Greave Brigandine - Some practice with new knowledge

Ok well I've been pretty quiet for a while, that's mostly because I've been participating in my 'Character design with Stephen Silver' course on Schoolism.com. I'll be making some updates pertaining more closely to that soon, but I wanted to stick up some quick character work I did today.

The character is Greave Brigandine. He's a creature made from magical energies to be a knight. Originally he was a full on lion man but i've been playing around with making him a human with a kinda liony feel.

I was trying to apply the myriad of thing I've been taught so far on the course, mostly I am trying to vary my character shapes a lot more as getting bogged into similar designs is one of my weaknesses. Obviously it's not all going to come at once but I think some of the stuff here is pretty decent.

Clause 22 draft posters

So these are some draft versions of promotional posters/flyers for the comic me and my friend are working on.

These feature beta designs for the characters but I'm quite enjoying them.

Niat - Ability doodles

So I've been doing a bit of work on figuring out what one of his abilities would look like, the other abilities are fairly basic, but I thought this one was complicated enough to warrant some further explanation.

And again mostly thanks to my friend James Niat's finished (mostly) abilities:

Passive - Courage: Niat's HP regeneration is increased by 10% for 4 seconds when he is in combat, refreshing each time Niat or a nearby ally takes damage. Courage is increased by an additional 4% for each ally in 500 range.

Q - Vitality: Niat rushes forwards in a line for a spirit-charged punch, dealing 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+0.6 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to any target hit, and stunning them for 0.5 seconds. This ability can be cast again within this time to create a burst of soul energy which deals 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+0.5 per ability power) magic damage and knocks the target back a short distance.

W - Fervour: Niat puts his trust in an allied champion for 4 seconds, granting them 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 AD and Life Steal equivalent to Niat's Courage. If used again before Fervour expires, Niat can jump to the allied champion from up to 1000 range. The Life Steal bonus is halved if Niat casts Fervour on himself.

E - Spirit: Niat tosses a ball of Soul Energy, dealing damage to anything it passes through. If triggered again, or if Spirit collides with terrain, the ball with explode, dealing 85 / 135 / 185 / 235 / 285 (+0.55 per ability power) magic damage. If the explosion occurs when an enemy champion is facing away from the blast, they will be knocked away from it.

R - Last Straw: Niat lets out a burst of soul energy, knocking up all enemy champions and dealing 150/250/350 (+0.7 per ability power) magic damage. Similarly, all allied champions caught in the blast - including Niat himself -  will gain Fervour.

Niat Lornhart - The Guiding Soul

So I think I'm getting the feel for the character down on the page now. Mostly it's about fretting over the details and with a hypothetical design like this I'm fairly happy to leave it at this stage for the most part. There are a few more things I would like to do with him though, figuring out what his abilities look like, and the way he'd move for example, as well as some colour tests.

Also courtesy of my friend James Williamson (Volcano Style) here is his final lore:

The Noxian Invasion of Ionia still has repercussions to this very day. Varus stalks the Fields of Justice, praying to find himself against a representative of those who stole everything for him. Jericho Swain still finds himself having to silence naysayers (permanently, some say) about his all too convenient absence from the final conflict which won intervention from the League of Legends in Ionia's favour. Yet, not all stories told are unfortunate tales of loss and despair. Sometimes there are tales of hope to lift people's spirits. A tale a young man returning home with a gem for his loved one, only to find the forces of desolation approaching; of that same young man, standing defiantly at the gates, still clutching that very gem - and of the man vanishing in the chaos, only for the same gift he entrusted his soul into, to find itself on his lover's doorstep the next morning.

Niat Lornheart was a prominent candidate for Summoner before his disappearance, but stories continued to be told of him. Presumed dead, yet no body ever found. His love continued her search, refusing to believe that he could be gone. After all, he had delivered her birthday present, as he had promised her - that very gem seeming to entrust her with the promise that one day, he would return. The more she looked, the more stories she would hear - of a young man clutching a lantern, appearing when things seemed their most grim. To guide those lost within the Howling Marsh to safety. To emerge from the sandstorms of the Shurima Desert and quench the thirsts of those parched. Each time, vanishing as quickly as he arrived. The stories told of Niat Lornheart, the boy who could sense a troubled spirit and appear to offer a glimpse of hope and sanctuary.

