42 Duke Vepar

[cheesecake-weasel]

Vepar is a strong Great Duke of Hell, and rules twenty-nine legions of demons. He governs the waters and guides armoured ships laden with ammunition and weapons; he can also make, if requested, the sea rough and stormy, and to appear full of ships. Vepar can make men die in three days by putrefying sores and wounds, causing worms to breed in them, but if requested by the conjurer he can heal them immediately.
Vepar is depicted as a mermaid.

ok so here's a the first load of doodles, not sure if i'll run with any of the demon designs i've done but they were a hell of a lot of fun to do :


and here's a couple of reference sheets which i'll probably carry on doing:

[Lance]

Those initial character designs look great! And you must really love drawing ships to be drawing such intricate sketches of them this early

[doomfulstace]

Very awesome start! I love the fishy influence in your designs. :D

[cheesecake-weasel]

hey cheers guys, guess i went in a bit strong with the ship refs! haha never really drawn them before so i wanted to get kinda muscle memory for drawing them

anyhoo, here's another study sheet:


and i think i'm getting a bit closer with the front card design:

[Rantz]

The last comp on the bottom right is pretty fucking brilliant... I'd definitely pursue that rabbit down the hole if I were you!

[not hamsun ma]

i really dig the colors and that last composition, but i would drop that ship in the middle there, it seems like a distractingly stable/symmetrical element in what is otherwise a very chaotic composition

[matsu]

Lookin good! I really like the last one with the ships and all!

[cheesecake-weasel]

wow thanks for the comments guys, here's some more composition sketches:

[Alexander]

Awesome progress sketches. I think the pose in #1 is the most interesting one, but #2 and #3 have better composition in general and focus on the demon better. Maybe combine the two, so that you have the dynamic pose of #1 but more centered?

[Noodle!]

I like the rightmost ones the most. In #1 she sort of dissapears out of frame almost.

[matt H]

#1 seems a lot more dynamic than the others and also makes her seem more powerful because her (his?) arms are reaching into the foreground and background, which makes her appear really huge. Nice . Maybe you could scale the image down a bit to keep her in the frame a bit more, though having her sort of crammed in there makes her seem that much bigger. Maybe adjust the pose of her right arm so that the elbow isn't tangent to the edge like that. Also, I like the darker water and the lighter clouds in the 1st one better than the inverted light/dark you did in the other ones—fits the tone better I think. Sweet stuff, can't wait to see how this one turns out

[Katheryn]

i love where your ideas are going so far! the diagonal composition is very appealing and dynamic to me (01 from the latest set) but I think having the figure more centralized might be a wiser decision. perhaps a marriage of the two ideas could work so you get the movement of 01 with the focus of 03 and 06?

can't wait to see where it goes next. :)

[cheesecake-weasel]

agreed chaps, here's the new comp although i'm probably going to re-render the whole thing and go for something a bit simpler with more of an asian print look:


also looking at it now, i think i might yellow up the sky a bit more

[akida]

hmm... I really like watching your progress! Since you are going to re-render etc.: I think the ships arrangement was better in the older sketch, they guided the eye better, now there is rather big blank spot in the front (unless you are planning to fill it, of course!)

[cheesecake-weasel]

gah i have no idea if this looks ok or not - i've been re-rendering this over and over again. i will tone the overlay texture down a touch too; its a bit silly

[darkreaver]

the stylization and rendering of the demon is glorious, but the water is looking a bit texture heavy...i prefer the smoother rendering in your sketches, it allows for the ships to read better.

[Kaz]

If you add some rimlighting on the boats ,or render the ropes in a brighter color you can make them pop out a bit more.
the texture could be inverted. more on the main character and less on the water, to give the water a smoother look.

now, that being said thoug, I think your are kicking major ass with these! Really awesome work!

[cheesecake-weasel]

ok i think we're getting there!

[Olli]

This is looking great. Good contrasts and composition.

[swervdriven]

This is looking great and it is getting better with each revision. Good work!