Istebrak

Hi guys! It's been a while! I thought I should reach out to any Deviantart followers who are still active, and what better way to touch base than a design challenge!

To celebrate spring, lets draw some flower people! Winners get my Masterclass, brushes, PortraitStudio referencing software and a portfolio review. Damn! I've done a whole lot of stuff since I left Deviant art. XD

What is the Floral Humanoid Design Challenge?

The challenge for this season is to design a floral humanoid using references from real flora and fauna found around the Earth.

Designing a character is not just in painting a face and a figure and throwing on some costumes, it’s a matter of relating to the character’s world and back story and pulling inspiration from the narrative for their entire design, so a paragraph must be handed in describing the world the humanoid lives in and their role in their ecosystem and culture and how you represented it in their design.

You may combine no more than two flowers for your design, but you may also use one referenced flower; however, there must be distinct identifiable traits borrowed from the different blooms, and both references must be attached to the illustration for the final draft.

The floral anatomy of your humanoid must also be identifiable, so really think about the mechanics of blooming, walking, petal and leaf placement, gesture and details of functionality and anatomy. These will all help you design a clear and easy to read character. If they start looking too abstract or too much like fish people, you went in the wrong direction. The flower must be clearly identifiable!

Using rough sketches, experiment with the different ways the flower’s anatomy weaves into the character’s humanoid anatomy. All sketches and preliminary research must be handed in with your final draft.

You are expected to complete at least 3 concept sketches to submit with your final complete render.

You may only paint 1 character.

We have repeatedly covered the importance of the read of the silhouette in character designs, so take your time and think about breathing room and the motion of the gesture lines.

The camera must face the front of your character, using only applicable standing gestures. This is not a turn-around based character design layout. If you pick a standing character design without a background, you may cast shadows on the floor beneath the character, and you may include minor artifacts of plant life environment beneath them.

This may be handed in as a full illustration or a grey/white background character design-go for whiter backgrounds to encourage saturation and brightness, as you are showcasing saturated colors for the blooms. However, if you are going to pick a bio-luminescent bloom, you may darken the background to suit it. If you are reference coral or sea plant-life, you may also darken the background if needed. There are also shallow water sea plant life for you to pick from. NO FISH PEOPLE!

The final submission must be fully rendered and in full color.

Please remember to have enough breathing room on all poles of the canvas.

As always, the common thread between these challenges is to help you develop your world building skills and inspire your inner writer, but also to emulate a workplace environment where your art and design skills are tested and limited by design requirements.

Note: Your character design does not have to be for a sunny protagonist floral humanoid, but can be used to personify a darker side or the antagonist of a narrative. Remember the design is very dependent on the backstory, so spend some time writing!

Also 0 mushrooms.

You may not post the character in any bending, crouching, squatting or rear-view poses.

Checklist:✔️ At least 3 preliminary sketches✔️ Mood-board / References / Inspiration collage✔️ Photo references of chosen flower(s) attached to final draft✔️ Latin names of flowers added to the final draft✔️ Paragraph narrative added to final draft, no more than 250 characters

You have around a month or two to complete the challenge, and I will announce the due date sometime in the coming month.