ADAPTED TEXT - SKETCHES + CONCEPT ART DEVELOPMENT

FINALLY uploaded all my development work with my scanner, because i dont like working with sketchbooks. Instead I draw on seperate pages, and i dont want them to get lost by handing them in uni for asessment.

P.S. for older posts search by month on the side-bar. some of the older posts are not displayed on the main page anymore.


SKETCHES + CONCEPT ART


My desk. Where all the magic happens.




i've done a LOT of development work. now you see why i keep putting off scanning that all onto my computer...


For my adaptation project i was required to design either the characters, or the envirnments. I decided to do both.

Here are some of my original sketches for Dante. I only uploaded the most signifcant pictures, because i dont have time for every single one.

Dante




Head/face









Final design. To make it less dark, and feel more like a graphic novel style, I exaggerated the proportions and deliberatley made him really chunky.





VIRGIL

With Virgil i started drawing straight into photoshop with my tablet.


This was the defining sketch, and I took it further from here.

This concept was done in a similar style to Dante, looking quite bulky and muscular. However I wanted the blue skin and wings to give him an etheral feel, like a spirit guit ( which is essentially what he is )


I toned down the body mass for the final design and made his lower half fade like whispy smoke. i did this to make him look more like an apparition than a solid being.



CREBERUS


The first concept for cerberus was just a three headed dog as described in the orginal text. Nothing special but it was a starting point.


After playing the game and seeing Wayne Barlowe's rendition of Cerberus, he took a radical design change. Heavily influenced buy the game, this Cerberus was a gluttonous monster ready to devour everything. In fact hes so fat he needs wheels.


Barlowe's Cerberus.


this is the final design. I took two of the heads off because they looked far too similar to the game's version, and instead gave it just one head. I also increased the boy mass tenfold to create what is basically a giant blob.



LUCIFER









CLEOPATRA

The stars really aligned when it cmae to designing the guardian of the circle of Lust, Cleopatra. I drew it straight in Photoshop and it was one of those drawings that just worked. I was so surprised with the outcome, I Immediatley knew I wanted to keep this design.


The bondage outfit and whip symbolise lust and punishment.


My desingn was influenced buy the art style used in World Of Warcraft. The similarities are evident.


ENVIRONMENTS


LIMBO


My original concept for limbo ( shown here ) was a huge cathedral on a cliff face, with King Minos ( Judge of the dead ) picking up sinners and judging them to their circle buy throwing them of the cliff into their corresponding circle. I came up with the idead of a huge conveyer with platforms holding piles of sinners going up to the cliff to minos.




These are some speed-paintings i did to show what the top of the cliff would look like it. Sinners travel up the pathway to Minos' cathedral.



The early cliff concepts didnt quite capture the huge scale I was looking for. being the first circle of Hell, I wanted it to be vast, dainting and impressive. So I came up with the idea of a giant spire, witch sinners would be force to ascend to reach Minos' Cathedral at the top.


For this final render, i changed the lava to sewage water. This was partly to symoblise that the souls trapped in limbo were not clean enough to ascend to heaven, yet not worty of punishment as serious as the rest of the circles. Plus it makes a change from the generic notion of hell as just lava, fire and rocks.


Charons Boat: Originally I had this idea I was super excited about doing, Chanron's Boat. Charon was the ferryman who would take the sinners from death and transport them on his boat to the first circle Limbo to be judged. I wanted to have the boat docked at the foot of the spire, but i didnt have enought time to take it further because I already had 9 circle to design as it was.




GLUTTONY

The second circel, and possibly the most incluenced by the Dante's Inferno game. I loved the idea that the circle was made of flesh and stomach lining/ intestines.
The environment will literally eat up gluttonous sinners, while worms swallow them whole.







Wayne Barlowe's version of Gluttony for the game:




LUST

Home of Cleopatra, and the circel in wich Dante's wife is enslaved in for commiting adultery. Lust was a one of the hardest circles to design, yet most interesting. The early ideas and sketches were inspired by surreal artist H.R. Girge's biomechanics and fleshy organic worlds. his paintings are filled with sexual undertones and bodies intertwined together. It was the perfect place to start getting some ideas.
I baugh one of his art books for inspiration, thetashcen 25 years of H.R. Giger.


The fleshy substances from this picture immediatley gave me an idea:
" I can make Lust like this!"
Inspired buy the game i wanted the circle of lust to be filled with sexuall nuances and reproductive organ symbols.




The sexaul undertones are very apparent here.



After looking at Giger's paintings i came up with these rough ideas and compositions:


I then did a Speed-paint for them, and I really hated it. It really didnt convey what I was going for and turned out nothing like I had imagined. I thaught it was flat with zero atmoshphere:



So then i turned to other areas of Gigers work. I noticed he did some sculptures for an unreleased film. These sculptures were sharp, dark and had a crazy leather/bondage
look to them. I realy liked this idea and started to move away from the fleshy organic look and veer towards this metal, leather and spike look.









I actually took the arms and legs here and created them into a walkway, with impaled sinners on the spikes.


This concept eventually became the final version. It features a gian statue filled with bodies, as well as spiked walkway. Its also worth noting the pools of bodily fluids in which the sinners are drowning in. I was really hesitant about wether this was pushing in terms of being innapropriat or just downright tasteless. Lust definitely turned out to be the darkest circle of all.


Final Render:



GREED






Im going to leave out some of the rest of the circles ( including Greed) because they dont actually feature in the story. I only did them because I wanted to.
The last two circles to feature are Violence and Treachery.


VIOLENCE

This is the circle Dante himself is condemned to for killing his wife's lover.
I particularly wanted to focus on the styx marsh, where violent sinners drown in boiling blood. In the distance you can see Lucifer's icy lair in the last circle of Treachery.


This is a speed-paint done in 2-3 hours. I was really pleased with the result, so i decided to keep it as a final design.


Finally here are some scrapped character designs. I didnt have time to work to much on these because I was focusing on the main characters, and getting them done in time for the final crit.


KING MINOS

The Greek King Minos never made it to the final cut. Descriped in the original text as a blind serpent, I tried to stay as true as possible. I added details like candles and lanterns as well as a mask.


DEMONS

A design for the slave driving demons that Virgil saves Dante from.