MARK

A mind map is a method of idea development in which you put the word or theme in the center of the page and branch off ideas from it

This is a word game where you start of with one word relevant to a theme and add another word relevant

Using Photoshop and reference images of other artists work for ideas, i drew this character. Unfortunately i forgot to take images of its progress and when i open it up in Photoshop i realised i had combined all the layers making it impossible to get images of its development.

DARKNESS THEME

Original darkness concept idea.

Final darkness concept.

I started by drawing the body of my character with the pen tool and using reference images to help.

I then started filling in the blanks of the head with the pen tool in different colours.

I then moved on to adding colour to the wings and front of the body.

I continued adding shade and fill to the rest of the body.

Once i was happy with the body i began shading the spikes along its back and the claws on its wings.

When i was done with the character itself i moved onto the background by hiding the layers that my character was on. Using reference images, i started on a floating piece of rock for the background to make it seem more fantasy-like. I then shaded it and combined the layers. I also wanted to add a fantasy like castle, so using an image of a castle from the game dark souls for reference, i drew basic lines for detail and using similar colours as the castle in the image i coloured it with a basic layer then coloured over it again in specific areas to make the lighting more obvious.

Using brown and green colours with the pen tool, i then added ground and used the brightness/contrast tool to get the brightness right. For the castle i duplicated its layer and used the brightness and darkness tool to change its brightness so that it would match the ground better. I also did the same for the floating rock in the background.

To finish the background i added clouds with a dark grey pen, then used a lighter grey to add more, and used the eraser tool with low opacity to fade the clouds out a bit and add lighter ones. As the original image of the floating rock had a sun in the background, i decided to add one as well and to make it have an effect on the image i used the pen tool with yellow and increased the size every time i clicked the image until it covered the page.

Finally i added the the dragon to the background to complete my image.

Looking back at my image i realised that id prefer the castle to be more in focus in the background than the floating rock so i went back and flipped them around so that the castle would be in the more visible spot.

Reference images

reference image for the head

reference for wings

reference for neck and body

reference for castle in the background

Image reference for floating rock.