Sesslyth and Ezekiel, Michael Dashow (2D)

Title: Sesslyth and Ezekiel
Name: Michael Dashow
Country: USA
Software: Photoshop

This was my entry Dominace War III game character design competition. It's a character design challenge with a bunch of rules and guidelines in the character briefs: Must not use technology, only magic, must have a magical artifact with specific rules about kinds of magic it can use, etcetera. We even had to incorporate the logo and colors of our "team," meaning the forum we're representing. I am, of course, on the CGSociety team, hence the modified CGSociety logo on his foot-pads and the forum's reds and greys on his outfit.

So Sesslyth here is a powerful mage whose magical Censer summons the souls of those who have died in the sea. Hanging out with him (literally) is his Ezekiel the Octopus, here hanging on for dear life.

We also had to include model sheets and character concept studies for our entries, so here are those:





This piece placed #14 in the Dominance War, out of over 250 entries.

Sooooo awesome! Especially Lunch! Really nice to see the different facial studies, too.

wow this is absolutely gorgeous, especially the model and character concept sheet! very thought out characters! good luck in the war!

superb character design, very interesting, i feel that the red is a bit too saturated, but overall great work.

you gonna win thats all i know!

amazing work! the character is just great!

Awesome, stunning, simply crazy ! All the details, the views, and look at those expressions ! CG Society is absolutely well rappresented in DWIII.

You are an elite concept artist man, no doubt.

5* from me, and if this one doesn't deserve a CG Choice I shall eat my WACOM !

Excellent job, indeed !

When we will see the promo trailer for the cartoon movie ?

Really good work

Top Notch Work! Great lighting and details!

Holly Molly! Absolutely amazing! I keep going back and fort, from the drawings to the final painting finding more details. It is certainly well thought out concept as one would expect from the pro like yourself. If I may ask, how long did it take from the first concept idea to the finish line? Just love the character of the scared Octopus... he he... Priceless!!!

Thanks for the replies, folks... Glad you like it!

Picky - It was exactly one month from start to finish, worked in around the day job and family life. Can't say how many hours that was, just pretty much any free time I had, including some very late nights after my wife and son had gone to bed!

Badoero - Personally, I'd rather see the cats I was working on before this contest started get the animated license (go to my portfolio to see who I mean.) But just as soon as anyone pays me for the rights to make an animation of them!

Thaldir - Thank you, friend! Myself, I feel I have better pieces that haven't gotten Choice awards (heck, this one doesn't even have much of a background) so you'd better stock up on some Marinara sauce and antacids for that Wacom of yours (hope for your sake it's a Bamboo!) But hey, now that I'm done with this contest, I'll be joining you in the Uplift Challenge really soon.

SelfoSid - I was required for the contest to use CGTalk's official colors, and actually their red is even a bit brighter than this. I had to tone it down a little. It looks fine on some monitors but I saw it last night on a friend's monitor and completely see what you mean about the red oversaturating. Oh well, your mileage may vary based on random monitor settings.

Anyhow, thanks everyone for posting!

thats a fantastic piece of work. all the best....

Your concept characters are wonderful, this whole piece works fine.

Judging by those model sheets, this character will translate nicely to 3D. Great concept and like their brif story.

Awesome image! I found myself chuckling at the frightened octopus character. It's a great counterpoint to the rest of the image. I think the rock he's standing on could use a little extra "push" to make it darker or more contrasty, or something, but otherwise this is a great painting!

Kurt