Research and Ideas for villain painting.

I decided a few days ago that I wanted to do a piece of the main villain from my game for my painting final piece.

I've been researching and thinking about it loads, thinking of what ideas I can use:

- Female enchantress/witch

- Dragons

- Wings/Horns

- Succubus/Incubus

- Existing game villains/creatures. EG: Ifrit & Garuda from Final Fantasy XIV

Above: Ifrit!
Below: Garuda concept art

Research for inspiration:

Looking at art by Mike Nash for inspiration:

From an online game called Aion, where the player can create either a good or evil character (looking at the evil race here):

I like the idea of including a dragon in my piece as the villain's companion; perhaps as a big part of the background...

...or perhaps with a smaller creature.

What I've noticed about pretty much all the artwork I've seen so far is that the female villain character is always typical - they're always drawn quite appealing and sexy. I want to do something a bit different for my character - I want her to be dark and evil, but in a surprising way. I could do this by making her something unexpected.

I could do this by making her look quite 'cute' or like she doesn't really have much power. I do want to reflect her dark personality though, so this will be a challenge.

I came across a piece that I really like:

I researched the artist from the signature on the piece ('Chain & Jane') and found out that it's by a pair of Chinese artists who do fantasy artwork. They appear to work mostly in Photoshop and Painter. I really love their style of art but I don't think I could do it myself, as it looks really realistic and I'm still trying to grasp that style in my work.

I came across two painters on Google - Jasmine Becket Griffith and Natalia Pierandrei.

Jasmine Becket Griffith has a very gothic style; she mostly does fantasy elements in her work, including fairies and witches. She uses acrylics. One of the most striking things about the characters she creates are their eyes; she is obviously influenced by the 'chibi' manga style through the proportions and colours in her pieces.

I like her work; I love the bright colours that stand out from the dark. I think I might use a similiar colour pallet in my work. However, I don't think I want to use her style in my work, with the big eyes and roundish heads - I'd prefer to do something a bit more realistic.

Natalia Pierandrei's work is probably one of my most favourite art style I've seen so far - she uses watercolours but most of her work has pale colours with some standing out more than others. I also really love the style in which she does her characters in.

Looking closer at her work, I can see how she shades; she does block colours in black outlines, simple yet effective. I think I will use her style as an influence for my work, but with brighter colours to match the theme of all my other pieces.

For my conclusion... I have come up with the main factors I have to consider about my piece:

• Colours
• Layout & Composition
• Background/scenery
• Techniques and materials

For colours, I want to go with my main theme and use bright, bold colours that stand out. However, because this is a dark piece, I will use darker colours than the usual; I will still have reds and purples, golds, ect. standing out though.

I will experiment with the layout and see what looks good; I think I will have the dragon quite large, with the villain in front. I like the idea of using the size of both the main points in the piece stand out - the dragon being massive compared to the villain. I think I will have her sitting on his foot or tail to show this. 

I want quite a dark background - or perhaps something reflecting the darkness that surrounds the villain. I like the idea of having a blue sky, green forest and such in the very background, with dark clouds surrounding the villain; I have to think about where the skyline is going to be within my piece, and the size of things compared to the dragon. I have to consider how much background is going to be shown at all, as the dragon will take up a large amount of space if I want the villain to be clearly seen in the piece. The canvas is quite large though so I'm not sure if this will be a problem or not.

For painting techniques which I have researched, there are many I could use; I could use wet on wet to create the sky in the background with a nice fading effect, and lifting techniques to create the effect of clouds. If I wanted to add an element of texture to my piece (ie; on the dragon?) I could use the impasto technique with oil paints. I think I will probably use gouache paint as this is a good paint for the style that I work in (bold, bright and flat colour). I think I will add a black outline in my piece, similar to Natalia Pierandrei's work; however, I will use colours inspired by Jasmine Becket Griffith's pieces. I also have some influences from the painter Camilla D'Errico who I have mentioned earlier in my blog.

Images - Google Image Search 

Artists - Jasmine Becket Griffith, Natalia Pierandrei, Jiansong Chen and Jie Jiu (Chain & Jane), Mike Nash, Camilla D'Errico