Tuesday 20 September 2011

Clio - Water Elemental - By Heather Shepard #changelingthelost #whitewolf #white_wolf_fan




I???ve been working on this painting for around 2 weeks as part of the Changeling series.

This is Clio, Sam???s character ??? a swimmer skin water elemental of the Court of Spring, and the most beautiful lady I have ever painted :)

 

I???m going to take a shortbreak before moving onto Steve???s character ???Sonata??? ??? partly because his might actually be quite the depressing, down-and-out looking painting, partly because it feels like ages since I did a few concepty paint ups and I want to have an ideas binge for a while :) I love doing these illustrations, but they can be very intensive ??? so if I can give myself a day or so to do something else before starting on them, I feel like I can come back to them refreshed and raring to go. If I go from one intense painting to another, it can be a bit wearing ??? in the sense of, every stroke is so precise that you crave going back to a looser style, and avoiding the old ???Crab hands??? for a couple of days.

I???m already planning out how the Sonata painting will be composed. Steve???s putting together a moodboard for me of how his character looks ??? Of course, we all know vaguely what each other???s characters look like, but in order to get it 100% right as how the player imagines their characters, you need some good reference :)

Gathering reference and researching things thoroughly is always important ??? it makes things look more believable, but also cut???s down on your inevitable re-painting times. If you don???t fully know how something looks, then look it up! (it???s OK ??? you can???t be expected to remember what everything-in-the-world-looks-like-ever, even Frank Frazetta used reference! Don???t be fooled into the Legend of the Frazetta! He was amazing, but like all professional artists, he used reference too!) Even if you???re making an alien spacecraft, you can get inspiration from the weirdest things ??? like Gillete razors, the designs on them would make an awesome looking Generation ship! Or the weird and wonderful inventions of the victorian era! And even old patents from Nikolai Tesla???s inventions! So much inspirational stuff to start ideas off in your heads! If you???re ever told ???Don???t use reference??? then give the person who said it a hearty slap to the chops.






This is the second painting in the series that Heather has been working on, based upon the group's previous chronicle for Changeling: the Lost. How awesome are my players.

Here is the link to the previous image of the painter's own character, Freki. http://gibbergeist.wordpress.com/2d/freki_fin/

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