Introducing 2D Finalist- Jonatan AKA Moonchild:

After reading the brief, rules and FAQ I started to scribble on the canvas (digital in my case) to generate some ideas. My first idea was a Sorceress that practices a dark kind of magic. Magic that requires her heart. I liked that idea (there was some others but now I don't even remember them). On the final image I wanted to depict her as she is casting a spell using her heart and as a result a kind of demon appears - at her service of course.

I did a couple of variants before I came out with concept sheet:

The final concept is based on third sketch. I had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with the cigarette. I liked it on my sketches, I like compositional possibilities that smoke gives (it can be shaped in any form and no one questions that) but... not everyone likes the idea of smoking (I don't smoke cigarettes but I smoke a cigar once a week... usually with rum involved ;) ). Finally I found this comment in main topic of the Challenge: "Keep it teen friendly". Well... it's hard to consider cigarettes as teen friendly so... I replaced it with thurible (thanks to that I still had a smoke to form as I want) and I shaped it in the form of a heart for the sake of visual and thematic consistency - she has a heart in the other hand and both of these artifacts are required for casting a spell.

While I was working on my Concept Sheet I also started sketching the whole scene:

I changed my first idea- Sorceress is not casting a spell - she is sacrificing some creature and transforms his essence into another form (still at her service). Sketching the scene also gave me some ideas that influenced the concept sheet. I wanted to make the sun during an eclipse the main source of light. Putting it directly behind the head of Sorceress helped make her a focal point even more (besides central composition). And then I thought it would be nice to use sun during an eclipse as a kind of ornament on her belt and on thurible. I used triangles (stylized rays from belt and thurible) on details of her dress and - later - on the altar and on the architectural element in the background. Iterating motives or shapes across the whole character design and even the scene helps maintain visual consistency, brings some logic and story to the vision.

When design of my character (presented on concept sheet) and first sketch of the scene was ready, I started working with colors (very rough and basic):

I then moved on to line art with simple flat values underneath - just to focus my mind on this vision.

During this happy sketching (I really like doing line arts) I changed the concept a bit (again). In the initial sketch there was more violence than in my final image. The character on the altar was forced to transformation against his will - he didn't want to die and become a slave after that. It was meant to be visible in the expression on his face. But now another idea started to form in my mind and it was like this: the character on the altar is old- at the end of his days actually. So he gave himself to the Sorceress and she took the essence of him, transformed him, and granted him a new life. But... yeah - there still is a catch. He will join army of phantom creatures (at her command of course) seen above in the background.

Sketching like this has one more advantage - I can focus on solidifying composition, pose, details on different planes without distractions like lighting or colors. I sketched details of dress, altar, character on it, army above and defined better architectural elements in the distance. The circle around the sun (as seen from the place where Sorceress is standing), triangles (symbolizing sun rays) around and also on outfit and thurible suggests, that eclipse is important for the ritual.

As I wrote before - I started this line art to focus my mind on this vision and that goal was achieved, along with extra information developed, so I felt ready to come back to my color painting. And... after some hours of work, I came up with another WIP in my thread:

While I was working on my 2D drawing / painting, I was using as a reference 3D scene which I did to help out with pose, proper perspective and lighting.

To be honest, I'd prefer to do more in 3D since I like the 3D way of creating almost as much as 2D drawing / painting, but the rules bring boundaries that matter so I had to keep it at bay.

I was doing all these things described above and suddenly... the deadline has come so close that I started to see it. So far I was working on it about one hour per day... and not everyday. Now I had to double and then multiply the effort. Fortunately most of the scene was set - all I had to do was spend all the time that was left on polishing the details and making adjustments. Some people seem to dislike this stage but for me - don't tell anyone - this is one of my favorite stages. All the major decisions have been made so I can just relax (if the deadline allows it), put some music on and start exploring the world / scene that I'm creating. From time to time I take a step back to look at the whole scene and check if I'm not off-course too much and... back to exploring, polishing and overall making everything as awesome as I can. Well... until the deadline finally arrived and I had the image which I had to call "Final":

Overall I was quite satisfied with the result and very pleased by all that time I spent on this challenge. Of course, there is always room for improvements. After final submission I received some useful feedback (thank you guys once again) and I took a step back (I stopped staring at it all the time ;) ) and as a result I gained a new perspective. So... I'm planning to give it some extra love (somewhere within upcoming two or three weeks) before I will put this piece into my portfolio so you can check it later here.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found something useful... or at least you didn't get bored to death ;). See you next time!

Best regards
Jonatan

Jonatan's submission can be found here.