The Creation of Captain Sarah Woodford of the IAEA
Hi, my name is Edward Yorke, I'm a British concept artist and illustrator. I am a self taught concept artist and illustrator from Leeds in the United Kingdom. I’m working as lead artist on an Indie Game called Oirbo at the moment. My long term goal is to work as a character concept artist for the Video Game and Film industry. Most of my work is character design however I am branching out in to environment and prop design too.
I participated in Art War 3 and had a blast! I’ve been kindly invited to show you how I created my character, Captain Sarah Woodford of the IAEA.
The theme of Heroes vs. Villains caught my eye immediately, I decided to go after a Sci-Fi theme having recently finished up a number of fantasy style paintings, and landed on the Hero side of the battle.
Preparation
When designing a character I like to have some idea of a story for them, something I can use as a reference for decision making during the design process. In this case I landed on the idea that some time in the future once humans have colonized other planets, the inevitable wars between these planets would involve extraterrestrial combat. The heroes of these wars, to me, would be the medics trying to save the lives of their fallen brothers and sisters. Captain Sarah Woodford works for the Interplanetary Aegis for Earth Alliance (IAEA) a group dedicated to saving humans caught in wars around the solar system. Using that as a jumping off point I went on the search for reference pictures, some ideas that jumped out at me were futuristic manufacturing processes, the branding of the NASA missions, and space suit design.
Ideation
Once I had a good idea of a visual theme, character motives and design direction I started by thumbnailing the character design as basic silhouettes. Each one had a different goal in mind, utilizing different shape language, balance, visual read, and weight, to try and find a design that I liked. After filtering the ones I felt were weakest out, I developed each design a little more with some rough line-art. This process doesn’t take very long, perhaps 20 - 40 minutes per design, but it really helps quickly distinguish good ideas from bad. Ideas from one design might carry over from the next, and vice versa. It’s a very loose stage and no single idea is set in stone, I try to keep myself open to change at any point.
From these drawings I really liked the idea of a medic’s bag, an aggressive looking helmet, small weapon and skirt. To identify her as a medic I also wanted to include the classic red cross icon and include the nurses uniform theme, while keeping her equipped for a hostile environment both from combat and the perils of space.
Development
Another filter of ideas resulted in one design to follow. However I am still open to change at any time. Next I took each element that I wanted to showcase as important to her and designed them more carefully, with the time available I was able to really get in to the details of how her equipment works. This involves many questions: how she might put her suit on/take it off? How her medic bag would be carried, and what is inside it? What type of weapon she would use?. Answering these questions thoroughly helps create a consistent design which in turn makes for a more convincing character.
Concept Drawing
Once the design is clearer in my mind I clean up the work by adding a line drawing over the top and filling it with a flat color. To that end I added a slight cool-warm gradient to help influence the painting later.
Next comes the painting stage. Having decided on a color palette quite early on I check that it looks reasonable by adding them as flats using the gradient I made earlier as a multiply layer set to low opacity to add depth to the painting. From there I begin to render everything out, since I had a large amount of gold in this character I gathered reference and did studies of gold materials before tackling them to make sure it came out looking the way I wanted. Later in the concept phase I decided to change part of the design, her backpack. I went back to the drawing board here and identified how it worked and why it looked the way it does, I’m really glad I did because the halo brings home the battlefield angel that I wanted to portray.
Illustration
Some studies of classic statues and paintings helped me figure out the posing that I wanted to use. Some small thumbnails and thinking resulted in a composition I liked and I began to sketch in the figures, using the concept painting as reference, then moving to the painting.
This stage involved fewer design problems, however I wanted to make sure the background was eye catching and contrasted with the moment the two were having, while also showcasing her power. After composing the character I moved on to composing them within the background to ensure they stood out.
A warm background with clear alien features and dangerous elements like lava suggesting hostility was used to contrast with her cool toned outfit. Her face became a major part of the painting, so I spent significant time making sure it was emotive. Rendering I take in to account the materials, the environment behind the characters and the interactions between the two characters and light sources.
Finally I move to making sure that she looks powerful enough to be formidable in war! Her bubble originating from the halo was heavily influenced by the trailer for Battle for Azeroth where Anduin resurrects his allies, floating rocks and atmospheric effects help give this bubble a sense of power too, hopefully giving her the edge that makes her appear as a powerful ally to have on the battlefield!
I’d like to thank Cube Brush for hosting the contest, all the amazing artists who took part, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s work again next year!
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