I’ll admit, this guy was a bit of a struggle.

Rough ideas don’t always… ‘snap’ together the way I expect them to. In fact, sometimes they hiss and spit, fighting the composition and wrecking havoc on my vision for the end product.

A man I knew, wise beyond his years, once told me: “Sometimes a bit of conflict is a good thing”.

And he’s right. This was a character concept that fought me every step of the way, but eventually resulted in something *better* than I’d envisioned.

When I’m exercising, I’ll often set my phone in front of me and pull up something I’ve been working on, usually a screenshot, a quick render, etc. Doing so gives me a chance to just *look* at a piece of work that’s in progress for an extended period of time, without actually being able to work on it. It’s a more… reflective mindset, and it’s proved useful again and again.

So, after a great deal of weeping and gnashing of teeth, Lord Baritone is finally done. Perhaps it’s even fitting that, as the instigator of a violent uprising, his character design itself was equally chaotic. His race, the H’Dark, were once sentinels, birthed through arcane and obscure sciences, and tasked with the protection of a civilization. They can craft armor from almost anything, which explains his ramshackle appearance.

One thing I know for sure is that he’s come a long way from the sugar-cookie-silhouette I’d initially sketched of him:

Further WIP work:

The H’Dark’s creators, the Al’Tsum, had envisioned a host of forest praetorians able to arm and assemble each other simply from the technological detritus and raw materials strewn throughout the land. As a self sustaining race, the H’Dark can fashion weaponry and armor from nearly anything: be it industrial farm machinery, rusted scrap, iron ore, wood, etc.

And here’s the final piece:

By the way, the next post is called: “Contrails”, which will elaborate a bit on my approach to sketching, concept art, and my favorite phase of the process: good ol’ polish.

Oh, and there’s a new ‘About Me‘ section, in case you’d like to hear a tale or two.