They were not stories.

The appearance of a cheerful young former Summoner appearing at the Institute of War may have been a source of great relief and joy to one Ionian girl - but others suspect it is an omen of a great calamity yet to come, that one Guiding Soul cannot overcome alone.

"A body can be trained. A mind can be sharpened. Yet the spirit remains unfathomable."

- Old Ionian Proverb.

Niat Lornhart - The Guiding Soul

So a few more advanced concepts for Niat. None of these are supposed to be finals, just trying to get down elements and ideas that could picked and chosen from if the question of a final design ever comes up. I was trying out the idea of doing turnarounds without having the flat front, back and side poses.

LoL character concept - Niat

So some early doodles and sketches for a new character called Niat. Again he's designed to fit into the League of Legends world. The general concept is that of a traveller.

Sidney Thibault's Z-brush Eld.

So this magnificent thing is Sidney Thibault's ( sidartz3d@gmail.com ) Z-brush model of Eld Nylund, the Ally.

As I'm sure you can tell he changed some stuff (man the boots are so cool I'm totally stealing them for something) and took some artistic license with the design, mostly because my turnarounds weren't perfect, but also because he wanted to present a more realistic depiction of the character than I had.

Having him model this was a fantastic learning curve for me, both communication wise and in figuring how to present my work for modelers.

He is a seriously great modeler and I worked with him on the Lego Inception project, he is a most excellent team mate too!

Risto - Yordle jewel thief

Just a few sketches I did for another League of Legends character idea. He's a yordle (a race of small cat/rodent/gnome-like creatures from the game) who uses drills. This one's heavily influenced by the game mechanics we've come up with. 

Main problem is we haven't got a lore for him yet so these preliminary sketches are all i've done since as a character he's very up in the air.

Sterling - The Thaumetal Artisan - Hiatus

So here's some more stuff for Sterling and the last for a while. These were all done by sketching over a hastily done template sketch as a quick way to get some side-by-side comparisons.

The inkling gave me a bit of jip wit these two, but I'm still learning how to use it and where on the page to stick the sensor and such.

I accidentally drew the arm before I turned the inkling on with the one on the right.. whoops.

I'm fairly pleased with these two, but i'll return to Sterling after a bit of a break since:

This guy came along. That's Jayce the 100th Champion to be released in League of Legends. 

While I'm not sure he's the best pick for the monumental 100th release I love him, he's fun to play and he looks excellent.

Main problem being he's stolen pretty much all of the design cues and visual style I was running with for Sterling. The whole Aviator look especially, but he also used the one huge armoured arm thing too!

So I need to go back to the think-tank with Sterling and I want to give myself a bit of time for that, so I'm gonna work on some other characters for a while first.

Sterling - The Thaumetal Artisan

More sketches for Sterling, these are pretty unstructured and just trying to get some ideas down really.

Sterling - The Thaumetal Artisan

So this is the first of a set of a recent things I've been idly working on.

I've been designing potential champion ideas for the game League of Legends. Mostly because it gives me a template and starting point to work from.

This is Sterling. The idea was he was a man from an island in the sky, a curious person who fell from the sky.

To start with I only really had the fact that he somehow survived a fall from the sky to go on, and while I had a few ideas of where I wanted to go I was kinda trying some things like Parachutes and wings.

My friend is working on game mechanics for this guy and once we started to get them a bit more figured out I started to get a bit more of an idea of where I wanted to go with this guy.

The Ally - Eld Nylund

Final results for the Ally character named Eld Nylund.

More pleased with the turnaround sheet than the painting. As I said in the other post I have since improved my techniques for turnarounds.

The Ally - early development

These are about a half a year or more old now, but seemed like a good place to start.

These are development pieces for the design of an 'Ally' character (definition from Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory) for a fantasy rpg type game.