Born from an ancient culture (with a mix of precolumbian and egyptian influences design-wise), this lich has a pair of extra arms fixed to its back.
It is still very much “in progress”, but at this early stage there are some aspects that I would like to check with an outside observer.
Looking great!
The contrasting purple environment with the gold skin of the lich is working well. You could experiment with working some of that purple hue into the lich’s shadow areas that might be exposed to reflected ambient light.
Awesome stuff, looking forward to the finished piece.
Ok, so I’m done with the character. I did include some purple in shadows, which does him a world of good, and finally hid the shoulder under a scrap of cloth in order to retain some mystery in the twin arms, hoping that they don’t get noticed immediatly.
However, I’m kind of frustrated with the picture such as it is now. By every right it should be finished, but the character feels tighly packed in the frame and adding elements in the background will crowd it. Yet part of me wants to extend the background beyond its current limits and tell a story with it, but at the same time I’m conscious that the character’s pose was conceived as a standalone and might not work well with additional elements. Do you think maybe I should try to paint some thumbnails and see where it goes, or would it be better to start from scratch so that the existing does not get in the way of new ideas ?
Turned out pretty nice! I think you could still manage some background story elements if you kept the contrast very low and maybe bumped up the value range for the lich.
But, I understand where you’re coming from on wanting to start anew. Sometimes once you’ve looked at something for so long subtle changes seem drastic or a clear direction just isn’t presenting itself. I bet if you came back to it in a few days an idea would spark in your mind.
Yeah, wait a few days is likely what I’ll do.
I’m also thinking it might be interesting to enlarge the canvas so that the lich occupies a smaller portion of it. It would create additional space for details while still giving the character some breathing space (although he doesn’t need that, haha).
Definitely give it some room to breath. You have an opportunity with the pointing hand, too, you could put something off to the side it’s pointing at, like a doorway, or something, which will lend some narrative to the painting.
Great work, though, it came out very well.
I think it depends on what the purpose of this image is supposed to be. If it’s meant to be mainly a concept art piece, with the main focus on the design of the character, then you can leave it as is. But if you want to turn it into a narrative piece, then the possibilities are numerous–your imagination is the only limitation. If that’s the case, then don’t think about the image itself, and start thinking about the story you want to tell with this character. Switch gear to storytelling and focus on that, and then from doing that, you’ll end up with a bunch of ideas–some of which will be appropriate to incorporate into the image you currently have. There might even be ideas that would require you to alter the character’s pose a bit, and you might even come up with ideas that would require you to do a whole different piece, but that’s what’s exciting about being a visual storyteller–the possibilities are endless.
Newbie here. Just a few suggestions if you want to keep it as a character concept art and not a narrative piece.
Try changing the bg color. Since you mentioned it’s inspired by Egyptian influences (which are quite visible, kudos 
), try a day-time or night-time desert with more visible sand dunes in the back.
Since the character itself uses yellowish shades, day-time dune shades might be difficult to paint without removing focus from the character, but might also help blend the character with the bg well.
If you want to make it contrast, night-time bg would be better. Darker shades of blue and purple would bring out the character even more. Another possibility in night-time could be using wooden torches for interesting lights and shades and to add detail to the bg. Maybe even remove the money pouch and add a flame emanating from his hand.
Hope it helps. Good luck
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