Chibies 3 - The Day of The Dead
Chibies 3 - The Day of the Dead
Full size version available here : img827.imageshack.us/img827/1087/eldiadelosmuertoslj.jpg
What's the concept ?
Sam and Dean enjoying The Day of The Dead and proving once again they are the best hunters in America...
What the hell is that giant skeleton with a sombrero ?
The angry spirit of a dead Mexican singer. To tell you the truth, this illustration is a reworked version of what should have been a part of one of my spn_reversebang prompts. I planned to draw a "100% chibies" 4-5 pages comic but I finally dropped due to a lack of time and the will to experiment new stuff with pure CG painting (God, I wish there were 4 prompts by artist but the limit is 3 -______- ). The story should have taken place during El Dia de los Muertos, at the Mexican frontier, in a small village. Sam and Dean have to get rid of the gosht of a Mexican singer who used to kill all the people who didn't like his music and who only appears once a year, on November 2nd (the precise day of The Day of the Dead). The boys are helped in their quest by an original character, a Mexican hunter whose uncle has been wounded by the ghost (he's in fact the real hero, because in my "chibies story", Sam & Dean are not the most talented hunters in the world...)
Can you tell us more about what this "Chibies prompt" should have been ?
The main character alongside Sam and Dean is called Miguel. He's a great hunter, one of the best in Mexico and has two "little" obsessions, British singer Morrissey and the Mexican football team (soccer team for a part of the planet). Miguel never goes hunting when "Moz" is doing a concert in town and when the national team plays, he constantly has the radio turned on a sport station. He think that Dean has shitty tastes in music ("Guns n'Roses ? That's noise, not music..") but he likes the guy because they have a common passion for guns and...the Casa Erotica DVD series.
Miguel, in his room with his Morrissey poster (pencils + Photoshop CS)
Miguel has really big glasses and...hum...an interesting haicut...
That's the "Morrissey style haircut", with short hair on the side and a "quiff" on the top of the head. The glasses are also roughly the same glasses Morrissey would wear during his days within The Smiths, his former band. I've been inspired by real Morrissey fans I met during "Moz" concerts and more particularly by a series of photos made in Mexico and South America. As a great fan of Moz myself (that's an understatement...), I wanted to pay tribute to those guys in my Chibies prompt thanks to the character of Miguel.
A Morrissey fan in his room (and a detail of the room) (sorry about the credit, I don't know the name of the photographer)
The design is different from your usual Chibies....
To tell you the truth, even Sam and Dean design should have been different. They should have been more "cartoon like" . It's easier to convey emotions through a character when you draw the face with all the details and not just two little black spots for the eyes as I usually do.
Sam & Dean (Pencils + Photoshop CS)
Back to the first drawing now. Did you use screentones like in mangas ?
Yes, but digital screentones, we are in the 21st century.
Everything is colorized with Photoshop CS. Here's a work in progress so that you can see the different steps.
1. The drawing after scanning and adding the first shades of grey
2. Light grey screentone. I also added the first shadows and highlights thanks to two layers respectively set to "Multiply" and "Overlay"
3. "Cloudy" screentone and more highlights.
4. The final result with the the speed lines. The trees are a custom brush downloaded on the Internet and the floor was added thanks to a brush from the "assorted brushes" set (PS default brushes). The final touch : the moon and the stars (also custom brushes)
Why is the skeleton naked BTW ?
I know, he should have worn a suit or something but with some clothes on, it's impossible to see all the details of the bones. I tried to draw the guy with a suit but the result was less fun, so he just ended up with a big hat.
Petite-Madame...you seem to be in the middle of a "chibies frenzy"...
Actually yes. I am enjoying drawing Chibies again and with all the illustrations I am currently doing for The Doors of Time and the Reverse Bang (3 prompts, 4-5 illustrations each..) it is just good sometimes to draw something stupid and simple even if drawing the skeleton and the Metallicar wasn't that simple after all.
Voilà!
That's it for tonight folks !!
