Dasha Y. Park is an illustrator & concept artist mainly focused on game art stylization. Back in the day, she was inspired to be an artist when she started playing video games as a kid. Last year, she graduated with a BFA in Illustration and have been looking for working opportunities while doing personal projects on the side. Here is a step-by-step process on how I made “Flame of Phoenix”!

Ideation

In the beginning, I sketched out ideation thumbnails for a hero design. The idea was to have a female character using fire magic that is shaped like a phoenix. With the phoenix, I wanted it to embody the meaning of “Her fire will never be extinguished.” 

When I thought of her fighting style as ‘shooting’ fire against enemies, I also came up with an idea of using fire arrows and made a couple of sketches based on that.

Rough Sketches

In the next step, I picked three sketches that stood out and refined them a bit to see which one would be the best to go with for the final illustration. In the first place, I love working on costume design such as character skins, so I played with some details on her costume to connect them with the main concepts: fire and phoenix. 

When I posted this on the forum, the first sketch got the most votes. Although I liked the other two designs, I thought the gradation of her dress and feathers on the top and bottom went well with the phoenix concept so I decided to go with the first design.

Layout/Composition for Final Illustration

The next step was to create thumbnails for the final illustration. When I made and presented the four thumbnails to the forum, A&D got the most votes. In the illustration, I wanted to show how she uses her power and her character design at the same time. Both A&D looked good but I ended up choosing D since I wanted to show her full body and wanted to make sure she doesn’t appear too small in the thumbnails like B&C.

Final Illustration Process

Step 1: To explain the early steps of beginning the final illustration, I first did a tight sketch, then input the base colors along with a quick rendering to set up the direction of the light source and plan out the shadow shapes.

Step 2: For this stage of the process, unfortunately I did not post it on my forum which I think I should have done. Basically, I added a secondary light source behind her to give more variation in colors and some freshness, or breathing room for the eyes. However, I found it didn’t go well with the image because it was a bit distracting and I wanted the Phoenix to be the main focal point. It was also hard to guess where the light was coming from.

Step 3: After getting some feedback from the post, I worked on foreshortening the proportions along with adding more details overall, and played with the color of the second light source, which I ended up removing. 

As an alternative, I darkened the background to push the foreground more. I think doing that also helped with adding a burning-hot sensation to the final image below.

Here is the finished image of my illustration! The final process was adding more details and effects to push the values and overall mood. For this piece, I have learned a lot throughout the whole process. The feedback from both the forum and my friends have also contributed a lot to the whole thing! It was a great experience, and I am glad that I chose to join Art War 4. Thank you so much!

As a side note, if you are interested in the painting process, I have uploaded a process video here. 

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