This was originally posted on my now-defunct creative blog.
This is a Zinogre from the Monster Hunter videogame series. My nephew is obsessed with Monster Hunter on the 3DS, and he was showing me the monsters one day and as soon as I saw a Zinogre I knew I had to draw it. It’s an interesting piece for me, as it went from pencils on paper, then inks on a separate sheet using my newly acquired lightbox, then I scanned the clean lines into the computer, and coloured it using my new Intuos (a Christmas gift from my lovely wife) in ArtRage.
My Nephew and I drew the pencils together, using a reference picture of a Zinogre we found on the internet. We drew out the basic shapes of the body first, got the composition and made sure the subject filled out a good portion of the paper we were using. My Nephew is eager to learn how to improve his drawing and sees me as some kind of expert, even though I’m nowhere near any kind of decent level… As much as I love drawing with pencils, I don’t think I’m an expert! It’s nice he thinks I am though, and I’m more than willing to pass on my meagre knowledge to him.
Usually, to create an inked version from a pencil sketch, I would just ink over the pencils, then rub them out. Now though, thanks to eBay, I have a lightbox, which I used for the first time to get an inked copy of the pencil version. This was my first time using a lightbox – I’m ashamed to say that I was surprised how hot it got! While I was inking over the pencils, I did lose track of what was supposed to be what at times – the difficulty of working with inks is the permanence. I should maybe have taken more time to plan my lines before committing to them. Once I had finished the lines and scanned them into the computer I took a look at them at a ridiculously high resolution and it kinda reminded me of popular British sci-fi comic, 2000AD.
I then left it for six months, or however long it was. Not sure why.
Colouring was up next, and at first I blocked in the base colours, and made the line-art a little more interesting by colouring that as a very dark shade of the base colour. I then added lighter areas to give it more of a 3-dimensional feel. I wanted the background to be simple – this would make sure the Zinogre stands out more. It was basically three or four colours per item, mixed around randomly and softened. From foreground to background there is: gravel, grass, river, grass, trees, sky – but I have intentionally kept the lines dividing them very loose to give the impression that you are focusing on the Zinogre itself. I also popped in a bit of foliage flapping about in front of it to add a bit of depth.
Overall, I’m happy with it. I blurred the tail so it was more obvious that that part of it’s body was in the background. I think I probably did over-do the shadows – it’s quite a jarring difference between lit and dark areas. The areas with light look like they could be out in broad daylight, whereas the dark areas definitely look as if it is night-time. It kind of gives the impression that there are rays of sun breaking through a tree canopy. It’s the middle of the day, but not much light gets through. Still, it was more of an experiment than anything else, just to get it done and see how it looks. My new Wacom Intuos was great, it’s much smoother than my old Bamboo, not to mention a bit more in proportion with my screen. Also, it is nice to have a stylus that works – I inadvertently broke the buttons on the side of my old one!
So, what do you think? Are you a fan of the monster design featured in the Monster Hunter series? Would you like to see me tackle a different monster? Your feedback is important to me, please feel free to leave a comment.
This was originally posted on my now-defunct creative blog.
