Adam! good to see you here outside the matte painting forum and in the challenge. And your off to a great start. Really loving the steampunk gladiator idea. Keep them coming 
Steampunk Myths and Legends Entry: Adam Richards
Matellis
#11
CodeNothing
#12
Thanks for all the comments!
did some composition thumbs. right now i think i’m going to go with the upper left. Going to make some color thumbs and variations of it.
JTD
#13
Fantastic concept, CodeNothing. I actually like the idea of four panels, not just one. But I can’t wait to see it come to life.
DeeVad
#14
Upper left is a good choice , it’s make me think as a cinema style picture.
Down right would be my personnal choice ; no characters with part of body out frame and large view angle to see a lot of details and characters , better for a hi-res poster printing.
CodeNothing
#15
Yea you might be on to something there Dee Vad. while at the moment i think the top left is the most ‘successful’ composition, something like the bottom right is more of a ‘winning’ composition. guess i need to experament a bit more. 
thanks!
raycerx
#16
Great idea… sort of a Circus Maximus thing. I liked all of the sketches. Maybe there is a way of having a ‘ye olden jumbo-tron’ showing off one of the other view/sketch ideas as some sort of replay… anywho looking forward to more.
cheers,
d
Sardinha
#17
I really like the idea of steampunk gladiators as they were already nastily armored to begin with. Really a lot of material to play with. Nice concepts and I like the thumbs alot!
Bon chance!
Rick
CodeNothing
#18
yea I think im deffinitely going to go with something more like this for my final. I dont have a lot of steampunk elements in it at the moment, and ill probably keep tweeking the composition, but so far I like this direction.
now on to designing more steampunk elements…
kraal
#19
I liked that compisition mysef the best. I guess it is i just like design triangles :). good work cant wait to see you stream it up
CodeNothing
#21
Been thinking about how my steampunk gladiator armor and weapons work. I wanted to give each gladiator a portable ‘Forge’ that would be giving them a supply of heat and steam to there weapons and armor.
I thought one good place to put a portable forge is in the shield. So i designed this one. It straps to the fore arm, and when you pull the triggers a red hot blade “heated by the forge” springs out to stab your oponent.
In addition theres also red hot ‘smash plates’ that you could use to bash someone in the face with if you got the chance. Im having a lot of fun thinking up devious weapons made of heated metal. hehehe… Its a rough sketch as im trying to get to the final product as soon as possible. but the final designs will be quite shiny and ornate.
CodeNothing
#23
so explored some color comps.
Think ill go with #1 which is basically a “300” palette. #2 has a nice range of color but drops the mood. #3 I played around with shifting some hue, but it just made it less successful.
cant wait to get to painting this thing for real. 
OKMER
#24
Yep for me the first one brings in most of drama too indeed.
Great sketches!!!
MAybe opening up your canvas a bit more to the right could give some space to bring in the royal vip lounge somewhere far in the background.The theatres vip lounge.For me the primary character still feels a tiny lil bit too central.Just some thoughts ofcourse.
CodeNothing
#25
taking some advise on the composition. I Like it a lot more now. seems more intense, and more cinematic. Thanks all for your suggestions!!
paperclip
#27
Loving it so far!
:buttrock:
There ain’t no school like the old school.
One thing though…does this count as a legend or myth, considering it is actual historical fact?
ace4016
#28
Wow, I’m loving this idea and the view feels so dynamic and full of action. Looking forward to more updates
Ataulfo
#29
Hi Adam,
That concept sketches are really great. The image is very dinamic.
Good luck and keep it up