Another Artjam! wednesday. This time we selected good ol' Captain America, cuz, you know, the up coming movie and everything. Once we decided which character we were going to draw, I started with a couple of sketches. This serves me as warmups, because its very rare that I'm happy with the first idea.
So after an hour sketching and not going anywhere, EDSFOX convinced me that it was time for some concept art style. Try something new for a change. This is how I started the piece:
First the background. I imagined Cap to be in a heroic pose, with the camera looking up to the sky. Maybe a town is burning down in flames faw away. This is completely backwards from what I usually do. I usually start with the sketch of the character and then place it in a place. But different is new and new is always better.
Then I sketched the pose and silhouette of the character (heroic remember?) , with the intention of creating everything with the brush strokes in Photoshop.
I don't have in between stages from the initial strokes to the final touches, but all I can say is that the process was kind of discovering where I wanted Cap to be in relationship with the background.
At first I haven't thought of the Shield, but my buddy Eds reminded me that it was such an icon, I had to include it. At the end the important aspect was a very bright light, contrasting with the background, giving him details only in certain parts I wanted to enhance for the viewers (face, chest, left hand and shield)
The cool thing was that I almost finished the whole thing in a very short period of time. I know that it doesn't have that much of detail, but, I think this is the essence of concept art, just with brush strokes and gestures, artists create remarkable and wonderful worlds that later will turn into fantastic entertainment.
If you want to see some wicked painting styles check out the entries for The Rift videogame contest.
Also one crazy artist: David Rapoza
Until next time, keep rocking and drawing!
