SoE Melakim Fahre Tattoo Variations

So this isn't my usual thing. I've been toying around with concept art as a long term career direction, which is quite a change for me as a traditional artist! I've been dipping my toe into the methods and madness by trying out some of the ideation techniques discussed in Dynamic Characters: Enhancing Your Character Concepts to test the waters and see how concept art differs from illustration. It's been quite the learning experience and I've only just begun!

What better victims to experiment on than the characters I wrote about for this past year's NaNoWriMo?

The (Would-be) Target Project:
A gritty, dark fantasy live action production of a fantasy novel. (ie. Game of Thrones)

The Character Concept:
Melakim Fahré (main character)
Primarily a vampire hunter on a lawless and heavily wooded mountainous frontier. She takes on the monsters in the world that are closest to being in human form (vampires, zombies, anything that is 'infectious' or generally dangerous beyond the natural order of the world). The tattoos on her arms and body symbolize the number and types of kills she has so that other Hunters will know her reputation just by looking at her. The symbol on her sternum is her Hunter's Mark, which each Hunter defines after their first kill. The facial tattoos are a personal touch by Melakim to tie her to her tribe, whom she grew up raised apart from (and to add to her intimidation factor). She's meant to be a rugged, imposing figure who looks like she can hold her own. She is blind in the right eye after it was gouged by an attacker.

Medium:
Base figure drawn in pencil then scanned and colored digitally in Photoshop CS6.

What I Learned This Exercise:
Persistence is KEY! If I had not kept going after the first sketch of this character, she wouldn't have ended up anywhere near as cool as she is going to be now, thanks to whittling away the more derivative ideas with sketching. She's already gone through a couple of design phases, for those who are curious. I'm used to throwing my ideas down on paper and moving on to the next project quickly in illustration, whereas concept art is going to require more exploration. I'm going to have to learn to be faster at exploring my ideas too, as these took FORever to complete! I learned that there's a lot I can imply (like the notches. I was drawing all of them one by one until I realized a few scribbles will do, with the 'prey notch' tattoos to be identified in the polished concept).

I also learned that there's a subtle difference between designing for games (which require a strong, exaggerated silhouette) and a movie production (which needs to provide identifiable characters, but also present a level of realism).

You can find out more about her and the other characters in my would-be fantasy novel here:


More concepts of Mae: