Becca's Vikings - Underpainting!

Hey guys! OK so I'm just so excited about this piece that I wanted to share the under-painting (in progress). Yay!

Ragnarok: Fenrir Swallows Odin Whole Sketch

Sorry for the quality of the picture, this was as good as I could do right now.  Fenrir, the huge wolf, eats Odin whole as Valhalla is destroyed in the background by falling meteors or fireballs or something epic like that.  In the final I'm thinking Fenrir will be tones of red, pretty much the entire pice will be in a reddish hue.  Snow will be falling, people will be running out on the gates of Valhallah.  It's gonna be fun.

Craig's Viking Drawing

Here is my Viking drawing. I need to do a color sketch next and in it I will be paying a lot of attention to planning out the tones of the various layers involved here including all the atmospheric hazy levels. For now I'd love to hear which details of the drawing work for you and which need tweaking. I'm pretty happy with most elements but I'll let you comment first. Thanks!

Lis's Viking Sketch

So here's the final sketch... I will be printing it out lightly and then drawing it nicely with pencil. As you can see it has really changed! It was super horizontal and kind of boring before. Brought it into my mentorship with Rebecca Guay for critique. Super excited to paint this... hopefully painting it won't be a nightmare--in particular the water and froth. But if all else fails... photoshop! :P I need to edit the hand with the hair entwined around it... fingers are a lil weird.



And here's a color comp... but it's not really complete... it'll probably end up a lot different with more contrast and color, etc.

Becca's Viking Sketch(es)

Full size image

Cropped in close

Cropped a bit less, and flipped horizontally

Same as above, but not flipped.

Okie dokie, here's what I've got going so far! An intimate moment between father and daughter, before the father goes off to... somewhere in one of those sweet ships. The focus is really going to be on the girl, and I'm curious what you guys think about which direction they should be facing. I'm playing with cropping too. I'll be working up some tonal and color comps as well, and really trying to pay attention to maintaining my focal point - Jesper Ejsing recently did a nice post about this on the Muddy Colors blog. I'm avoiding going into a ton of detail until I've got the basics really hammered out - let me know what you all think, the more input the better!

Craig's Viking Thumbnail

After talking with everyone and getting their comments I wanted to push my thumbnail farther. I wanted more going on in the picture and more fantasy elements. I'm going for a drawing and painting that hopefully are more challenging for me. The scene is more dramatic but the viking is more subdued. A young man having a vision high on a hill as Valkyries ride an oncoming storm.

Craig's Viking Thumbnails

Scott's right, so many ideas for vikings!

This is how the idea progressed. I just want the most intense, fierce looking warrior I can paint. Hopefully a real contrast to the Unicorn piece. One was a little wonky. Two introduced a cool storm filled sky with vertical shafts of light streaking down, but much too posy. Three is a much more interesting pose to me, how does it work for you? Four is vertical possibly like a Magic planeswalker and I'm trying to push the half barbarian/half viking idea farther, but way too posy. Five is starting to look better, he's on the dragon ship about to hit shore, throw his spear and attack, more perspective and depth. Crazy storm filled sky with these sort half angel/Valkyrie things (from two) looming above and a strip of sea and bright horizon line way in the back.

Anything good here? Let's all get in Spectrum!

Owen's Viking Thumbs

After a lot of different ideas, I felt I needed to do a piece based on existing mythology.  I'm really excited about the last thumbnail; it's based on one of the events in Ragnarok, the Norse armageddon.  At one point, Odin's giant wolf, Fenrir, swallows Odin whole.  Later, Odin's son cuts the wolf open and Odin is set free.  So I want to show Odin being gobbled up by Fenrir, while Valhalla is on fire in the background.  I'm pretty sure I want to do the one on the far top right, but I did a horizontal version on the bottom right also. 

Becca's Viking Thumbs

Here's my idea so far for the Viking piece. I'd like to do a piece that can play to my children's book portfolio, but also have enough of a fantasy element to be a good entry for Spectrum. The image will be of a young girl and her father, who is about to leave on some sort of expedition. I'm not sure if he's going to war or trading or what - that will determine whether he's holding an ax, shield, etc. They are having a tender moment before he has to leave - I'll have to play with their expressions a bit, I'm trying to decide how stoic to make him, and how sad to make the girl. I'm going to have to do some research, but I'm really excited to design their clothing (lots of furs and heavy cloth). I plan on using a very limited palette, with muted tones except for his beard and her hair. I'm thinking of it as a book cover.

Anyhooo these are just my ideas so far, and I know these thumbs are suuuuper simple, but hopefully they get the basic idea across. Also, let me know if you think any of these might be better flipped to face the other direction.

Scott's Viking Thumbnails!

RARRGG! VIKINGS! So at last I can manage to get back in here with another RWP project! It's been way too long!
This one's been both fun and tough so far for me because vikings are just so cool...and I've had waaay too many directions pulling at my brain. So it's been a little tricky to get my mind to slow down for a minute so that I can settle on some solid ideas. One could literally spend a lifetime trying to illustrate all of the tales and images that vikings conjure up!
Anyway, here's a few of my favorite thumbs. Please be as critical as possible because I really want this piece to be sweet. If you think they all suck...tell me! and I'll start over. There's plenty more images in my head to contend with.

Ok, this one is kind of a wraparound cover sort of thing.  Pretty straight forward. The leader or hero or whatever of the viking army stands facing us while the others are pointing to a distant village which has beams of light cast on it.

Next, we have a brave viking chick who is valiantly sailing across the seas to conquest or something. She has her pet falcon with her also. But she has a grim side because there's a head and skull hanging from the side of the boat in the Foreground cast in shadow.

This one is not looking nearly as badass and I have in my head...yet. But its a really gnarly looking viking dude walking towards us with an evil smile and a raven on his shoulder. he is lit by moonlight on top and fire from below as if from a torch. The background is fire and silhouetted figures.

This one is from the story of Sigurd and Fafnir the dragon.  Sigurd has killed the dragon and removed the dragons heart to consume. (Though I suppose that the heart would be a lot bigger?) Anyway, pretty explanatory.

And this one is of a viking ship just about to be attacked by a dragon. The leader is yelling a warning to the others.

 If I had to pick favorites I'd have to say I like 1,2, and 5 best. But I would have fun will all of them! What does everyone think?