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Digital Painting - Hookface Attacks
Late May 2004 was quite possibly the hardest I have ever worked since I started at Udon... and I have the image to prove it.
Our deadline for Dungeon Magazine (art for issue #113) was tight. The full page illustration they requested was over the top fantasy craziness:
"This full-page image depicts a Huge red dragon named Hookface attacking a city best with all manner of natural catastrophes. Hookface is a mature adult red dragon with one important difference. A number of hook-like bonespurs protrude from the creature's face. In the image, he's coiled around a city tower screaming wildly at a crowd of fleeing citizens who crowd the foreground, running straight at the viewer, their faces twisted in terror. Possible signs of the chaos swallowing the city include geysers of steam erupting from the ground, lava spilling in from a side-street, panicked animals, and collapsing buildings."
Chris Stevens, an incredible penciller and new member of our crew took it upon himself to draw and ink this monstrosity...
 The Original LIne Art No one at the studio wanted to touch this crazy, crazy pic with a 10-foot pole. Well, I guess no one can say that I let my Project Manager position make me soft... I started painting Tuesday at 10am and finished Wednesday at 3:30am. STEP ONE: Christine, one of the painters at Udon, was kind enough to help me choose a color palette to get started. From there, I started laying down possible colors for light and shadow, trying to find the focal points. This is all done in Corel Painter 6.1 with the Simple Water tool, much like I covered in the face painting tutorial:
 Color Palette and Light Sources STEP TWO: I set out to render as many of the background elements as I could. Each part was rendered trying to keep in mind where light was coming from while trying to make sure what was happening was clear while not taking the focus away from the characters. I didn't even realize that Chris had put a lava flow in the background of the piece until I painted that section:
 Background Painted STEP THREE: I started working on the Dragon and touching up other areas bit by bit:
 Dragon Started STEP FOUR: I decided to leave the Dragon for a bit and start focusing on the crowd. With somewhere in the realm of 40 individually drawn people, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I started at the front with the people that would have their own color and worked back to the people who were washed in colors of the flames nearby them:
 The Crowd STEP FIVE: This is how it looked when I exported it from Corel Painter into Adobe Photoshop:
 The Crowd STEP SIX: Finally, the finished image. In Photoshop I tweaked the brightness in areas and created some deeper shadows, adjusted colors and contrast, punched up the highlights and enhanced the glow effects. Last but not least, I added the signatures.
 The Final Piece Probably the saddest thing about it was painting over Chris' immaculate inks, espcially under the gun. Chris is a real craftsman with his linework, I have a ton of respect for his understanding of texture, line depth and line thickness. You don't get to appreciate that as much in the final painted version. Although it's a big step for me painting-wise and I'm proud of the work, I do wish it wasn't so busy a piece. Even still, for the time vs. result, I think it's the best work I've done up to this point. Questions or comments? Feel free to E-Mail me.
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