The Making of 2D Art War 4 Finalist: Jupiter

Sarah Loughry

Featured20 APR 20201

Eugene Sahai is a character concept artist from Ukraine. She studied as a designer. And although she's been drawing since childhood, she just got into CG 3 years ago. She's madly in love with computer games and is inspired by many of them (Dark Soul's series, Zelda, Monster hunter, Final Fantasy and many others).

Here is her creation Iuppiter (from Latin) or Jupiter.

Character Creation

Thinking over my concept, I wanted to create a character that will initially be associated with one of the proposed elements, or be a personification of it in some way. And I confess that I have chosen lightning, because over my career I drew very few characters associated with it.

Since childhood I have been keen on myths, perhaps this is why the base of my concept became Jupiter, the Roman deity of lightning. I also decided that I would expand their image a little bit, and connect it with the cosmos and the same-named planet.

A good concept is a good search, so I always start my work with the collection of information and quality references. So you can dig deeper, while discovering interesting tidbits of information about less known aspects of armor and weapons(and pretty much everything else) of a certain period of time. I had a ton of references, only a small part of them is above.

I had a number of clear ideas about how I want to portray my character, that ranged from a simple warrior to a god-like deity. Later I decided for myself that I want to make a more powerful creature.

The second option seemed to me the most divine - it was this feeling that I wanted to evoke from the viewer - therefore I decided to continue working with it. In addition, the hair in the second version could be nicely connected with the environment - what was needed for illustration.

Further, the goal for me was to work with proportions and silhouette, I tried to make them attractive and aesthetically pleasing, close to real life.

While I was working on the armor, I was inspired by lorica (armor in ancient Rome) of the caesars, which was distinguished by its unique decor. This way I wanted to show that my character is connected to power, and that she is not an ordinary warrior. It was also important to show the connection between Jupiter and the eagle - his divine messenger - and I decided to do this through the lorica, decorating it with feathers.

In ancient Rome, the nobility was often wearing jewelry, but I didn’t want to add rings or bracelets, so I added a tattoo pattern using the symbol of Jupiter. It is a rather small detail that I love but it does not divert a lot of attention.

With the color palette, everything was decided as soon as I saw the colors of the planet of the same name, they have a good contrast with each other. Used the colors in the classic ratio of 70/30.

Working on the Illustration

I was thinking for a long time about how I want to portray my champion and decided to start simply with anatomy and planning. It was also important to decide what atmosphere I wanted to set for my illustration. Since this is Jupiter, a planet with a large number of satellites that revolve around it, I decided to “spin” the environment around it.

Below is a schematic breakup of the composition with my character.

I was satisfied with the composition, so I went on with the concept (I worked on the concept and illustration at the same time, especially during the b/w stage). I needed to refine the character design, determine the colors. When I finally figured out the concept, I returned to the illustration.

After working on the illustration, I allowed myself to move a little away from the colors and minor details on the concept in favor of the final picture.

At this stage, I began working on the effects that surround my champion in a whirlwind: made them smoother and flowing, showed a connection with the character’s hair. And of course, what is Jupiter without its moons? Therefore, I added an orbit with a satellite. A minor detail that makes me happy.

Then I refined the character a bit more, added reflexes from lightning, and made the character's silhouette more separated from the background. The final stage is adding chromatic aberration and noise.