The first step when creating this project like the other projects from the illustration techniques course is to brainstorm ideas.
Even though I had the option to do either fantasy or sci-fi, I chose to do both since I had a drawing of a character I had made before this I wanted to innovate upon.
The second step is very similar to the brainstorming stage which is creating sketches of variations of the characters to see what designs worked best to continue refining.
I wanted to choose the first image, but I could not use terrain or furniture in the project. I chose the second image instead while removing the terrain aspect to keep the references for the posing.
The third step is doing a comp stage by refining details of the previously chosen character poses and adding more refined line work as a baseline to continue forward.
In this stage, I had a hard time figuring out how to do posing since I had never done character poses before and trying to get aspects of the hands, feet, etc. to look appropriate was challenging.
The fourth step is a progress stage in Adobe Illustrator. I used a simple vector style that balances simple and complex line work.
In this iteration, I planned on using a good amount of black fill to help differentiate parts of the characters, but I had to reverse certain areas since it was against one of the project parameters.
Also, the characters helmets were actually inspired by my own logo.
Final Product:
