Hey guys, recently I've finished an illustration for the Diablo 3 Art Contest. I played the original Diablo, but was only really hooked into the universe with Diablo 2. I remembered spending countless hours doing Mephisto and Baal runs. Naturally, I am very excited with the long-awaited Diablo 3. And since there was an art contest tying onto the release date, it was the perfect opportunity for me to show my eagerness for game.
IDEA
To be honest, I did not try the Diablo 3 beta. I wanted to start the game afresh - in its most polished state, so I refrained myself. My busy schedule during the semester definitely helped me accomplish this. Therefore, I did not know a lot about Diablo 3. The official site and the numerous concept art definitely helped me in visualizing what the game was about.
For the idea of the piece, I turned back to Diablo 2 for inspiration. There were already a lot of technically superior submissions for this contest, and I knew I had to compete on another area. With the 'success' of the LoL fanart contest, I've once again decided to focus on storytelling from my own experience with the previous game.
One of the unique items in D2 was the ear. It was something left behind by the victim after he or she has been PK-ed. It did not serve any purpose, other than for bragging rights; a trophy item. I pitched the idea to my friend, Jacky and he added that I could make the main character a ear collector. Sometimes you get the best ideas from bouncing it off other people who shares the same interest.
I initially wanted to go for a Demon Hunter and Witch Doctor combo, since they were the 2 character classes that I was interested in trying out when I lay my hands on the game. But I swapped out the Doc for a standard Barbarian as the victim for the final illustration.
LINEART
I wanted the pose and proportions to be accurate, so I took a few photo references with the help of my friend Zishen. Together with other photos of the female anatomy (from my other.. references), I was good to go.
I sketched out the original composition in my notebook. However, I do not have access to a scanner at the moment, so I can't post that up. I usually begin my process on paper, as it allows me to think about the bigger picture, rather than be bogged down by the details at such an early stage. Once I'm happy with the rough drawing, I do another rough drawing on Photoshop. The good thing about the digital process is that I can make use of the transformation and liquidfy tools to get my proportions right before starting to paint.
I am still not very comfortable with doing very precise lineart in Photoshop. Therefore, I usually take 1 or 2 additional passes to lockdown the tiny details. Many people ask me why I bother to refine my lineart, since the final piece does not actually show any of it. My answer to that is simply because it is easier to correct any mistakes at the lineart level. In general, its easier to shift and manipulate things around when they are in their basic forms.
PAINTING
I steal color palettes off other illustrations. I do that all the time. But I only start with their colors in the base layers, and go through several revisions of curves, color balance and hue tinting. The end result is usually something that doesn't really look like the source material, so in a way, I think its still considered ethical...? Anyway, this step of the process is extremely quick, with the aid of a big brush. The key thing is to set the lighting and the color temperature of the piece. I always create a top layer filled with black and set on saturation blending mode to constantly check on the values of the piece.
If this step is done right, it is very hard to screw things up.
Next, I go ahead and detailed the environment. The focus of this piece is the 2 characters, so I avoided making the background too elaborate. I prefer to work in 1 layer, as it allows me to quickly adjust the hue and values just by switching the blending mode of the brush to multiply, color dodge or overlay. Here, I made the lower third of the image more purplish so that the painting doesn't look too monochromatic. After the environment is done, I moved on to quickly rough out the characters. Instead of concentrating on just one area, it is best to quickly identify the highlight, midtone and shadow areas of the entire figure. As I mentioned earlier, it is easier to make any adjustments early on during the painting.
And now.. the slow process of detailing. Every now and then I switch to a soft brush and adjust the contrast of the image using the brush blending modes. I added some motion blur effects to emphasize the force of her movement. I also used liquidy to adjust her arm and thigh thickness.
And it's done! The finishing touches include adding a few photo textures and setting them to low-opacity overlay modes, doing a few rounds of curves and color balance and sharpening the image.
Had a lot of fun doing this piece. Don't forget to 'like' the picture if you.. well, if you like it:
http://reveal.diablo3.com/en_EU/art_contest/#!/gallery/most_recent/4832
15th May couldn't come sooner!
