Genevieve Bega - Concept Art & Visual Development

Meeting Glinda

A project based on the idea of what if the Wizard of Oz story was based from the Mayan culture.

When Dorothy goes to meet Glinda in her temple that is said to house 100 beautiful ladies.  When Dorothy asks where all the women are Glinda proudly shows her a snail and tells her that the snails are the beautiful ladies.

In the Mayan culture there are four Bacabs that have been associated with the four directions, north, south, east, and west.  After quite a bit of digging I was able to find that they have also been associated with colors, elements and animals.  

I designed Glinda the witch of the south after the South Bacab which has been represented by a snail.  All of the symbols are taken from different aspects of the Bacab.  The four Bacabs are associated with bees, hence the honeycomb shape on her headdress.  

I enjoy researching for designs and incorporating it all the way down to the little things.  It was fun to add all the little details. 

Here are the initial thumbnails and below is the gradual process of the illustration.

The Pharaoh Nitocris

A legend of a female pharaoh during a time when the pharaoh was just a figure head.  Her older brother was pharaoh before her and then he fell out of favor to those with power and was assassinated.  She was then put on the throne at a young age to be their puppet.  She new their involvement with her brother's death and secretly plotted her revenge on them years later.

Elements of Nitocris' design are based off the Fate Grand Order depiction of her.  Everything else is symbols and architecture I researched from ancient Egypt.  Similar to the project before this one,  I had fun adding all the little details with meaning behind them like her brother's scratched out name at the top of the throne since she was quickly thrown into her position for there to be no time to properly adjust.

Played around with composition and different moments around the moment her brother gets murdered to being alone as a pharoh.

Process below.

Researcher's Study

A personal study inside a library that belongs to a researcher that is a bit messy.

I wanted to work on a more environment focused piece with tons of props.  

The library is part of an academy that the researcher graduated from and is working at.  He has been currently been researching a mysteriously missing person and is going out on an investigation soon.  He has a sweet little sister who is obsessed with goldfish and likes to give him her drawings.  

These were initial thumbnails when I was playing round with different story ideas.

Process below.

Deep Layer Character Line-up

A character line-up from a story concept I have been playing with.  The story takes place in a vast city that goes deep into the earth where the higher you are in society correlates to how close you live to the sun.  The cast of characters live in the lower levels and each have a different reason to climb towards the surface.

Some rough concepts for the characters.  Each is based from a different aquatic animal.