Grand Space Opera 2D Entry: Michael Nguyen

#2

My idea is to have a dark environment where a major battle ensues between two uniquely diverse civilizations on a planet. A female pilot that I named Elle, struggles through battle as she fights for her people/world and most of all, her daughter. However, in a scuffle between two fighter planes, she is struck down and plummets into the sea below. There is rain in the air. We see that Elle is floating amidst the wreckage of her aircraft holding tightly onto her life as the war rages above.

Here is the initial sketch of Elle. This concept is just to get an idea of her body suit and the colour scheme I will be using. I haven’t gone into facial features/hair just yet.

#3

Nice idea, and sketch! Maybe you could make a special sea, so not with water but with something else… Use your imagination. :slight_smile:
Good luck on the contest!

#4

You may have something going there. I’ll look into it. Thanks for the idea.

#5

maybe you should show some battle damage to the suit to enhance the mood. Good color scheme for the suit!

#6

Here is the back of the pilot body suit I’ve sketched out on my spare time in class. I will have it coloured in in the next few hours hopefully.

#7

Sure Suifay,
would be cool for my fiinal product. I just wanted the concept of the suit first and all that extra stuff could can later

#8

Again, still testing out the colour scheme of the suit in more detail. I used Photoshop 7 and Painter 8 for this process. I don’t know if I quite like the green and I might change that in the future, we’ll see.

#9

Thank you for your input on my work. Your character sketch so far looks good. I look forward to seeing the detail you add to both the characters in your theme and environment.

#10

I think it’s more important to start early to establish the entire scene instead of detailing a character. The epic feeling comes from the sense of scale, so the enviroment is what contributes to that. Characters in the scene can just be blobs of placeholders while you define your enviroment. However, this doesn’t mean characters aren’t important–they are very important–it’s just that the overall composition is the most important thing to nail early on.

#11

Thanks for your input Lunatique. as we speak, i am putting together a composition that captures the emotion that i am trying to express. It isnt quite ready to be posted yet. when im done with this, I’ll get it online and then start working on the aircrafts and architectures.

#12

This is a rough composition of what I imagined. Elle is in the water as her ship is sinking below her. The lights from her ship point towards a falling pendant that somehow escaped from Elle’s grasp. She tries to reach for it before it falls. The massive ship above steadily moves forward without a care.

Not quite sure if I have the perspective right. Any feedback great.

#13

this looks like a really cool piece, but appears to be focusing maybe too much on the character Elle. not necessarily a bad thing, and can still be an awesome piece, but remember the iconic element. at the moment, if feels very personal.

and i may be imagining this, but with elles face as the focal point, and with her face orientated vertically, it gives off the impression that the world around her is tilted, instead of the camera.

#14

interesting composition, but i think its at too much of a perfect 45 degree angle. maybe it could be rotated to be slightly more horozontal like at 35 degrees of so. maybe ths would work out better in a landscape format? as of now, my eye actually sor of slides down the parallel diagonals in the composition and out of the image, unfortunately. But thats just my opinion, other people may really like it that way. I see alot of potential here. good luck!

#15

Thanks for the feedback. I slightly changed the angle and tried distorting the water so that the eyes don’t wander out of the picture. This probably does seem a little personal but i guess thats what i was aiming for. I think what I could do is add more ships in the back to get that epic feeling. More feedback would be awesome.

#16

well, instead of adding more ships, you might try to add an explosion in the background. Or maybe some sort of ongoing battle in the background. This would adhere to the iconic element a little more. If you do go with the battle, remember to raise the ship above elle a little bit so it doesn’t cover up the bg battle too much. This way you still get the personal touch of elle going after the item while sticking to the space opera theme (on going war). Give it a whirl and see what comes out…

#17

cool piece, @.@ good idear!

#18

Yeah, I’ll probably end up raising the ship to get more action in the background. With the big ship i could have it in flames or being blown up or whatever. We’ll see where this takes me

#19

I refined some parts of the composition. The massive ship felt like it was blocking too much of the view so I took and out and I am planning to replace it with a smaller ship. I also thought that the water perspective was awkard and so i fixed that as well. Later on I\'ll add in a large scale battle for that epic feeling.

#20

i agree the ship was taking up quite a bit of space,maybe instead of just adding a small ship add a few lil ones,could make up a better compostion for ya.

and i also think the character should be off center,to give it a more realistic feel.

great work so far though.can’t wait to see more.

#21

liked your drawings! u have very good skills to paint it all up!!
what software are u using??