This illustration kicked off another round of character designs for a longtime client who maintains an original superhero universe for his gaming group. The concept of these two characters is that they are sort of like the children of his world’s evil despot, a cross between Mandarin and Doctor Doom. They are different in personality and approach, but operate together as a team. I went with styling loosely inspired by the previous design he had had done for their father, which is below in the process notes, then from there went on to rationalize a design concept for the armor and clothing. I wanted exotic, Asiatic but not literal… more than anything, I was thinking Mongolian in tone, but post-Chinese Empire-dominance. I liked the juxtaposition of robes and soft cloth with the detailed, gilded armor. Many of the details were described by the client and I just had to visualize a cohesive element. Overall I like how they turned out…

Please enjoy!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

This is the pic of Emperor Dang as done by artist Storn Cook

This was the pencil sketch the started the piece, loosely establishing the relationship of armor to robes and the basic concept for each character’s look. I gave Jia a set of swords, imagining her as the more melee-combat focused of the two, while Dang Jr is more armored.

As the ethnic origin of the Dang Shui region in the client’s world was not fully defined, we explored both a lighter skin and darker complexion, representing northern vs southern influence in the dynasty. We settled on darker, which actually ties into the Mongolian influence in the armor.

This study was blocking out the armor and the robes in a little better clarity with flat color. The final colors were not yet selected, but I wanted to see the relationships.

This was a series of diagrammatic color blocks intended to convey to the client the separate factors to the design: skin, robe and armor. The relationship of robes and armor was a specific design challenge I gave myself. Usually you have a scenario where the armor is under the robes… but I wanted to integrate a system of swept-back folds of fabric to allow them to coexist.

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