Nameless Desert Character Concept

Desert Character Concept Development

Whenever I'm rendering, I often don't pay attention to how I carry out my process of development (As many artists do I'm sure. Getting into the flow of things sometimes separates your mind from your hand and the world around you), at least somewhat. What I do know is that oftentimes it takes a great deal of energy to finish the piece, and whatever technique I may be using may end up making me lose interest / motivation to finish it- Especially with the sudden pain coming from the wrist, telling you that you've overdone yourself despite not having progressed much into the artwork. 

For this piece though, I ended up leaning a lot towards using gradient maps. With my grayscale done and values fixed (The artwork duplicated once or twice with its layers merged just in case I mess up the first iteration. Along with several areas of the drawing such as the head, body, arms, etc being separated to each have their own fixed gradient), I go through the settings under image -> adjustments -> gradient map and choose a pre-existing gradient before tweaking it by adding in or just changing a few of the colours to give me my desired result. 

This is especially great when it comes to rendering gold. The material is quite difficult to make, especially when it comes to polished gold- with its reflective surface, there may be an addition of outside colours from the environment itself. 

Full body render

Summarized process: Sketch, grayscale render, final render (w/ use of gradient maps)

Mask colour variation (w/ slightly worn paint on two of them for a more interesting look)

Outfit variation 1 & 2 (Without overcoat & armor)

Character exploration sketches