HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hi guys, sorry about the long time and no post. I have been swamped with teaching stuff, some freelance and getting some new content for my website. The relaunch of my site will be soon so stay tuned for that.


On to more pressing matters, this Guardian Leopard is another one of those redo characters. I wanted the character to have more personality, to do this I really needed to think more about his story, something I did not really do in the first version. A lot of the times when we do a character design we want it to look so cool that we get enamored with all the details first...textures, cool weapons, etc... Sometimes we sacrifice a lot of the story which is a shame because the story is what draws us into your character.

For this guy, he was an imperial guard that has fallen out of favor with the king of his land so has now become an outcast and has come back for revenge. Its simple, but I have at least given my character an archetype (villain created by circumstance) and a conflict (needs to kill the king) and a goal ( for revenge to restore his honor).

I could go more into depth but again, I like to keep it simple so I don't get too lost in the story. There's always a balance you have to find between having just enough story to get started and waaaay to much that you "think yourself into a corner" and become stuck.

Alright, I hope that was helpful. Time to get back to updating my website but I will be back with new sketchbook pages, a sneak peak at the new site and new illustrations and covers. See you guys soon in the 09!

-Pat