Here we have another pair of line work presentations for Theos KE Polemos combat FOILs. Both of these designs began as a small thumbnail rough. The thumbs would then be blown up in CS3 to, roughly, an 8 1/2 x 11 page size in order to do a quick grayscale print. These would get light boxed for a more detailed and refined version. Once I have a design refined to where I want it, it goes back to CS3 for digital ink cleanups and color. The digital ink clean ups are what we have below (sans the gradient color field added here for a more pleasing presentation then simple black line art on white background).
Most of my concept and design work begins as small thumbs in this manner. Thumbs are often one of the best ways to go as they force you to focus on form and silhouette rather than detail. Although concepts can be done, as large illustrations, right off it's often problematic as it tends to compel one to try to fill in empty space with detail. This can often result in losing form or boxing yourself into a corner so it's, typically, best to design in small thumbnail illos in order to rough out the silhouette before going to a more refined illustration. That said, there really is no best way to do anything, whatever works for you IS the way. This is simply the way I've found to be most effective and it's widely used, pretty much, for that simple reason. At the end of the day if you get the results you want, you must be doing something right so just keep it fun and the work will follow. I'll continue go into more detail as to my approach to designing the Theos material as the blog marched forward.
Ileman-Loch Aetarius:
Ileman-Loch Auaris SOMR:
Also I want to give a shout out and a big thanks to Don Suratos (who runs the rather cool modeling blog DC23) for his feature of the newly relaunched Vulne Pro blog. We really appreciate the kind words and support and, are more than happy, to send some compliments back. If you dig Mecha and sci-fi modeling, by all means drop in on his blog, there's a LOT of great stuff to explore there. Thanks again Don!
I'll have some more FOIL line art soon, along with a first look at the line work of a rather epic Östlund (genocidalpenguin)/Majestic (VulnePro) collab FOIL. More and more we'll be posting new stuff here so stay tuned.
Cheers!