See you in September for a real fan art post this time !
Full size version available here : img827.imageshack.us/img827/1087/eldiadelosmuertoslj.jpg
What's the concept ?
Sam and Dean enjoying The Day of The Dead and proving once again they are the best hunters in America...
What the hell is that giant skeleton with a sombrero ?
The angry spirit of a dead Mexican singer. To tell you the truth, this illustration is a reworked version of what should have been a part of one of my spn_reversebang prompts. I planned to draw a "100% chibies" 4-5 pages comic but I finally dropped due to a lack of time and the will to experiment new stuff with pure CG painting (God, I wish there were 4 prompts by artist but the limit is 3 -______- ). The story should have taken place during El Dia de los Muertos, at the Mexican frontier, in a small village. Sam and Dean have to get rid of the gosht of a Mexican singer who used to kill all the people who didn't like his music and who only appears once a year, on November 2nd (the precise day of The Day of the Dead). The boys are helped in their quest by an original character, a Mexican hunter whose uncle has been wounded by the ghost (he's in fact the real hero, because in my "chibies story", Sam & Dean are not the most talented hunters in the world...)
Can you tell us more about what this "Chibies prompt" should have been ?
The main character alongside Sam and Dean is called Miguel. He's a great hunter, one of the best in Mexico and has two "little" obsessions, British singer Morrissey and the Mexican football team (soccer team for a part of the planet). Miguel never goes hunting when "Moz" is doing a concert in town and when the national team plays, he constantly has the radio turned on a sport station. He think that Dean has shitty tastes in music ("Guns n'Roses ? That's noise, not music..") but he likes the guy because they have a common passion for guns and...the Casa Erotica DVD series.
Miguel, in his room with his Morrissey poster (pencils + Photoshop CS)
Miguel has really big glasses and...hum...an interesting haicut...
That's the "Morrissey style haircut", with short hair on the side and a "quiff" on the top of the head. The glasses are also roughly the same glasses Morrissey would wear during his days within The Smiths, his former band. I've been inspired by real Morrissey fans I met during "Moz" concerts and more particularly by a series of photos made in Mexico and South America. As a great fan of Moz myself (that's an understatement...), I wanted to pay tribute to those guys in my Chibies prompt thanks to the character of Miguel.
A Morrissey fan in his room (and a detail of the room) (sorry about the credit, I don't know the name of the photographer)
The design is different from your usual Chibies....
To tell you the truth, even Sam and Dean design should have been different. They should have been more "cartoon like" . It's easier to convey emotions through a character when you draw the face with all the details and not just two little black spots for the eyes as I usually do.
Sam & Dean (Pencils + Photoshop CS)
Back to the first drawing now. Did you use screentones like in mangas ?
Yes, but digital screentones, we are in the 21st century.
Everything is colorized with Photoshop CS. Here's a work in progress so that you can see the different steps.
1. The drawing after scanning and adding the first shades of grey
2. Light grey screentone. I also added the first shadows and highlights thanks to two layers respectively set to "Multiply" and "Overlay"
3. "Cloudy" screentone and more highlights.
4. The final result with the the speed lines. The trees are a custom brush downloaded on the Internet and the floor was added thanks to a brush from the "assorted brushes" set (PS default brushes). The final touch : the moon and the stars (also custom brushes)
Why is the skeleton naked BTW ?
I know, he should have worn a suit or something but with some clothes on, it's impossible to see all the details of the bones. I tried to draw the guy with a suit but the result was less fun, so he just ended up with a big hat.
Petite-Madame...you seem to be in the middle of a "chibies frenzy"...
Actually yes. I am enjoying drawing Chibies again and with all the illustrations I am currently doing for The Doors of Time and the Reverse Bang (3 prompts, 4-5 illustrations each..) it is just good sometimes to draw something stupid and simple even if drawing the skeleton and the Metallicar wasn't that simple after all.
Voilà!
That's it for tonight folks !!
See you in September for a real fan art post this time !