break them up a bit here and there. I also tweaked the contrast and brightness to pull them down in levels a bit, and pulled a few of the tips up with a rough custom dodge brush. I think they’re working now, what do you reckon? I also did a bit of final work to his face one of his eyes was bothering me, it looked a bit off with the other one, and his face just looked generally messy around the eyes, there was too much dark there, so I’ve tidied all that up now. I’m not going to touch him again, he’s done. Next, to finish the dragon skin texture.