Diablo III Barbarian - Finished!

Alright, it was time to put this one to bed so I can concentrate and finish my IMC painting. I plan on coming back to this IP, however, and making a series of 5 pieces of fan art, one for each class. I already have the Demon Hunter thumbnailed out. I put the finishing touches on the background, refined the hellspawn, rendered the hand and re-drew the leather cloth. Pro artist tip: Crumpled pieces of copier paper make great reference for flowing fabric. Many thanks to Doug Alexander and Boris Vallejo for their useful critiques at IMC! I plan on writing another post about that, but I'm still sick and I need to lay down. Goodnight.

Diablo III Barbarian - WIP 5

First of all, I just got back from the Illustration Master Class and to say I had the time of my life would be a huge understatement. I met so many wonderful people and got such good instruction and advice it's hard to describe it right now. Plus it's late and I need to go to bed. But here's some more progress on the barbarian while I wait for my art supplies to ship back to me.

I received some informative feedback from none other than the great Boris Vallejo. I could barely contain myself as he looked over my shoulder, offering advice! Doug Alexander (an art director from Blizzard!) also gave me a great critique. It was his idea to smooth out the left side of the barbarian's figure (his right) into one smooth motion line. This gives him so much more energy compared to the previous version. I wanted to move the axe over to the other side, but the hand position just doesn't make sense that way. I'll probably drop its opacity or something to push it back and keep that smooth action curve.

I still need to do a lot to the foreground; populate the area with more hellspawn, etc. Mount Arreat is looking quite good, I think. I'd like to finish this up in the next couple of days so I can jump back into completing my IMC painting.

Diablo III Barbarian - WIP 4

I think the barbarian is starting to look pretty good! This is making me want to do a whole series of all 5 Diablo III classes. I can't wait to press on with the crowd of demons.

Diablo III Barbarian - WIPs 2 & 3

I made some great progress on this one today. I finished the pencils for the barbarian and foreground hand, scanned them in to Photoshop and started laying in rough color and background.

I wanted to do this  from a low perspective looking up, but I wanted to add a whole crowd of demons/hellspawn in the background. The unlucky foreground demon needs buddies. I'm really excited for this piece; I don't want to stop working! This is where the momentum really kicks in.

Diablo III Barbarian - WIP 1

I've been kind of obsessed with the art and style of Diablo III lately. And yeah, the game is kind of addictive. I thought it would be fun to do some fan art. I think each of the classes have their own appeal, but I'll start with the Barbarian. This is just the preliminary pencil "figure pose" drawing. I'll start adding clothing and hair next.