snwbrdr - Dragons Lair

[snwbrdr]

Sounds like fun!

My dragons lair is on a ledge of a very steep rocky mountain with a little vegetation in the form of a few branches. It's save for the dragon because it's virtually impossible to climb there. the lower parts will be covered by clouds/haze and I want to give it an early morning's lighting.

I've made 2 pencil sketches which I've scanned in. (With my photocamera because my old fladbed scanner is a pain in the neck to use.:()
My plan is to render a very simple model in Cinema 4D to get basic perspective and lighting in order and take it in Photoshop from there.

I decided to go with the 2nd sketch which is a top-down view of the ledge the dragon is sleeping on. I would very much like to include the dragon as well if that's ok with the jury. Don't know if I keep him asleep of growl at the camera to get huge user interaction.

Oh, and he's a collector, so there'll be stuff laying in his lair, like swords, pieces of wood, a complete armour with in it the remains of a long deceased (too) fearless knight and maybe some remains of animals like sheep/cows/horses which he feeds on.

http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_schets1_700.jpg

http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_schets2_700.jpg

Thanks for watching, see you soon.

[JuST]

Wow... sounds awesome! Keep it up.

[Smily]

looks great

[snwbrdr]

Thanks! But this was just the start.. All the harder (but definately as much fun) work's gonna start now :-P

[snwbrdr]

So here's the digital sketch from which I'll be taking it further. The mountains in the background are rendered in a different layer so that can be easily replaced. I've got a few more ideas I might put into this, but that depends on the available time.

I'm not gonna post an wip every day, but I thought these were important milestones.

http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_digitale_schets_700.jpg

Thanks for watching. Crits and suggestions are always welcome.

[Suirebit-3DT]

very nice idea, you can pull a very moody and dramatic piece if you play this right :)

[snwbrdr]

Just trying an idea: Far below is a little viking village (needs more detail, I know) which will be surrounded by forest and maybe a few mountains starting (ie. left top) and of course a flock of sheep and a pasture with cattle, roads leading to and trough the village and very important; smoke coming out of a few chimneys.

It's a perfect spot for the dragen, because he's virtually unreachable by humans and there's cattle nearby to feed himself. I should probably give the village something to defend their property against the dragon.. Will think about that..

http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_digitale_schets2_700.jpg

Thanks for watching.

[Aramor]

Awesome. I really like this idea.

Maybe as dragon defense, some ballista thingies that shoot big arrows or something?

[snwbrdr]

Yes exactly, something like that! I think I'll give the dragon some broken arrows/spears in his back also.. Thanks.

[Aramor]

Maybe if you're going for a comical effect, you can have him use one as a toothpick, just to show that they're actually utterly pointless.

No pun intended.

[snwbrdr]

Haha, yeah, not really my intention though. Maybe I got a bit carried away already, let's first concentrate on making the foreground. See where it's going then.

[snwbrdr]

Took me several attempts with a variety of textures to get the rock-structure to my satisfaction, but finally, after a long long time, I think I've got it.

Should hurry from now on, took me far too long to get from the sketch to this point and there's so much to do.. But I've finished the single-player mode in CoD: Modern Warfare 2, so I should have more time now.. ;) (Darn those games, they've made them too addictive, thank God Dirt 2 will not be available until after the deadline.. :))

Three stages of rock-painting: sketch, placing textures, brushing details:
http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_wip1.jpg

[rocneasta]

looking good so far, hopefully this will turn out to be really detailed piece of work

[snwbrdr]

Little update:
http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_wip2.jpg

[snwbrdr]

Well, I had a huge amount of time to spend this weekend. Since I've made only a few of these kind of paintings, everything costs quite a bit of time anyway. Yet I think I've come a long way these last few days.

Still a lot of detail to work out and put into it though, so I'll definately need the last week to finish off a lot of loose ends.

This what I've got so far:

http://www.haraldschipper.nl//images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_wip3.jpg

[rocneasta]

looks impressive! did you rig the dragon or was it just a backbone for painting one.

[snwbrdr]

Thanks! Didn't rig it, no. Althought it's sort of a rig, I guess. In Cinema 4D I inserted a bunch of cubes, each a child of the previous cube, so when you rotate one cube, the rest (tail/neck) rotates along. But I didn't add bones, so there's no inverse kinetics or stuff like that.

Thought it would be a good start to get proportions, pose and perspective right. Works fine for me and doesn't take a long time to build.

[snwbrdr]

Final:

http://www.haraldschipper.nl/images/threedy/final/dragons_lair_-_harald_schipper_800.jpg (http://www.haraldschipper.nl/images/threedy/final/dragons_lair_-_harald_schipper_1920.jpg)

I've really pushed my limits on this one, both in time spent on a single image and redefining my Photoshop-skills over and over in the last few weeks. I'm very proud of it, and hope you all enjoy my piece as much as I do (and did making it).
2 Weeks ago I bought myself an 2nd hand Wacom Intuos 3 A5, and I was blown away with hom much that helped me during the making of it and had regrets not getting one way sooner.

Hope you like it!

[snwbrdr]

Wouldn't want to forget my WIP-sheet of course...
http://www.haraldschipper.nl/images/threedy/wips/2-dragonslair/dragons_lair_wipsheet_800.jpg
(Sorry, I had to let a couple of reference photo's out because of my habit of just copying and paste them straight outta Firefox and deleting the layers from the PSD over time when it takes humongous forms on my little harddrive. Then afterwards.. I can't seem to find them anymore.. :/)

[Heavenly]

Very cool, I`m amazed