HauHau's Happy Ecology

MASQUERADE

For my final year project I'm required to create my own IP thus, Masquerade. The idea is there's a cult that has conducts masquerade parties to disguise sacrificial rituals as offering to an eldritch god. It's still a work in progress and I have planned for other characters and props.

This character serves as the head of the cult, being in the position of a deuteragonist and later an antagonist in the story. She is always standing out with her over the top outfit and personality so I designed her with outfits matching queens of the past and masquerade outfits that stand out along with gold laces and jewelries. I wanted her to be very detailed to really stand out the character as one of the main focus of the story.

I started designing the 'Queen' of the cult with a simple rough sketch, trying to plan and fit in different types of clothing and accessories she's gonna have with her. From there I went ahead to try to make everything much more grand with the second sketch. I also tried to draw some lace patterns just to see how it'll look in the end. Further, everything became bigger just to try to make her even more grand and over the top. I also tried to add a few indications to her connections with the eldritch god. Ultimately, it changed to the final design with a longer dress, more design to her mask as I wanted the mask to be a focus and removal of the hat for logic reasons. 

Now the second character is a butler to the Queen. He serves as a silent guardian and servant to her with unyielding loyalty. He is going to be the protagonist and the story will mainly focus on his character and his relationship with the Queen. In designing the character, I didn't want the protagonist to stand out more than the Queen in terms of look and personality, but in terms of character development.

I started out as with a simple sketch just to put my ideas on paper. He's suppose to have neat and formal clothes on with similar patterns as the Queen. I really wanted him to have a vest on as it makes him look professional and points out that he's a servant. Then on I drew a neater sketch and design the mask for him. After that I actually drew 2 more sketches with more visible weapons and have a more mercenary look. But ultimately I went back to the original design as the story is supposedly set in a party and it won't be suitable to look so dangerous in it. 

This are some of the works in progress. There will be one more character that will have a deep connection with our protagonist that will serve as a secondary antagonist. The ancient eldritch god in all his glory and a few interesting props for our characters to use. Overall, I actually really enjoyed drawing a whole project for myself and how I wanted it to be without constraints despite the art not looking particularly nice. Admittedly this wasn't designed by myself alone. I have to give massive thanks to my lecturers for guiding me through the design stages.  I'm sure it would not look as it is without help.

Here lies some other notable works from the past year.

This is just one creature i designed for another IP of mine. I included it cause it looks pretty neat and I really like my idea behind this Cerberus. The story follows a female Greek scholar who was accidentally brought to hell and the Cerberus is there to 'help' her go back up. The idea is the Cerberus has multiple personalities on each of his head corresponding to sly and evil, cheerful and childish and angry and hateful. I painstakingly drew a lot of sketches for this creature, from changing its form to slight changes in proportion to the poses. From that I continue to add detail and try out different colours. In the end, I'm really happy with the outcome.

I rendered this vehicle for another one of my IPs and it turned out better than I expected. It is supposed to be an armored vehicle to traverse a post apocalyptic world. It is put together using  junk and scraps thus the dirty and rusted look. I started with a few sketches to get an overall idea of the jeep. From then, I basically just drew on top of a picture of a jeep and slowly piecing its armor together and giving it a correct colour tone and applied texture.

This is a matte painting done with the help of a 3d model I made myself using blender. I wanted a very grand and magical feel for this Aztec sacrificial temple. The artwork went through quite a few iterations that had many colour changes and different light sources. I actually wanted more godly lights in the scene but this was the best I could do. I really do wish i could draw one of these again as I really enjoyed the process.

Im not sure if I should include a closing remark, but I want to state all these artworks are all thanks to patient lecturers who took their time to guide me and I'm really grateful for it. In the end, I'm happy that I got to improve myself through them. Hope you have a fun time scrolling~ Many thanks to everyone :)