My project for course: Concept Art: Character Design & Worldbuilding

The world in which my character is my Dungeon Master's creation, but I helped flesh out some aspects of where my character is from. The name of the city is Rookhaven, an extremely old city that due to superstitious beliefs doesn't build outside of the original walls and instead constantly builds on top of itself. The historical aesthetics that it draws inspiration from are Victorian with some influence of gothic/romantic era elements.

My character is Nikolai Țepeș, a former archaeologist turned monster hunter following a near death encounter with an ancient vampire lord (aka Destruction). Another vampire lord (aka Regret) then saved Nikolai, made him his "champion" and turned him into a Dhampir (a half-vampire of sorts). He along with Regret are hunting down an ancient group of vampires known as the 13 Misfortunes, of which Regret used to belong. He is a calculating, blunt, and slightly egotistical fellow who over time has grown to enjoy his hunt.

When I began the study phase I realized "wow I need to stop relying so heavily on reference images in order to draw", so I did some construction studies to help with breaking down the human form a bit.

After the studies I started solidifying a pose and sketching Nikolai. I'd drawn him before but this time I wanted to make more historically informed choices in his design.

When it comes to line art and flats, the process wasn't too dissimilar to my usual process which was encouraging. Same thing goes for the basic lighting. However the final rendering process was very new. I usually keep my line art or completely discard lines all together so this mix of lines and quasi-painting was very new and uncharted territory for me.

Overall, I'd say I'm pretty happy with the final product. Of course, there are things that I recognize I could have done better (such as the rendering of the metal and other textures), but that just means I have more areas that I can work on and improve.

This course really helped me out of a creative slump, revitalized my love for art, and also reassured me that its ok to take time and move at my own pace.