Introducing the antagonist of HeavenWard, the “Compassionate One”, Maitreya.
View HeavenWard: Maitreya
These are some samples of the research I did to come up with the final sword design. I looked up real sword images that had the shapes and details I was looking for, followed by mythological concepts and imagery that would suit the sword’s purpose in the story. From all this information I eventually created a sketch of Sunyata that I was satisfied with and used it as the basis for the colored final.
As you can probably tell, this sword and its scabbard will be very important to Tara and Daigo’s adventure.
This palette is interesting because you can see my intentions vs. how it actually came out. I had originally planned on it being colored in a painterly way, utilizing Tara and Daigo’s colors (seen on the bottom half of the palette), but blended with the firelight and night colors. I wanted the light and dark to be important, so I started my first pass by coloring using only the yellows at the top of the palette and the dark gradient in the background, so I’d know what do in later drafts. The result was so unexpectedly unified that I realized that all the additional colors weren’t necessary. So my palette went from dozens of colors down to six, and I think it’s all the better for it.
I’m really pleased with how this painting turned out, considering it started out as an experimentation. I think the main flaw is that this was done before the designs for Tara and her sword were finalized, so the foreground wasn’t as well developed as it could have been.
Meet Tara, the main character from a work-in-progress project, HeavenWard. Throughout this week I’ll be sharing a series of concept art that I worked on during the latter half of 2012. As some of these had ended up as entries for a contest, I wasn’t comfortable posting them until the results were in. I didn’t win, but I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and will be continuing to work on the idea and see what comes of it.
View HeavenWard: Tara
A truth that Jenny & I have come to accept over the past twelve years is that there are always more projects that we want to do than we have time to complete. Some are discarded without much regret, while others catch our collective imagination, but aren’t feasible, or involve more investment than we can afford, or for one of a thousand other reasons end up on the back-burner.
Yet we always come back to one shared dream beyond our individual passions for writing and art: one day, we want to make an role-playing game. An old-fashioned action-RPG, like we remember from our teenage years, like Secret of Mana which brought us inadvertently together and gave us all these years of happiness together.
So when Jenny wanted to develop a concept art portfolio for a competition this past autumn, it should come as no surprise that we decided to kill two birds with one stone and begin brainstorming our aRPG project, currently known as HeavenWard. Now the competition’s over, for the next week we’ll be showcasing some of the concept art for this project, both sketches and finished pieces.
HeavenWard is something we want to do, no matter how long it takes. But this is our pet project; it’ll be something we’ll be working on in the background, in the gaps between everything else we’re trying to achieve. We can only promise to keep updating on our progress, as and when it happens, here on Generation Minus One.
While off gallivanting round post-hurricane New Jersey a few weeks back, I was tagged by YA science-fiction author Janet Edwards for the Next Big Thing meme which has been doing the rounds recently. I picked up a copy of Janet’s fantastic debut novel Earth Girl at BristolCon, and couldn’t put it down, despite me being neither a) a Young Adult nor in fact b) an Earth Girl. Janet’s Next Big Thing post, with more info about Earth Girl and its forthcoming sequel, can be found here.
It seems like this meme has been going for quite some time, and I’ve struggled to find any writers interested in being tagged who haven’t already taken part. I’m going to link to some new writers I think are worth keeping track of, and if any writers I know fancy taking part in the meme, let me know and I’ll tag retroactively!
1) What is the working title of your book?
Coquus ex Machina.
