Thread by @rhineville

Cover for Mythic Odysseys of Theros
AD Kate Irwin #dnd5e
My 3rd Dungeons & Dragons cover & another incredibly fun one. This however I felt was strongest in the middle, and while I ended up slightly (only slightly) disappointed, I leaned a thing about my comps. Lets go thread! ->

Brief! unlike the other two I've done that offered a singular focus with lots of detail/clutter, this piece would be a challenge of managing all of the important elements. how much space does the hydra take up? where is this statue? Can everything fit together nicely?

Early thumbnail sketches. I was a very fun challenge to try to get the fight working because I was relieved from having two characters fight one another (an awkward thing that usually requires you to show both faces) but also I have this giant ... thing taking up a lot of space!

In the above pics though, you can see another bonus is you can treat all those heads like a whirling vortex, a big snake wave.

This page i think I did in a bar while in Pittsburgh, trying to get work done while seeing a live comedy show :)

Afterward i was off to Germany to visit Christina. While there i started doing rough sketches on her ipad to see what particular compositions weer the most interesting and hit all the right notes.

I'm not the best at procreate, but the two colour sketches I sent into AD Kate Irwin i think were my strongest.

I liked the idea of the hydra taking out a column that Haktos just leapt from, but also the side lighting of the left image. What I got back was....

A merger!
Kate informed me that everyone loved the leap pose from the 2nd image, but the composition of the first worked better. I gave a bit of a "counter paintover" suggesting that flipping Haktos would make more sense, chiefly because his face wouldn't be in shadow. Approved!

Once again I set about getting reference and, well, yep. Do what you've got to do to get the shots you need! The cloth-waving bits were from a much older shoot that I re-purposed.

And again, don't throw anything away!

This guy helped me on the Spawn of Thraxes MTG card promo and he was perfect for this project as well. I took more than I needed in case there were changes to the hydra's body.

I have a pretty specific "tight sketch process" after getting ref;
1. establish gestures
2. Imply smaller details, resolve faces
3. tight sketch

Sometimes there's one extra step in the middle but usually I try to keep it to these 3

Here are some tight sketches detail shots;

Oh I forgot to mention; i don't use procreate after I'm done with the colour sketches, all the tight sketches are done on my pc :)

Finally back to the colours; set the sketches to multiply and colour underneath. using the lighting info I got from my refs as a guide

here's what I call "rough colours." I know at a glance it looks pretty refined, but a full half of the work is yet to be done with the final rendering. All of this under-the-lines colours is representative of the final, but they're still a foundation.

you can see what I mean with these closeups. Lines are still showing, details are fuzzy, it won't hold up to scrutinty.

and from there I paint on top of everything, front to back.... cue the gif!

some detail shots -

and finally some story-telling elements, like Nylea's statue (with a painted on Nyx effect that others have already noticed!) which i was happy to represent as a painted greek statue, and her base which depicts the hunt

And lastly another cool element asked for in the brief; the battle with the hydra as relief. I added a few steps to the story myself, the hydra invading and knocking crap over :P

Thanks for reading!

It was actually right HERE that I was feeling the best about this piece, and i think it was because it actually has some negative space! I think i crowded it too much in the end.

Dammit I forgot to post the sketch up model I made for this!

Already in bed, tomorrow :)

I have missed a step that I'm tacking onto the end here; part of my reference gathering includes making simple 3d models in sketchup if architecture is present.

I had some leftover greek facades from my work on Theros MTG cards

I sometimes create "pure line" versions that i can use outright for sketch layers, and even value renders if I want to add colour directly to them (rare, didn't do it this time)

And why not; my "gathered" reference from google and such. Some photos I already had in my folders, some I got just for this. I don't usually paint things directly as they are so copyright shouldn't be an issue.

Some greek things;

reference for the hydra;

and lighting/lanscapes

I was also doing my initial sketches in Germany while/after Christina and I watched a certain series.... and I had a few more interesting Hydra inspiration pics in my folder ;)