Cover for Mythic Odysseys of Theros
AD Kate Irwin #dnd5e
My 3rd Dungeons & Dragons cover & another incredibly fun one. This however I felt was strongest in the middle, and while I ended up slightly (only slightly) disappointed, I leaned a thing about my comps. Lets go thread! -> pic.twitter.com/zoosGwMuSJ— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
Brief! unlike the other two I’ve done that offered a singular focus with lots of detail/clutter, this piece would be a challenge of managing all of the important elements. how much space does the hydra take up? where is this statue? Can everything fit together nicely? Early thumbnail sketches. I was a very fun challenge to try to get the fight working because I was relieved from having two characters fight one another (an awkward thing that usually requires you to show both faces) but also I have this giant … thing taking up a lot of space! pic.twitter.com/yixXcy0cnl
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
In the above pics though, you can see another bonus is you can treat all those heads like a whirling vortex, a big snake wave.
This page i think I did in a bar while in Pittsburgh, trying to get work done while seeing a live comedy show 🙂 Afterward i was off to Germany to visit Christina. While there i started doing rough sketches on her ipad to see what particular compositions weer the most interesting and hit all the right notes. pic.twitter.com/ECwSldsp48
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
A merger!
I’m not the best at procreate, but the two colour sketches I sent into AD Kate Irwin i think were my strongest.I liked the idea of the hydra taking out a column that Haktos just leapt from, but also the side lighting of the left image. What I got back was…. Kate informed me that everyone loved the leap pose from the 2nd image, but the composition of the first worked better. I gave a bit of a "counter paintover" suggesting that flipping Haktos would make more sense, chiefly because his face wouldn't be in shadow. Approved! pic.twitter.com/m44naJoaeG
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
And again, don't throw anything away!
Once again I set about getting reference and, well, yep. Do what you’ve got to do to get the shots you need! The cloth-waving bits were from a much older shoot that I re-purposed. This guy helped me on the Spawn of Thraxes MTG card promo and he was perfect for this project as well. I took more than I needed in case there were changes to the hydra's body. pic.twitter.com/H9LFoijyht
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
I have a pretty specific “tight sketch process” after getting ref;
1. establish gestures
2. Imply smaller details, resolve faces
3. tight sketchSometimes there’s one extra step in the middle but usually I try to keep it to these 3Here are some tight sketches detail shots; pic.twitter.com/85JaA3kymm
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
Oh I forgot to mention; i don’t use procreate after I’m done with the colour sketches, all the tight sketches are done on my pc 🙂
Finally back to the colours; set the sketches to multiply and colour underneath. using the lighting info I got from my refs as a guide here's what I call "rough colours." I know at a glance it looks pretty refined, but a full half of the work is yet to be done with the final rendering. All of this under-the-lines colours is representative of the final, but they're still a foundation. pic.twitter.com/pOzXW4nVNn
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
you can see what I mean with these closeups. Lines are still showing, details are fuzzy, it won’t hold up to scrutinty. and from there I paint on top of everything, front to back…. cue the gif! pic.twitter.com/3bPWemSnBT
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
and finally some story-telling elements, like Nylea's statue (with a painted on Nyx effect that others have already noticed!) which i was happy to represent as a painted greek statue, and her base which depicts the hunt pic.twitter.com/6sBAkFzKjm
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 2, 2020
I have missed a step that I'm tacking onto the end here; part of my reference gathering includes making simple 3d models in sketchup if architecture is present.
I had some leftover greek facades from my work on Theros MTG cards pic.twitter.com/eTrHvAZKQG
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 3, 2020
And why not; my "gathered" reference from google and such. Some photos I already had in my folders, some I got just for this. I don't usually paint things directly as they are so copyright shouldn't be an issue.
Some greek things; pic.twitter.com/7Vij8ZC63b
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 3, 2020
and lighting/lanscapes pic.twitter.com/rq1kO9fxyF
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 3, 2020
I was also doing my initial sketches in Germany while/after Christina and I watched a certain series…. and I had a few more interesting Hydra inspiration pics in my folder 😉 pic.twitter.com/Re9QZVJ8k8
— Jason Rainville (@rhineville) March 3, 2020