Alright, finally got some time to finish this dude up.
All the ancillary details knocked out and a lot of color work. Color is my weak point, so I usually sneak up on it at the end with saturation adjustments and experiments with colored secondary lighting. Below are all the steps leading up to this one.
Finished “advanced” values.
Roughed in basic colors.
Pretty much everything fully rendered on the “finishing” layer.
Trying a litch out this time.
Drew this on my new Surface Pro, which is bloody awesome! I highly recommend. There’s one caveat however. For whatever reason Microsoft is still in the process of implementing wintab drivers, which is what Photoshop and many other applications use. So this means no pressure sensitivity yet in those apps. But sketchbook pro is fully functional, which is what I do all my sketching/drawing work in anyway.
Thanks for taking the time to do these tutorials, they are awesome. I really enjoyed it.
Regarding the Lich sketch. I think the hip width is too similar to the shoulders width. Looks too normal. Maybe you could try to make thinner to get closer to the 0.7 ratio. Even though he is wearing armor I think it is too wide. Might get better as is later but I thought to point it out.
Also his right foot is too much inwards, I think it needs to be a bit more towards us.
But the hand gesture, the face and the wind looks really great at this stage.
Thanks for the critique FarisB!
I don’t think his hips are too wide, but more likely I have poor armor design going on here. What you’re reading as his hips are probably his thighs. Here’s the figure drawing under the armor. Looks like I’ll be reworking the armor to make it more readable. Be sure to check back and let me know if it improves. Thanks again!
Thank you for the tutorial, Josh!
I tried to use that technique once but the result wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I initially thought it would be because I lacked some, apparently much needed, knowledge. I have to admit that I struggled a lot with making the colored version look real but I guess that was due to me trying to skip some of the steps 
I am not into sketching, really, so I tried to render the entire image out of black while gradually adding white to it. And I guess it turned out too dark or something, perhaps indeed that caused the fake look in the end.
I’ll try and follow your process next time and see what happens!
Thanks again 
You’re welcome Rozichka. Color is difficult for me as well. Make sure you have some simple colors down before you start rendering any final details. That will help with the realism. It’s easy to get carried away in the grayscale stages and practically finish the illustration, but you have to fight that urge.
I tinkered with the laying of the armor around his hips and dragged his back leg out a little more. Hopefully it’s a tad more suggestive of the figure underneath. Later when I’m painting over the line-art I plan on adding a torn cloth-like sash around his waist that will have a spell book fastened to it. Hopefully that will help establish a more obvious waist-line as well.
For this subject matter I admit that figure drawing is my strong point, and armor and costume design is my weakest. But that’s why I’m doing these, I’m determined to get better.
Great tutorials. I am especially fond of the dynamism brought by the flying debris in the orc portrait and the upward wind in the lich sketch.
Speaking of the lich, it seems in the figure outline that you’ve given him a shrivelled waist. It is a nice touch, but comparatively the rest of the body looks quite healthy. I know it won’t make a big difference in this particular character with the multiple layers of armour, but it might be nice if we could get the feeling that his limbs and neck are similarly dessicated/damaged. Maybe some armour parts are floating a bit which tells us of the lack of flesh underneath, maybe we see the neck, maybe a torn sleeve reveals part of the arm… I think it could add a lot of character to an otherwise mundane silouhette
Also, since you wish to improve in that particular area, I’d say the shoulder pads are neither very functional, nor in line with the rest of the armour (a bland round shape contrasting with otherwise angular plates). Considering your other works, I’m pretty certain that some research on historical armour or modern day replicas will give you a ton of ideas
Current state of the lich. I plan on tinkering with the floating debris and some of the edges on the armor.
I really like where this is going; in particular, the ground flying up and the character’s inner glow really do their job of conveying immeasurable power. And the shoulder pads have improved.
If I had to give one last critic on the armour, I’d say that it currently lacks the sheen of metal (it might be painted, admittedly) - a feeling reinforced by its dynamic range, which is roughly the same as that of the cloak.
Alright I’m calling it quits on this one. I only made a few piece of mind adjustments. Here’s the WIP breakdown.
I think my last piece for this thread will be an illustration with all four character engaged in some kind of epic nerd battle. I’ll try to get a creature concept thread going next, and maybe an environment one after that.
Josh amazing work!!! Litch looks fantastic I like the color scheme you chose. Its sad to see this thread come to an end but with a final piece and the start of a creature concept thread coming next or maybe an environment one after that I’m all excited again. Especially for the environments that tends to be my weak link in my chain, but am also very curious to see what kind of creatures you come up with. No matter which thread you choose to start next Josh I will be watching and posting on them. Have a good one my friend! 
Nice work. My only critique is the legs on the last two. The one with the mallet. The legs maybe could have had better positioning? Actually I’m really not sure on that one what it is that makes it look a little off. The last one the legs look a bit to short.
Got some time to sketch a bit on a battle scene with the four characters from this thread. Haven’t decided exactly what all will be going on with the Lich’s side. It’ll likely be skeletons and giant spiders, but we’ll see. I might also redraw the witch in a dead sprint holding her skull out.
[img]http://joshhass.com/randomstuff/emergence/battle.jpg[/img]I’m having a lack on inspiration on the battle image. When that happens I back off and work on more simple compositions.
So… I turned a hand study into some “card” art. I was imagining the title of the card could be ‘Discarded Power Stone’ or something. The narrative for the image could be that this dude who’s rummaging around in an swamp discovers the rusted remains of a machine/creature of some kind, and then an intact power source.
Critiques appreciated! I can post a full wip if anyone is interested when it’s finished.
It’s confusing to look at, but should make more sense once it’s painted. Any critiques on composition are greatly appreciated. I’d like to knock them out before I start painting.
A very promising sketch. Dynamism definitely is a strong point of your drawings.
I’m curious, though: is it 100% digital or scanned pencil ?
composition-wise, I don’t have much to say. The immediate focus of the picture is the gamping maw of the island-turtle, from which I immediately jump to the boat. Because you’ve made the turtle occupy so much of the screen, the man is really dwarfed by its hulking mass and we feel that he has no escape: the picture tells its story well.
It took me a while to notice the skulls & bones underwater, a kind of second-glance detail that I appreciate. They really add to the feeling that the place is dangerous and the man in the boat isn’t the first one surprised in this manner. However, if I were nitpicking I would notice how these bones suggest shallow waters since they’re so close to the surface, and subsequently wonder how such a big turtle could have found enough depth to hide its lower body. But it’s really far-fetched and can be easily solved by puting more distance between the bones and surface.
Last, one small critic about the hand study: the shading gives the impression of a weird swelling in the middle of the hand, as if the base knuckle of the thumb had been displaced. Instead, I would expect a bulging mass closer to the base of the hand