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Text Menu: Art Portfolio 1Portfolio 2SpotlightArt Artchive 1Art Artchive 2Diablo II GalleryConcept ArtworkSketchesPrints Downloads Tips Links All images copyright (c) Michael Dashow except where otherwise noted Page last updated on Decemer 7, 2002 |
The Spotlight page showcases a particular work of mine and goes into some detail about how it was created. The idea is to give you a better look at the process involved with creating one of these digital paintings, or to show off details which might have otherwise passed unnoted. Today's homework assignment: Create a humorous fantasy cover for a vegetarian cookbook. The title of the cookbook: Beauty and the Beets. So instantly, there's an image to work from. there's a beauty, there's a beast, there are some beets. The turnabout humor came with the big, fearsome beast covering away in disgust when presented with the harmless and oft-tasy red root vegetables. Lots of Disney influence here: The rustic background owes more to the earlier films, especially Snow White and Pinnochio. And as for the characters, it's hard to not be enamored of the character design from the film, especially Glen Keane's expressive Beast. But I had to attempt to try something different, so let's see how it goes... 
To start with, here's the rough (very rough!) thumbnaul of how the whole cover is supposed to work together. As you can see, for the overall rough layout, I work very small, just to gat an idea of the basic placement of simple elements.
Now we start in on the beast sketches. These are much more interesting than the rest of the images, of which there were very fw. (Only two or three of Beauty total: I knew what I wanted!) But for the beast, I had to capture just the right feel of this fellow being a big, monsterous brute who is tough yet humorously repelled by the beets. I wanted a facial expression that perfectly conveyed "Yuch!"
This sketch looks too human and not beastly enough. You can see too much of the human reference here.
Too chubby, not fearsome enough... I mean, he wound't be fearsome even if he weren't clutching his chin.
I can't tell iwhether this one is recoiling in fear or saying "I'm gonna get you!" If the latter, it's not very threatening... and it's not what I want either way! The scaly, skin-coverred beasts aren't working either. To truly be bestial, he needs more hair.
More hair, here. A beast based more on a gorilla.
A little less gorilla, a little more baboon. I'm getting the eye squints that indicate repulsion down nicely, too.
A little less of a recognizable animal source and a bit more beast. I'm definately getting closer!
A little more influence from a bull, but he looks more pissed off than repulsed. If I could just bring in a little more of the quality of the grossed out faces from above, I'd be all set.
Okay, there we go! It's got some animal parts in it, it's tough yet sickened. This is my final facial sketch!
Put it togehter with the body, as well as that of the Beauty and you get my final character sketch.I should note that these images represent only a fraction of the actual sketches that I did. I picked out a mere sample, but there were a ton more needed to really refine the look. Sometimes it just works that way. Other times - like with the Beauty - I got pretty much exactly what I wanted in a couple of doodles. 
Once a had the layout for the painting, I used a 3D program to do a rough mock-up of the scene. This was used mainly to see how the lighting would work. I stuck in two characters from just as a placeholder to see what shadows they cast and how the light fell on them. (The "beast" on the right is actually my model of Diablo from the game Diablo II. On the left is Jamella, a minor character from the same game.) He was big and muscular enough to play the part of the beast just for this rough purpose. Using this image as a guide, I drew a new background and characters, and painted them approriately.
And here we are: The final image. On the actual cookbook cover, a good deal of the top on the image and most of the table at the bottom was covered with scrollwork and logos.
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