Chen Ruo Yu's Concept Art Projects

Brood of the Naga Queens is a personal project aimed at designing unexplored factions within the Warhammer: Fantasy Battles franchise, with the aim of style-matching the design language of the Total War: Warhammer games. It is an ongoing project - two pieces have been created, but more are being planned.

FACTION DESIGN

As Brood of the Naga Queens is a project aimed at designing a full unit roster in the style of a Warhammer/Total War army, it is important to know what cultural motifs and stylization to aim for. The Warhammer universe is an extremely diverse and stylized setting, and nailing down a central theme and aesthetic is key to creating a recognizable and successful faction.

I have also done research in designing what my Snakemen/Naga should look like - as an IP, Warhammer typically takes real or historical aesthetics and objects, and exaggerates them to fit its over-the-top look. As such, it's important to know exactly how my fantasy Naga would look like, relative to real animals.

I created a logo for the project with Blender/Photoshop.

As is evident, I am aiming for a Southeast-Asian theme for the Naga. This is in accordance to Warhammer design principles - most Warhammer factions typically draw from a real-world region, using its mythology and aesthetics to create a fantastical nation.

Here you can see me sketching out what the Naga would actually look like - what kind of body plan or head shapes I would use. There are many ways one could combine human and animal characteristics, and I wanted to be sure I had a cohesive idea of what to do.

Here is my roster pinboard - these are the units and creatures that I am sure I will be creating in the future. These are rough blockouts of my ideas for what to make, and the specific designs are subject to change as I go on.

Here's a WIP shot of an environment piece I am creating for Brood of the Naga Queens. This is built in Unreal Engine 4, as a way to help me learn the software. I will later be taking it to Photoshop to paint over.

SARPA INFANTRY

This was the first design I created for Brood of the Naga Queens - the Sarpa Infantry. As the basic Khuresh Naga unit, I wanted to design it first to help me become better acquainted with the type of shapes and colour language I would be using over the project.

Rough silhouette thumbnails for the Sarpa.

BLOOD NAGA QUEEN

For the Blood Naga Queen, I went with a very different rendering style from the Sarpa. Much of the official Total War: Warhammer concept art makes use of this lineart style, and I wanted to prove that I could achieve this kind of rendering as well. I will mostly be making use of the hand-painted rendering style in later pieces, but it feels good to have the lineart in my toolbox as an option.

Basic shape and silhouette exploration for the Blood Naga Queen.

As with Brood of the Naga Queens, Prism is an ongoing personal project. However, Prism is based on my own setting.

Prism is set in a near-future, post-apocalyptic Hong Kong, where reality has been shattered into a thousand different versions of itself, and the population of the city has been scattered throughout these alternate dimensions. Each dimension has its own strange and mysterious twist; in one, all of Hong Kong may be a massive, abandoned megacity, while in another, the city may be underwater. What is common to each world, however, is that strange and eldritch creatures stalk the city and its remaining inhabitants.

Here is an early concept mood painting I created, exploring the strangeness of an otherworldly Hong Kong. Being from Hong Kong, I am able to take pictures as reference and photobashing material easily. I am planning on creating more key art and mood paintings soon.

I have created a series of three character concepts - I have not done photobashing before, and I have been using this project to teach myself how to incorporate photobashing into my workflow.

THE COMMANDER

Dao, the Commander, is the leader and ruler of the only military faction within Prism. Being from a special warfare division dedicated to fighting otherworldly threats, they were the only people in the city who were prepared for the Fracture. Dao is now the Commander and tyrant of the Division, aiming to take over each and every dimension.

Sketches and ideas for The Commander. Being set in a near-future version of Hong Kong (at least, before the Fracture), Dao and his troops have access to high tech gear, if somewhat worn down from the years of survival and conquest. He has the most uniform and well-kept gear out of all the characters I've designed for Prism.

I started out with a 3d base in order to photobash on.

THE GUERRILLA

Eva is my Guerrilla character. Growing up in the wastes of post-apocalyptic Hong Kong, her father was killed by the Division, and she has been on the run ever since. She travels from world to world, working as a mercenary and freelancer whenever possible, scavenging most of her gear. As the threat of the Division has grown, Eva has become dedicated to fighting a guerrilla war against Dao and his troops.

Eva is a survivor and scavenger. I elected to go with mostly sports/civilian gear for her look, with only police-level guns as her most valuable items. Her things are worn and damaged from the many years of rough living, and she makes use of whatever improvised items she can find in the ruined city.

As with before, I started with a 3d base before painting and photobashing.

THE FISHERMAN

Old Zhang is the Fisherman, a tough-as-nails monster hunter who lives in the wild swamplands of Sai Kung. Hong Kong, even today, has large swathes of wetland. When the Fracture happened, his world was transformed into a haunted, misty swamp, and Old Zhang adapted. A fisherman before the apocalypse, Zhang stuck to his livelihood, carving out his own territory near the coast, hunting and killing the monsters that come near.

For the Fisherman, I wanted to try and combine traditional Chinese fishing gear and modern-day fishermen outfits. Being a loner living out in a dangerous swamp by himself, I also decided to incorporate more organic and natural elements into his design. This eventually resulted in me drawing heavily from the traditional Chinese cormorant fisherman outfit for Old Zhang's look.

For The Fisherman, I decided to skip out on a 3d base, as I wanted to get further into photobashing, and had to stop relying on 3d as a crutch. As such, here is my first fully photobashed character base.

As with Prism, The Greatest War is my own setting and personal project. However, it is currently the smallest and least developed of the projects I'm showing here - I haven't had the time to go back and create more pieces beyond the first I made for it. However, I am definitely planning to do more in the future.

The idea beyond The Greatest War is a technology-versus-magic war, but between a nation of WW1 industrial-focused rat people, and an army of nature-magic faeries. I think this allows for a lot of freedom and fun aesthetics to play with.

Here are some of my initial character ideas that I would be looking at expanding on later - I'm focusing on the rats first, and faeries second.

Quick sketch of a Faerie warrior. The designs are VERY much WIP.

BIG BESSIE

Big Bessie is my first, and currently only, piece for The Greatest War project. She's a Galapagos tortoise-turned-tank, in case that wasn't obvious. 

My initial sketch for Big Bessie. I wasn't sure what kind of tortoise to make her at first, or if I should make her a fantasy tortoise.

I built most of Big Bessie in 3d before painting, as one of my first forays into properly integrating 3d into my character/creature design workflow.

Unfortunately, I am aware that my portfolio is currently lacking for up-to-date environment and prop designs. This is currently something I'm working on, but since The Rookies is due, I'm not ready to show those projects off yet. Maybe next year!

Instead, here are some of the various illustrations I've been working on, to demonstrate that I have a greater range than just characters and creatures.

This was my first environmental piece done with a 3d base. I built it in Unreal Engine, as my first test into trying the program out.

Here's some Doom fanart. As with all these illustrations, it uses a 3d base.

Here's an illustration of a Techpriest. I designed and modelled the character from scratch.

Here are my head and body designs for the Techpriest character.

Here's the full character. I did the modelling in Blender and Marvelous Designer, textured in Substance Painter, and took him back to Blender for rendering.

Final 3d base.

Here's an illustration I made, based on Warhammer: Total War.

Here's my 3d base, as rendered in Blender.